This post from David Fitch (author of The Great Giveaway—–did I mention before how this is a great book? I think maybe at least a dozen times) is outstanding. I see that he is going to be at a conference in Oakville, Ontario which is happening right now (started this morning….I have begun my search for blogging types who are there, who might be so inclined to post live or semi-live, even podcast? This would be such a gift to those of us who yearn for such conversations. If anybody out there finds such online coverage, please let me know, and I’ll do the same here. This conference has Shayne Claiborne, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallis. Quite a cross section, and I’m glad to see it. David Fitch and Dan (poserorprophet)
Fitch’s post lit the fires of blogolalia in me with such as this:
I assert that there can be no “justice” detached from a social embodiment whereby it makes sense to those we preach. In the Great Giveaway, I argued that “our justice becomes just another disingenuous argument without a living visible representation of what justice looks like among a people of God” p. 154. In another place I argue that “without a Bodily presense in the world, there is little true engagement with the world except via individualist arguments until we have a church that lives justice, it’s just Jim Wallis arguing against Jerry Falwell.” I think Jim Wallis would probably agree with most of what I have just said (at least I hope so).
This requires that we see God as working in a people not just in individuals. This requires a shift from the seeing the church as a recruiting station to get people saved as individuals and then prepare them to go out and be individual agents working to relieve suffering in the world (or to vote for the right policy). This requires that politics becomes more than a monolithic concept the church must participate in to seeing that a local church itself can embody a politic.
One does not have to read long in the pastoral epistles to see the ethos of justice that had developed among the earliest communities of Christ. Notice the justice that takes place around the Eucharist Table (1 Cor 11:22). Notice the way the widows and orphans are treated (James 1:27 etc.). Notice how the poor are treated (Gal 2:10; James 2). Notice how these discernments are not easy (Gal 6:1-10). Notice how they all shared responsibility for one another (2 Cor 8:13-15). This then spread justice into the world. My contention is that if we want to talk to the injustices in the US medical system, we begin first to undermine that system of immense predatory capitalist power by showing the world how to practice medical care to one another in our churches. From here we march in immense social authority in Christ to bring down the strongholds of the unjust powers that grip our nation’s (US) medical system. That’s just one example.
Very much in tune with Hauerwas, Church of the Saviour, and ….uh , well….the gospel and a proper centering and emphasis upon the ecclesia.
On the reference above to “showing the world how to practice medical care to one another in our churches “, I immediately think of Christ House and many similar missions of the Church of the Saviour (see David Hilfiker story in Not All Of Us Are Saints: A Doctor’s Journey With the Poor (check out this NPR program called Seeing Poverty where Hilfiker and Church of the Saviour are profiled. It has a downloadable MP3, which I am going to utilize probably today for driving around inspiration.
