Thoughts on salvation and missions

On Saturday I went to the Newsboy concert here in town. It was a pretty sweet deal - a real nostalgia trip for me. Michael Tait (of DC Talk fame) is their lead singer now, so they sang a nice blend of old DC Talk stuff and Newsboys stuff.

Just before Newsboys went on, a fellow representing a mission organization came out and spoke to the crowd. During his short sermon, he pressed hard the idea that God is pleased by what we do - go and feed the poor, and we will be judged kindly. He hammered the Matthew 25 passage, which is one that I am particularly fond of myself. However, the angle with which he approached the topic (to say nothing of the mission he was pushing itself, more on that later) worried me.

It reminded me very much of the old tent-revival hell-pushers of the past century. Before, the message was personal salvation: 'Repent, or you'll burn in Hell! God is an ANGRY God, and He is ANGRY at your sins!'

Now, the message I heard is all too similar: 'Go feed the Poor, or you'll burn in Hell! God is an ANGRY God, and He is ANGRY at the injustice you support!'

I don't like the angry-God approach. I do not find it Biblical, necessary, or even helpful. Should we be feeding the poor because we're afraid God will smite us if we don't? Or should we be saying, 'what is the heart of Christ? How did He live? What did He do?' This is a much more complex question than WWJD. To answer this question we must be willing to tackle huge issues, including systemic corruption, systematic abuse of the world's resources, and a prevailing flood of apathy mixed with guilt from the First World... which brings me to my next point.

This man boasted about the huge number of houses his organization had built in Mexico over the past year. I believe the number was somewhere around 1,500 houses, built by 25,000 volunteers, but I could be off on that. Needless to say, it was a large number. This man was obviously proud of how much they had 'helped the poor', although much more needed to be done.

All I could think to myself was 'what about the carpenters?' How did the local economy fair after the houses were built? did the people in the houses have jobs, or even skills? Wouldn't it have been more helpful to send 100 trained professionals down, and have them train the local population how to build their own houses, thereby supplying them with both shelter and profession?

Africa's textile industry has collapsed in the past ten years because of the massive glut of second-hand First-world clothing that is hauled over there in containers every year. Gives you something to think about.

So, what is the answer? I don't have anything specific, but I do have ideas.

First, we should never guilt anyone into anything. Having mercy is a much different thing than feeling guilty. Guilt paralyzes and condemns. Mercy reaches out and lifts up. Yes, we should feel upset about the abuse and affluence of the First World. Yes, we should want to go. But holding Hellfire over my head is not going to make me want to follow you. In fact, it may make me want to do the opposite.

Second, is not the attitude that we must go help in order to save ourselves from Hell, as McLaren puts it, the ultimate ego trip? Am I truly helping because I believe that the poor are worth something, are precious, and deserve love, or am I helping because I don't want to go to Hell? What about the Hell they are already living in? Shouldn't that be a motivator?

Third, if we are going to engage in Mission, we must be willing to do the hard work of examing the organization we are going with, and examining the culture we are going in to. We must work with the local population to make sure that any help given is sustainable and neccessary. Just doing something because we feel bad that the poor mexicans don't have houses is not good enough.

Well, there are my thoughts. Off to homework..