What About Our Class Struggle?

     A few centuries ago, the English aristocracy were trembling at the news they were hearing from France. Dukes had been decapitated.  The wealthy had been despoiled of their goods. The poor were rioting in the streets. France was wallowing in anarchy. 

What would keep the same things from occurring in England, where conditions were not much different?  In England the poor shivered in the cold while ladies danced at balls in castles and bishops discussed philosophy at Oxford. In England, as in France, the class divide had become unsustainable. The wealthy didn’t have enough money to hire enough soldiers or build high enough walls to keep out people who were hungry. Catastrophe was coming their way. The aristocrats knew this; they just didn’t know when.

Then, something unexpected happened.

An Oxford doctor of theology went to a prayer meeting. He experienced the power of the Holy Spirit and felt called to preach the gospel to England’s poor. Soon, coal miners and farmers, street vendors and orphans began crowding to the meetings to listen to John Wesley preach and to learn Charles Wesley’s songs.

In a few years, twenty percent of England’s population became Methodists. They experienced the power of God, the social lift that often comes with the gospel, and the intellectually transforming energy that comes from wrestling with Holy Scripture.

We need something like that now.Our class divide is also becoming dangerous.

            

I know that I shouldn’t even discuss this but I am a pastor. So, I must.

           I am responsible to tell you that Karl Marx was not the first to address the consequences of dividing human beings into socio- economic classes.

What are we to say about the constitution of a proposed kingdom that begins with the words, “blessed are the poor; for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven?”  Or to the Christ’s claim that he had fulfilled the prophecy that the messiah would “preach the good news to the poor?”

How are we to respond to the apostle James, who clearly prohibits any sort of economic stratification within the church, particularly as an evangelistic strategy?

And, to mention just one more out of many New Testament passages, how do we respond to the assertion of the Apostle Paul in Galatians that he had been obedient to the request of the leaders in Jerusalem to “remember the poor?”

Such passages have become uncomfortable to many American Christians. In today’s supercharged political climate, they seem to smack of some sort of ancient socialism; a kind of embarrassing proto-Marxist rhetoric that we must quickly explain away.

They will not go away, however, unless conservatives do to the Bible with these passages what liberals have done with the passages about the virgin birth and the Lord’s physical resurrection from the dead. We could learn from the liberals how to claim that these passages were for another time and situation; that the poor back then were not like today’s poor; that the kingdom of God has been advanced by using an evangelistic strategy that deliberately markets to the upwardly mobile; and so forth. 

What we have been doing is not right. It is a betrayal of the gospel.

It is also having bad results.

George Barna recently noted that the poor are the most un-churched group of American society, and that this is particularly true of English-speaking Whites. His research shows that White poor people in our country are actually falling away from the church in great numbers, and that in the younger generations, the statistics become even more alarming.

A recent edition of Time magazine focused on the accelerating pace at which American culture is shrinking its middle class. There are many factors to blame, not the least of which is a native working force that is now largely uneducated and unskilled compared to that of other industrial nations. In other words, too large a proportion of our middle class young adults don’t know the basics of Western Civilization. They can’t read at adequate levels, don’t know geography, can’t speak a language other than their own, have inadequate math skills, and are not aware of the basic scientific discoveries of the last many decades.

For all these reasons, American workers are having an increasingly difficult time competing with their Polish, English, Spanish, Russian, Indian, Korean, and Brazilian counterparts in a globalized economy. Corporations can often get more for their money elsewhere.

But why is that?

For one thing, other countries have been pouring huge amounts of their national attention and treasury into education for several decades.  Also, our country had no real competitors for much of the twentieth century. The other great powers destroyed had much of their infrastructure through their insane wars.  However, in the last fifty years, those same powers have been rebuilding and modernizing their infrastructure. What’s more, many of these nations have also continued to value the intellectual structures of civilization, and to insist that diplomas ought to be rewarded to people who have taken the time to learn what it means to be civilized.

