Jay Choi: Jubilee Mission and Poverty in the Philippines

Today’s post is by Rev. Jae Hyoung Choi. Rev. Choi is Missionary in Residence with the General Board of Global Ministries. It is part of an occasional series on mission and jubilee.

In my past post, I said that unity is important for mission but not the ultimate end of the church. The raison d’e tre of the church always has something to do with the plan of God’s salvation for the world. In order to save the world, the unity of church becomes one important means.

What does it mean for the church to save the world? Solving the most urgent and universal problems of the world through God’s will and way! When the church is fully committed to this task, only then can it boldly speak the truth, receive credibility in the world, radiate the real meaning of eternity it propagates, and be acknowledged for its origin of divine revelation and commission.

Poverty in the Philippines
Then what is the most urgent and universal problem that Philippine society now faces? Needless to say, it is poverty. A kind of poverty from which the masses suffer, requiring a call for the church to be one.

Like many Latin American and African countries, the Philippines is full of natural and human resources. Also, the Philippines is the only majority Christian country in Asia. Nevertheless, many in the Philippines have long been affected by poverty and socioeconomic polarization. The coexistence of countless church buildings and widespread poverty is the dilemma of the country.

Unfortunately, at the outset of this dilemma, there was Christian mission. When the early Spanish missionaries brought the gospel, they introduced Jesus, but without Jubilee. What arrived with Jesus at that time was the Roman concept of absolute private ownership. Before the Spaniards arrived, a local indigenous people had had their own ownership philosophy and practices.

“Akin”	Exclusively mine (things produced or traded)
“Amin”	Exclusively ours (like villages and rice terraces)
“Atin”	Inclusively ours (like mountains, rivers, and ocean)

As reflected in their everyday languages, the indigenous people had a clear distinction between private and communal ownership, and they had been able to practice it organically. That local ownership was similar to the biblical principle of Jubilee.

Early Spanish missionaries were pious and committed people, but at the same time they were the people of their own time who took the Roman ownership for granted. The indigenous Filipinos could not fully understand the Roman concept of ownership. Onofre Corpuz, a Filipino scholar, said that from the colonization in 1500 to the Revolution in 1900, for 400 years, except for a few local elites, almost all Filipinos were still confused about the concept of Roman absolute private ownership.^[1]

For me, this Roman ownership that was bundled with Jesus was the first button put in the wrong place in Christian mission in the Philippines. What if, the missionaries introduced Jesus who proclaimed Jubilee in his inauguration sermon?

As the old giant Goliath horrified God’s people, so too does poverty scorn the people of God. What we need is a small stone that can eradicate it, just as David defeated Goliath by hiting the dead center with a small stone. And the stone is the “Law of Jubilee.” God has put this law in the hand of the church to throw at evil.

Misunderstanding Jubilee
But does the church understand this? There are many churches, and many of them are large, powerful, and influential; but they seem to have no will to comprehend and proclaim the principles in Jubilee. Churches are too busy with heavenly concerns and earthly businesses. Their energies are divided and wasted.

But if they pull themselves together; tighten their grip; and in unity, with resolution, stare at the Giant, then the Spirit of God, who is able to make the impossible, possible; will come and work through them. Then the world will know God through the church in action.

My spirit is depressed, however, with the way people misunderstand Jubilee. According to my personal experience, there seems to be two main understandings of Jubilee: spiritualized Jubilee and idealized Jubilee.

First, spiritualized Jubilee is representative of a mere religious or spiritual symbol. One example is the 50-year Jubilee cycle, which is used for periodical celebration. The danger in this approach dissolves the historical and social significance of Jubilee.

This phenomenon happened frequently in the history of Israel. During the Second Temple period, most people were accustomed to such spiritual Jubilee that they used the cycle as an apocalyptic tool to predict the future. We know how the socio-economic and political conditions were during the time when they were holding the husk without the kernel of Jubilee, and why Jesus proclaimed Jubilee in his inauguration sermon; “The Spirit of the Lord is on me … to proclaim Jubilee (the year of the Lord’s favor).” (Luke 4:18-19)

There have been numerous theories on the cause of poverty in the Philippines. But Christians should be able to discern the correlation between spiritualization of Jubilee and the prolonged socio-economic and political extortion and injustice. In other words, the real culprit for such problems is neither corrupt politicians nor unjust social structure, it is Christians!

