So far, we have looked at Christian responses to politics from a "right-wing" perspective (conservative). Before moving to the left (liberal), I think it is important to remind ourselves of what it is we are trying to accomplish. In our study of political ideologies and philosophies, we hope to be able to gain a broader grasp of historic and contemporary responses to government from a Christian perspective. After discussing strengths and weaknesses, we then hope to develop a political/biblical framework for actively engaging our current political reality.
It seems that the majority of "evangelical" Christians are more present on the right than they are on the left. As we continue to investigate different perspectives, I think that the following interview with Byron Borger will help us to understand that a uniquely Christian perspective may not necessarily fall in either right or left branches of politics.
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The Ivy Jungle Report (IJR)
Good News and Good Works: An Interview with Byron Borger on Evangelicals and Social Action
Byron Borger is an associate staff member for the Coalition for Christian Outreach — an evangelical campus ministry based in and around Pittsburgh, PA. He is also the owner of Hearts & Minds Books (and in that capacity he has run the book table at recent Ivy Jungle Conferences). His passion to combine a proclamation of the empty tomb with a call to social justice has led him in a variety of directions, including lobbying Congressmen, helping to start two crisis pregnancy centers, working with refugees and crusading for racial reconciliation. It has also allowed him to build bridges between groups that often have little to do with each other.
The IJR: Why are so you passionate about combining evangelism and social action?
Borger: Because God is. And because most of us are not living out our entire calling as Christians. Those on the theological left champion the concerns of the poor and crusade for just policies, but they often fail to tell people about Jesus or their need for a saving relationship with him. Those on the right major on evangelism, but often to the exclusion of focusing on the poor and oppressed. Few get the whole message out in the way I believe we are called to.
The IJR: From where I sit — in what most would call an evangelical camp — I see a growing interest in social issues. To be fair, wouldn’t you say that evangelicals are moving in a positive direction?
Borger: Sure. I went to college in the early 1970s and at that time an evangelical who argued for social action was viewed with great suspicion by other evangelicals. The belief was that any attention directed at the poor was attention directed away from evangelism and that social action led down a slippery slope to a social Gospel that left Christ out. In fact, as a freshman I made an announcement at our college fellowship promoting a C.R.O.P. walk — which was being sponsored by Church World Service in order to raise money for hunger relief. I naïvely assumed that everyone would be excited about the chance to help the poor, but instead one of my fellow students told me that my social concern was demonic. She argued that I was leading people away from their true calling, which was evangelism.
Thankfully, those days are over. However, those fears still exist and for the most part, social action is seen as a secondary factor.
The IJR: Perhaps I am guilty of the very sin you are suggesting, but while I am very much in favor of a "both-and" approach to evangelism and social action, I do believe that there is a certain logical priority for the former. And I believe that this is a line of thinking supported by the Lausanne Covenant (1974). Evangelism comes first, both because social responsibility assumes socially responsible Christians — which can only come about via evangelism — and also because evangelism relates to people’s eternal destiny. In one sense, many people can feed the poor, but only the Christian can share the good news. Do you agree with me on this?
Borger: Yes and no. I certainly agree that we are to be about evangelism with zeal, and that there may be a strategic priority for it. But I am actually uncomfortable developing it that way. In fact, I’m not in favor of singling out evangelism and social action as over against everything else, because that would continue to perpetuate a truncated view of the Gospel and the Kingdom. We need to teach students that Jesus is Lord over all aspects of our lives and every sphere of culture. That it all matters.
The early church made a tragic mistake when it adopted the sacred / secular dichotomy of the Greeks. That line of thinking — the higher versus lower, clergy versus laity, spiritual versus physical — is from Plato, not Jesus. And the only difference in the way it got worked out was that, instead of philosophers teaching this division, it was the monks. Consequently, we ended up hearing that prayer is good but work is bad. Giving to the church is good but devoting your life to politics is bad. Sex was seen as bad, and women, generally, were also seen as bad. It took Brother Lawrence to come by in the Middle Ages and say, "I am going to practice the presence of God in all that I do — whether washing the dishes or going to the market" — to get us back on track.
We need to take students to that great passage in the end of Zechariah (14:20) that says, "On that day Holy to the Lord will be inscribed on the bells of horses, and the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like sacred bowls in front of the altar," and teach them that everything — even our car horns — are holy. That writing their congressperson to protest unjust legislation is a holy act. It isn’t just evangelism and social action, but we need to present an entire cultural agenda — from science to the arts — and help students place concern for the poor in the broader context of a whole-life kingdom vision.
The IJR: And you do not feel that the evangelical church is moving in that direction?
Borger: I think some are, and I’m thankful for that. But I dare say that we are a long way from where we should be. In most campus ministries, a student leader who is sleeping around will be confronted with that sin pretty quickly. And the same holds for a student who doesn’t believe in prayer or who isn’t regularly having a quiet time. But I doubt that we spend nearly the same amount of time confronting our students who are not concerned about the poor, who do not weep over the evening news. Our praise and worship music certainly doesn’t approach these themes as much as the Bible does!
The IJR: Fair enough. And it is my sense that many students are unaware of just how instrumental the church has been in changing society. Good government, good banking, education, health care, sewer systems and the like have been pushed ahead by evangelical Christians.
