Christians & Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street movement has been on my mind lately. After all, this phenomenon has found its center, not unlike other global events, in Lower Manhattan. I understand the reasons why many conservative Christians, whom I love and respect, might be skeptical of such a protest. However, I want to offer a pause for reflection.

Some might suggest that this protest is just the left wing response to the Tea Party. There may be some truth to that, but I think something more is going on in the world right now -- though it is hard to say exactly what the outcome will be -- than the scuffles between Democrats & Republicans. Christians who share the same theological convictions still face a pragmatic debate about involving small government or big government in the issues we face. That's a legitimate pragmatic argument in a democracy even between those of shared convictions. However, there seems to be more going on here. For instance, the Tea Party solidified as a movement that appears to stand for lower taxes, fiscal conservatism, and tackling debt. They mobilized quickly and efficiently and aimed at shaping government policy. However, Occupy Wall Street has made its center a political demonstration at the steps of private commerce. Many of the participants may indeed cast their votes to liberal candidates, but there is a fundamental difference between this group and related movements.... at least so far. First, unlike anything we've seen for a long time (or ever?), there is a sense of global solidarity shared by many of these people movements right now. Whether for good or for ill, it is a reality. They are aiming their demonstration towards the private sector which, at least for now, has a way of transcending the big government vs. small government debate. In addition, there are some general values on economic justice -- without getting into role of government -- shared with the Christian Scriptures.

Some Christians might be skeptical because of those participating in Occupy Wall Street that are just so left wing that such a movement is a bit scary. I'm turned off by some of these more extreme elements as well, but I was also turned off by some of the racism, xenophobia, scapegoating, and such imagery seen in the earliest Tea Party rallies. To characterize all of Occupy Wall Street with the left-wing fringe is about as fair as saying all Tea Party members are racist. Both would be unfair. I've listened to both sets of demonstrations carefully and there are both good people and crazies in both groups. And before writing off Occupy Wall Street as just strange, we may want to remember some of the protests of men like Ezekiel. That was strange indeed.

We might remember Jesus walking into the temple courts and targeting the money changers and those selling doves -- typically the sacrifice of the poor. It wouldn't have disrupted the actual sales & exchanges for more than a few hours, but it was a prophetic statement. We often assert that Jesus was upset about the mixing of economics and religion, but that seems to be a uniquely modern Western assertion. His quoting Jeremiah, as well as the particular businesses that were challenged by Him, leads me to believe that he was confronting corrupt economic practices such as unjust scales or usury (charging interest). Or consider the celebration of Jubilee. It was put in place to cancel debts every 50 years and was equivalent to hitting the economic reset button every half century. Implications? If practiced faithfully, this would have dissolved the possibility of a fattening ruling class at the expense of the rest of the nation.

We could go on & on about Biblical protests in the face of economic injustices, and after the 1980's Saving & Loan scandals, Enron, Bernie Madoff, and the 2008 Recession, it makes sense that Christians would represent a prophetic voice confronting economic injustice and speaking for those crushed by it. Everyone might not agree with the voting record of the folks camping at Wall Street or the strategy for tackling injustice, and we may still debate size and role of government. However, the prophetic role of such a protest can't be ignored if we are to take the economic message of the Bible seriously.

So how do Christians approach the phenomenon of Occupy Wall Street? Some may join them and make some new liberal friends! One of our church members went down and joined up with the Occupy Wall Street Chaplains. Some may speak and work in other circles on behalf of the poor. One of our other church members, a theologian, has worked on NYC's wage equality campaign. We may pray for those being crushed by powerful economic forces and lend a hand whenever possible. Though nearly everyone is stretched, we see generosity demonstrated by followers of Christ in a thousand small ways on a regular basis. And if a believer happens to be a conservative wall street broker who would consider this protest antithetical to your vocation, Jesus also says, "Love your enemies." Perhaps you might consider finding a Wall Street protester and buying them a cup of coffee.