The second misunderstanding is to see Jubilee as an impractical ideal. Ironically, this attitude is found among many church leaders who are well versed in Scripture and is more serious than laypeople spiritualizing Jubilee. Christian leaders treat Jubilee as a mere ideal; an impracticable, utopian vision; or a culture of a specific ethnic group in antiquity, analogous to those who cut their own hair but still believe that they are Samson.

Nevertheless, the Counsellor, the Spirt of Hope, always reminds us of the vision the Prophet foresaw, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14)

Churches in the Philippines, converging all their energy to solving the most urgent and universal problem of society, poverty, through the law of Jubilee, while journeying toward unity in the Triune God, is ecumenical Jubilee mission. Such mission has been a constant call from those who are in dark, lonely, and marginalized corners of society. It is a wake-up call from the suffering people who yearn for the epiphany. It is an invitation from the suffering world to the church to be faithful to God’s call. The church should make this mission its own again, lest it is too late.

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[1] Onofre D. Corpuz, An Economic History of the Philippines (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1997), 63.

Recommended Reading: COVID-19 impact on Haiti and other poor countries

The Michigan Annual Conference published this excellent and thorough article about concerns that their mission covenant partners in Haiti have in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. While some parts of the Haitian context are unique to that country, the article is worth a read because many of the challenges confronting Haiti because of coronavirus are also challenges in other poor countries. In particular, the article discusses the trade-offs between social distancing and a host of other concerns, including the need to get food, the importance of social networks for survival, and the close physical proximity required for many transportation modes. Moreover, while handwashing stations have proliferated, the availability of water for sanitation remains a concern. The article also points out that new global demand for Chloroquine as a possible treatment for COVID-19 may make it less available (or more expensive) for treating malaria, which is its primary use. While United Methodists in the US are facing their own legitimate concerns about coronavirus, they must not forget the concerns of partners around the world as well and instead respond with prayer, advocacy, and tangible support.

Thomas Kemper: Continuities in mission - A reflection on the bicentennial of Methodist mission

Today's piece is by Thomas Kemper, General Secretary of Global Ministries. It continues UM & Global's celebration of the bicentennial of United Methodist missions. This piece originally appeared on Global Ministries' website.

How does the current work of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries compare to the objectives of our oldest predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, established in 1819? I have reflected on this question as we celebrate our mission bicentennial and I am fascinated by the continuities I see.

Nathan Bangs, the first executive of the missionary society and a historian of early American Methodism, cites six motivations for starting the organization. Two concerned financial considerations and one is sociological—keeping up with what other denominations were doing. The other three, focusing on mission outreach, are the ones I find most interesting. These are: 1) reaching people on the remote western frontier of the young United States; 2) ministry with Native Americans; and 3) extension of mission “to more distant fields” [abroad]. In short, the Missionary Society was intended to enlarge the reach of the gospel to persons and groups not already or well-served by the church, to offer them Christ and accompany them on their faith journeys. This mission outreach is what we still do.

Ministry with indigenous peoples
I am a little amazed that a self-conscious motive for the society’s founding was the possibility of including Native Americans in the Methodist family. This came about primarily through the ministry of a lay pastor named John Stewart, of mixed African-American and white heritage. He preached among the Wyandot people in Ohio beginning around 1815 with the support of the then Ohio Annual Conference and the benevolence of Bishop William McKendree, the third U.S. episcopal leader after Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury. Stories of the work of Stewart enlivened enthusiasm for a missionary society back East.

While Methodists may not have an altogether continuous, or admirable, history of relations with indigenous peoples, such ministry is in our DNA and has been pulled to the forefront in recent years by the UMC Act of Repentance Movement. We must never again let it fall by the wayside.

In the early 1830s, the Missionary Society wet its sights on “distant fields” abroad, first Liberia, Brazil, and then Argentina. This has grown remarkably over the decades, so that today we have missionaries in some 60 countries and mission personnel, projects, and partners in a total of more than 125 countries. And we keep adding new locales. Recent mission initiatives have introduced Methodism to 15 places where it did not formerly exist, and since 2009, these initiatives have started more than 1,000 new worshipping communities.