We have been watching television and playing video games, while ignoring boring subjects like literature and math. It worked too. We could still find a good paying job even if we didn’t know how to think critically.

Well, its over.

Now, if a worker doesn’t have an education, and sometimes even if he does, he will have to get in line behind the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, Canadians, Swiss, Swedes, and all the others who have been studying for years in schools that their countries funded.

Furthermore, our situation is not going to turn around; at least for some time. In fact our situation will never turn around unless we stop ignoring vast portions of our population. If our poor people keep going to bad schools and our teachers never make enough money to feed themselves, our cycles of poverty will keep turning. As a result, our workforce will not be able to compete at global standards.

America will not be successful just because.

A recent edition of Time Magazine focused on the economic dangers ahead of our country, which unfortunately we seem willing to ignore. For this reason, our future does not appear to be bright at the moment.

So, what will happens to our poor? And, if you consider yourself to be middle class at the moment, I may be speaking about you.  Your own family may be slowly descending into poverty in years ahead unless you are preparing your children to do otherwise.

I know, blogs are supposed to be short.

So, I will now confess that I do not have an economic solution for our country since I am neither Marxist nor Libertarian, I also don’t have a revolutionary solution – armed or political.

What I offer is a spiritual solution.

Our churches are not offering this type of solution. They are too busy fighting to stay on the right side of things, as secular society defines it. 

It’s not the first time Christianity has done this. We have often come precariously close to offering Christianity without a Christ.

Oh, we adore the Christ we sing and theologize about. We have proven ourselves perfectly capable of worshiping Jesus without listening to a thing he said.  Pictures of Jesus, statues of Jesus and songs about Jesus move us to tears; it’s the Sermon on the Mount that we find impractical.

            That was true in his day too. Jesus didn’t die because he refused to honor Caesar, Herod and the High Priest but because he didn’t honor them any more than he honored anyone else.

            It was true in Wesley’s day as well. The Church of England was about doing well rather than about becoming good. The rabble was staying away from church because there was nothing there for them.

            The English church had become a means of maintaining the culture’s status quo.

            The only alternative the English church leaders saw was a French-style revolution that they prepared to fight to the death. 

            Since all of that, we have been wrestling with Marx.

            Like the French revolutionaries, Marx hated the upper classes. His followers were willing to kill people in order to bring about a classless society.  

Jesus didn’t hate anyone.  He did not want his followers to do that either. However, He did refuse to acknowledge class. He loved the rich young ruler. He received with respect a member of the Jewish Supreme Court. On the other hand, he ate with a tax collector.  He allowed a sinner woman to wash his feet in public. He didn’t hate the rich and powerful. He had come to save them too! He just didn’t prefer them or esteem them more than he did others,

            The Jesus way of attacking class structure is simply to stop empowering it.

A Christian loves a man or woman because he or she is made in the image and likeness of God. Titles, rank, money and societal importance are noted as one notes the color of a person’s hair or the shape of his nose. It is there. It is part of that person’s identity.  But all of that is like the value of foreign money; it’s not accepted as legal tender in our realm.

          

          This is a form of class struggle, I suppose. At least many would view it that way. Nonetheless, I disagree with the assertion of liberation theologians that Christianity must necessarily prefer the poor. No, it shouldn’t. On the other hand, it should not prefer the wealthy or the talented or the powerful. Or the Tories or Whigs.

            Christianity is good news to the poor because for the first time in their lives they have no hurtle to jump. They can get into our club simply because they breathe air. They do not have to sit in coach class. They don’t have to eat inferior food. They are not passed over when the church decides to promote people to positions of influence. They are in.

End of story.This kingdom is theirs.

Jesus made that decision.

By the way, the French revolution never came to England.

Jesus got there first.

Oh, the aristocracy sneered at the Methodists. They kept enjoying their port and cigars, as their humble neighbors became citizens of another world.

But their poor neighbors no longer cared.

They had forgotten how to view themselves as poor.

They also did not view their neighbors as rich. They saw them as lost. They no longer hated their wealthy neighbors. They had pity for them.

