A Future Free of Extreme Poverty: Sachs' Inspiring and Pragmatic Vision

After having read though Brian McLaren’s, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope, I was intrigued to familiarize myself with some of the resources that helped galvanize the issues in Brian’s mind. After all, if you remember from the introduction of the book, Brian spent a couple of years looking into major global issues. During this process he poured over the work of some real specialists from various fields.

One such specialist is Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs, who is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and who served as special advisor to United Nations’ Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, is one of the world’s most respected economists. Sachs is perhaps best known for his timely, and prophetic advising to various struggling economies around the world. These countries have included Bolivia, Poland and India (amongst others).

Sachs proactive engagement with the governments of these nations helped them emerge from deep financial crisis, and even more importantly, to get on solid ground for future well-being. Sachs’ book, the End of Poverty: Economic Opportunities for Our Time is an amazing work that combines a realistic, yet hopeful glimpse of one potential future- with a detailed map to help us get there. In such a future the most extreme forms of poverty are wiped off the face of the earth. In the introduction Sachs writes:

Eighty-five years ago the great British economist John Maynard Keynes pondered the dire circumstances of the Great Depression. From the depths of despair around him, he wrote in 1930 of the Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren. At a time of duress and suffering, he envisioned the end of poverty in Great Britain and other industrialized countries in his grandchildren’s day, toward the end of the 20th century…

Today we can invoke the same logic to declare that extreme poverty can be ended not in the time of our grandchildren, but in our time. The wealth of the rich world, the power of today’s vast storehouses of knowledge, and the declining fraction that needs help to escape from poverty, all make the end of poverty a realistic possibility by the year 2025.

That is indeed a hopeful prognosis. Though we are well-advised to remember that this is not so much a prediction as it is a vision of one potential future. A future where we begin to see the world act more and more as one community- intrinsically connected; not just by environmental and economic need, but also because of the acknowledgement of deep, spiritual ties. Where the recognition that our neighbor is a Columbian, an Ethiopian, a Tibetan, really takes root.

Sachs identifies several essential factors that play into the ability of various countries around the world to thrive (or not). Sachs calls for a kind of clinical economics- where we apply real time and energy into the unique problems that plague each of the world’s poorest regions. Sachs calls us to pay attention to how factors such as: economic policy, fiscal framework, physical geography and human ecology, patterns of governance, and the cultural barriers to economic development, uniquely interrelate in the various poor regions of the world. An understanding of the interaction of these factors, in Sachs’ mind, helps point the way forward for each of these nations; a way forward that sees a globalized economy help lead to a truly, global community.    

Time will tell if we have the collective hope, faith and love to see this potential future become reality. Sachs challenges us with the following question,

Will we have the good judgment to use our wealth wisely, to heal a divided planet, to end the suffering of those still trapped by poverty, and to forge a common bond of humanity, security, and shared purpose across cultures and regions?

I highly recommend Sachs’ The End of Poverty. Not only is this a work that builds on the concepts touched upon by Brian McLaren in Everything Must Change, but because, as I said earlier, it is a roadmap towards a better collective future. And for those of us convinced that Jesus’ goal was not just to get individuals into Heaven, but also to make the values of Heaven work here on Earth, this book is important because it helps us channel those values into decisive action. The kind of action that produces real change and shared blessing.




New Crises, New Alignments, New Hope?

Just when you thought A New Kind of Christian was the book to turn the Christian world on its head (which according to Kingdom dynamics just might mean “right side up”), Brian McLaren released the ground-breaking, and provocatively-titled, the Secret Message of Jesus. In TSMOJ, Brian went about describing why the historical Jesus was much more radical, “cutting-edge”, and profound than both the fundamentalist Jesus of conservative America- circa 20th century, and the re-Gnosticized Jesus favored by Hollywood and groups such as the Jesus Seminar. But now the latest of Brian’s books is putting the others to shame. Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises and a Revolution of Hope is causing the stir of stirs in Christian dialog of late.

In addition to reading Everything Must Change (which I highly recommend), it’s also helpful to interact with Brian’s thoughts as he’s out “on the road”, further unpacking the ideas introduced in his book. I recently came across a transcript of just such a speaking engagement. During a message given at Dominican University, Brian was quoted as saying,

About ten years ago Carl Sagan and other scientific leaders – mostly atheists – called for a summit between scientific and religious leaders. The scientists said – ok, we’ve fought a lot in the past but here’s how it is now. We have data we’re destroying ourselves. We can measure our slow suicide or reach out to you – you’re in the business of motivating people and changing behavior – can we be friends? Most people never heard about this meeting because we went back to business as usual.