Ministry with Immigrants
The initial mission society operational plan provided circuit-riding missionary-pastors on the frontier. Bishops serving mission districts called upon the society for funds for such clergy. Immigrants counted in this expansion and our denomination’s contemporary concern for migrants emerges from our mission roots.

The several missionary societies that would emerge in our American Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren history were acutely aware of the influx of immigrants in the mid-to-late 19th century. The M.E. Church Missionary Society organized specific mission outreach to ethnic or nationality groups—such as Norwegians, Germans, Swedes and Italians—who had their own cultures but were on the fringes of life in the New World on arrival.

Ministry with 19th century immigrants by our EUB mission ancestors has personal meaning for me. Immigrants from Germany who settled in the United States joined a predecessor movement that became part of our Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) heritage. Some of these new Wesleyans returned as missionaries to Germany, where they formed the community out of which my family would eventually become United Methodist. So, I have a keen appreciation for the ministry with migrants and those on the edges, giving substance to the realization that migration can be a blessing.

Also, as early as 1850, German Methodists in Bremerhaven, the port city of Bremen, started an Auswanderer Kirche, or “Emigration Church,” to prepare people leaving Germany to link up with Methodists (rather than Lutherans or Catholics) in the new land. They distributed a 24-page pamphlet, “friendly hints (advice) for emigrants,” and they “have done much more than us,” wrote one Lutheran critic at the time.

Ministry with impoverished communities
Christian mission is always at its best when it focuses on those ignored or pushed aside by dominant cultural norms and economic force. We learn this from Jesus and John Wesley, and my own experience as a missionary in Brazil bears it out. I went to Brazil in 1986, where I worked for eight years teaching in a theological seminary. The interaction with students was deeply meaningful and valuable to my growth as a Christian. But the most gripping part of my experience was through an ecumenical ministry with people who were homeless, many living under the freeways of São Paulo.

The street ministry focused on food and worship. Weekly, people living on the streets and our group of volunteers contributed to a common soup pot—vegetables about to be discarded by vendors or bits of fish from shop owners. Everyone contributed to “The Soup” and shared the savory results. Everyone was equal around the common dish. After eating, we sang hymns, praised God, and prayed together. Sometimes we joined marches and protests seeking justice. It was powerful mission.

Two hundred years ago, April 5, 1819, a group of Methodists met at the Forsyth Street Church in New York City to organize a missionary society. They did so, issuing an “address,” very much in the language of its day but with a breadth of vision worth recalling:

"Our views are not restricted to our own nation or colour; we hope the aborigines of our country, the Spaniards of South America, the French of Louisiana and Canada, and every other people who are destitute of the invaluable blessings of the Gospel, as far as our means may admit, will be comprehended in the field of the labours of our zealous missionaries."

Amen.

New Mission Areas for the 21st Century

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Mission has always been contextual. In part, that means that how mission is done fits (or should fit) the context in which it is done. But it can also be taken to mean that what mission is done must fit (or respond to) the context in which it is done.

A few forms of mission are enduring. Evangelism is a component of mission in all times and places. Mission has always (or almost always) shown concern for the poor. Yet, even within these enduring forms of mission, the activities paired with evangelism and how Christians have shown concern for the poor have varied.

As the Western mission industrial complex was coming into its fullest flowering in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the forms of mission it undertook were shaped significantly by two types of contexts which were the focus of a lot of American and European mission efforts: urban centers in the West and non-modern societies outside of the US. How Western Christians understood and continue to understand the components of mission was significantly shaped by their experiences in each of these two types of contexts.

In non-modern societies outside the West, Christian mission came to include not only evangelism but also medical work, education, women's rights, publishing, famine relief, and economic development. In some of these areas, Christian missionaries were drawing upon longer histories of church expertise and activity (education has been a function of the Western church since the medieval time period, for instance), but in all of these areas, missionaries were also responding to their perceptions of the needs of the mission fields in which they worked.

In urban centers in the West, Christian mission came to include not only evangelism but also medical work, literacy, poverty relief--including food and clothing distribution, temperance, and women's rights. This list overlaps with the list of mission work done outside the West, and there was at the time discussion of the similarities between work among the urban poor in the West and that in non-Western countries.