Three Important Questions

I regularly get to interact with people from across a continuum of spiritual development -- from unbelief to new belief to obedient discipleship, and many points in between. While I can become intellectually & spiritually exhausted at times, every single relationship is truly a privilege. I have a host of teachers.

In recent months I've contemplated a lot upon the journey that many experience from complete unbelief to belief in Christ, and I've felt sadness for those who's journey is unlikely to lead to belief which leads to faith which leads to hope. The more I've thought about it, three key questions keep coming to mind, and each of these questions have implications.

*1* Is there a God or, more succinctly, a Creator?
Countless arguments have been made for God's very existence. Centuries ago, philosophers argued in favor of a prime mover. In other words, who or what set all this in motion? Someone, they argue, had to turn the universe on. Today, Christian physicists have marveled at contemporary theories for the universe indeed having a beginning, and scientists like Francis Collins argue that our hunger for transcendence is embedded in our DNA. That is, as hunger is linked to food and as sex is linked to intercourse this hunger for divinity must have an eventual point of connection at the other side of the human urge as well. Even if debatable, these are intelligent arguments. Simply put, is there God?

*2* If we conclude that it is more than likely that a Creator must exist, then another question looms in our imaginations. How does God reveal himself to his creation? If we are created being and if there is a Creator, then we are most fully human when we encounter this Creator. When we seek God, we are also in search of our own humanity because when God reveals himself, he is revealing the source of our very being.

*3* Did Jesus raise from the dead? This is unlikely to be the first question that pops into someone's head emerging from unbelief. However, it is a question that we must make a decision about. If he did raise from the dead, the most obvious explanation is to validate the claims of Jesus. If he raised from the dead and validated his identity with God as a result, then to know Jesus is to encounter the fullest revelation of God accessible to us, and the early witnesses of the fact are informants of a profound revelation of God. Much discussion for nearly 2000 years has gone into Jesus' resurrection, and N.T. Wright has written a convincing 900 page text on the topic during the last decade.

Is there a Creator? If so, we are created beings and would do well to yield to the Creator. How has he revealed himself? Understanding his revelation is a realization of what is most real about our world if he is indeed at the source of its existence. Did Jesus raise from the dead? If so, Jesus very identity seems to be validated, and that's a pretty big endorsement.

Incarnation & Scripture

In a post-Christendom age Christ-followers face the uncomfortable task of having to explain the authoritative importance of the Biblical text. "Because the Bible says so..." carries little weight among those who don't believe the Bible to start with, and yet, as followers of Jesus we claim the Bible as our authoritative guide. For those who already presuppose the authority of the Biblical text, the need to re-establish the Bible's position can truly be a frustrating endeavor. The gap in worldview with others is quite real. Nonetheless, it is a necessary pursuit. But where do we begin?

Interestingly enough, I first began contemplating the nature of the Christian Scriptures while involved in dialog with Muslims. I was trying to sort things out in my head when a Christian scholar pointed out to me that we often get the comparison backwards. We want to compare book to book, but theologically speaking, that is not an accurate comparison. He explained, the Quran is to the Jesus as Muhammad is to the Bible. In other words, Jesus is the revelation, and the Bible is the written witness of God's revelation. (In an Islamic worldview, the Quran is the revelation while Mohammad is the witness of that revelation.) I'm indebted to him for this insight, and it launched me into contemplating the nature of Christian Scripture. It launched me into a deeper appreciation of the importance of the doctrine of incarnation and just how central that theological tenet is indeed.

Jesus is the embodiment of God's revelation. That is, the Creator revealing Himself to His creation. God reveals Himself to human witnesses. Those witnesses pass on the stories of God to others and on through generations, and some of these early witnesses write down what they saw and heard. Jesus is the pinnacle of God's revealed self, so the writings that have proximity to that Revelation embodied in Christ speak the most authoritatively to us. Does God speak today? I believe He does, but we measure what we perceive to be God's revealed action today by the stories and teachings of those that have the most proximity to God's primary revelation to humanity. New Testament writers, within one or two generations of Jesus, have passed onto us the measure & standard of our belief and practice.

