The Gospel, Theology & Social Justice

Thirty thousand children die every day of starvation or a preventable disease. Thirteen million people will die every year from infectious and parasitic disease we know how to prevent. 1.2 Billion people live everyday on less than $1 and an additional 1.6 billion are very poor living on less than $2 a day. In a world with 6.7 Billion people, 2.8 of them live on less than $2 a day.

How do we deal with this? As Christians living in post-modern America gliding our lives on our fat pay checks and pricey cars, how do we look into the face of 2.8 billion people who make less than $700 dollars a year? Even in a recession where the unemployment rate is up higher than any of us had hoped for, a government funded unemployment check still provides more than 2.8 billion people in the world live on today.

The purpose of these blogs is for me to try to figure this out and work out how to live my life with the view of Christ, my family and my poor brothers and sisters in mind. Not to find out who I can donate 10% of my paycheck to, or to learn how to take Tom's shoes to Africa, but to sincerely look into the face of poverty and social injustice and learn how to apply the Gospel, the good news of Christ's redemption to these tough situations. I do not pretend to be perfect now, nor when I finish this blog series. I need sanctification, I need Jesus. I also understand that social justice without Jesus is nothing more than a charity toy drive and therefore will be putting Jesus and his news of the Gospel front an center. I ask any of my brothers who might read this to rebuke me if I ever draw away from making Jesus the agenda.

I pray that as I never take passages of scripture lightly that concern my salvation with Christ. I have been a Christian for 4 years now and have yet to take seriously passages of scripture like Matthew 25:31-46; this is my conviction.

"Lord, help me live from day to day,
in such a self forgetful way,
that even as I kneel to pray,
my prayers shall be for others."