By Kim Thoday, May 2009
A question of core business
The notion of social justice or social action has had a chequered and somewhat suppressed history in Churches of Christ. It’s been seen like the prodigal son, off in the far country, being seduced by things profane.
As a teenager in South Australia in the 1970s, I recall a number of Churches of Christ ministers and key lay leaders who spoke out publicly against Australia’s military support of the War on Vietnam or against military conscription or against war in general as a means of resolving international disputes. Many of those who took such stands did not continue in ministry with Churches of Christ or in pastoral ministry in general. They were vilified as being secular or misguided by conservative sectarians or were placated as liberal adherents to ‘the social gospel’ by the dominant evangelical hegemony within our Churches.
By the 1980s the few social activists remaining in Churches of Christ in Australia were further emasculated by other legitimate and time consuming challenges such as declining Church attendance, theological and strategic differences and disputes between the State Conferences (often involving the three main theological and ministerial training colleges), and broader developments such as the growth of ecumenism, the rise of the Church Growth Movement and the rise of the Charismatic Movement.
This does not mean that Churches of Christ were bereft of a social conscience. However, as with other Christian denominations particularly of an evangelical persuasion, social action was not viewed as the core business of the Church. Social action, as with ‘overseas mission,’ was the domain of those dedicated few specifically called to this sacrificial service. Missions had long been set up for the destitute, for prisoners and for ‘the aboriginals.’ Specialist care programs were developed for the elderly, for pregnant teenage girls and for students from the country. And for those few who wanted to address the causes of these social problems, a Social Questions Committee became the benign solution.
All of this appeased feelings of guilt and conscience. Social justice had been quarantined and compartmentalized and the majority of the constituency and leadership of Churches of Christ remained unaffected by complicated questions over systemic injustice and personal ethical commitments and political responsibilities to society. However, as will be discussed, this situation has changed in some remarkable ways in the last two decades.
Generally speaking, until more recent times, a welfare approach to social issues has been the desired status-quo within Churches of Christ. To go beyond this into political territory, like the anti-war campaigners of the Vietnam era, was considered dangerous. If social justice meant a commitment to re-vision, oppose or even overthrow those institutions and policies that benefit some and oppress others, then this was going beyond the jurisdiction of the Church. Furthermore, if social justice was also about creating counter-cultural communities of faith and justice, as was happening in some Christian circles in the 1970s and 1980s, then this was likely beyond the comprehension of most of the conventional constituency of our Churches and their leaders.
Bi-polar landscape to Integrated landscape
Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century the concept of social justice caused much polarization within Churches of Christ. In short, this particular denominational schism was a microcosm of a modern divide endemic within Western Christianity writ large. Social justice became a casualty of the deep fault lines within post-reformation Christendom: fault lines demarcated during much of the twentieth century by Left versus Right, liberal versus conservative, progressive versus traditional. In this divided theological landscape, issues were misunderstood, people on both sides were misrepresented, protagonists were further factionalized, and important Gospel imperatives were side-lined or suppressed. For the more progressive, the Gospel became a manifesto for social justice and social action (and in some cases Socialist action) and the traditional Church was often viewed as an oppressive collaborator harbouring a distorted theology of salvation solely concerned with personal piety as a pre-requisite for admission into heaven. For the more conservative, social justice was either a distraction from the main game or a dangerous and insidious spectre of Marxist inspired pre-suppositions and the Church needed to be protected from the corrosive influences of such atheistic secularism.
In hindsight it is easier to see that both sides in fact had legitimate concerns over how the Church should be engaged in social justice. Conservatives were right to warn that it is possible for Christian social activists to become so focused upon political liberty that evangelism and existential faith issues are neglected. Social activists were also correct in their critique of traditional/evangelical models of spirituality that had over-emphasized personal piety and concerns with the next life to the detriment of the radical values of the Sermon on the Mount. Ironically, both these critiques are held in creative and necessary tension in Jesus’ Great Commandment – “to love God with all your heart, soul and strength; and to love your neighbour as yourself” – a teaching that most conservatives and social activists would have regarded as axiomatic. It is as if a miracle of grace was required for reconciliation across the divided landscape. The Father needed to be radicalized by the return of a repentant Son.
