Compassion in Politics: Christian Social Justice, Non-Profits, and Life Theology

I’m not sure it’s always good to grow up surrounded by stability, immersed in affluence, and having had it drummed into you that you are entitled to be a member of the next leadership class. To have this background in the modern era is to come from a ghetto, the luckiest ghetto in the world, a golden ghetto beyond whose walls it can be hard to see.

An odd quote for the Wall Street Journal, no? (thanks to Ryan Moede at Brewing Culture).

I ran into Ryan Moede at a festive summer night gathering of the Social Media Club in DC. The recent book UnChristian featured Brewing Culture who Ryan works with and while websurfing today, the synapses in my head finally connected (it only happens so often) and I ran over to Brewing Culture. Its an interesting website, which samples interesting bits of culture as well as events in the Washington DC and Arlington, VA.

Brewing Culture, “is a faith-based, 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to creating, commissioning, and celebrating transcendent works of art and media.” They seem very much to be about redeeming culture, by both creating positive culture and by redeeming secular culture. They see themselves as, “A creative renaissance that illumines the good, the true, and the beautiful through excellence and artistry for the glory of the Master Artist, the service of neighbor, and the renewal of culture.” This mission statement is reflected in pieces about Daft Punk and the unraveling of the creative economy, the aforementioned article from the Wall Street Journal, as well as event postings postings about Bella at Ballston Commons and Justin McRoberts at Ebenezers.

So I recommend checking out Brewing Culture (and especially their feature on the WSJ article)! Small world, huh?

thanks to HaniAlYousif for the photo

I picked Margaret Feinberg’s 25 Year Old Crisis up on amazon and it was very helpful during turbulent personal and spiritual time in my life. I showed up to National Community Church on a otherwise regular sunday morning to see Margaret Feinberg on our big movie screen (fyi-NCC meets in a movie theatre) to hear her alway funny, always nurturing message. Recently, while reading UnChristian I was inspired by her mini-essay in “Sheltered.” In some ways its terribly simple, yet liberating:

Relationship. Talk to people. Anyone. Everone. Ask questions. Lots. Listen closely to the answers. Open up your life to strangers, visitors, and friends of friends. Turn on the television; surf the web. You don’t need to become a full-blown couch potato or mouse potato to be aware. Oh year, and buy a subscription to the New Yorker.

Then wake up to the cold reality that you’re part of the plan. You have a role in this generation, not only receiving the baton of faith but passing it on to the next generation. You have a role in preserving the earth, protecting the poor, defending the exploited. We need you. In particular, we need you to be aware, learn, grow–spiritually, relationally, culturally–because we can’t do it without you.

I hope you find Margaret’s words as inspiring as I do….sometimes its as simple as “A Walk Across the Room”

Pastor Rick Warren in UnChristian is 100 hundred percent correct in zeroing in on this fundamental truth:

Thirty years from now, regardless of changes in technology, communication, and culture, people will still have the same basic needs. They will need love, acceptance, meaning, purpose, forgiveness, dignity, and significance. They will struggle with selfishness, fear, guilt, resentment, worry, boredom, loneliness, and other universal problems. These won’t go away. Thirty years from now the solution will still be the same: Jesus Christ.

Warren continues:

All the governments, busineses, and NGOs combined have failed in solving these. The only group large enough to handle these problems is the network of millions of local churches around the world. We have the widest distribution, the largest group of volunteers, local credibility, the promise of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the inevitablity of history.

McLaren echos these sentiments when he envisions that who Christians could be and hopefully will be in 30 years:

• Christians are the ones who love people, whoever they are–gay or straight, Jew or Muslim, religious or atheist, capitalist or not, conservative or liberal.
• Christians are the ones who have done more than anyone in the world to stop the HIV/
• Christians are the people who gravitate toward the poor and who show compassion through generous action and seek justice so that the systemic causes of poverty are overcome. They call the rich to generosity, and they call on rich nations to work for the common good.
• Christians care for the environment. They don’t see it as raw materials for economic gain, but they see it as the precious handiwork of their Creator.
Christians build harmony among races. You always know that you’ll be respected when you’re around a Christian.

Given that I passionately believe in these principles, I wanted to create a central repository of information of information about Christian service, to provide a springboard for service in the real world. Here is what I know about. I realize its just a starting list–a jumping off point. Do you have any suggestions….

Volunteer Match is fantastic.

I used Serve Net to find a local opportunity Hands on Nashville.

Cool People Care, which has regional outgrowths in cities across the country

Idealist is always a great resource for non-profit info. You could find what existing organizations are serving the service you want to provide and the population you want to serve. This also provides potentially great ideas for program models.

Community Service on Google. You can also check out Volunteer Service on Google (see also Christian Service Opportunities or Christian Missions) You should geographically micro-target your searches by adding your city name.

When I lived in DC I found the local Rotary International through craigslist. Craigslist often has great info on community service and service organizations. Also, service organizations on google may help point you in the right direction.

Do you have a great link for service or volunteering? For missions? Is there a church or christian non-profit with with a particuarly good kingdom outreach? What can you do now? What can you do to help make these visions a reality?

Three quick thoughts from Mike Foster of the XXXChurch.com that struck me:

“In my humble understanding of Jesus in the New Testament, I see a man who sought to restore relationships, not destroy them. A man of compassion who was crazy in love with what the religious of his day deemed the ‘wrong crowd.’”

“The change comes by sitting with our gay friends and family members at their dinner tables and in their living rooms. We go to their events and serve. We seek to do life together and find understanding. It is time for us to humbly serve and honor those we have been so effective at hurting in the past.”

“May you and I today begin to plant a new way of living, loving, and serving those in the gay community and in turn usher in a new kind of Christianity”

Mike Foster
Founder, xxxchurch.com

Thoughts? Is he right? How can the more conservative elements of the church be persuaded? I think the movement to be Red Letter Christians seems to provide a textual answer to more conservative christian stereotypes of gays. Is this issue one of the defining issues of this generation of Christians as the co-author of UnChristian David Kinnaman suggests?

thanks to wise acre for the flickr photo

“Take the first step: who is in your family, your neighborhood, or your school is hurting? Stand with them and then expand the circle of your compassion to your city, the nation, and then the world. I believe God pours out unbelievable joy and passion on us and those we are standing with as we get closer to the situations outside of the shelter.”

Gary Haugen, International Justice Mission from the book UnChristian.
FYI- shelter is a metaphor here.

For more coverage of UnChristian on the issue of grace, check this out!