In the middle of the 20th century, the range of mission work was expanded through interactions with new historical contexts to include refugee relief and resettlement (especially in response to the refugee crises of the world wars), disaster relief (growing out of post-war rebuilding efforts), and social justice advocacy (coming out of post-colonialism and minority rights movements).

For the most part, all of these previous forms of mission continue today (with the possible exception of temperance and publishing as major foci). In part, that is because the perceived issues justifying each of these forms of mission work continue to exist. There is still sickness and poverty in the world. But in part, these areas of mission work continue because the institutional infrastructure created by previous generations was set up in such a way to ensure continued focus on these particular forms of mission.

But what if we were attempting to develop a set of forms of Christian mission that were responding to contexts in the 21st century and not merely continuing the traditions of mission that we have inherited? What issues might we see as critical for the church to address? This is not an attempt to adopt a "needs-based" missiology but instead an attempt to, as J.C. Hoekendijk argued for, put the world and the kingdom of God into conversation. What areas of mission focus would be suggested by the world in 2018 and the kingdom that were not part of previous models of mission? What particular contexts would these types of mission be most relevant to? In short, what might be "new mission areas" for the 21st century?

Over the next several weeks, I will suggest some possible new mission areas that I see - loneliness, climate refugees, mental health, and others. But I would also like to hear from you readers: What do you see as possible new areas for mission focus in the 21st century? Comment below to suggest topics or email me a post with your take on this question.

Recommended Reading: Norma Dollaga on Duterte, theology, and poverty

United States Attorney General and United Methodist Jeff Sessions was roundly criticized in June for his use of Romans 13 to justify the Trump Administrations' policy of child separation for families arriving at the US southern border.

Yet Sessions is far from the only politician globally using theology to justify questionable practices. In the Philippines, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has pondered publicly about the connection between God, poverty, and suffering. The strongman ruler has been accused of fomenting violence against the poor and indigenous groups in his country.

Just as United Methodists in the US responded to Sessions' claims, United Methodist deaconess and theologian Norma Dollaga takes on Duterte's theological claims in a piece on her blog entitled "Poverty Is Not A Creation of God." It is a recommended read.

Recommended Reading: Philippines Quadrennial Plan

United Methodists may be familiar with the plans and priorities of their annual conference or perhaps an agency or two that they may be particularly invested in. But how can United Methodists find out what it really is that their religious compatriots around the world really care about and where they are focusing their efforts?

Here is an opportunity to do just that for the Philippines. The Philippines Central Conference has made its 2017-2020 Quadrennial Plan available through Google Docs.

While few may want to read the entire 54-page program spreadsheet, this document offers good insight into the priorities of fellow United Methodists around the world. The document details efforts that the Philippines Central Conference will make over the next four years in the following categories: develop[ing] vital congregations; developing principled Christian leaders; certified coaches; financial support to UMC theology students; happy, health, holy clergy and deaconesses, financial independence; performance evaluation system; ministry with the poor; stamp out killer diseases; caring for the environment; preparedness for catastrophes; and respect for human rights.

Norma Dollaga: A Write-Back on Wonder, Love and Praise

This blog post is one in a series containing responses to the denomination's proposed ecclesiology document, "Wonder, Love and Praise." These responses are written by United Methodist scholars and practitioners around the world. This piece is written by Norma Dollaga, a deaconess from the Philippines Annual Conference of the Manila Episcopal Area - Philippines Central Conference. Her episcopal appointment is at Kapatirang Simbahan Para a Bayan (KASIMBAYAN) / Ecumenical Center for Development.

The Lenten season is always an invitation to ponder upon the path that Jesus has taken, the choices he made, and the love he shared. His passion, death, and resurrection have become who we are now as a Church.

I read with great interest an important church document – Wonder, Love, and Praise. As I reflect upon it, I was wondering what does it mean to be a church in the context of poverty, hunger, homelessness, imperialist war, exploitation, oppression, human trafficking, landlessness of the peasantry, climate change, militarism and indigenous people as they defend their land and long for agrarian reform; of workers fighting for their rights, peace and human rights activists; and drug-related killings in the name of war on drugs. The killings happen with impunity. The Church faces the challenges for the prophetic and priestly response. She is always in the kairos moment – or at the crossroads, how it could nurture the grace and the power of resurrection!