While these tectonic plates of a bi-polar landscape are taking time to integrate, nevertheless re-configuration is taking place. What kind of shape will result remains to be seen, but the signs of a ‘more’ promised land may be emerging. Some of this positive shift can be seen in the development of a more holistic understanding of the Gospel among evangelicals and pentecostals. Whilst personal salvation continues to be the primary focus of both Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity, there has been, since the 1980s, an increasing recognition that social justice is not merely optional for biblical Christianity. From the halls of Evangelical seminaries and Pentecostal training colleges and flowing into their pulpits and church programs, new transformed theologies are growing where the prophetic call for God’s justice, both social and spiritual, has been restored. Conversely, those who were once suspicious of evangelical passion and were soft on evangelism, are discovering that a credible and lasting transformation of society can only be brought about through men and women who are also on an inner journey of transformation made possible by the Resurrected Jesus and the existential power of the Holy Spirit.
Social justice: a move to the forefront of Christian thought and practice
Perhaps five years ago and certainly ten years ago it would be impossible to imagine what we are seeing and hearing now. In many places around the world Churches of diverse theological backgrounds are banding together not out of some imposed ecumenical church order but to pray together and work together to see the social and spiritual values of the Kingdom of God impact their communities. Like an invisible infection for good the Spirit of God is moving throughout Christ’s spiritual body on earth, from small gatherings in public housing estates and forgotten rural towns to the suburban mega-churches and the city cathedrals. The X and Y generations are mostly not interested in the old theological battles that raged inside the comfortable lounge rooms of men’s heads in the dying decades of Christendom. But as the distinguished sociologist Hugh Mackay has shown, these new generations are open to volunteer their time and money to directly assist people with issues of poverty, or economic injustice, or displacement as a result of war or environmental crisis.
Furthermore, who could have imagined ten years ago, mega church leaders like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels acknowledging the flaws of a culturally captive Christianity blinded to the core principle of God’s partiality for the poor and oppressed. And who could have imagined the scenario of Tim Costello just a few years ago, Baptist Minister and Director of World Vision, taking on Australia’s largest mega church. Costello threw out the gauntlet in a newspaper article and challenged the ‘prosperity doctrine’ of the Hillsong Church. I can imagine a lot of Senior Ministers of similar churches collectively holding their breath at that time. Interestingly, Brian Houston, Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church, withdrew his book: You Need More Money: Discovering God’s Amazing Financial Plan for Your Life, from further publication.
Increasingly, as we near the beginning of the second decade of the twenty first century, a distinctively Christian perspective on social justice is arising that prioritises the question: how do the decisions we make and the lifestyles we live, affect the poor and most marginalised? The quest for social justice, at its best, is a spiritual mode of being that goes beyond the borders of conservative paternalism and liberal tolerance towards the horizon of an emphatic and empathetic solidarity with, and openness to transformation by, the poor and most vulnerable in our world. This understanding was powerfully articulated by Sir William Deane, a former Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, in his 1999 Australia Day Address when he proclaimed: “The ultimate test of our worth as a truly democratic nation must surely be how we treat our most vulnerable.”
Seminal Christian activists
While social justice or social action will necessarily continue to contain an elasticity of Christian understanding, its theological content is now seen as firmly grounded in the Biblical tradition; particularly in the lives and ministries of the Prophets and in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. When the Baptist scholar and activist, Athol Gill wrote his book Life on the Road in 1989, its main thesis: that God is on the side of the poor and most vulnerable, came like a thunder bolt out of the blue to many evangelicals. The book and its author tended to be viewed as promoting an unorthodox Christianity and there were many who hoped this irritating and subversive influence would go away. Twenty years later, this book is about be re-published in Australia by UNOH publishing and will likely be embraced as a standard text on discipleship and Christian activism in a manner that it could not be before. Since the days of Athol Gill and his legendary House of the Gentle Bunyip community in Clifton Hill, Melbourne, social justice as solidarity with the poor and marginalised has itself moved from the margins to occupy its appropriate place at the forefront of Christian thought and practise. It is quite poignant now to see a growing number of Christian social activists being published by evangelical publishers and included on the shelves of retailers like Word Bookstore and Koorong Books.
Australian Churches of Christ recently mourned the death of one of its seminal social activist ministers – Ian Corlett. In the 1980s, Ian developed a new way of being Church and established the Kensington Christian Network, an inner-city ministry in the high-rise housing commission area of Kensington, Melbourne. It was a confronting ministry for our wider, largely comfortable, middle class denomination. He and his wife Curly and their young family immersed themselves in an incarnational ministry that organically combined social activist, charismatic, evangelical, relational and contemplative models of spirituality and mission. They were exciting and heady times and the family witnessed the miraculous transformation of an entire community. What was not so readily discernable at the time was that this ministry was an embryonic symptom of a global movement of God’s Spirit that is now described in terms of the ‘emerging church’ or the ‘missional church.’
