Both Social Justice & Evangelism On The Rise For Millennials

Photo Credit: Merrimack College

According to recent research from the Barna Group, the perception that Christian Millennials (those born in the early 1980's through the early 2000's) are big on social justice but wary of evangelism might not be accurate. Here is what Barna found:

"They've been called "the social justice generation," and for good reason—Millennials are actively taking up the cause of the poor, the oppressed, the orphan and the widow. Yet the most common critique leveled at this surge in social compassion is that it comes at a great expense. Sure, skeptics argue, they might feed the hungry and free the captives in this life, but what about the next? According to this view, Millennials are elevating physical needs over spiritual needs and forgoing evangelism altogether. 

Yet the latest Barna research reveals this is not the case. 

In fact, in answer to the question of evangelism on the rise or in decline, Millennials are a rare case indeed. While the evangelistic practices of all other generations have either declined or remained static in the past few years, Millennials are the only generation among whom evangelism is significantly on the rise. Their faith-sharing practices have escalated from 56% in 2010 to 65% in 2013. 

Not only that, but born again Millennials share their faith more than any other generation today. Nearly two-thirds (65%) have presented the Gospel to another within the past year, in contrast to the national average of about half (52%) of born again Christians. 

Since tracking began in 1996, the data show born again Busters, who are currently in their thirties and forties (63%), were evangelizing at an all-time high in 1998. However, evangelism practice among Busters is down to 48% today. Among the Boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964), nearly two-thirds of born again Boomers (65%) shared their faith in 2007, but today, this has dropped to less than half (49%). The outreach efforts of born again Elders (ages 68 and older), on the other hand, have remained fairly steady over the past several decades. Today, Elders (53%) share their faith just about as much as the average born again Christian (52%)."

I'm thankful that I have the privilege to invest in the lives of this generation of young people.

To read the rest of the findings please click here.

What Majority Culture People Need To Ask When Involved in Social Justice Activism

Photo Credit: Ted Eytan

For those of us from the majority culture that are involved in issues of social justice, it is important that we examine our motivations for why we seek to advocate for the marginalized and oppressed. Without even realizing it, we can possibly do the right things for the wrong reasons.

Over on the Ethnic Space blog, Daniel Fan offers three questions for us to consider in our social justice involvement. He says this:

"Justice is a potentially simple concept, but the transition from theory to practice can be extremely complicated and fraught with danger. It is entirely possible to enact injustice or oppression while attempting to do justice. 

Here are three simple questions you can ask in order to quickly analyze any social justice pitch:

• Whose story is being told?
• Who is telling the story?
• If they are different people or parties, why is one telling the other’s story? 

The first question is used to determine the propriety of story. We are narratives: humanity was spoken into existence. There is no more innate resource to us than our own stories. 

The second question is employed to determine the identity of the story teller. Who is getting the most airtime? Who’s doing the talking? Whose voice are we hearing most of the time? Is the narrative autobiographical or someone interpreting the story for the audience? 

I ask the final question because this is where imperialism, theft, co-option, paternalism, and condescension tend to be revealed. “Being a voice for the voiceless” is a common theme within the American social justice meta-narrative. But as Brittany Ouchida succinctly summarizes: “The oppressed do not need voice; they need an audience.” No one is inherently voiceless, but the first act of oppressions like colonialism is usually to silence their subjects. 

Speaking for someone, particularly without their permission, frequently and easily becomes its own form of oppression. There are laws that protect against the misuse of a famous person’s image or likeness for commercial endorsement. Unfortunately, the impoverished rarely have the monetary resources to sue for life-rights-&-likeness violations in US courts.  Use Johnny Depp’s face to sell your lemonade? Get sued. Use an “anonymous” third-world toddler’s face to pimp your charity? Get funded. All people are made in Creator’s image. To put our image before and over someone else’s is equal parts blasphemy and idolatry. 