I weep inquiring whether it is still true that grace is for all people, as I am reminded of a boy who could not even shed a tear for the death of his father who was a victim of drug-related killing right at the very shanty they considered as home. He could not even afford to mourn and stay at the wake, as he needed to work at the fish port, otherwise, the family would not be able to have their meals. Where is the grace promised in a heart- wrenching situation when even weeping is denied to poor ones?

I seek the Holy Spirit to shepherd me in understanding that the saving love of God is transformative. How do we as a church become a body that participates in the radical LOVE of God that would enable us to stand side by side with the “blessed poor”? Are they not the exploited and the oppressed? They are blessed with the gift of knowing and visioning a transformed world where exploitation exists no more, but rather is replaced with genuine love and justice that become a norm in any relationships. Thus, SALVATION is experienced in a concrete sense through a transformed community manifested when exploitation is eradicated.

Who are we as Church? What defines our being? Are we overcoming our internal contradictions by following the greatest commandment? (Matthew 22:36-40)? Have we become now as she promised to be? Do we belong in the world – as salt of the earth, integrated, immersed in the journey of the people towards the resurrection of humanity – not just a few, but all.

Are we afraid to be irrelevant? Not because we have not responded to the needs of the broken world, but the Church would no longer be needed because the HEAVEN on earth has come, and that GRACE and REDEMPTION are no longer confined in conferencing, in the fellowship of believers, in the edifices and the endless engagements with the principalities that destroy the great destiny and design for humanity: the love and joy.

When the exploitation of one against another, personal and structural shall have ceased, HEAVEN shall replace the salvific work and mission of the church.

Meanwhile, we struggle to become a church, to be a Church. This process leads us to wonder, love and praise!

The teachings and preaching of the Church are much needed today. She needs to fulfill her prophetic role to denounce injustice, to proclaim gospel wisdom and values, and to work for ethical alternatives to poverty, want, the sufferings of the many – alternatives to the increasing structural violence of exploitation and oppression. It is right and just to condemn unjust practices that have been well-institutionalized in the economic, political, and cultural life of society.

We need a Church that will take the side of the poor who have been wronged by the system that benefits only the rich and powerful elites. We need a Church that denounces the powers-that-be, who have entitled themselves to an exclusive right to accumulate properties, profits, and personal benefits at the expense the poor. We need a Church that will align herself with farmers asserting their right to own the land, to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and to share these with the people. We need a Church that will not hesitate to cry out loud along with the workers as they demand living family wages and security of jobs. We need a Church that would denounce the evil of contractualization, an invention of capitalism to advance its greedy purpose. We need a Church scandalized by any curtailment of people’s freedom to resist the fetters of oppression and the seduction of corruption. We need a Church that seeks the release of political prisoners put behind bars because they lived out teachings of the prophets to defend the rights of the poor and to struggle for their emancipation.

We need a Church that would stand with the people in claiming the people’s right to self-determination, including the right to resist and engage in liberation movements to unshackle themselves from slavery, exploitation, oppression (Exodus 1:1-10:5). The historic Exodus narrative could be a shining exemplary for those desirous of justice and peace and prosperity for all. It was wrong was for Pharaoh to enslave the Hebrews. It was right for slaves to defy and subvert the oppressive rule and go for a historic exodus. No one dared to say that God was not with them.

There will neither be harmony in this world that we consider our home nor common good in human community probable in a structure and system of society characterized by injustice. Where social justice is absent, love is far away and peace, distant. The Church’s participation in the journey of the people to a better life is always righteous. She is called to immersion in the hope and struggle of the poor for salvation and liberation.

A great priest, Fr. Joe Dizon, a humble priest of Cavite who died a simple man of God once said: “The Church will never go astray if it continues to be with the poor as they work and struggle for their resurrection from the many forms of “deaths” imposed upon them by the evils of injustice.”