Aspects of Ian’s ministry would profoundly influence the ministries of others in Churches of Christ in Australia and beyond and there was much cross fertilisation of ideas and practice with like minded activists in other denominations. One such person in the early 1990s was the young Ashley Barker, now Director the Churches of Christ missional order, Urban Neighbours of Hope (UNOH). Ashley wrote an email from the UNOH mission in Klong Toey slum in Bangkok, which was read out in part at the memorial service for Ian Corlett. Ashley writes:
“The first day I finally met Ian Corlett I had butterflies in my stomach. It was late 1993, I was 23 years old and we were to meet in the freshly painted shop-front that was our new UNOH Mission centre near the Springvale railway station. I had only read and heard about Ian and the Kensington Christian Network before that day and what I knew was the stuff of legends. They were involved in some of the most innovative, dangerous and prophetic expressions of urban Christianity going around. I also realized early on that that it was only because of their costly ploughing through rocky fields that the broader Churches of Christ movement could even conceive, let alone appreciate and support what we were trying to do in Springvale.”
UNOH has gone on to become a standard bearer of Christian social activism and social justice not only for Churches of Christ but for missional expressions of the Church within the wider Christian Church. UNOH now has chapters in Springvale and Noble Park, in Mt. Druitt, Sydney and in Bangkok’s Klong Toey slum. The UNOH Conference in Melbourne attracts hundreds of young people from all expressions of the Christian faith each year. UNOH now has a highly successful publishing arm and has published a range of Christian authors on cutting edge subjects all of which intrinsically understand the Gospel connection between social transformation and spiritual salvation. One of its latest publications, Following Fire: How the Spirit Leads us to Fight Injustice (ed. Cheryl Catford, UNOH Publications, Springvale, Vic., 2008) is as remarkable in its scope of inclusion as it is indicative of the shape of things to come. In this book, a broad and somewhat surprising range of authors explore the relatively new territory of the relationship between charismatic and Pentecostal modes of spirituality and social justice.
God’s grace and renewal
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the theologian Walter Rauschenbusch asserted: “We have a social gospel. We need a systematic theology large enough to match it and vital enough to back it.” Whether Rauschenbusch could conceive that it might take a century for that to begin to happen is an open question. However, he more likely knew that a ‘social gospel’ would be in for a bumpy ride. If indeed the prodigal has returned home, it is likely that because of God’s grace and renewal all will have changed so that expressions like ‘social gospel’ are no-longer necessary and rather than requiring the precondition of a systematic theology we may suddenly discover that God has already acted.
Thankyou so much Kim for provocing us to be true to our call. As you know I hold Ash and Ian in high regard for their commitment to the poor and marginalized. Ian was a great support to my ministry at Blackwood for the past 2 years and he will be greatly missed.
I have been criticised in the past for my commitment to social action as a minister of a church. I have been told quite plainly by church members and leaders alike that we have no business delving deep into matters of political and social justice issues. This however has just made me more determined in advocating for the rights of asylum seekers, seeking out the marginalized and serving the poor. I have found that this has brought new life and meaning into the life of the majority, in the churches I have been a part of.
I am fortunate that the current church I am serving in embraces social action as part of what they understand is their call in following Jesus.
It’s interesting you mention the movers and shakers of the church growth movement in the USA like Bill Hybels and Rick Warren. When I was in the States a couple of years ago I found that many churches I visited (many of them mega-churches) were embracing social justice as ‘new’ core business. Is this just another flavour of the month or is it really a culture change in our movement? Rick Warren as many may know by now, in an interview a couple of years ago confessed his sin of ignoring the more that 2000 verses in the bible that advocated for the poor. Now, it seems, everyone is jumping on board for the social justice shift, which is great if it is a genuine conviction of the heart for the church to truely stand in solidarity with the poor, because it comes at a cost.
It’s interesting you mention the gathering together of churches for a common cause. Recently in Blackwood, 15 chuch congregations (including ours) from as small as 30 members to as large as 500 members, from the far right of the penticostal persuasion to the far left conservative, we have pulled our resources to open up a ministry that will engage the most marginalized and poor in our community and serve alongside them together. What a fantastic celebration of the essence of our movement, where denominational barriers are broken down Christians are working together for a common good in their local community where the prodigal has returned, social justice in no longer a dirty word but has come to reside in the centre of our conversations among our churches and has been the motivating factor for our unity.