It's not that God can't or doesn't make Himself known now. It's not that everything He did before Jesus gets thrown out. Just the opposite. We simply begin with Jesus at the center and work our way outward. Jesus is the central and primary revelation of God. This is nuanced, of course, in that Jesus endorses the Scripture that came before Him -- while yet re-interpreting portions of it -- and He set in motion of movement that would go beyond his physical presence. As we continue His work, we discern contemporary action or doctrine based on that central revelatory manifestation in Christ. We understand Christ in His historical setting as well, and in His historical setting He helps us understand how to apply the Hebrew Scriptures in contemporary settings as aliens and exiles. We read the New Testament letters as authoritative case studies laid out by contemporaries (or perhaps near contemporaries in some cases) of Christ. We receive Paul, a gift to the church, and discover Christ in the world of first century Jewish scholarship being worked out practically in the ethics of the first multicultural church networks in the cities of Pax Romana.

We, free church believers, sometimes appear obsessed with the first century or so of Christianity. We are insistent on the authority of the New Testament text. Indeed, if we embrace the reality of Jesus as the apex of God's revelation, then the witness closest to that center is vital to us. And if we recognize the implications of incarnation (faith in action in culture), then we also seek diligently to understand Jesus in His historical cultural setting. And as we discover Jesus interacting with the theological ideas of his time, we discover the importance of the Scriptures before Him but equally recognize how easily misguided we can become in their interpretation. We take all of this and open ourselves up to be shaped and changed by it for the work of redemption in our contemporary world. The real questions to wrestle with are those centered around the reality of Jesus. If Jesus is revelation through incarnation, the Biblical witness becomes exceedingly important to us and indeed does speak authoritatively. To continue this refining work of living into that story so that it lives through us today with the help of Jesus' Spirit in us, that is the challenge worth living for.

Economics, Buildings, and a Reality Check

I teach as an adjunct faculty in theological graduate schools & other ministry training programs. I teach classes such as small groups ministry and church multiplication as well as other classes. Depending on the class, I'll present a variety of strategic options for students to sort through. Just one of those options is to leave out heavy infrastructures and to approach church more organically. Occasionally, simple-organic church positions are classified (by others) as anti-church building and conventional wisdom is heartily defended, and as a seminary professor, I applaud the opportunity for vigorous debates in academic venues.

However, allow me to take a moment to step away from good facilitation and professorial objectivity and just say a little something about our religious edifices. The DOW went down 634 points today. This is a pile-on in the midst of a very slow recovery from a deep & damaging economic recession. Job reports are no longer in the negative, but they are not as positive as they need to be. We have more tough days ahead of us.

Our church buildings are expensive. When the market tumbles, businesses suffer, and as a result so do those in the non-profit sector whom they support. Missionaries are hit hard by changes in church budgets. I am one of those, and I'm trying to walk in faith rather than think about the grim economic forecast. Youth ministries, homeless ministries, and other charitable work will likely suffer as well. Today, at a community center, a karate teacher was let go for budgetary reasons, and a parent cried because of the difference this class was making in her son's life. Everyone on staff knows that this is one of this center's highest quality programs, but bottom-lines over quality programming means it gets cut. Churches, as organizations, often follow the same bottom-line logic. Why? Because we generally run our churches as organizations rather than as families.

Are the organic church folks anti-building? Okay truthfully some are, but definitely not all. Am I anti-building? No, as an urban missionary doing organic church planting, when I visit friends and colleagues in local urban church buildings, I actually feel a warm sense of nostalgia. In short, I'm not anti-building. I want the whole church to flourish which, ironically, is exactly why I followed the path to a more organic expression.

