Church welfare takes the well-paved road

Paul used the word “apocalypse” to indicate the world-shattering nature of the Gospel. It was not just good advice or social insight, but the germ that brought down all our attempts to forge our own life. It was a summons to obedience and the entry into a slavery in which we could be truly free.

Israel’s apostasy traced out in the pages of the Old Testament, and the rejection, framing and murder of Jesus in the New Testament spell out our natural inclinations to us. This has been writ large in the last century with the rise and fall of National Socialism and Soviet Communism, both defined by their insistence that the future lay in our own hands.

In the face of this disastrous insistence, the Church must be faithful and insist the future is not in our own hands, but in God’s. This affirmation does not have to lead to disconnection from the world and a concentration on individual spirituality (surely a dead end), but to a fundamental orientation to the “One who comes”, without whom we are stupid in the world.

Surely we are to act decisively in the world, but can only do so effectively in obedience to the truth that is revealed in the Word made flesh. That is, as John says, when He is in us and we in Him. The grain of the universe is revealed in the person of Jesus. To go into the world without being transformed by that knowledge is foolishness.

It is also to risk foolishness of a different sort in that we know there are some things we would die for - that we would risk all by hiding the Jew in the attic and standing up against the dictator.

Charity can never be general; only particular. We find ourselves in a situation in which we can only act in a particular way even if it brings danger to ourselves and our families. It can never be a general commitment to the poor but an act born of necessity eliciting a response in us that we do not have to think about.

When we launch ourselves in a general way to help humanity, we will walk the same tired path to a utopia that turns to ashes in our mouths. We will begin to resent those we seek to help, and it is possible they will be worse off than before we started.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5 NRSV) We live in a society that has learnt and continues to learn this the hard way. We have discovered helping the poor is difficult, and indeed much of our help is not help at all but the nurturing of dependence.

The mistake those involved in welfare often make is to think they know what is the good. This is nowhere more obvious than the West’s failure to alleviate impoverished Africa.

Of course the church must take the side of the small people who are done down by the powerful, but again this cannot be done by general promptings to make a difference or to be an agent of change. It can be engaged only by those who have welcomed obedience to the Word.

Without the wisdom of the Word we do not know what spirit engenders our humanist promptings. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Without the Word we are stupid in the world, and our stupidity will hurt those we seek to help.

Any hope we try to generate for ourselves or others is illusory compared with the hope that comes from Him. Is this not the engine that drives those who strive for the general good of humanity? Is it not hope that is in short supply, and that our striving hopes to provide?

This is practical atheism. We do not, in the end, believe in the power of God to bring about the kingdom of justice and peace. We may say we work in His name, but I fear we march on without Him.