Recommended reading: Mary Ellen Kris on ministry from the margins

Mary Ellen Kris, a consultant for the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) on the Ministry with the Poor Area of Focus, has written a great reflection on the connection between the UMC's focus on the Ministry with the Poor and the call for mission from the margins found in the WCC's Together towards Life document.  It's entitled "Ministry With the Poor at Its Best: Ministry from the Margins," and you can find it online here.  For more posts related to Together towards Life, click on the tag at the bottom of this post.

Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi on Grace Upon Grace: Mission: An Expanding Agenda

Today's post is the latest in a series of posts that are re-examining the mission document of The United Methodist Church, Grace Upon Grace (Nashville: Graded Press, 1990). Various United Methodist mission professors and practitioners are re-examining this theological statement and how it can inform our corporate life in The United Methodist Church today.  This piece is written by Dr. Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Professor of Global Christianities and Mission Studies at Perkins School of Theology.  Dr. Cardoza-Orlandi is commenting on the sixth section of the document, "Mission: An Expanding Agenda."  Use the "Grace Upon Grace" tag to identify other posts in this series.

Owning My Own Missiological Location of Interpretation…
No scholar critically engages the work of others or a church document from a neutral viewpoint. I am a Puerto Rican, born and raised in my birthplace, but having spent half my life in the United States. I belong to the last colony of the U.S. in the Caribbean, benefitting from the many opportunities and privileges the U.S. Empire has provided me.

Secondly, culturally, I claim to be a Latin American and caribeño (Caribbean), yet I am identified simply as “Hispanic/Latino” in the U.S. My vocational and religious identity, hence, intersects between geo-political and cultural-religious contexts. I am a hybrid.

In terms of my ecclesial status and religious identity, I am an ordained minister. I actively participate in Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian communities, yet I have religious roots in Roman Catholicism, the Reformed tradition, Methodism, Pentecostalism, and Spiritist traditions. I am an evangélico carismático. My vocation as a theological educator in world Christianity and mission studies emerged and continues to be nurtured by the Christian communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the immigrant communities in the US and Canada. My Christian vocation is embedded to these Christian communities in the global south.

Thirdly, I am a theological educator who experiences the colonial legacy and politics of the US empire, global capitalism and the predominantly US missionary enterprise. Many ask me why I teach Christian mission. My answer is succinct: the gospel is hope, and I critically and humbly engage in God’s activity of hope for all creation.

A Brief Comment on Grace Upon Grace
Allow me to emphasize two themes of Grace Upon Grace. First, the document focuses Christian mission on the acting grace of God. The three levels of grace that Wesleyan and Methodist traditions treasure—the grace that goes before us, the grace that saves us through Jesus Christ, and the grace that continuously restores our lives in God[1]—give a framework to understand and participate in God’s mission in creation and to be part of the body of Christ. This grace-filled missionary activity keeps the Christian community under scrutiny in its co-participation in God’s missionary activity. Consequently, Christian communities engaged in Christian mission are both participants and receptors of God’s sustaining, saving, and restoring grace. Under this theological rubric, Christian communities—the churches—have no privilege, yet much responsibility!

I am grateful for the following statement: “[This statement] also seeks to be relevant to present and coming generations of the church. Identity and relevance are not easily reconciled, but an adequate mission statement should endeavor to join these two dimensions.”[2] The task of joining these two dimensions seems to present a challenge to the writers of Grace Upon Grace. Yet, the document is not clear about why such a task is challenging. Perhaps the challenge is found in our understanding of identity. Consider the following possibility: Christian identity is as fluid as the work of the Holy Spirit in the world. If Christian identity is understood as a continuous re-discovery of the gospel, relevance is integrated with identity. Christian identity is an eschatological unfolding and embodiment of who God wants us to be in a particular place and time. Hence, identity and relevance are woven into the tapestry of Christian mission, rather than separated threads in need of connection.

Grace Upon Grace: Mission: An Expanding Agenda
I find this section too flat. The expanding agenda of Christian mission is much more complex and nuanced. The growth and vitality of the Christian religion in Africa, Asia, Latin America & the Caribbean (these last two excluded from the document)[3] offer challenging and promising dynamics of Christian mission that are “out of the radar” for many Christian communities affiliated or connected to mainline historical Protestant denominations and traditions. For example, the main protagonist of grass-roots Christian missionary activity is a poor traditional woman of color. In Cuba, for example, during the very difficult period after the fall of the USSR, a group a poor Cuban women and female seminary spouses created the “Weavers of Hope” group at the Seminario Teológico de Matanzas. Through their weaving, this group of women evangelized each other, generated funds for their own financial support, created a fund to help seminary families with basic needs, and established scholarships and spiritual support programs for women who embraced God’s calling to ministry in these difficult times.