Hi all,
Thanks for your encouragement. I got back on Tuesday from the UNOH open night and seminar. Thanks a heap Jim for all your organising and hospitality. I felt the response was good for my part and especially for Mick and Ruby Duncan.
Thanks also to Mark for the invitation to contributre to these Bi-cententary essays. I fear it is obvious that my offering was “theology on the run.” I have been burning the midnight oil with the re-publication of Athol Gill’s Life on Road (by the way, Merridie Costello has been a wonderful editor) and since the conclusion of a 12 year ministry at Hewett in SA, my life has been in some upheaval – not least ‘being there’ for my mother Janet, who has been living with cancer. I would appreciate your prayers for Janet (she is the youngest daughter of the late H.R Coventry – C of C missionary to India; late last year I had to give the eulogy at his eldest daughter’s funeral: Mrs Margaret Goninon, nee Coventry).
My grand father, H. R Coventry, did not of course have the missional language that is at our disposal today. Yet like prophetic activists of all era’s, despite the reality of cultural captivity, his experience of the saving Grace of Jesus Christ propelled him into a life and ministry of deep incarnation. He worked and lived amongst a despised criminal caste in Southern India.
My essay is a celebration of those – often too few – who recognise that the call of the Jesus is to submerge ourselves deeply into cultures and neighbourhoods with the values of the Gospel. This is an explicity Christian vision of social justice. It is a spiritual vision that emerges from the Gospels and from lived experience alongside the most vulnerable and wounded ones. It is a spiritual vision that sees Christ most profoundly in the experience of the poor. It is a vision that knows that a person suffering injustice or abuse or abject poverty is a sacrament. If we do not know this deeply, we know very little and we likely don’t know love.
Jim Wallis once said: Jesus Christ is God made poor.
Shalom,
Kim Thoday
A terrific article thanks!
If you want to hear more from Kim and engage in a conversation with him, (in Victoria), then come along to UNOH’s new headquarters on Wednesday night 6th May. Kim is our guest to lead a discussion and dialogue on the theme of “Life on the Discipleship Road”. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion.
UNOH – Urban Neighbours of Hope is hosting it. Our admin center is 6-12 Airlie Avenue Dandenong. The night starts either at 6.30 for a common meal (if you come for that please bring a plate to share), or 7.30 for the discussion conversation proper. It is all over by about 9.00 – then we often hang around and have a cuppa and talk some more!
No charge, (we do take up a very laid back offering – it is so laid back that sometimes we forget to take it up at all).
Love to see heaps there!
Jim Reiher
UNOH training.
0425-752358
Hi, great article. One minor point though: have you actually read Brian Houston’s book ‘You need more money?’ I find that most people who comment on it have not read it and judge it by the title. His entire premise is that God wants us to be a blessing to others and to be able to exact His mission on this earth, and to that effect, we all need ‘more money’ not for ourselves ,but so that we can be in a position to fund the cause of Christ and social justice.
Most people assume from the title that the book is all about how we need more money for ourselves, and God is going to do that for us.
It’s still a terribly written book, but the premise is not that bad in my opinion.
Knowing Kim I wouldn’t be surprised if he had checked out Brian’s book. When I first saw the title I suspected there may be some theme within it (as shocking as the title is) about being a blessing to others.
What is profoundly disturbing still is the belief that Christians need more money in order to make a difference and address the needs of the marginalized, outcast and needy. I’ve never encountered such rubbish! You don’t read about Jesus coaching his disciples on developing a grand business plan so they can get rich and help the poor.
I suspect that the more people think they need money to help people the less inclined they are to engage in community, and I don’t mean the nice pleasant Sunday afternoon picnic with close friends community I mean the dirty and messy, unpredictable reality of doing life with those who need people to sit with them in the muck, journey with them in the pain and stand with them on issues of injustice. That’s true social justice the way Jesus calls us to it, not engaging is some self help get rich quick sheme because God wants you to be rich to help people! What rubbish.
The most effective people I know who have helped the poor and made systemic changes in systems of oppression, have not done it because they have money, in fact some people have renounced money and chosen poverty so they have the credibility to truely journey with people.
I agree some people have the gift of giving and if they have money to give that’s great, but to put out a book telling people that everyone needs to make money in order to change the world is riddiculous and misleading.
Social change comes from the heart not the wallet
Great conversation, folks, keep it rolling!
