America was born in ethnocentrism and oppression and these social evils are still widespread in 2017. The church is doing little to end these damaging social evils; our thundering silence gives consent.
In every Sunday School class in America, children are taught to love your neighbor and the story of the Good Samaritan; but this stories don't seem to stick. When these children become adults, they discriminate against blacks---200 plus years of slavery and 100 years of segregation---; this is a colossal failure to love your neighbor. They also committed Indian genocide, stole nearly half of Mexico's land, killed a million Filipinos; colossal failures to love our neighbors.
According to Luke, when Jesus began his public ministry he highlighted two serious social evils---economic oppression and religious ethnocentrism. In 4:25-30, Jesus interpreted two familiar Old Testament stories: Elijah ministering to a starving Gentile widow and Elisha healing a Gentile leper. The Nazareth Jews were so enraged about this ministry to Gentiles that they tried to kill Jesus on the spot. Religious ethnocentrism trumped love your Gentile neighbor.
In chapter nine, Jesus and his disciples were walking through Samaria on their way to Jerusalem. They needed a place to sleep, but a Samaritan village refused to let them stay overnight. Peter and John, two of Jesus' closest disciples, were incensed; they asked permission to call fire down from heaven to destroy this impertinent village. But Jesus rebuked his own disciples for their evil intentions; he did not rebuke the Samaritan village.
Shortly after this negative incident, Jesus told the famous story now called the story of the Good Samaritan. Do you think Peter and John got the point? The American church still hasn't got the point.
Do we all enjoying being superior, playing God? I recall that in the third grade classroom experiment on discrimination---blue eyes, brown eyes---the superior children caught on within 20 minutes to the benefits of superiority. Why do we so often choose the privileges of superiority over the responsibilities of love?
The other social evil---economic oppression---seems to be equally persistent and pervasive. It seems to me that nine out of ten American Christians choose the benefits of oppression over the biblical principles of love and justice.
According to Luke 4:18-19, the assignment of the Spirit-filled church is this: release the oppressed by doing Jubilee justice. At times, the American church does pretty well at temporarily relieving the pain of oppression by doing charity. A good first step, but also a deceptive one if the church thinks its task is done. But the command is release, not just relieve. Release means to end oppression, not just put a band aid on.
The American church has a shallow theology of oppression, justice and the present and social dimensions of the kingdom of God. Most of the abolitionists failed to connect freedom with justice.
The book of James has the best description of oppression in the NT, but James 5:1-6 is ignored. 5:1-6 is a powerful word to the "arrogant rich" who in "piling up wealth" have "piled up judgment. How have they done so? "All the workers you've exploited and cheated cry out for judgment." Also "the groans of the workers you used and abused."
James 1:27 declares the pure religion ministers to the oppressed poor, i.e., orphans and widows. But the churches were doing the exact opposite! They were honoring the rich IN CHURCH and they were segregating the poor and the rich IN CHURCH.
Later in James 2, James tells the godless church it should combine love and justice, faith and works. So again the question for the American church is: Why do Christians so often choose religious ethnocentrism over love and justice? Why do we choose economic oppression over love and justice?
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