They no longer cared because they had won the class war.

Christian Prostitution

I learned about Christian prostitution in Spain.

Bernice and Annabel told me about it.

They lead one of the seven rescue homes in the province of Cantabria sponsored by the ministry of Nueva Vida.

Bernice is a Mexican pastor’s daughter and seminary graduate.

Annabel is a missionary, first sent by her home church in Malaga to do missionary work in Morocco. She holds a graduate degree in Spanish language acquisition.

They invited Trish and me to their home after church, at the normal Spanish time for dinner, 10:00 PM.

As we drove to their house, Bernice told us about their work in Morocco and what had led her and Annabel to relocate to the city of Santander.

Prostitution.

I am somewhat aware of sex trafficking through Free for Life, a ministry based in our church. Colette Bercu and her husband Dan lead that ministry and have done an incredible amount of work in a short amount of time. They have passionately worked to educate me about the scope and power of the global sex trade. 

But even Colette never told me about Christian prostitutes.

In Santander, most Christian prostitutes are Nigerians. They are teenagers or young adults who have been transported from their native country. They are taught to work the streets and parks of Santander in ways that will not invite police interference. As they work, they often listen to Christian praise music on iPods. Before and after work, they may attend church, where they worship fervently. One prostitute actually leads her small church in worship before heading out for her late night employment: prostitution in the city park. 

Here’s the deal: these women have a loaded gun to their heads. The sex trade operators know their families.  They will kill the parents and siblings of those who quit the trade. If a prostitute doesn’t show up for a couple of days to work, she gets a call from a family member at home, asking if everything is OK. That means that someone in their village has informed mom and dad that she is not working and may need a call to see if she is sick or something. This reminds the sex worker of the dire circumstances that threaten her family if she decides to bolt.

These women, many who are poorly educated and without significant, safe connections in the country where they work, decide that although what they are doing is difficult it is not as wicked as exposing their families to death. Besides, some make enough money to help feed families at home.

So the prostitute walks the parks, advertising her trade through her clothing and mannerisms, that she is available. As she walks, she listens and sings to herself:

“Lord, I lift your name on high;

Lord I love to sing your praises.”

Now that think about it, I had heard about Christian prostitutes, from Susan Ruden, author of Paul Among the People. 

Ruden is one of the world’s greatest experts on the classical world and its literature. She had read Paul’s writings late and reluctantly, after extensive work in classical Latin and Greek literature. What she found was explosive, for her personally and for her career.

St. Paul, you see, is the bad boy of academia, even in religious studies.

However, as she read him, Ruden decided that modern scholars had terribly misjudged and maligned this man, whom she claims invented the Western world as we know it today.

As she describes the horror of the late Roman Empire for the bottom two thirds of its inhabitants, she graphically describes the perpetual erotic atmosphere of the Greco-Roman cities. Few people, she claims, male or female, escaped being raped before reaching adulthood. The slaves especially were used and passed around to friends and were often physically disfigured by sexual abuse.

Women who claimed to have escaped this abuse were from a higher class, which made it possible for her father and husband to afford a bodyguard to accompany her wherever she went. It was obvious who these women were because they walked through the streets wearing beautiful veils.

The apostle Paul insisted that all women wear these veils when gathering for worship. Susan Ruden claims that Paul did not do this in order to put women down but rather to provide an atmosphere of equality for the lower classes. In the church, none would be able to distinguish between those who were privileged and pure and those who were not.

They all would lift holy hands in prayer and worship, their past and present struggle hidden under a symbol of purity.

Ruden says that the slave women, who were many, and in the Roman Empire often educated and cultured, would leave church and participate in all sorts of sexual situations. They had no choice; their owners could kill them without any interference by Roman authorities.

There was one place where they could go to escape, for a while at least, from the plight into which society had placed them and in which it maintained them: the church.

A woman who later would be removing her clothing and doing whatever powerful people demanded her to do, took a beautiful piece of lace and covered her head. She then walked into the house of God and lifted her voice in prayer and song, adding her redeemed voice to those of her brothers and sisters in Christ.

