Over the last couple of days Father Orthoduck and I have been discussing short-term missions, theology, and social justice. Let me now return to short-term missions with a quote from the article by Tony Campolo that was cited earlier. In this quote, Tony Campolo provides the link between Glenn Beck’s disdain for government and private donations to organizations that serve the poor. And, if his view were to be adopted, it would severely and negatively impact both missions financing and charitable donations.
Altruistic Americans have done to the Haitians what an out-of-control welfare system has done to so many poor people here in the United States. It has made them into people who are socially and psychologically dependent on others to solve their problems and who have lost confidence in their own capabilities.
Catch what Tony Campolo is arguing. This is a very important step because it provides the justification for American Christians to ignore the widow, the orphan, and the poor. In the article he is arguing both cogently, but only partially correctly, that short-term missions organizations squander money that could be better spent if it were donated directly. In the previous post, I have already provided a defense of short-term missions in which I agreed that he was theoretically correct, but only in a perfect world. In an imperfect world and in imperfect Christianity, correctly run short-term missions are a good thing.
But, then, Pastor Campolo goes on to the argument above. Look at the linkage that he makes between USA government programs and “altruistic Americans.” In defense of Pastor Campolo, he is arguing against paternalism, an evil which does need to be guarded against by any missions organization. But, he is arguing against paternalism by building a linkage that is inappropriate, and that I also believe to be historically untrue. But, he makes an even stronger charge:
. . . Yet Haiti has continued in a downward spiral into greater and greater poverty and social disorganization, not in spite of all these “good works,” but in great part because of them.
The situation in Haiti is a sad situation. It is compounded by a long series of corrupt leaders and an inherent classism in which “light-skinned” rich Haitians lord it over the “dark-skinned” poor Haitians. Yet Pastor Campolo says that the social works funded by Christians–read the article–are in “great part” responsible for Haiti’s disorganized and poverty-stricken situation. So, not only are Haitians dependent, but they are only partially responsible for their situation. We Christians bear the “greater part” of the guilt because of our “paternalism.” This is an echo of the classic Marxist charge that religion is the opiate of the people. It is also an even stronger echo of a much older charge from the time of the Roman Empire, when a poet named Juvenal wrote, “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.”
As with the charge against short-term missions, Pastor Campolo is addressing what he sees as a problem. His solution is to give only through organizations of a certain type, but it is a solution that is as idealistic and mistaken as his “solution” to cut-off short-term missions. But, there is a much greater danger in what Pastor Campolo says. The Religious Right has already made an ungodly fetish of prohibiting the government from engaging in any social work. (I only wish that the Religious Right would follow through and legally give up their Social Security and Medicare benefits, for which they are not paying in full but receiving as public welfare. That way both of those programs would achieve financial stability and the Religious Right could self-fund their retirement and medical benefits through the churches, like they claim should be happening.) Could you imagine if this idea from the Religious Left took hold among the Religious Right? Why, having come up with a justification of why they should oppose government “socialism,” they would now have a justification why the churches themselves should not give too much to the poor! After all, it would just be promoting a church form of paternalism that would be preventing the poor from being all they can be.
And, so, Pastor Campolo’s rhetorical linkage by the Religious Left to a Religious Right fetish gives the complete excuse as to why Christians and churches should not donate too much to the poor, except in tragic situations or for special issues such as orphanages, lest they inadvertently damage the poor by being too generous. In passing, even schools are mentioned by Pastor Campolo, so they may be out as well. Think how long this is away from the many many writings in Church history that speak of giving to the poor with open hands. This is why the word heresy is included in my title. Put the ideas of Glenn Beck on churches that speak of social justice together with Tony Campolo’s fear of paternalism, and you have the makings of a perfect storm that could undo many Christian social works, both in this country and in others.
“This is why the word heresy is included in my title. Put the ideas of Glenn Beck on churches that speak of social justice together with Tony Campolo’s fear of paternalism, and you have the makings of a perfect storm that could undo many Christian social works, both in this country and in others.”
Do you think Tony Campolo meant to be tied to a rant by Glenn Beck? Sounds like a classic case of bad timing.
Odd, is it not, that if two people go far enough out in opposite directions that they can actually end up saying some similar things?
