U.S. Economy at 'Crossroads'

The United States is at a crucial, political, economic, and spiritual crossroads as lawmakers decide on the level of financial resources they want to allocate to fund programs and outreach efforts to help the needy, said Rev. Ron Sider at LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., on April 16.

As the U.S. Congress begins debate on the 2012 budget, lines seem to have been drawn, pitting lawmakers who favor continuing certain social programs against those who argue that the U.S. can no longer afford to pay for the programs, given the country’s massive, multi-trillion-dollar deficit.

Sider says for Christians the choice should be clear.

"Jesus is knocking on the door of this country and asking us to share his concern with the poor," said Sider, who many people consider a prime mover over the years in promoting social justice issues in the evangelical church. "We stand at a critical point. Will we focus on the poor or ignore them?"

The "Love Fearlessly, Do Justice Conference" conference was sponsored by the Association for a More Just Society, which works primarily on social justice issues in Honduras, and the Micah Center, a Grand Rapids-based group that provides a forum for education and discussion for advocacy regarding a range of social issues.

Before Sider spoke, Rev. Michael Hoogeboom, a minister at LaGrave, said Sider and others at the conference would help people sort through the many economic and social justice issues facing Christians today.

"There are a lot of controversial issues. It is messy… But we should create a place where we can have effective dialogue about poverty in the United States and around the world," said Hoogeboom.

Sider, founder of the group Evangelicals for Social Action, gave the keynote address at the conference that ran from the morning into the late afternoon on Saturday at the church in downtown Grand Rapids.

At the start of his talk, he said that not everyone by any means agrees with him that the church should be involved in issues such as paying workers a fair wage, health care reform, immigration reform, or political policies that cut food and other types of aid from the poor. There are critics who strongly oppose his economic analysis and his ideas about how much of a role government should play in addressing social issues, he said.

The conference included workshops on such topics as "Inequality of School Funding in Michigan"; "Justice in the Middle East"; "Rebuilding the Walls of Community"; and "Fearless Love: Confronting Urban Violence."

Sider gave a workshop titled "A Call for Intergenerational Justice: A Christian Proposal for the American Debt Crisis."

In his morning keynote address, as the sun shown weakly through the stained-glass windows at LaGrave, Sider said he does not oppose the free-market system that is being used by more and more countries around the world.

"I am not, as some people contend, a Marxist," he said. "I believe it is a good thing to create wealth. God doesn't care more for the poor than he does the rich. But I also believe that God is furious at the rich for not sharing their wealth and getting rich by oppressing the poor."

Jordan Ballor, a fellow at the Acton Center, a Christian think tank in Grand Rapids, has, for instance, criticized Sider's argument that the government has the responsibility to retain social programs. Ballor said Sider's suggested approach to dealing with the economy and the deficit consists mostly of "leaps in logic largely based on unstated assumptions about the role that government should have" in providing social assistance.

Rev. Robert Sirico, director of the Acton Institute, has written that he supports the thrust of Sider's ideas for the need for the church to help the poor raise themselves out of poverty. But he also has some concerns.

"Many of Sider's specific policy proposals are objectionable, as is his overarching reliance on government solutions and funding, but in light of the pressing needs of the poor, and in light of the unprecedented wealth of Americans, his hopeful conclusion is a welcome, and needed, vision: 'Generous Christians and other people of goodwill can transform our country. We can end the scandal of widespread poverty in the richest nation in history,'" Sirico writes.

Sider's book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger was lauded by Christianity Today as being among the top 100 books in religion in the 20th century and the seventh most influential book in the evangelical world in the last 50 years. He has published 30 books in addition to Rich Christians. He teaches at Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pa.

An ordained minister in the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Churches, Sider has lectured at numerous educational institutions, including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford.

In his keynote, Sider argued that verse after verse in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, call on God’s people to serve the needs of the poor, the disabled, the disenfranchised. He quotes verses such as these:

• Ezekiel 16:49-50: "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it."
• Matthew 5:3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
• Isaiah 1:17: "Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause."
• Psalm 82:3: "Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the rights of the afflicted and the destitute."

One of the main ways of knowing God, said Sider, "is by empowering the poor…" As a result, he added, "God does not look kindly on legislators who write laws to oppress the poor and bureaucrats who carry them out."

The material world is good, he said. "God asks us to take the world and create art and wealth and civilization. We can't flourish, however, if we overvalue the material world."

Sider said some people think all poverty is the result of personal decisions, and in part that is true. But there are other reasons as well, ranging from natural disasters to economic policies to the worldview that people hold.

"We live in a world that embraces the market economy," he said. "I believe the ideas behind that economy are close to biblical principles. But, at the same, the market economy moves forward without regard between the poor and billionaires."