Aside from assisting in ministries throughout the area, we participants are given books to read and discuss, for spiritual growth. This post will be about one of the books I’ve read.
Our first assigned reading was titled “Darkest England.” As the title suggests, it’s a very saddening book about the general spiritual state of Britain. I inferred two general themes within the book: there’s no hope within the people, and we as Christians are to reach out exclusively to the poor. With regards to the former, I don’t disagree, but that’s not all there is to it. The author tells stories of living in very impoverished areas in Manchester and interacting with unemployed people, drug addicts, drunks, etc. Are there some unemployed people? Sure. Drug addicts? Yup. Drunks? Yes. However, I don’t think that puts Britain ahead (or in a certain sense, behind) all other countries with regards to decadence. In my home city of Philadelphia, there are many who are unemployed, many drug addicts, and many drunks. I’ve spent some time in Philadelphia “doing ministry,” and I’m not about to tell you that England is worse off in that regard. Ergo, Manchester is in poor state, but not, in my opinion, totally worse off than any other city.
With regards to the second impression I got, I have a lot of objections about reaching out exclusively to the poor. This is a long conversation to have, but here are my main arguments: What does it mean to be poor? Does the bible mean financially poor? Yes, absolutely, and you don’t need to read the gospels for long to see with whom Jesus spent his time. But I don’t think rich people don’t need the gospel (although many of them feel they are fine without it). I would argue that rich people might have money, but many of them are quite poor in spirit. Celebrities are some of the richest people, and you need only read a few pages of the tabloids to see that they are poor in spirit. To put it succinctly, I don’t believe the gospel is restricted to the lowest socio-economic class, nor was it designed for them. The gospel is for the lowest of the low to the highest of the high. That brings up my second argument to this theory. What about those in the upper echelon of society? For instance, there was a philosopher (a Brit, actually) named John Stuart Mill. One thing he said was “poverty is inevitable, so any money and efforts spent to combat it are futile.” Now, my question is, what if J.S. Mill had been a Christian? What if people took the gospel to not only the financially oppressed, but philosophically distraught? He might not have felt those things, and perhaps, those philosophies may not have trickled down into society, as they have. Thus, we need be concerned with bringing the Gospel to the poor, but also to the rich—in every sense of the words. From the very lips of our LORD, we hear “come to me allwho are weary…”