It’s true that we in the West have the technology and infrastructure to project messages to the rest of the world. But do we have to be that message at the same time? Power can be and often is accumulated. It can be, but is rarely given away. Does it really take a white man to travel to Africa to voice an African’s story? Why can’t the people of Africa tell their own stories? We can be camera operators and post-production, but do we have to be screenwriter, star and director as well? And whose narrative does it become when the camera spends most of its time on the white man who is making the film?"

As a white man seeking to make a positive difference in the lives of those on the margins of our world, Fan's questions are a sobering and needed reminder for me.

You can read the rest of his challenging post here.

Five Things On Social Justice

Photo Credit: crunklygill

Here are 5 Things About Social Justice from Tall Skinny Kiwi:

"1. We won't solve the problems of our city by loving the poor but despising the rich. The poor need resources and the rich have resources. Lets bring them together.

2. We won't solve the problem of hunger by throwing cans of food at people without empowering them to grow and cook their own food.

3. We won't solve the problem of homelessness by sentencing people to a lifetime of unaffordable mortgage payments for a house that is too large for their needs and too expensive to heat or cool when we can offer sustainable building solutions and alternative residential communities.

4. We won't solve the problem of unemployment by crippling people with student debt for a qualification that might not actually land them a job when we could assist them to become creative and successful entrepreneurs.

5. We won't solve the problem of global poverty by sponsoring people to do nothing except to look poor and needy for our photos (somebody say mission porn) without freeing them to live sustainably, creatively and to put their gift into the world."

To read the rest of this post please click here.

Three Churches That Demonstrate Ways To Do Mercy Ministry

Photo Credit: Paul Hedges

Lifeway Research recently completed its study of the largest and fastest growing churches in America for 2012. Lifeway president Ed Stetzer shares some of these findings in a recent post and highlights three churches that seek to serve the marginalized of society.

Stetzer says this:

"The past several years have seen a needed return to biblical compassion and action to help those affected by injustice. Organizations that fight sex trafficking and human trafficking and promote adoption and mercy ministries dot the church landscape. Many of the churches on this year's list are excelling in this area and raising the standard for all churches. 

Vineyard Community Church of Cincinnati is heavily involved in mercy ministry. Although that particular label has never been used, Kande Wilson, senior director of Outward Focused Ministries, says: "Helping the poor is part of the DNA of the church. It has been a part of who we are for 27 years." 

In a myriad of ways, Vineyard brings the Gospel to the poor, homeless and others combating life's struggles. In the tougher areas of the city, the church distributes food, clothes, hygiene items and more. 

"There are lots of groups that serve food," Wilson says. "If anyone wants food, they can get it. We have a group that is committed to helping people who have made the decision to get out of transiency. There are people from our church who have been deeply involved in the lives of the poor and homeless for 14 years. They are downtown every week-- rain or shine, holidays, snow, whatever. They do ministry on Christmas. This longevity is a key factor to gaining trust. Our members view these hurting people as their own congregation." 

For many years, Vineyard Community Church had an on-campus ministry that was "a food pantry on steroids," Wilson recalls. "In 2007, we did the Luke 4 Challenge, focusing our capital campaign on our city, our future and our world." As a result, the church expanded its ministries to provide help for the whole person. "This meant bringing divorce care, lost job ministry, homeless ministry, and others similar to these under one roof," Wilson says. "This was our outreach to the city."

Glen Berteau, senior pastor of Calvary Temple Worship Center in Modesto, Calif., cites not only specific biblical texts like the Great Commission and Ezekiel 16:14, but a biblical template as well: the Old Testament city of Nineveh. "Our social justice ministry is called Nineveh Outreach because Nineveh was the only biblical city that completely came to the Lord," Berteau says. "We want to see our city saved. I believe if that can happen then, it can happen here and now. 

"Nineveh Outreach provides food and clothes for our volunteers to distribute when they visit more than 30 parks every week. For Modesto Park alone, we distributed $5.5 million dollars in food last year. We also send out a nonprofit mobile medical and dental truck to help kids. We received a letter from the local police department telling us the crime rate in our area declined as a result of our ministries. 

