For at least 15 years and probably longer, I have been trying to reconcile the loving heart a Christian faith calls us to have with the violent treatment of God’s world by our civilization and with the complicity or unconcern of many Christians. I have become convinced that the Christianity we often see and experience is neither a whole Christian faith nor the whole Christian life God desires.
And I can’t be quiet about that any more. I can’t accept that any more. So I begin this blog.
So what does a whole Christian faith look like?
The movie Amazing Grace, which dramatizes William Wilberforce’s work to abolish the slave trade in England, begins with an incident based on a true event in Wilberforce’s life. In the opening scene, Wilberforce and a friend are traveling in a carriage in a driving rain. Wilberforce is exhausted and sick from years of efforts in British Parliament that had been fruitless to that point. They hear terrible sounds outside. A horse is being whipped mercilessly by two men. The horse struggles¸ suffers. The men whip harder. Despite his friend’s entreaties and despite his ill health, Wilberforce gets out of the carriage and stops the abuse.
Would you and I?
We should.
William Wilberforce
Like Wilberforce, we should feel compelled by our Christian faith to open the doors of our carriages and do our part to stop that violence and move our world towards the Biblical vision of the peaceful kingdom. Like Wilberforce, our whole Christian faith and life should include compassion and mercy for the whole world and an active commitment to stop cruelty and violence to the whole world.
My hope, desire, and prayer are that more Christians will come to a whole faith that includes a concern for the world around us. My hope, desire, and prayer are that this concern and compassion will translate into ways of living that bring life and goodness to the world rather than violence and diminishment.
And as I write this first blog, I could think of no better way to highlight some of the themes that you’ll see in posts to come than to meditate on the lessons we can learn from Wilberforce’s life:
Christian faith changes everything: His conversion in 1785 and the counsel of a Christian friend led him to devote his life to loving his neighbor by wrestling with his country’s practices towards African men and women from 1787 to 1825. It was a thankless, draining quest that exposed him to derision. He ultimately died before the fruits of his labors were completed in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, but his role in passing the Foreign Slave Trade Act of 1807 (which outlawed the involvement of British ships in transporting slaves) laid the groundwork for abolition. Wilberforce gave his life to God, and his heart was transformed. He received a calling. Although he was not perfect by any means, he answered that calling with all of his life out of love for God and his fellow man.
One’s heart is either full of compassion or it isn’t: Interestingly enough, Wilberforce also helped found the first anti-cruelty society in Western civilization and spoke in support of anticruelty legislation that passed in 1822 after two decades of struggle. Wilberforce couldn’t ignore cruelty and violence to African slaves while ignoring cruelty and violence towards animals.
Narrow Bible readings vs. hearts open to God’s Spirit and Kingdom: You would be hard pressed to find a verse in the Bible that specifically calls upon believers to jettison the institution of slavery. There are slaves throughout the Bible. Neither Jesus nor Paul or anyone else in the Bible directly challenges that institution. Yet, there is no question in my mind that the evolving moral awareness of the world, driven by God’s Spirit, made it a godly thing to eliminate slavery. Thankfully, many Christians became convinced of that.
However, there have been churches and Christians that have justified slavery and many other hideous things their country or civilization have done by selectively using Bible verses to reinforce their self-serving preferences rather than being open to the guiding, challenging Spirit of our loving God. Too often churches and Christians have fallen into the same stance toward the non-human world. They use a narrow theology and a narrow reading of Bible verses to justify a dominion that is antithetical to the loving, humble, patient, and self-controlled character the Spirit of God offers and is ready to fill us with. And if they don’t explicitly justify cruelty and violence, churches and Christians will suggest the question of how we treat God’s world is a minor one. Or they will assert that caring for God’s world is a dangerous path that could lead to paganism or worse.
Overlooked threads in the Bible: The whipping of the horse in the movie brings to mind the complex story of Balaam’s ass in the Hebrew Testament book of Numbers. This story tells of the pagan prophet Balaam who beats his donkey three times when the donkey disregards Balaam’s directions on where to go in order to save him from an angel sent to kill Balaam (it is a complicated story). In Numbers 22:28, the Bible says God opened the donkey’s mouth, and the donkey speaks, asking Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” Curiously, it is the donkey that can see the angel at first and not Balaam. Have you heard of that story? I hadn’t until I began reading the Bible closely. And what I’ve found is a profound presence of God’s Creation in the Bible. It’s a seam that runs through it that the dominant theologies we hear from pulpits largely ignore. The thread is sometimes ambiguous, but on the whole the Bible leaves no doubt that all of nature is part of God’s redeeming purpose.
Justice is more than just individual choices: Wilberforce’s conversion didn’t lead him to be convicted that he personally needed to be nicer to the African slaves he met and that would be enough. His conversion led him to address a systematic, abusive, violent, hateful institution that was completely incompatible with God’s love in a systematic way with countrywide implications. It’s time Christians acted in the world at a wide enough scope to change the institutions of the world that are abusive and violent towards nature.
Community is needed: Wilberforce worked together with other people to abolish slavery and had close friends who he turned to for support and encouragement. He also formed the anti-cruelty society in partnership with others. I have often felt alone in having the convictions I am trying to articulate in this blog within the Christian world. I hope this blog will be a way for you and I to learn of other Christians and churches that are already living out a whole faith. I hope, too, that this blog can connect Christians who share these convictions with each other.
For too long, we have not had a whole faith. We have had a faith that has so emphasized salvation as a blessed escape from this world that we’ve forgotten that God loves this world. We’ve not seen that the incarnation of Jesus into human form is a powerful theological statement of the sacredness and value of this world. We’ve been blissfully unaware or unconcerned about how this world is treated. And we’ve been deeply suspicious of anyone who does show concern or asks us to be humble and compassionate towards the living things we share this world with.
This needs to change.
In many ways, humanity’s dominion of the world is more perverse and counter to God’s desire for a peaceable kingdom than ever before. Yet, at the very same time, the seeds and stirrings are there in the world today for a transformation as revolutionary as the abolition of slavery. This transformation has the potential to change humanity’s dominion of the world from being defined by selfishness and greed to one of generosity, selflessness, creativity, and love.
In short, it has the potential to move closer the world closer to what God showed humanity it could be and should be in Jesus. Our Christian faith should naturally inspire us to be part of this transformation. In fact, if we are truly to be the salt of the earth, Christians should be proactive leaders in this transformation and play the same kind of role Wilberforce did in the movement to abolish slavery.
I hope you’ll join me in exploring what that looks like. I hope you’ll join other Christians who are working to preserve this world for people and for the other living things with which we share this world.
I hope you’ll seek a whole faith.