As a quick sidenote, who of my generation (I am in my mid-thirties) can forget Carl Sagan - with his weekly television appearances on PBS - and his awe-filled description of the "billions and billions of stars" that make up our Cosmos? Interestingly enough, it was the fascination inspired by people such as Sagan (who was an atheist) that first turned me towards the wonder of Creation- and ultimately, to the Creator, back in the 1980's.

But I digress... Now, as Brian suggests, I did not know about this proposed symposium- not until I read it in this transcript. Interesting, isn’t it? And here we are now, at a crossroads, where the interests of the scientific community and the Christian community are aligned- at least in theory. There’s still plenty of bad blood between the two groups to make any such alignment more myth than reality. But the very needs of the day make such an alignment more possible than ever before.

Of course, we’ve got plenty of fundamentalist rhetoric to get through (on both sides I might add), before such alignment is possible- at least on a large scale. Still, I am hopeful. Ironically, much of this hope arises from the fact that the reality of the situation all of humanity finds itself in almost necessitates such co-operation. There’s nothing like impending disaster to draw people together. Believe me, I’ve seen this first hand.

The thing is, from my perspective, not only would dialog between religious leaders and scientists be fruitful in preparing the world to take on our shared, contemporary challenges, but the dialog – in itself – would no doubt prove a helpful endeavor; the main reason being that much of the misalignment between these two groups comes from misunderstanding, misrepresentation, etc, more so than from anything real and substantial. And we know it’s much more difficult to make a caricature of your “opponent” when you have to sit down and actually get to know him. Passing bread, so to speak, helps to humanize everyone at the table.

So I’m all for the kind of dialog proposed by Sagan et al in years past. The only thing that saddens me is that it took the scientific community (many of whom are atheists) to take the initiative. This should not be the case for the followers of Jesus. After all, we are the ones charged with the task of breaking down ethnic, ideological, nationalistic, religious, and trans-religious divides- wherever possible. In short, we should be about reconciliation all the time. The recent crises we collectively face only serve to make the significance of, the implications of, this historic charge- all the more pressing.




Osteen's Message: The Gospel According to Dr. Phil?

I once lived in Houston, Texas, years ago, and I remember attending a service at Lakewood Church. Of course, all that was before the phenom knows as Joel Osteen took over the reigns from his father. Lakewood is now the mother of all mega-churches. Each Sunday, over 40,000 people take in the service, held in an ex-baseball stadium of all places.

Yes, it’s bizarre. Yes, on many levels it makes my skin crawl. Yes, I often wonder what kind of community life and hands on discipleship can happen in such a… such a… what do you call it? Place? Scenario? Let’s just settle for church setting.

Still, lately I feel a little for Joel Osteen. It seems that he’s taking pop shots left, right, and center from America’s Christian “leaders”. Sounds familiar to us Emergent types, doesn’t it? Interestingly enough, the issues I’m hearing raised aren’t the ones that many an Emergent might raise. We Emergents might question how such an environment might work against the true meaning of community. And we Emergents might wonder how church revolving around a Sunday service – or in this case, perhaps we should say- a Sunday extravaganza, might work against the true definition of “church”.

But, as I say, these are not the issues being raised. The issues the mostly Right wing arm of the evangelical movement is raising has to do with the Osteen's gospel message, or lack thereof.

To put it bluntly, there is very little mention of salvation – in terms of the typical four spiritual laws – within Osteen’s sermons. You see, Joel seems intent on speaking encouragement through self-help, self-empowerment tips. Critics have argued that, because of his message content, Osteen is more like Oprah or Dr. Phil, than he is an evangelical pastor.

Some critics have even gone as far as to cal Osteen a “heretic” (we Emergents are also familiar with that term, aren’t we?) because “his message is more about us than it is about God.” Still, Osteen sticks to his guns, saying,

My message is a message of hope that God is a good God, and that no matter what we’ve done, where we’ve been, God has a great plan for our lives. And when we walk in his ways they can take us places we’ve never dreamed of.

