Over the last 20 or so years, I have seen an encouraging move towards the church taking a lot more seriously the imperative of social justice as being a core part of the Christian message. Countless books have been written to help people see that social concern is not an optional add-on to the real message of saving souls, but that it lies at the heart of who Jesus is and what God cares about. Another Way to Love is another excellent contribution to this collection.

This publication is written by people who spend their lives at the coalface of bringing good news to the poor. The authors include some staff of World Vision plus others who are giving their lives for the betterment of God's world. The book lays out the foundations for Christian social reform and the part that ordinary believers can play in not just being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, but being the fence at the top. I remember a colleague once talking about the film, Bruce Almighty, in which the character played by Jim Carrey, gets to be God for a day. My colleague asked his small group what they would do if they had the chance to be God just for one day. The general consensus was that they would give everyone the same amount of money and bring equality to all. Someone else then made the point that if they did that, the next day there would be inequality again as people would find ways to rip others off. The moral of the story was that advocacy - getting to the root causes of poverty - plays a crucial role in working for its eradication. This book looks at how this can work while providing real-life stories of advocacy in action.

Divided into 3 parts, the first section of this book is an overview of the Christian mandate for social concern, and has chapters written by Tim Costello and the National Director of World Vision India, Jayakumar Christian. The next section looks at the biblical basis for social reform, examining both the Old and New Testaments. The final section provides chapters examining current campaigns and actions that are taking place across the world, actions which are, at this very moment, transforming people's lives for the better. Some of those discussed include the Make Poverty History campaign, and the issues of fair trade, climate change, and child slavery.

While much focus on the eradication of poverty in the world is rightly on the symptoms and helping people survive, this volume focuses on the grassroots and, often, unseen, involvement of millions of people the world over who are dedicated to seeing this world be a better place, to seeing, as N.T. Wright states it, the world being put to rights.

The ideology behind Another Way to Love is perhaps best summed up by Brazilian Archbishop Dom Helder Camara, who has said "when I give to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist". As John Smith said many years ago, would that that last sentence read, "When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Christian". Then people would really be drawn to a life of faith in the Jesus of the Gospels. This book is one large leap to seeing that wish become a reality.

by Nils von Kalm

http://soulthoughts.com