Barefoot in the wilderness
in search of understanding

Great post. Seems we are so wrapped up in our “personal” salvation that we miss the greater message and mandates of Jesus. I often refer to MT 25, “what you have don to the least of these…” It seems like folks are followers of Paul more so than Jesus. Reading the synoptic Gospels I find the Jesus you desribe here.

Thanks for the post.

rick () (URL)
11:25pm on 09 December 2005

Hey John – I just glanced at your latest comment (to Leslie) over at Rick’s place, and was struck by this thought: Perhaps the “social” and “spiritual” aspects where never meant to be seperated.

(After I get through the day here I’m going to respond to Glenn’s comment on my post on the same quote.)

Mike () (URL)
3:50pm on 10 December 2005

Absolutely, Mike – that’s a point I made earlier in that comment thread (to Nicks, I think). The focus of Tutu’s statement, to me, is the part about dealing with the whole person. The whole concept that the “soul” could be treated separately to the rest of a person arose a long time after Jesus. Probably round about the time that people decided that the point of Christianity was to go to heaven after you died…

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
7:17pm on 10 December 2005

Mike,

You’re now saying that the social and spiritual aspects were never meant to be separated. And yet what started this entire ‘dialogue’ was your pronouncement at your place that the gospel was merely social. Are you renouncing that now or are you saying you were misunderstood?

I’ve yet to see the social gospel-icals refute Nick’s or Leslie’s or PresbyPoet’s or MarcV’s points at my place and I wonder why that might be.

Perhaps someone can attempt to do so without the use of straw man arguments (as Rick from Life Emerging seems so adept at).

I personally believe that the cross loses meaning if the gospel was merely about feeding the hungry. And Christ did say that the poor (the hungry amongst them) would always be with us.

He said no such thing about death.

There can be little doubt that the hungry should be fed. But Mike initially suggested that there was but one definition of the gospel, that the good news was bread for the hungry, he then used the word ‘period’ and then said that anything else was something else.

If Mike is now admitting he was being close minded about things, if he is now acknowledging that he was mimicking the fundamentalists he abhors, well, then he should say so, and do it clearly.

We’ll wait.

When Jesus

Rick () (URL)
04:14am on 11 December 2005

Rick,
First, I think you’re debating points from other people’s posts. Could you please do so on the appropriate blog?

Second, I have been engaging with precisely those points in my comments to your blog – and, as I’ve said, I in no way want a purely social Gospel. What I want is to avoid a purely “spiritual” Gospel – because this is no Gospel at all, having had all its meat removed to leave only the “inward”, individualist components.

Third, if the anti-social people (!) are admitting that social action is essential (as you said, the hungry must be fed), the question is then why there is so much resistance to people saying so. To return to another famous quote:
When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint, but when I ask why people should be hungry, they call me a communist. (Bolivian Archbishop Dom Helder Camara)
It is the job of the Gospel both to feed and to ask why the people are hungry in the first place. Only by answering that question can we bring God’s kingdom closer – for our call is not to another world after we die but to be the hands, voice and ears of God in this world while we are alive.

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
2:05pm on 11 December 2005

A couple of points of clraifiication are in order. And John, please feel free to cut this off at your discretion.

What in fact “started this all off” was a quote from Desmond Tutu, which I wholeheartedly agreed with. For that hungry person, I would go as far to say that feeding them is the best demonstration, and for the time being the only demonstration, of the gospel they need to see. (I’m going to work on a definition of the gospel over at my place.)

I think I also clarified in a comment somewhere that I would substitute the more general idea of “injustice” for the more specific one of “hunger”.

Mike () (URL)
4:10pm on 11 December 2005

John,

I’d love to address Mike on his blog but I’m unable to. I’m sure Mike will explain that to you if asked.

I don’t see the folks at my place proposing a spiritual gospel only. I see them describing the act of feeding the hungry as fruit of the spirit, as a by-product of being exposed to the spiritual gospel. It is, once again, Mike who has yet to renounce that he is proposing an exclusively social gospel. You’ve successfully backed off of that idea. I’ve yet to see Mike do so.

As to why there is resistance to stating that social action is necessary. I’m not convinced that there is. There is resistance to thinking that the government is the means by which the hungry should be fed. There is resistance to the idea that a punitive taxation system should be used to feed a bloated bureacracy that does little to actually help the poor and does more to empower those who say they are the poor’s champions but that are in reality championing nothing but there continued power. What I am convinced of is that there is certainly more that can be done by the body of Christ. And it would seem to me that the right and the left ought to work hand in hand to assure that this work is accomplished

Rick () (URL)
5:25pm on 11 December 2005

Rick,
Point about Mike’s blog taken, but it’s still not appropriate to post out of context on someone else’s blog.

The thing with this “spiritual gospel” that you’re talking about is that it’s not really a Gospel at all. It’s an eviscerated gospel, with all the real meat removed. All that’s left is the individualist, internal, self-oriented stuff. As I’ve consistently said, including in the post we’re commenting on (e.g. “Jesus wasn’t concerned only with the spirit but with the whole person“ above), the issue isn’t about making the Gospel only about the social aspects. Rather, it’s about declaring that the Gospel absolutely cannot be about only the “spiritual” aspects. Saying that we want to “convert” people isn’t enough unless we are at the same time talking about what we want to convert them to. Which means that we must talk about the actions that we as disciples should be taking. Which means talking about social things. Someone commented on Mike’s original post quoting a saying of St Francis, which (as a Franciscan Companion myself) I have always liked. Preach the Gospel at all times, Francis said to his brothers; where necessary, use words.