Now to be honest, I feel a little torn here. On the one hand, I agree that this sounds a little unconventional when it comes to typical Sunday evangelical service fare. However, I’d have to say that the main critique leveled at Osteen, that being that he doesn’t actually teach the Bible - but more often loosely references it, is a criticism that could be leveled at, dare I say, most evangelical churches. In other words, the issue (in my mind anyway) is not really the lack of biblical content, but the lack of a referencing of the conventional, evangelical understanding of the gospel. That’s what all the negative hoopla is about.

And, to be honest, if I have to choose between Osteen’s self-help sermons, which do seem to actually bear some fruit in people’s everyday lives, versus a fundamentalist raving about everyone but himself and his his kin going to hell, I’ll take Osteen’s message any day. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not my cup of tea. But, in my book, it’s the lesser of two evils.

Still, I do have to laugh a little when I see Osteen holding up his Bible, high above his head before every sermon, to declare, “we believe in what this book says, we believe in its power to transform our lives” or something similar to this; as if the Bible is really just a personal prosperity, personal self-help textbook he can readily reference.

I’d rather he be more intellectually honest and say that the points he makes, while perhaps appearing indirectly at various points in various Biblical texts, are not really what the whole thing is on about. You know what I mean? It’s not so much about heresy as it is about honesty and integrity. Not that I think Osteen is knowingly being deceitful. I just think he's just working with his blinders on.

Ultimately it seems that Osteen doesn’t so much lead a church as he does lead a para-church organization, one that offers self-help tips for personal empowerment. I say- call it what it is. But again, on the issue of what the gospel is, well, that’s an issue that I think the majority of evangelical churches and pastors need to reconsider, not just Osteen. And in some strange way, perhaps Osteen's message, while a tad individualistic, and perhaps a tad materialsitic, touches on an aspect of the good news that many other evangelical churches are missing. Good news that's good for this world- as well as the next.




A Picture Framed from Multiple Angles: Scot McKnight's, A Community Called Atonement

I don’t know about you, but when I think about books on the subject of atonement, some not so pleasant connotations come to mind. Expressions like: hopelessly abstract, one-dimensional, academic (in the irrelevant, pointless-drabble sense of the term), non-relational, propositional, fundamentalist, all come to mind.

But that’s exactly why I was interested in reading the latest book published on the subject, written by none other than Jesus Creed blogician himself, Scot McKnight. You know that someone as holistic in approach as Scot McKnight is going to have some interesting things to say on the subject of atonement. And you also know he has the academic (in the positive sense of the term!) credentials to tackle this somewhat dense topic in a necessarily comprehensive, historically-informed way.

The result is a book titled, A Community Called Atonement. And I’m happy to say, the book doesn’t disappoint. In fact, I’ll go further and say that this book takes the subject of atonement is some fresh, new, much needed directions. If there’s one thing Scot should be most congratulated for with this book, it is the centering of the subject of atonement within a relational, missional, multi-dimensional, multi-directional context.

What on earth am I getting at? Well, whereas other books on this topic have tended to tackle the issue in terms of a legal contract, involving three parties- us, Jesus, and God (or more specifically, God’s wrath, or God’s holiness – if you prefer a more positive spin), this book looks at how atonement serves to create new relational wholeness in multiple directions. Scot also moves this issue from the abstract, into the context of the real world. The question at hand, in Scot’s words, is as such:

Does atonement work? Are Christians any better than anyone else in their relationship to God, self, others, and the world? Is there not a claim that atonement generates a multi-faceted healing of the person so that Christians ought to love God, and love others, so that Christians ought to be different? Even a little? And I'm not talking about individuals, for it is all too easy to find a bad Christian or a good Muslim or Buddhist and say, "Christianity doesn't work but Islam and Buddhism do!" We need to think of the big picture: Are Christians - taken as a whole - more loving people? Are they more forgiving? Are they more just? Are they more peaceful? Are they really better?

The book reads almost like four books in one. Scot addresses this issue from multiple angles, tackling: Atonement and Convergence, Atonement and Image, Atonement as Story, and Atonement as Praxis. Ultimately Scot returns again and again to the metaphor of a golfer equipped with his full assortment of clubs. Scot writes,

The game of atonement requires that players understand the value of each club as well as the effort needed to carry a bag big enough and defined enough so that one knows where each club fits in that bag.

In other words, this is a multi-dimensional issue that we cannot do justice to with a limited definition. Nor can we do justice to it unless we understand the cosmic scope of the atonement. Most importantly, we cannot hope to understand atonement outside of the reality of a relational, loving God who has (and is) actively working to restore the entire created order.



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