"We also run Without Permission, a ministry that stands against human trafficking, which is a big problem in our area. Calvary Temple paid the fee to procure our local police department a state grant. Now they are able to send patrols specifically to safeguard against human trafficking." Berteau sees beauty as the core of outreach: "Our world is attracted by beauty. If the church would become beautiful, the world would be attracted to it. Beauty means reaching out to people as they are--seeing each of them as one of God's masterpieces."

Street GRACE, which 12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., helped start, is the only organization dedicated to eradicating commercial sexual exploitation of children "that leads people on a comprehensive path to leave a social injustice," says Executive Director Cheryl DeLuca-Johnson. 

DeLuca-Johnson explains: "Our comprehensive path includes awareness, education, engagement and social change. Currently Street GRACE has 80 partner churches in Georgia. We are now moving into Tennessee and Alabama. We are blessed to have 1,950 volunteers at some level in Georgia alone. Recently, the Department of Education contracted with us to present information to all the teachers and school staff in Georgia. This training includes not only how to help children, but also how to stop the demand. We include legislative efforts to get laws changed. For example, through the year 2000, the law in Georgia for sexual exploitation of a minor was a misdemeanor with a $50 fine. As a result of our efforts, the penalty is now a $100,000 fine and up to life in prison."

To read the rest of his post please click here.

Can Reading The Bible Reguarly Make You More Liberal?

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"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." ~ Hebrews 4:12

According to recent research, regularly reading of the Bible can influence how one views certain subjects like how the government should respond to criminals, caring for the poor and being good stewards of the environment.

Christianity Today weighs in:

"Frequent Bible reading has some predictable effects on the reader. It increases opposition to abortion as well as homosexual marriage and unions. It boosts a belief that science helps reveal God's glory. It diminishes hopes that science will eventually solve humanity's problems. But unlike some other religious practices, reading the Bible more often has some liberalizing effects—or at least makes the reader more prone to agree with liberals on certain issues. This is true even when accounting for factors such as political beliefs, education level, income level, gender, race, and religious measures (like which religious tradition one affiliates with, and one's views of biblical literalism)."

Personally, I see these findings as fascinating when considering my own spiritual journey. As a church-going young person that rarely (if ever) read the Bible myself, I held quite rigid political views. After coming into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as a sophomore in college, I began to read the Bible regularly for the first time in my life.

Over time, my personal Bible reading went from "regular" to daily. I've read through the complete Bible a dozen times in my adult life and, over the years, my political persuasions have become much more liberal in nature than what they were previously. I do not hold a liberal stance on all matters (for example, I am conservative as they come on abortion) but am much more left-leaning on a variety of issues than my more conservative, evangelical friends.

For example, I once did an in-depth study of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and focused on three specific areas: 1) How did Jesus view money?; 2) How did Jesus view the poor; and 3) How did Jesus view the religious leaders of his time? I came away from this personal study with a much different view on each of those areas than I initially carried with me. Why is that?

CT's Aaron B. Franzen offers a compelling reason:

"The discussion becomes even more interesting when we consider who is most likely to read the Bible frequently. It's evangelicals and biblical literalists, those who tend to be more conservative on these topics. In other words, those who read the Bible most often are more conservative, but the more they read the Bible, the more likely it is that their views will change, at least on these topics.

Why does this happen? One possible explanation is that readers tend to have expectations of a text prior to reading it. Given the Bible's prominence in our society, it's little wonder that many people think they know what's in it before they open it up. But once they start reading it on their own, they are bound to be surprised by something, and this surprising new content is then integrated and grafted on to the familiar. Beliefs do change with the addition of new information.

But it doesn't have to be unfamiliar content to surprise the reader. It just has to be personally relevant. Frequent Bible readers may have different views of biblical authority, but they tend to read it devotionally, looking for ways in which Scripture is speaking directly to them. They will read until struck by something that sticks out in the text. Even if the reader thinks the Bible has some error or needs a lot of interpretation, this thunderbolt moment can take on tremendous personal significance.

