A major feature of the chapter on the prophets is a detailed discussion of wealth economics, an economy that benefited the elite of society, versus the economics of shalom based on equal access and justice. For me, this was the most valuable part of the book. These two types of economic systems are evaluated and compared on the basis of: Ownership of subsistence resources, access to resources, consumption, distribution mechanism, basic outlook, basic value, disposition of surplus, goal and results. "Shalom makers must oppose all states who protect and maintain such stratification and concentration of resources."
Chapter eight closes with a discussion of the OT prophets and their messianic prophecies which had a strong justice/shalom emphasis. At some point in history, God would act; he would send a Messiah who would set up a kingdom characterized by righteousness, justice and shalom.
Chapter nine: "Jesus: the messiah of God."
Though this book is primarily an OT theology, chapter nine moves into a NT application. Yoder shows how justice and shalom characterized the teaching and ministry of Jesus Christ as he introduced the kingdom of God. Again Yoder shows the economic relevance of the kingdom of God by discussing the economics of wealth which was strongly denounced by Jesus, and the economics of shalom as taught by Jesus in the gospels.
Book summary. Yoder excels in demonstrating the holistic nature of the gospel by showing the continuity between the OT and the NT. The kingdom of God is the key biblical concept that fulfills the Messianic passages which promise justice and shalom. I believe that my paraphrase of Romans 14;17 captures Yoder;s holistic emphasis: "The kingdom of God is justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit."
According to the book Divided by Faith, which is based on extensive research among evangelicals conducted in the late 1990s, the average U.S. evangelical's faith and practice is overly individualized or privatized; it is also overly spiritual; thus it does not have an adequate gospel for social problems such as ethnocentrism and economic oppression. In terms of social issues, evangelicals are more often a part of the problem than they are a part of the solution, but they do not realize this. Instead, they tend to think that if others were like them, social problems would decline.
Evangelical theology does not understand the kingdom of God as present and social, as against ethnocentrism and oppression, as for justice and shalom. Lacking a strong biblical social ethic, they easily fall prey to the American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism. At the same time that they profess deliverance from personal sin, they end up tolerating or even participating in social evil.
So evangelicals badly need to read a book such as Shalom so they will preach and practice a more comprehensive biblical gospel. American white evangelicals are making the same mistake the Puritans made; out of their religiously based ethnocentrism, they oppressed the Indians. And white Southerners claimed to follow an inerrant Bible, yet they participated in slavery and then the neoslavery of segregation, sharecropping, prison gangs and lynchings. Some of the lynchings took place in churchyards as a quasi-religious celebration.
Only a holistic gospel can deal with both personal sin and social evil. We need to add Jubilee justice to our gospel of justification by faith. We must move from half a gospel to the whole gospel (Acts 8:12; 28:23; 28:31.) We must add the kingdom of God as justice to the cross and resurrection, as Billy Graham recently stated.
Ray Bakke, evangelical expert on the city, tells this true story (Christianity Today, March 3, 1997):
A suburban Christian said to me: 'When you talk about urban evangelism, I get very excited. But when you talk about social action, I get very nervous. Isn't this the social [liberal] gospel?
So I asked him where he lives, and he told me---one of the finest suburbs west of Chicago. I said, "Why do you live there?' He said, 'Good schools for my children. It's safe, quiet, clean. Good housing value. I travel a lot. I need a place where my family can be secure when I'm gone.'
I stopped him and said, 'Every reason you've given me for living where you do is a social reason. If anyone believes in the social gospel, it's you. You've committed your whole life to it. How can you tell those who don't have the [social] systems you have to just preach the [evangelistic] gospel?' And this man, bless his heart, said, 'I never thought of that!'
The hospital in my [urban] community is sicker than the patients. How can it be wrong for us to build a better hospital, school or police department? . . . . I tell pastors, 'You have not preached tithing until you have preached the tithing of your people, of 10 percent going into urban neighborhoods where the church is. . . . Tithe your people and use your assets to buy property next to every playground and grammar school in the community so you can stash your people there to create positive webs of influence in the community.'
Some concluding comments by Lowell Noble: "Nightmares and Dreams."
I am haunted by a continuing nightmare, but I am inspired by a beautiful dream. At this point in history, my mind and spirit are dominated by the nightmare of oppression. I see multiplied millions being crushed, humiliated and animalized by Euro ethnocentrism here in these United but cruel States, and by political and economic oppression in much of the Third World. The oppressed cry out, "Who will deliver us?" The answer that echoes back is thundering silence.
By faith, I see the answer in my dreams. The kingdom of God is hovering on the horizon waiting for the people of God to see it and bring it nigh to the oppressed.. The incarnated kingdom of God could lift up the crushed, give dignity to the humiliated, humanize the animalized, liberate the enslaved and stop the killing of the innocent.
The answer is at hand. Why is it delayed? Is it because the church has not rejusticized the NT gospel?
I highly recommend that after you have read Shalom that you read Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God. The following is an excerpt about the biblical story of the rich young ruler:
It probably has not occurred to the rich man that, while he has never mugged anyone on the street and taken their money, he has used the [financial/economic] system to rob the poor blind. He could not achieve his prominence and wealth except at the expense of others, but he does not see this as stealing. It is called getting ahead and climbing the ladder of power and prestige.
Quite clearly, the rich man has a robust conscience bolstered by his reading of the Torah and support by his daily effort to root out impurity. . . . This is why Jesus must restate the import of the Decalogue in a startling way. All ten commandments can be viewed as an expression of the debt system. [Debt slavery had replaced Jubilee justice]. But the rich ruler has read them through the demand for purity [holiness, not justice], and as a result he can no longer perceive the great injustice. . . . No sooner has he declared his full compliance than Jesus stops him dead in his tracks---"Just one thing you lack. . . .go, sell, give, follow." The four commandments: go, sell (dispossess), give (distribute), and follow me, . . . Jesus reads the Torah as a demand for justice. . . . The Torah is about the distributive [Jubilee] justice of God, who gave the land as a gift to be received and shared, not hoarded at the expense of ruining others.
I just learned that there is a second edition of Shalom.
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