Finally, you really need to slow down there. I have not the faintest idea how you get from a discussion of the nature of the Christian Gospel to party politics (big/small government, taxation systems). Personally, I believe that no party has a particular claim to being “Christian”. All have rather serious weaknesses from that point of view. And, certainly, to use party politics as a basis for a discussion of Christian theology is suspect to say the least!

No one, certainly not me, neither here nor on your blog (nor on Mike’s, if it comes to that), has broached the subject of government as the means for the feeding of the hungry. The focus has always been on what the Gospel means – whether it means only our personal spiritual salvation, or whether it also encompasses what it means to be a disciple and what God’s Kingdom is like here on Earth. That’s a completely different discussion, and one that’s worth having. If you want to talk politics, at least have the decency to say so at the outset.

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
7:25pm on 11 December 2005

My 2 cents worth: I don’t feel the need to “renounce” something I haven’t said.

Mike (URL)
7:50pm on 11 December 2005

John,

I’m not seeing where my comment was out of context. At all. Mike’s post initiated this three blog conversation. How do you see my comment to be out of context?

I think we continue to talk past each other and I think it’s because you’re now denying (or ignoring) what started it all. It was Mike who was being exclusive. It is Mike who suggested, and is now denying, that feeding the hungry was the sum total definition of the gospel. I don’t know how else to take his initial post other than literally. We’re now being asked to believe he didn’t mean what he clearly wrote and then in a twist of logic, folks at my blog are being labelled the exclusivists. Amazing.

As to slowing down and not having what you define to be decency. I’m afraid I’ve grown accustomed to being able to say whatever I’d like to say as I see it relating to the topic at hand. I believe it’s called freedom. If you read Mike’s posts, like the one he just put up making fun of our President, you’ll note, like most religious liberals, that they define the Kingdom as having much to do with taking political action, including the promotion of raising taxes to help the poor and feeding a bloated bureacracy to do the same. It is all related. I’m sorry you can’t see that.

You raise the straw man (it seems to be something done frequently here) that no party has a particular claim to being Christian and that using party politics as a basis for discussion of Christian theology is suspect, as if this was something I’d stated, something I’ve proclaimed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Amazing that this logical fallacy would be launched while chastising me for raising issues that aren’t being discussed… but then again, not really.

Mike, I’m glad you don’t feel the need to renounce what you’ve written. Perhaps then you’ll feel the need to clarify or perhaps we could come up with HTML tags whereby the reader is warned that your words mean something other than what is conveyed. That would certainly help.

I find it ironic that folks can read into Scripture something that clearly isn’t there and then ask us to dismiss the meaning of words they themselves have written.

It’s just a tad to complicated for this simple Virginian.

Rick () (URL)
11:31pm on 11 December 2005

Rick,
The problem is with comments here that address remarks made elsewhere – these make the comments on this blog very disjointed and hard to follow. If you need to address something that Mike said and you can’t use his blog, the obvious place to do so is your own blog. You’re very welcome to comment here about the discussion taking place here, but I prefer to keep my comments vaguely linear.

Neither Mike nor I is denying what started this. The problem is that you misunderstood what Desmod Tutu said, what Mike said and (apparently) what I said. No one at any stage said that the Gospel was only about feeding the hungry. What Tutu said and Mike endorsed (and I commented on) was the proposition that “The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person.“ That’s not saying in any way that bread is all that counts. What it is saying is that bread does count when that is what is needed. If you take Mike’s post literally then you must read his “That’s the Gospel…period” as referring to the whole of what Tutu wrote, not a single sentence taken out of the context – that would be abusing what Mike wrote and twisting it to make your own points.

“I’m afraid I’ve grown accustomed to being able to say whatever I’d like to say as I see it relating to the topic at hand. I believe it’s called freedom.“

You’re perfectly free to say what you like about the topic at hand. But you must expect that, if you’re guilty of a logical error, to be called to account for it. That’s also freedom. If you really need this error spelled out, here goes, for the two particular points you raised. I’m phrasing these as the positions you seem to think that I hold.

The Gospel requires that Christians feed the hungry – therefore the government is responsible for feeding the hungry.
The Gospel requires that Christians feed the hungry – therefore the government must tax the rich heavily.

Now, if you can’t see the logical error in those two statements, I really don’t think that we can hold a useful dialogue! In neither case does the second statement follow in any way from the first – and yet you assert that the reason that you (and those on your blog) object to our asserting that the Good News of Christ includes providing food for the hungry is that we were actually making a point about methods of political governance. You certainly cannot assume that anyone who says the former part of each statement assumes the latter – not least, several of your own commenters are quite happy with the first half! The question is about whether “the Good News of Jesus Christ” includes this, or whether it includes only matters that deal with personal salvation. In other words, we aren’t differing about whether Christians should feed the poor – only whether that’s a central part of the Good News or a peripheral affair that is secondary to it.

I made my comment about using party politics as a basis for theology because of a very simple fact: you said that the reason you and your commenters object to the assertion that Christ is interested in the whole person, not only in the spiritual, was that “There is resistance to thinking that the government is the means by which the hungry should be fed. There is resistance to the idea that a punitive taxation system should be used to feed a bloated bureacracy“. That is, I asked a question of theology and you answered with politics – as though politics should somehow influence how we do theology. In reality, I believe, politics only comes into the mix well after we’ve decided what the Good News is. Politics is the method we pick to do the things we’ve already decided need doing.

Finally, please avoid the ad hominem arguments and sarcasm. If you are interested in a reasonable debate then I’d welcome your contributions – if nothing else, we might be able to understand and appreciate each others’ positions better. But if you’re only interested in proclaiming your own certainty and rightness then there’s no possibility of debate at all. FWIW, I’m enjoying the discussion on your blog and I am glad that we’re keeping it civil there. I’d appreciate the same courtesy here.

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
09:35am on 12 December 2005