I would like to share this paper that I wrote about social justice. It is my personal thoughts about the role of Christians in social justice, or holistic ministry. The Haugen that I refer to is the founder/CEO of International Justice Mission. I have recently changed my viewpoint on this issue slightly, so I invite you to read this.
Holistic Ministry
There is a role for the Christian in social justice. This is an issue that I have been struggling with all semester long. Toward the beginning of the semester I began ready a book called Revolution in World Missions. Before reading this book, I was unaware of the dangers of holistic ministry. This danger, which Guthrie points out, is that of losing our focus of evangelism. Feeding the hungry, rescuing the slave from oppression, and caring for the sick are all very Biblical activities commanded of Christians. The danger comes when they become the end, the focus, the purpose of ministry.
We are to be a light to the nations. As Haugen pointed out, actively seeking social justice is part of the “good deeds” in Matt 5:16. However, the end goal in that verse is so that they may “glorify your Father in heaven.” Evangelism and conversion are the goal of missions above all other goals. Clearly, this does not mean that we put social justice on the back burner and give it less priority. The scriptures are very clear, as Haugen argued, that seeking social justice is very important to God. Not only so, but we are his primary means of doing this. Psalm 35:10 says, “My whole being will exclaim, “Who is like you, LORD? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.” Furthermore, Isaiah 1:17 commands our involvement in this process, “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”
Missions should work toward the freeing of people from spiritual and physical bondage or oppression. It should work towards feeding people spiritually and physically. In doing this, the spiritual needs should always come first. As we see in Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus teaches the people before he feeds them. In fact, it was the disciples that seemed initially concerned about the people’s physical need to be fed. The disciples were not wrong in being concerned about this, and Jesus did not neglect to take care of this need. Nonetheless, we see that Jesus’ priority was on the spiritual nourishment rather than the physical. I know of many “ministries” that spend the overwhelming majority of their time, effort, and resources on caring for people’s physical needs, while hardly evangelizing. If this happens, we are wasting our time.
Often, the argument against such strong evangelizing action is concerned about resistance. People suggest that if we introduce a clinic or hospital into an area that is anti-Christian, we can slowly build their trust, and ever so slowly begin to evangelize. I see this as a lack of faith. Where in the Bible did Paul ever so slowly evangelize? His sense of urgency was strong and he outright preached to people who were stoning him. If our focus is evangelism and winning souls for the Lord, we are trusting that God will prepare the way, rather than a hospital preparing the way. Maybe God will use a Christian hospital to prepare the way, but our trust needs to be on God rather than on the hospital.
There are definitely circumstances that demand immediate action and an effort to improve the physical before the spiritual. We must rescue the girl from the brothel before making an effort to minister to her spiritually. We must free the captured slave before we can proclaim the good news of spiritual salvation to them. IJM’s ministry is fantastic; I am entirely behind all that they do. Nevertheless, is physical emancipation required for spiritual freedom? Most definitely not, as exemplified in Haugen’s story of the child prostitute who inscribed verses on the brothel wall. What a testament to faith during trials this is. It is important that Christians seek out social justice in the world with the end goal being “that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
