Social Justice and the Christian

According to church historian Justo L. Gonzalez, growing numbers of evangelicals in the late 1960s and early 1970s “began to feel that their faith led them to a commitment to critique the existing economic and social order, both at home and abroad. Christians, they believed, must strive against all forms of injustice, suffering, hunger, and oppression. In 1973, a group of leaders of similar convictions joined in the ‘Chicago Declaration,’ which articulated what seemed to be the growing conviction of committed Christians in the United States.” [1]

Following is the statement in its entirety. I do not find much, if anything, written here that I disagree with when I consider the American church’s current state of affairs:

The Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern
November 25, 1973

As evangelical Christians committed to the Lord Jesus Christ and the full authority of the Word of God, we affirm that God lays total claim upon the lives of his people. We cannot, therefore, separate our lives from the situation in which God has placed us in the United States and the world.

We confess that we have not acknowledged the complete claim of God on our lives.
We acknowledge that God requires love. But we have not demonstrated the love of God to those suffering social abuses.

We acknowledge that God requires justice. But we have not proclaimed or demonstrated his justice to an unjust American society. Although the Lord calls us to defend the social and economic rights of the poor and oppressed, we have mostly remained silent. We deplore the historic involvement of the church in America with racism and the conspicuous responsibility of the evangelical community for perpetuating the personal attitudes and institutional structures that have divided the body of Christ along color lines. Further, we have failed to condemn the exploitation of racism at home and abroad by our economic system.

We affirm that God abounds in mercy and that he forgives all who repent and turn from their sins. So we call our fellow evangelical Christians to demonstrate repentance in a Christian discipleship that confronts the social and political injustice of our nation.

We must attack the materialism of our culture and the maldistribution of the nation’s wealth and services. We recognize that as a nation we play a crucial role in the imbalance and injustice of international trade and development. Before God and a billion hungry neighbors, we must rethink our values regarding our present standard of living and promote a more just acquisition and distribution of the world’s resources.

We acknowledge our Christian responsibilities of citizenship. Therefore, we must challenge the misplaced trust of the nation in economic and military might–a proud trust that promotes a national pathology of war and violence which victimizes our neighbors at home and abroad. We must resist the temptation to make the nation and its institutions objects of near-religious loyalty.

We acknowledge that we have encouraged men to prideful domination and women to irresponsible passivity. So we call both men and women to mutual submission and active discipleship.

We proclaim no new gospel, but the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who, through the power of the Holy Spirit, frees people from sin so that they might praise God through works of righteousness.

By this declaration, we endorse no political ideology or party, but call our nation’s leaders and people to that righteousness which exalts a nation.

We make this declaration in the biblical hope that Christ is coming to consummate the Kingdom and we accept his claim on our total discipleship until he comes.

1. Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity (Peabody, MA: Prince Press, 2005), 386.

What determines the true value of my life’s work?

What determines the true value of my life’s work?
John Davis

The apparent success of the wicked and the seeming triumph of evil may lead us to ask questions about God and about the investment of our lives. We may not verbalize these questions; nevertheless there are real questions that arise.
Have you ever asked these questions? Does it pay to do the right thing? Does living for Christ really matter? Does it really matter what I invest my life in as long as I’m happy doing it?
In Habakkuk 2:12-13 the prophet, as he addresses ancient Babylon, indirectly speaks to these questions. We could summarize those questions in this way: What determines the true value of my life’s work? These verses suggest a couple of things to keep in mind when evaluating the true value of one’s life’s work.
First of all, present success or failure does not measure the true value of one’s life’s work. The ancient Babylonians built a successful empire. Through their ruthlessness and greed they conquered the nations around them. The splendor of their kingdom was world-renowned. They even boasted one of the alleged Seven Wonders of the World – the Hanging Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon did what was necessary in order to succeed. There was no life so precious that it couldn’t be sacrificed on the altar of success and no law so righteous that it couldn’t be broken, if breaking that law brought about success. Babylon succeeded! But, did she really?
God has only one word for those who achieve success in this manner – WOE! God has decreed judgment on those who simply measure the value of a life’s work by its apparent success.
The death of Jesus Christ on the cross may be viewed as a colossal failure from a human perspective. However, from God’s perspective, that failure is the investment of a life that brings the greatest and the longest return – eternal life.
A second thing to keep in mind when evaluating the true worth of one’s life’s work is this: Only God determines the value of one’s work and energy. Verse 13 says, Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?
We may work productively and be exhausted from all the energy we’ve expended! For what purpose – to what end? At the end of the day, or the week, or the month or year, or at the end of your life, how do you determine the true worth of your life’s work?
For Babylon the determination was clear. All that which their labor produced served only to fuel the fire. All of their energy, and time, and resources were finally measured as nothing. Historically, the Hanging Gardens were so completely destroyed that some even question whether they ever existed.
Would you consciously invest your life in what you knew to be a worthless enterprise? I doubt it! Suppose I said this to you: “I need you to help me with something. Would you please go to the supermarket and stand in the aisle for 20 minutes? Wouldn’t your first question be “WHY?” Don’t you find it unusual that you should ask “why” about a 20-minute investment of your life, when you may not have done the same with the entire scope of your life?
Someone has aptly said, “Only one life will soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.” At the end, what will your Creator-Redeemer say about the value of your life’s work?