Global Poverty, the Local Church and God's Word

"It is impossible to really know Jesus and be indifferent to the plight of the poor." Dewi Hughes, God of the Poor.

I want you to imagine this place. It's a tumble down jumble of small shacks and huts, all crowded on top of one another. Most of them not much bigger than a backyard chook house, and each of them a home to a family.

There are no sealed paths. The tracks meandering through this large slum community are dust in the dry period, and muddy bogs in the rainy season. There are no covered drains or sewers. Instead the community is crisscrossed by open ditches of often stagnant water and sewerage.

Many of the inhabitants, perhaps the majority, are unable to get regular work. Sickness and death are common, especially among the young and old. AIDS is present in epidemic proportions.

Some might be tempted to conclude from all of this that the Kalerwe slum is a God-foresaken place. They could not be more wrong. Persuasive proof of God 's consistent love for the marginalised Kalerwe community comes in the shape of Grace Kaiso, a pastor in the Church of Uganda. Today, because of the commitment and encouragement of Grace, and financial support of Christians from many places, this Kampala slum is slowly undergoing considerable change and improvement.

It now has a small school. Several of its women have been trained as community health workers. There is a very busy health clinic, and an AIDS Counselling centre. Clean water is being piped into the community, an essential step in reducing sickness and death. New drains have been built, some by the community with the help and support of the church, and even bigger ones by the local government, a testimony to the effective persistence of Grace's lobbying.

As we stood one morning in the health clinic I asked Grace why he had initiated so many of these time-consuming activities and projects - all of them on top of the normal program of a parish minister. His answer was so simple and so obvious, yet three years later it continues to impress itself upon me.

"After I had been in the parish only a short period I discovered that 25% of the children I was baptising were dying before they reached the age of 6 months. And I was forced to ask myself, 'What does it mean to represent Jesus in this place?'"

Grace's conclusion can be clearly seen in the comprehensive dimensions of his church's mission to the squatter community. Without embarrassment or hesitation they tell the story of Jesus and their experience of his love. Integrated with the "gospel talk" are their programmes of compassion and justice which provide another essential expression of this same gospel. Just as in the ministry of Jesus, so in their ministry, words and actions are fully integrated. That the parish church of Kalerwe is thriving surprises me not one jot.

Those who gathered in Manila in 1989 at the invitation of the Lausanne movement, having diligently examined the Church's mission mandate in the light of Scripture, reached a conclusion that Grace would heartily endorse:

"We are called today to a similar (to Jesus) integration of words and deeds. In a spirit of humility we are to preach and teach, minister to the sick, feed the hungry, care for prisoners, help the disadvantaged and handicapped, and deliver the oppressed. While we acknowledge the diversity of spiritual gifts, callings and contexts, we also affirm that good news and good works are inseparable."

I am utterly convinced that the Scriptures, through the spelling out of the "ethical values and social priorities that God entrusted to Israel" , through the passionate cry of the prophets, through the writings of Paul and the other Apostles, but supremely through the teaching and example of Jesus, emphatically call God's people everywhere to be doers of justice, lovers of mercy, and to journey humbly with God .

The implications of this for a local Aussie church are substantial, exciting and demanding. Substantial, because it involves a setting of priorities which place a congregation on a course which is fundamentally outward looking and others-serving, instead of the far more prevalent inward looking and self-serving congregational agendas . Exciting because obedience to this Biblical mandate results in a service to the poor which is a compelling testimony to the character of God. Demanding because it requires a bold and wise leadership as well as a vigorous and on-going commitment to the centrality of the Scripture in the life of the congregation.

It requires no special powers of observation to recognise that contemporary Australia is overwhelmingly a consumerist and individualistic society, one in which prevailing values owe less and less to the Bible. Increasingly, therefore, our churches must be vigilant counter-cultural communities if they are to incarnate the values and priorities of the rule of God. These we cannot be unless we affirm the centrality of the Scriptures in our individual and communal lives.

Really affirm it, in action not just rhetoric. Affirm it by making it the primary resource for our preaching. It is possible, even in so-called evangelical churches, to go a long time between expository sermons, or at least sermons which do more than only dip into the Bible for a few proof texts or illustrations. Affirm it by working to ensure that it is the central resource used in the church's home groups network, youth groups and Sunday schools.

Affirm it by encouraging church members, young and old, to become students of the Bible, stressing, as Andrew Kirk does in his excellent introduction to hermeneutics that:

"Studying the Bible is not principally an academic exercise. The main intention is not to possess accurate knowledge, though that is important; rather it is to express how, by progressing in faithfulness to the Lord of lords, one may enjoy real freedom and discover a lasting purpose in life.God 's truth is never just a statement of the way things are, it is always a call to action."

Affirm the whole of it by resisting the ever-present temptation to ignore those passages (even complete books) which are not helpful to our own particular theological leanings. Some of us, for example, need to remember that there is more to the Bible than the minor prophets, while others need to recognise that non-Pauline writings have been included in the Scriptures for a reason.

I would argue, however, that selective Biblical illiteracy is particularly chronic when it comes to the mandate God has given his people to care for the poor. Could it be that we are sometimes a little fearful of the possible consequences of taking this mandate seriously? The British poet, Steve Turner, put it thus:

The Lord God says: 'Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, cover the naked.'

Dear Lord God, We have got new carpets, so this will not be possible.

More than a billion people are still condemned to a life of poverty (a large percentage of whom are Christian). Up to 40000 children under the age of 5 die each day because of malnutrition and preventable disease. These, and many other evil statistics of poverty are not only a crime against humanity, they are also profound insult to God.

So much could be done. So much suffering could be prevented or alleviated if all of God's people recognised that he calls us to be his agents of justice, compassion and evangelism. The Biblical message of God's love for the poor and his desire that those who have share with those who have not needs to be trumpeted in our churches. Not just occasionally, but persistently and emphatically, in line with the weighting this call is given in the Scriptures. It is our responsibility, as those who believe that the Bible is the supreme authority in matters of faith, to ensure this is done.

Steve Bradbury National Director, TEAR Australia, and member of St Hilary's Anglican Church