This is one example of what I call Christian mission-from-the-poor-to-the poor. Many of my students who come from affluent Christian communities in the United States discover at least three important missiological lessons from their experiences with “Weavers of Hope.” First, they discover the sacramental mystery of human solidarity; second, their missional and economic assumptions about distribution of wealth and “giving” to the poor are not only challenged, but also re-examined in light of the solidarity among the poor; and third, what they see in the global south[4] is unexpected, yet redeeming for their our vocation as Christian leaders.

In conclusion, an expanding agenda of mission requires a new way of “seeing.” Paragraph 37 states that “God makes the invisible become visible…” What I would like to highlight is a new way of seeing and acting. Is it possible for us to “see” the solidarity of the poor as a gift of God for our own transformation and “act” in our own Christian communities with such solidarity?

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[1] Grace Upon Grace, Introduction, second paragraph.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Paragraph 27.

[4] Paragraph 34 and other parts of this document put too much emphasis on the “need” in the global south with little or none co-protagonism of these communities in God’s missionary activity.

Rising wealth inequality and the fate of global Methodism

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.

A report on wealth inequality released by Oxfam yesterday included a startling statistic: the world's richest 85 individuals have as much wealth as the poorest half of the world's population.  This stat and the rest of the findings of the report have been getting a lot of play in the press in the last day and a half, but let me include some of the highlights for those of you who missed them.  The gap between the wealthy and the poor has grown in recent years in all but two countries around the globe, even in traditionally low-wealth inequality countries like the Scandinavian nations.  In the United States, the top 1% collected almost all of the benefits of the financial recovery since 2009, while the poor have gotten poorer in the same time.

This report raises two questions for me about how this rising wealth inequality impacts The United Methodist Church.  The first is this: One of the church's current Four Areas of Focus is "Ministry With the Poor."  What does it mean for us to be in ministry with the poor in a world in which the poor have an ever-decreasing portion of the world's resources?  How does that affect the types of ministry of which the poor are capable, and how does it affect the types of ministry that they poor need?  Does rising global wealth inequality make ministry with the poor more challenging, and if so, how should we as United Methodists respond?

The second question is this: Methodism has historically grown best among a rising middle class and the aspiring working class.  If, as the Oxfam report suggests, the world economic system is becoming increasingly a "winner-takes-all" system separated into the ultra-rich and the struggling masses, where does that leave Methodism's socio-ecclesiastical "niche."  Other have already pointed out the correlation between the decline of the middle class in the US and the decline of United Methodism in the US.  Currently, the middle class is still rising in Africa and other developing nations, but if increased wealth inequality puts a halt to the growth of the middle class there, will it halt United Methodist growth as well?

Please note that I'm not just calling for the government redistribution of wealth as a solution to this problem.  Wealth inequality is a complex problem, and government redistribution a simplistic solution for those who see it as such and a straw man opponent for those who don't see it as a problem.  As the Oxfam report makes clear, government policies do make a difference, especially those that set the rules of the financial playing field.  Yet so do corporate and individual choices in boardrooms and buying centers around the world.  In order to arrive at a set of communal and individual solutions, however, we must first recognize wealth inequality as a problem.

Also, while I've cast this article in terms of how wealth inequality might affect The United Methodist Church, there are plenty of other religious reasons to be leery of wealth inequality.  One can think of the many biblical statements about wealth, including those by Jesus, the prophets such as Amos and Micah, and even some of the Levitical laws, that recognize the spiritual and moral hazards of wealth and wealth inequality.  One can also make arguments based on such religious values as caring for others, the value of persons, and justice.  In my mind, these biblical and other religious reasons for questioning wealth inequality should be our primary reasons for doing so.  Ways in which wealth inequality may affect the UMC should be of interest to Methodists, but of secondary importance to our general call as Christians to live out the gospel of Christ.