But frequent Bible readers don't just see the Bible as personal. They also see it as authoritative, written by an author who had a specific context and intent, and they want to conform to its message. After all, why read the Bible with no desire to embrace what it teaches?

In short, sometimes reading the Bible can change views and attitudes because readers are surprised by what's in it. Other times, it's just a matter of discipleship."

When I look at my own life, I found that the more I studied the Bible personally and didn't just listen to others talk about it, I discovered much in there that surprised me. Many of my assumptions and personal biases were challenged and, as a result, I have become a much different person with a different view on the world. The point here is not that everyone that understands the Bible well will naturally become more politically liberal.  It could be that a person that initially falls more liberal on the politically spectrum might become more conservative after engrossing themselves in the Bible.

There are those that also read the Bible every day and come to much different conclusions than I do politically.  It is not always how we view certain policies that is paramount, but the manner in which we express our opinions and disagreements that indicate whether the Bible has taken root in our heart.  Because even if I'm right about a certain topic but others experience me as a prideful, arrogant jerk, then I haven't quite yet understood the message of the Holy Scriptures.

In my opinion, there are some things that conservatives get right and some things that liberals get right. But neither have the corner on truth. If I want to get timeless truth, I need go no further than my Bible. Politicians and political pundits may have good insights, but they can never speak for God in ways that God does not speak for Himself.  If you have not read the Bible much on your own, I encourage you to do so. It will provide direction for your life and lead you to the one that is the Way, the Truth and the Life -- Jesus Christ.

The Death Penalty: Is It Just?

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Did you know that although African Americans make up approximately half of all homicides victims in this country, only 15% of those who receive the death penalty received their penalty after being accused of killing a black person? On the other hand, over 3/4 of those executed in death penalty cases received their punishment as a result of killing a white person. Why the discrepancy?

The recent execution of Troy Davis, an African American who was convicted of killing a police officer over twenty years ago, has shed light once again on the apparent inequities of our criminal justice system, especially as it pertains to the death penalty. For many in the African American community, the case of Davis, whom many believe to be wrongly convicted, demonstrates that our courts place a higher value on the life of white people more so than black people. I do not know if Troy Davis was innocent or if he deserved to die. But there is enough evidence concerning how the death penalty is applied to cause us to consider our stance on this important issue. Joel Dreyfuss comments:

"Our uneasiness about fairness in America helps explain why Troy Davis became such an obsession in the African-American community, to the bewilderment, if not outright annoyance, of some of our nonblack neighbors. As the hours ticked down, it seemed that all of black America was glued to their televisions, computers, mobile phones and iPads, as if watching a perverse 2011 version of a Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling bout.

But in this case we were not waiting for our black champion to knock out the German and prove our worth to America. We wanted reassurance that the fundamental precept of reasonable doubt would apply to Troy Davis, a black man, and, by extension, to the rest of us.

Yes, black America still lives on the brink of fear. For all the progress we have made, dues we have paid, degrees we have acquired and presidencies we have won, we can all recite the story of the father, son, daughter or niece who has gone from citizen to suspect in an instant -- the son frisked, the cousin shoved against the car, the uncle badly beaten -- and, more often than should be, the nephew convicted of a crime he didn't commit or, worse, shot dead by the police.

Most Americans long ago grew bored with the statistics verifying that African Americans are more likely than whites to encounter the power of the state and to be more severely treated -- in arrests, in charges, in sentencing or, yes, the death penalty. As Sherrilyn Ifill points out in her column for The Root, the racial disparities in imposing the death penalty were proved long ago, but the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1986 that the race gap was not unconstitutional. If you are far more likely to be condemned to death for killing a white man, how can there not be a constitutional issue?

It is now clear to us that the election of Barack Obama has not miraculously transformed the standing of African Americans. For those of us who have long believed that race was far more important as a signal of political status than as a genetic marker, Troy Davis reminds us that there are American citizens -- and then there are African-American citizens."

On a personal level, I do not believe the death penalty is inherently unethical when dealing with the punishment of those that have taken the life of another (Genesis 9:6). But as has been proven time and again within the American justice system, the death penalty, as it is carried out within the United States, is inherently biased when consideration is given to the ethnicity of victims, the race of their accused killers and the financial resources that the accused have at their disposal.