...But do I think that we might need a values check in the church in North America. Yes, without apology, we absolutely need to take a second look at our value system. When missions or orphanages or homeless ministries are cut from the budget so that we can spend hundreds of dollars a month on air conditioning, yes, there is a problem. I know it's hot outside, but it's really hot in India or Cambodia where believers are sitting on dirt floors in homes to hear from God's Word, and they have "no debt outstanding except the debt to love one another."

This is not meant to be a rant or a guilt trip, and I doubt I have many readers for such a new blog anyway. But it is a plea. It is a plea to reconsider our values and to allow the Gospel to shape them in fresh ways. It is essentially taking a moment to ask why we must defend these structures so rigorously when they strap the church with debt, cost us people-centered programs, cut into our missions budgets, and require so much energy from leadership.

Ironically, at a time when debt is being discussed in our society's politics, the church has fallen into corporate debt for the sake of building bigger despite the stark warnings in Scripture about debt. I'm afraid that our big buildings can truly be such great blessings that we fail to consider the other side of the same coin.

People First

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

In Mark 2, Jesus sheds light on religious structures. Israel was given a regular weekly rest for their own good. Without Sabbath, it is likely that slaves would have been overworked without rest, animals' lives could have shortened due to over-exhaustion, and the people themselves may have faced the harlot of workaholism. However, Torah gave them a special gift. The rhythm of their lives was to include regular intentional rest from their labor.

However, at the time of Jesus it seems that Sabbath had become an institution to maintain rather than a protection against labor abuses. Naturally, Jesus challenges this notion. The point all along, he says, is to serve people. As an institution, Sabbath was always meant to be for the well-being of human beings, and the religious establishment of Jesus time had erected it as an institution to preserve at all costs.

We face a similar dilemma today. We have erected mighty institutions in the name of faith. These are inherently neutral. Buildings, programs, organizations can all be used to bless people. They are tools in the hands of Christ's servants for good works. However, if we do not periodically question and challenge these structures, we are in the same danger as the pharisees. As long as institutions designed to serve are indeed empowering people to thrive, they are beneficial, but when upkeep and maintenance overshadows the needs of people, it's time to question what we're doing. It is when all of our efforts go into preserving an institution or organization rather than advancing the original mission (for people) of the organization, then we must re-evaluate its function and perhaps even its very existence.

Jesus demonstrated an immeasurable value placed on people. Today, we get locked into debates over forms and strategies, but often even good changes fall short of Jesus' real challenge -- prioritizing people over things.... even religious things.

Just Names

During our recent church gathering, we were concluding our series of interpretive discussions on Romans. Naturally, that discussion ended with the last chapter, Romans 16, which includes a list of not-so-easy-to-pronounce names. Reading through the names, we reflected on people that had touched our lives, names that we would mention as important to our own story.

At one point during the discussion, one group member highlighted an important tangent. Reflecting on Romans 16, he pointed out that although this list of names included numerous missionary workers and church leaders, titles were obviously missing. Paul simply listed their names. He didn't feel the need to say, pastor so & so or elder so & so. Rather he just mentioned names.

A few days earlier, I was debriefing one of our interns, and towards the end of the conversation, I asked, "What advice would you have for me?" She explained how important it was that I acted not only as a mentor/supervisor but was accessible as a friend. I expressed my thanks for the affirmation; however, I also further confessed that at times I doubt being so transparent. After all, prophets in their hometown are not honored. Individuals have such a tendency to hang on every word of teachers who are distant and stay remote from their experience and at times overlook those who come close.... as Jesus came near. Vulnerability can be scary because for better or worse, leaders often deeply desire to be respected even as they battle secret insecurities.

A few years ago, I was interviewing a leader of a house church network in California, and I asked him what was most challenging. He answered, "Pastors just need to learn how to be normal again." We've created systems of separation because in our religious structures we often need protection from various waves of political backlash. However, Jesus calls to us to avoid "lording it over one another" but rather to wash feet even as our Lord and Master did.

In the end, we are all just names. When we stand before our Maker, we're all standing on a level playing field.