Somewhere today, a young woman from Laos, Nigeria or Nicaragua is preparing to go to work. Later she will do nasty stuff. For now, she slips on her headset and joins her spiritual family in worship. She realizes that her brothers and sister in Christ would not understand what she is doing, but she sighs and quietly sings along:

 You came from heaven to earth, to show the way

From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay

From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky

Lord I lift your name on high.


Perhaps today this young woman will meet someone like Colette, Bernice or Annabel. Perhaps she will learn to trust them when they tell her that they have safe contacts who can help keep her family safe if she wants out.

In the meantime, why doesn’t she join them for dinner later, after work?

The table will be ready and, if she wants, she can play video games or just tell jokes.  And, if she likes, perhaps they can have some friends over to sing and play some music.

‘Sure,” she’ll say. “Cool.”

These angels will give the young woman a bottle of cold water and their card with contact information.

Then she will put on her headset and tune one world out as she tunes another world in.

And does what she must do.

The Globe's Grinning Jack-O-Lantern

The world’s economy breathed a bit easier this week after the European governments agreed to shoulder Greece’s debt. 

With the understanding that Greece would adopt a set of reasonable austerity measures, the Europeans promised to make good on all loans the nations and world banking system has made to Greece. This meant that the country would not default, which possibly would have dragged the fragile economies of Portugal and Spain to ruin. The fear was that this might prove too much for Italy, triggering a collapse there. Were that to happen, moderately well-managed economies of several other nations might follow these smaller nations into the abyss. At this point, the growing contagion would probably seriously affect the major economic world powers.

The world’s leaders stared at this approaching train wreck and sighed when they seemed to have averted the disaster.

Their relief was short-lived.

Greece decided to put the matter up for a national referendum. The Greek government evidently lacks confidence that it speaks for its own people, and can assure the world that the country will accept the austerities required for an infusion of European money.

           

What we need to notice is that Greece is only one dramatic example of a growing global reality: governments are finding it difficult to govern. They fear the wrath of their people as much as the looming economic disaster. Governments are paralyzed because they are not sure their people will follow their direction.

That is why in October, the traditional month for economic horrors, the world’s people were terrorized by rumors of a catastrophic global meltdown.

The crisis is far from over. In fact, it appears to be only beginning.

           

For months, people around the world have been protesting in the public squares of their great cities.

Some say they were angry about the growing global inequity between the rich and poor. Others are upset with the international banking systems’ lack of accountability to national governments. Yet others seem hostile against the very notion of government itself.

One thing for sure, the world’s people are frightened. The target of their unrest varies, as do their stated values. However, these global protesters have at least one thing in common: an intense anger toward, and a profound distrust of, authority.

The people seem to fear the potential of tyranny, which leads to a distrust of all authority, even in its most innocent and benevolent forms.

This profound distrust of authority allows a dangerous amount of people to romanticize, or at least to tolerate, a state of anarchy.

Unfortunately, anarchy, not sometimes, but always, leads to tyranny.  

The mobs are driving us toward what they most fear. 

Although most of people are leery of strong government, governments rarely produce tyranny. What produces tyranny is lawlessness.  When a people become weary of societal chaos, they began moving toward the extremes of the political spectrum. At the end of this process, the differences between the left and the right becomes little more than the colors of their respective parties. In such times, the most hated voices, whether in religion, politics or everyday life, become those who seek moderation, compromise and grace. The warriors of the extremes emerge to lead their troops to battle, and each side works to eliminate the middle.

The truth is; it is the boring moderates who create societal stability. Even in a dynamic and creative culture, there must be a time when everyone in that culture knows when to stop yelling, to back down and to compromise. Otherwise, the culture’s center cannot hold. This is true of all social entities of any size, from families to nations.

In healthy times then, moderation is viewed as a virtue. In chaotic times however, the moderate is seen as a coward, a man without conviction.