Along with the increased use of DNA evidence in criminal cases, there have been multiple examples of those on death row who were let go because they had been wrongly convicted. Unless we have a system that fairly treats both victims and the accused fairly, regardless of race or class, then I will continue to remain opposed to the use of lethal punishment for those accused of the crime of murder. Allowing the guilty to go free is wrong but so is killing innocent people because they happen to have brown skin or don't have enough money to properly defend themselves in court.

To read the complete article by Joel Dreyfuss on TheRoot.com please click here.

How The Selling Of Sex Is Destroying Our World

Photo Credit: @sahxic < twitter

We live in a sex-saturated society and the selling of sex is destroying our world. Look at what Newsweek has to say:

"Men of all ages, races, religions, and backgrounds do it. Rich men do it, and poor men do it, in forms so varied and ubiquitous that they can be summoned at a moment’s notice.

And yet surprisingly little is known about the age-old practice of buying sex, long assumed to be inevitable. No one even knows what proportion of the male population does it; estimates range from 16 percent to 80 percent. “Ninety-nine percent of the research in this field has been done on prostitutes, and 1 percent has been done on johns,” says Melissa Farley, director of Prostitution Research and Education, a nonprofit organization that is a project of San Francisco Women’s Centers.

A clinical psychologist, Farley studies prostitution, trafficking, and sexual violence, but even she wasn’t sure how representative her results were. “The question has always remained: are all our findings true of just sex buyers, or are they true of men in general?” she says.

In a new study released exclusively to NEWSWEEK, “Comparing Sex Buyers With Men Who Don’t Buy Sex,” Farley provides some startling answers. Although the two groups share many attitudes about women and sex, they differ in significant ways illustrated by two quotes that serve as the report’s subtitle.

One man in the study explained why he likes to buy prostitutes: “You can have a good time with the servitude,” he said. A contrasting view was expressed by another man as the reason he doesn’t buy sex: “You’re supporting a system of degradation,” he said.

And yet buying sex is so pervasive that Farley’s team had a shockingly difficult time locating men who really don’t do it. The use of pornography, phone sex, lap dances, and other services has become so widespread that the researchers were forced to loosen their definition in order to assemble a 100-person control group.

“We had big, big trouble finding nonusers,” Farley says. “We finally had to settle on a definition of non-sex-buyers as men who have not been to a strip club more than two times in the past year, have not purchased a lap dance, have not used pornography more than one time in the last month, and have not purchased phone sex or the services of a sex worker, escort, erotic masseuse, or prostitute.”

Many experts believe the digital age has spawned an enormous increase in sexual exploitation; today anyone with access to the Internet can easily make a “date” through online postings, escort agencies, and other suppliers who cater to virtually any sexual predilection. The burgeoning demand has led to a dizzying proliferation of services so commonplace that many men don’t see erotic massages, strip clubs, or lap dances as forms of prostitution. “The more the commercial sex industry normalizes this behavior, the more of this behavior you get,” says Norma Ramos, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)."

For many that engage in the solicitation of the services of prostitutes and for those that participate in the use of pornography, it may feel like their behavior is innocent fun. However, research shows that nothing could be further from the truth. Look at the following facts from International Justice Mission (IJM):

- The total market value of illicit human trafficking is estimated to be in excess of $32 billion (U.N.)

- Each year, more than 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade (UNICEF)

- 27 million men, women and children are held as slaves. (Kevin Bales, Disposable People)

- 1 in 5 women is a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. (U.N. Development Fund for Women)

The commercialization of sex is not only destructive to our culture but it ruins millions of lives every year.  Don't be fooled. If you are personally involved in sexually addictive behavior please click here for help. 

Or perhaps you can help those affected by the sex trade by getting involved in the work of IJM by going here.

To read the complete Newsweek article, "The John Next Door", click here.

