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Want to try your hand at solving a riddle with life-or-death implications for people all over the world? Why do so many evangelical and fundamentalist Christians--people who clearly honor the Bible--so often disregard two requirements that are central to the biblical text and central to the teachings of Jesus: peacemaking and justice for the poor? This is hardly an academic question. With over 25% of the total American population fundamentalist and evangelical Christians could make a vast difference in the lives of millions around the world if more of them took the Bible's teachings on these two points more seriously.
What about the Poor?
This point came home to me with extraordinary force when an evangelical student in one of my classes complained about Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, that chronicles Dr. Paul Farmer's long-time commitment to combating AIDS and TB among the desperately poor in Haiti. Messiah College, the institution where I teach, had chosen this book as the common text for all first-year students precisely because it so beautifully reflects the strong commitments of the college--a Christian college--to serve the needs of the poor and to teach our students to embody that vision.
Imagine my shock when one of the students registered her judgment that Mountains Beyond Mountains was an inappropriate text for Messiah College to have chosen. When I asked why she felt that way, she said with animated conviction, "Because it's obvious that Paul Farmer is not a Christian."
Frankly, I was stunned. How could she possibly think that this compassionate doctor--a practicing Catholic who for many years had given up a lucrative medical practice in the United States for the sake of Haiti's poor--was not a Christian? I thought, for example, of Matthew 25 where Jesus offers the only description of the last judgment that appears in the biblical text. "I was hungry and you gave me food," Jesus says. "I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me." Then he invites those who did these things to "inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." But Paul Farmer was not a Christian?
And I thought of Jesus' counsel to the rich young ruler that he should "sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." (Luke 18:22) Paul Farmer, it seemed to me, had done exactly that. But somehow he still was not a Christian?
When I pressed my student on this point, she told me that she found no evidence in this book that Farmer "had a personal relationship with Jesus." She added that even though Farmer had healed the bodies of thousands upon thousands of Haitians over the years, the book never suggested that he had preached the gospel to these Haitians or attempted to save their souls. How, then, she asked, could he possibly be a Christian?
This student typifies millions of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians in the United States today. Of course, there are exceptions. Some fundamentalist and evangelical churches do sponsor programs that feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And evangelical organizations like World Vision, Jim Wallis's Sojourners network, Ron Sider's Evangelicals for Social Action, Tony Compolo's Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, and even Messiah College, the institution where I teach, advocate for the poor and work tirelessly on their behalf. Still and all, benevolence typically takes a back seat to preaching, mission work, and evangelism in most evangelical churches, since a "personal relationship with Jesus" and saving souls almost always trumps the saving of human lives--especially the lives of the poor--in the here and now.
What about the Poor?
This point came home to me with extraordinary force when an evangelical student in one of my classes complained about Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, that chronicles Dr. Paul Farmer's long-time commitment to combating AIDS and TB among the desperately poor in Haiti. Messiah College, the institution where I teach, had chosen this book as the common text for all first-year students precisely because it so beautifully reflects the strong commitments of the college--a Christian college--to serve the needs of the poor and to teach our students to embody that vision.
Imagine my shock when one of the students registered her judgment that Mountains Beyond Mountains was an inappropriate text for Messiah College to have chosen. When I asked why she felt that way, she said with animated conviction, "Because it's obvious that Paul Farmer is not a Christian."
Frankly, I was stunned. How could she possibly think that this compassionate doctor--a practicing Catholic who for many years had given up a lucrative medical practice in the United States for the sake of Haiti's poor--was not a Christian? I thought, for example, of Matthew 25 where Jesus offers the only description of the last judgment that appears in the biblical text. "I was hungry and you gave me food," Jesus says. "I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me." Then he invites those who did these things to "inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." But Paul Farmer was not a Christian?
And I thought of Jesus' counsel to the rich young ruler that he should "sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." (Luke 18:22) Paul Farmer, it seemed to me, had done exactly that. But somehow he still was not a Christian?
When I pressed my student on this point, she told me that she found no evidence in this book that Farmer "had a personal relationship with Jesus." She added that even though Farmer had healed the bodies of thousands upon thousands of Haitians over the years, the book never suggested that he had preached the gospel to these Haitians or attempted to save their souls. How, then, she asked, could he possibly be a Christian?
This student typifies millions of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians in the United States today. Of course, there are exceptions. Some fundamentalist and evangelical churches do sponsor programs that feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And evangelical organizations like World Vision, Jim Wallis's Sojourners network, Ron Sider's Evangelicals for Social Action, Tony Compolo's Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, and even Messiah College, the institution where I teach, advocate for the poor and work tirelessly on their behalf. Still and all, benevolence typically takes a back seat to preaching, mission work, and evangelism in most evangelical churches, since a "personal relationship with Jesus" and saving souls almost always trumps the saving of human lives--especially the lives of the poor--in the here and now.