Borger: And ending slavery and promoting child labor laws and on and on we can go. In fact, whether you are a Wesleyan or a Calvinist, you find that your namesakes crusaded for social justice and cultural reformation in addition to a personal relationship to Christ. The last letter John Wesley wrote before his death was to William Wilberforce, the great English evangelical who spent his life trying to eradicate slavery. And John Calvin has been called a "constructive revolutionary." He wrote The Institutes but dedicated it to the King because he knew it had political implications. And while he was writing this great work of theology, he was also designing an urban sewer system for the city of Geneva. Why? Because public health is an important matter to God. We should have clean water.
The IJR: When you unfold this broad vision, how do students respond?
Borger: I’ve had students say, "Wow, this is too much. It’s like everything matters." To which I respond, "You’re right. It does." But many more are invigorated by it. It resonates with God’s Spirit in the hearts. It puts legs on the well-known sense of the cost of discipleship. Still, it only lasts if it is rooted in an overall respect for the authority of Scripture and not seen as tangential or optional. I’m convinced that most collegiate Christians want a more profound and costly faith. They want to relate their faith to life’s burning issues.
The IJR: I’ve heard you call campus pastors to unpack God’s heart for the poor from Genesis to Revelation. Are there a few themes that you are looking to develop in that overview?
Borger: Yes, there are three. First, that a concern for the poor is not a specialized ministry reserved for a few. Yes, some may be called to this in ways that others are not — and, as campus pastors we need to be looking for the next William Wilberforce or Martin Luther King so we can encourage and nurture them. But just as we are all called to share our faith, whether this is our spiritual gift or not, we are all called to social action as well.
Second, we must teach the relationship between obedient concern for the poor and authentic spirituality. It’s not just that the poor have a special place in God’s heart, it is that he judges our own knowledge of Him based on our concern for the oppressed. We need to take them to Isaiah 58 and explain that the reason that the prayers of the Jews were not being answered was because they were oppressing their workers. Students need to know that God commands us to invite the poor into our home and to share with the needy. We should meditate long and hard on Jeremiah 22:16.
Finally, I believe we need to teach the concept of the "both / and" as it relates to social action and evangelism. There may be times when you have to choose between sharing the Gospel and social action, but usually each feeds the other. A social witness, like a Habitat for Humanity project, can be an avenue for attracting non-Christian students with whom we can share over a bag of nails. Public, political events just beg for us to explain our motivation and foundation. Involvement in social witness isn’t a distraction from evangelism, but enhances it and validates it. I believe that, whenever possible, we must keep personal evangelism, personal deeds of charity and public policy together.
The IJR: What exactly do you mean when you talk about charity and public policy?
Borger: To become advocates in public policy is one of the best ways to serve the poor. It is to push for justice at the macro-level as opposed to focusing only on individual charity. I think we need to encourage students to write letters to their congressman in support of the passage of bills that will aid the poor. We need to publicly proclaim Isaiah 10:1 and Psalm 72. We need to honor God’s desire for just social order and help our students reform social systems and enact biblically-informed policies, legislation and structures. And, furthermore, I think that all of this — including writing letters to congressmen — is a spiritual act. Now, many may not think so. And many within the church will argue that it is wrong headed. But I would ask the same question as the Arch Bishop of the Catholic Church in Brazil. He said, "Why is it that when I feed the poor they called me a saint? But when I asked why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist?"
The IJR: How do students benefit from getting more involved in social action?
Borger: Well, in addition to the obvious benefits that come from being obedient to God’s teaching — a deeper knowledge of Him, a richer prayer life, etc. — I can think of at least a half dozen.
Your heart is broken so you cry more. And that is not only healthy but it helps you relate to all of the great biblical characters who wept — Jesus and Jeremiah, to name just two.
You develop all sorts of ecumenical relationships. Now, some of your readers may not want to go there, but I’ve developed some great relationships across the spectrum: with Catholic Sisters who run soup kitchens, with Protestant fundamentalists who run rescue missions and with mainline Lutherans who run political campaigns to end hunger. These are people you might not otherwise meet, and it can be very helpful to see how they work out their faith.
You end up being persecuted, which is always a purifying thing. Sometimes you get in trouble because of who you partner with. (I know of Christian groups that have ended up cooperating with some radical feminist movements in order to keep sexist, slasher films off campus. Though they shared little else in common, they both agreed that the films were degrading to women. Unfortunately, their association with these groups caused a few other Christian groups to take great offense.) Sometimes you may even come into conflict with the law. However, I don’t think it is a bad thing to get arrested on behalf of the poor and oppressed or for peace or public righteousness.
You experience true community. I think it is a bit odd that there are so many books about how to foster community. Hey, if you are out there fighting the good fight, and being persecuted for it, then community will happen without engineering it. People will come back a bit bruised after sharing their faith or catching heat for a social stand that they took and rely on the body for encouragement. Community will happen.
Your students will develop a civic-minded savvy about what it means to be involved in the process of social change. They will become like Daniel, who was able to persuasively argue that he should be allowed to be different in the midst of a leadership role. And this is an invaluable thing. The church needs tomorrow’s leaders — their journalists, teachers and CEOs — to understand the process of working out their biblical convictions in a fallen world. If they do not learn how and why to oppose sweatshops in Haiti when they are involved with us, when will they? It certainly isn’t going to be an attitude they pick up while working for a Fortune 500 company. We need to help them form those "habits of the heart" now.
Finally, I think that by helping students develop a social conscience, we force them be more discerning about the idols of this age. When you start studying the principalities and powers of this world by not just doing a Bible study on money, but by also studying advertising through the eyes of the biblical text, then you become more discerning about our culture and the forces that are shaping it. And at that point, students are more likely to become like the sons and daughters of Issachar — those who understood the times and knew what the people should do. (Chronicles 12:32).