Christianity and Justice in Society

I am taking a seminary class this summer on the subject of Apologetics, which is essentially the defense of the Christian faith through rational thought. I've been reading a number of books and articles in conjunction with the class and one of the authors I've enjoyed the most is Rev. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York.

I appreciate Keller's thoughtful and sincere thinking as it pertains to doubts about the Christian faith and highly recommend his book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. I've already quoted him on this blog a couple of times recently but I just finished the chapter entitled, "The Church is Responsible For So Much Injustice," and appreciated Keller's response to this legitimate question.

Keller argues that the greatest critique of so-called Christians that have done evil in the name of Christ has not come from those outside the Church but has come directly from Christianity itself. In formulating his response to this question, Keller offers several examples of Christians who actively led in the crusade against the injustices of their day and even gave their lives as a result.

Notable are the models of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"When Martin Luther King, Jr. confronted racism in the white church in the South, he did not call on Southern churches to become more secular. Read his sermons and "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and see how he argued. He invoked God's moral law and the Scripture. He called white Christians to be more true to their own beliefs and to realize what the Bible really teaches. He did not say "Truth is relative and everyone is free to determine what is right or wrong for them." If everything is relative, there would have been no incentive for white people in the South to give up their power. Rather, Dr. King invoked the prophet Amos, who said, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24). The greatest champion of justice in our era knew the antidote to racism was not less Christianity but a deeper and truer Christianity."

"The famous Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer was pastoring two German-speaking churches in London when Hitler came to power. He refused to stay at a safe distance and returned to his country to head an illegal seminary for the Confessing Church, the Christian congregations that refused to sign an oath of allegiance to the Nazis. Bonhoeffer wrote the classic The Cost of Discipleship, in which he critiqued the religion and church of his day. In echoes of Jesus and the prophets, Bonhoeffer revealed the spiritual deadness and self-satisfied complacency that made it possible for so many to cooperate with Hitler and turn a blind eye to those being systematically marginalized and destroyed by the Nazis. Bonhoeffer was eventually arrested and hanged.

In his last letters from prison, Bonhoeffer reveals how his Christian faith gave him the resources to give up everything for the sake of others. Marx argued that if you believe in a life after this one you won't be concerned about making this world a better place. You can also argue the opposite. If this world is all there is, and if the goods of this world are the only love, comfort, and wealth I will ever have, why should I sacrifice them for others? Bonhoeffer, however, had a joy and hope in God that made it possible for him to do what he did."

In order for injustice to be addressed, we don't need Christianity to be abolished. What we need are more followers of Jesus that are fully devoted to living as He lived with love, truth, compassion, courage and grace. The Christian faith is not tied to a particular political party or the exclusive property of a specific ethnicity or culture. It is not a hateful, arrogant faith. Jesus himself said that others could tell who His true followers were by the fruit that was produced in their life. And the fruit that he said should be most evident? Love.

The Gospel & Social Justice

One of the hottest topics at our recent Campus Crusade U.S. Staff Conference was how we as Christians can engage in issues of social justice and compassionate ministry while not sacrificing our zeal for verbal proclamation of the gospel of Jesus. It is a significant issue that the Church faces as we seek to live out a balance between helping to meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of those we encounter.

Matt Harmon, a friend from my early days in ministry when we were both campus ministers in Ohio, is now a seminary professor and offers ten components of the Kingdom of God and Social Justice on his blog, Biblical Theology. The ten points are broken up into two parts, which can be read here and here. A highlight:

"If we are convinced that heaven and hell are ultimate realities that each human being must face, then we will prioritize the communication of the gospel message. This does not mean that every kind deed must be accompanied by a gospel tract, but it does mean an intentional effort to share the gospel in the context of meeting physical needs or addressing social structures. Actions are not self-interpreting; there are plenty of nice moral people who do good things for the community and have no interest in Jesus Christ. If we are to distinguish our efforts from them (and at some level we MUST if we are to be faithful to Christ) there must be communication of the gospel. Faith comes by hearing (Rom 10:17), not by simple observation of good works."

Thanks to Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds for the link.