Father, I really don’t see how. Social Justice is NOT the same as the corporal works of mercy, or caring for the poor, prisoners, widows and orphans. The issue seems to be trying to re-brand Christian charity and works of mercy with the phrase ‘social justice’, which is more political in usage and has contexts not entirely compatible with charity and mercy. These include concepts of vengeance ( revenge on classes of people considered ‘evil’ by whomever is preaching social justice), coercion (taking for redistribution, rather than giving from charity), and leveling. The idea of ‘social justice’, is recent, and has a little bit of similarity to Christian ideas – but in itself, it is not a Christian idea, but a secular replacement for the Christian idea. Pushing the term ‘social justice’ then, seems an attempt to redefine Christianity exclusively for the Left (which was the greatest persecutor of the Church in the past century.) Is that really the goal of those who demand the use of the term ‘social justice’ to describe the norm of Christian charity and good works? To disenfranchise all Christians who are not part of the Leftist elite?
You are correct in much of the re-branding attempts by secularists. But, remember what I said. The term is found in Church letters dating back to the 19th century. And, it is one of Satan’s best and most often used tactics to take a perfectly legitimate phrase and try to twist it to mean something else. The Church then has two choices. One is to stop using the term. The other is to keep explaining the term and its correct usage.
I tend to want to keep explaining the term in its correct usage. But, you are fully correct that Liberation Theology took over the term in the 1960’s through the 1990’s and defined it in terrible and evil ways. And, you might be correct that I need to quit using it because there is no saving the term. I definitely do not mean what you pointed out in your explanation. So, I am open to using different terminology on this issue.
Father,
As an Orthodox Christian, and a Distributist, it behooves to point out that there are two origins for the term ‘social justice’.
The first is with Luigi Taparelli, a Jesuit, who coined the term as part of his work at reviving Thomism. It is said this formed the basis of the document Rerum Novarum, which is the foundation for (the Roman Catholic) Distributists. (It was not, and is not for Orthodox who hold to the same ideas – or even Anglicans like Dorothy Sayers. You’ll have to show me where ‘social justice’ shows up in Church writings – assuming we are meaning the Orthodox Church?) That ‘social justice’ is not just in opposition to what is (erroneously) termed ‘capitalism’, but at also to the Left (socialism, communism, progressivism) – more so in opposition to the Left even. Saying the term was part of ‘church letters’ must be seen in this context: 19th c. Thomism, Jesuitism, and opposition to the Left.
The other parallel origin is indeed with Karl Marx and F. Engels. That term ‘social justice’ is not stolen, but is precisely what was adopted as Liberation Theology from the secular Left. This term is what is understood as ‘social justice’ in present society (the Catholic use of the term faded with Fr. Coughlin, as his own discovery that the ‘social justice’ of the New Deal was really the Marxist kind, and not the Catholic kind – and the development of his own virulent anti-semitism pretty much ended the common use of the Jesuit-origin term.) Social Justice, then, is nothing like the Jesuit ‘social justice’ which included ideas like subsidiarity (which is more of a Tea Party idea now.) Social Justice, in fact, is a form of Retributive Justice (‘an eye for an eye’, ‘eat the rich’.)
So – I don’t get the howling and condemnation of Glen(n?) Beck . He is obviously speaking about the accepted (and the popular) definition of the term, which is absolutely connected with Socialism (as GK Chesteron, a Catholic Distributist who believed in Jesuit ‘social justice’ said – Socialism is just an Anglo-Saxon atheist term coined to distance themselves from the term ‘Communism’, which is altogether too close to the English Christian word ‘communion’.) The Left has not derived its ‘social justice’ from the Distributists, but from the Marxists. The mainstream liberal denominations (and Boomer ‘Liberation Theology’ Catholics) did not adopt the term and idea from the Distributists either – but from the Marxists.
Beck isn’t condemning Patristic Christianity. Neither is he condemning 19th c. Counter-Reformation Thomist Catholicism (which probably only exists with Trad Catholics anymore) , or even Distributism (except when he connects the Tea Party to domestic terrorism – as some of us are Distributists. Noting – he probably isn’t even aware of Distributism.) He is on target with pinning it on the Leftist Marxists (whether Internationalist ‘Communists’ or Nationalist ‘Nazis’.) Where he is mistaken is in trying to defend ‘Capitalism’: as GKC said, Capitalism as practiced has too few Capitalists.)
I’ve been Beck’s target as well – I just don’t see the need to constantly condemn him across the internet (and hopefully not from the pulpit.) He is just a puppet, after all, on a channel that I’m not a consumer of. Major network opinion-journalism entertainers like Beck, Olbermann, and the rest don’t even speak for themselves: their ideas are guided, produced and paid for by people like Rupert Murdoch (Labour party) and George Soros (Democrat).
Ari