Social Justice has always been a hot potato for us. I guess it was for Amos and Isaiah and a few others, including our founders. It’s just as well consistency isn’t one of our underpinning virtues. Campbell was a slave owner who nevertheless advocated the abolition of slavery. He opposed women’s suffrage but supported free public education for all, particularly women. He defended capital punishment but was an ardent pacifist.
And we, amongst the world’s richest, respond with varying degrees of passion and angst to the call of the poor. Thank God for our modern day Amos’s and Isaiah’s and James’s who are courageous in costly ways to keep our noses oriented to the road of discipleship winding its way through the messiest and darkest areas of human experience.
It just occurred to me that some may read my “consistency” comment as a slur on Alexander Campbell. I hasten to add that reading historical context makes all the difference. Emancipating one’s slaves acquired as part of a gift of land was fraught with risk and danger, not so much for the owner, but for the freed slave who now suddenly has freedom but no secure and supportive network. Consequently abolitionists like Campbell would have been in a double bind – how to be accountable to members of their household (including those held in bondage) while working for societal change.
Seems to me we face similar binds all the time. This is why we need the clarion call of the prophets of social justice to keep us awake and alert to how we work with the inconsistencies of daily life.
“If I give all my possession to the poor…..” Paul
I’ve read Kim’s extensive dissertation several times and remain perplexed by aspects of it. He doesn’t really explain terms like “social justice” and “social action” or how they are related, accepts dubious forms of social protest uncritically, and in the pursuit of a radical agenda generally deals unsympathetically with our history, our leaders and our structures
I take social justice to refer to equality of opportunity and distributive and procedural fairness within society. In simple terms, social justice refers to maximizing the opportunities for individuals to benefit from the “goodies” that society can provide. The scope of social justice is enormous involving an understanding of politics and economics. In this electronic age, the problems involved are beyond the competence of local churches and are unlikely to be resolved in the social ghettos of Bangkok or Melbourne. To say that, is not to free us from the obligation of attempting reform, or to denigrate the efforts of those who labour in such situations. We need multiple approaches to social justice, including the ballot box and the law.
Social action is action taken by individuals or groups to change, typically by overt forms of protest, the existing social conditions. But not all social action is concerned with social justice. Quite the contrary, some social action is quite self serving and some forms of it are illegal. Action for social justice is not necessarily best delivered by counter-cultures, as fashionable as they may be. I’m not sure that telling the group which contributes most to our churches that they’ve got it all wrong is the way to grow churches or sustain the impetus for social change.
There ought to be no conflict between evangelism and social justice. There can be no true concept of “rightness” in society without an appreciation of the righteousness of God, and social justice which is not rooted in a sense of personal and social redemption is humanism. An understanding of God’s love, his righteousness and the nature of redemption involve theology. I therefore view with concern the assertion that the new generation sees “former theological debates as no more than games played in the comfortable lounge rooms of men’s heads”. So they have the answers?
There is much more that really needs to be said about this issue but this is not place. I accept that these are disturbing and difficult times and that radical approaches might be required. UNOH may be part of the answer and I am delighted that through Global Mission Partners, Churches of Christ contribute significantly to their programs. Between 1/7/2007 and 30/4/2008 Global Mission Partners contributed over $165, 000 to their work. This represents a significant segment of GMP’s budget and reflects enormous confidence by our communion in a parachurch organization over which it exercises little control.
In this bicentenary year when the emphasis is on achievement, I would like to acknowledge the contributions made by thousands of our members over the years in the areas of social justice, welfare and care. Regularly I read in our newsletters and journals of people doing remarkable things in difficult circumstances with few resources. Frankly, I think that in these areas we have punched above our weight as a communion. We’ve made mistakes and reflection is helpful. But no generation is completely free from the social context which frames it. In those circumstances, arrogance on anybody’s part is not appropriate.
H.E.Hayward
I appreciate the challenges contained in Kim’s thought-provoking essay. The comments in response reflect the diversity of thought within our movement and beyond. I thought it worth mentioning that UNOH is not a parachurch organisation. It is a missional order and is an affiliated agency with the Conference of Churches of Christ in Vic-Tas. One of its strengths is its relationship with a wider body, which does not control the way that UNOH functions but provides a supportive base and accountability within its structures. The large attendance at the recent Richard Rohr seminars and the book launch of Athol Gill’s ‘Life on the Road’, at which Kim Thoday spoke, speaks of the ecumenical breadth of UNOH’s network and the influence it has on so many active, committed Christians who want to make a difference in the world by serving the poor and marginalised wherever they are. Thanks for the opportunity to contribute.