Healthy government -- whether in a family, church, or nation – is, more than anything else, a process of conflict resolution among individuals based upon principles common to those individuals and the management of the tension between the individual good and the common good of all those who belong to the society being governed. Government thus works within the parameters of what is possible in a given society and aims the energies and vision of its people toward productive common pursuits,as well as protects the rights of the individual to seeks their individual pursuits.

Thus, every society has a right to define itself, including what is required for an individual to belong to the group.  However, every healthy group must also have defined internal boundaries, lines that delineate between individual rights and corporate responsibilities.

Without individual freedom, there is no healthy personhood; without a sense of the common good, there is no healthy community.   

           

When a government consumes the individual, the individual has the right to resist the government. When the individual refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of government, the government has the responsibility to contain or expel the individual. The balance must therefore be maintained. The individual needs self-determination to flourish.  The state needs the loyalty, respect and responsible cooperation of its citizens to flourish.

           

This balance between individual freedom and societal stability is difficult, not only because of human sin but because we differ on how the balance works.

           

Some tolerate a small loss of personal freedom in exchange for a stronger sense of the common good; others prefer less emphasis on the common good in exchange for greater personal freedom.

           

These differences create political parties and form the political cultures of the world’s nations. 

           

People differ over how they define the society’s common good.

People differ over the extent to which they are willing to accept personal responsibility to maintain the common good. 

In Europe, for example, even political conservatives are usually in favor of a much more complex social infrastructure than Americans. Therefore, European parks, mass transit systems, educational opportunities and basic health care availability allow a broader proportion of the citizenry in European nations to benefit from a common infrastructure than in our country. However, this comes at a cost that most Americans view as too limiting to the individual’s privacy and economic freedom.The difference between these approaches to government is not really about democracy and socialism, as we often hear in our heated political campaigns. It is over our different definitions we offer for the concepts of “common good” and “individuality. “

None of these differences are new.This debate has been going on for a long time and has produced very different ways of thinking about democracy and capitalism.

What is changing in the world is a loss of belief in a “common good,” and in the legitimacy of governments and other kinds of authority to maintain and protect the common good. 

So, the global protest movement is not about whether we will have an American system, a European one or something else. The protest movement is not that sophisticated.

The global protest is about raw fear and a profound distrust of authority.

The world’s people fear the loss of their individual and national souls.  They worry about whether their children will eat, or get an education. Sometimes they fear without even knowing the specific reasons for their fear.

That is why the protesters come from both the right and the left and why they are made up of both nationalists and internationalists.

They are united only by their common fear and distrust that anyone; especially anyone who represents any sort of authority can solve their problems.

As this spirit of anarchy spreads, the policeman, the clergyman, the doctor and the judge seem alike, in that each seeks to define and address society’s issues in ways no longer viewed as legitimate. The training, credentials, and experience of the world’s “experts” are being swept away as utterly irrelevant.

Nor is that the end of the matter. 

The credentialing agencies that maintain the various authorities of society -- the medical establishment, the church, the state and other institutions traditionally viewed as having legitimate power-- have lost much of their right to speak and act.

The apostles warn us of this time and identified the Antichrist as a personification of the spirit of lawlessness.

So this season of chaos is not about Greece. It is not even about Europe. It is about the legitimacy of law itself.

Never has the second Psalm’s opening line been so relevant as today: “Why are the heathen so furiously raging?”

The October terror shouts back its reply: because there is no center. All is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Without God, law has become a grinning pumpkin, staring blindly at a world that has just now grasped its awful secret:

It has lost its power to hold people together in a healthy state of order.

How can it?

Without its traditional foundation in spiritual reality, it hardly even exists.

For all these reasons, this chaos will persist until despotism -- another kind of corporate admission of the loss of law -- promises to remove it. Then despotism will persist until the world’s legitimate king finally declares that time shall be no more.

Until then, we each must make a choice: to live in peace by following the prince of peace, or to gape in horror at the world's Great Grinning Pumpkin