I have had an encouraging response to my article Justice, Empowerment and Faith: the future direction for Christian social action.
Christianity Magazine re-published it and I have had emails and messages from agencies around the world. And last month, a diverse group of 30 senior leaders of Christian social action agencies met to discuss the points raised in the article. Amid the diversity of opinion and debate, there was widespread agreement about the principles of justice and empowerment.
But the one that has provoked the most discussion and disagreement is the one about the role that faith plays. The specifics of how and why we maintain a distinctively Christian witness is enduringly controversial.
Sea-change
These discussions about how faith is expressed alongside social action agencies are critically important. I sense a sea-change in the growing confidence of Christians to express and integrate their faith alongside practical community work.
In my work with Hope into Action every week I meet with great churches who are serving homeless and vulnerable people in their community in incredible ways – and faith in Jesus is unashamedly the engine-room of their activism. Their inclusive actions towards their community are rooted in exclusive beliefs in Jesus Christ.
In the social action world, I perceive the same themes explored in Justin Brierley’s podcast, The Surprising Re-birth of Belief in God. As he reflects on the public discussion of faith, he refers to Matthew Arnold’s famous poem Dover Beach, and its reference to the tide going out in the ‘sea of faith’. But as Brierley says, tides do not simply go one-way. At some point they come back in.
Parasitical
As part of this, I also hear increasing concerns about large charities which started off Christian, but increasingly dilute their faith commitment. Often these charities desire the fruits of faith (especially the commitment and generosity of churches) but organisationally they distance themselves from the roots from which they themselves have grown.
These tendencies need discussing. Social action projects should empower the local church, but the slide towards secularism can lead to such agencies becoming parasitical to local churches – drawing the resources they need to survive whilst weakening the body on which they are dependent.
Investing in faith
I believe that now is the time to invest confidently and intentionally in the Christian distinctiveness of the community work we do.
We need confidence in the enduring relevance of faith and the fact that the needs of communities and individuals are both spiritual and practical. Personal confidence enables public leadership.
And we need to be intentional about how we integrate faith alongside our work. To integrate prayer, biblical reflection and the offer of spiritual exploration within our work. In these ways social action projects can empower local churches in their mission and not leach off them.
Two dangers
True confidence does not mean narrow or judgmental ways of thinking. In his book Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship, Lesslie Newbigin discusses how commitment to Jesus and the Bible leads us to being ‘confident explorers’ rather than ‘clueless wanderers’:
“If we allow the Bible to be that which we attend to above all else, we will be saved from two dangers. The first is the danger of the closed mind. The Bible leaves an enormous space open for exploration. If our central commitment is to Jesus, who is the Word of God incarnate in our history, we shall know that in following him we have the clue to the true understanding of all that is, seen and unseen, known and yet to be discovered. We shall therefore be confident explorers.
The second is the danger of the mind open at both ends, the mind which is prepared to entertain anything but has a firm hold of nothing. We shall be saved from the clueless wandering which sometimes takes to itself the name of pilgrimage. A pilgrim is one who turns his back on some familiar things and sets his face in the direction of the desired goal. The Christian is called to be a pilgrim, a learner to the end of her days. But she knows the Way.”
It is not just individuals who can become ‘clueless wanderers’ but organisations too.
Following Jesus means a humble form of confidence. We remain learners, pilgrims who grapple humbly with the many challenges and questions posed by living in a broken and unjust world. But we retain a confidence in the one we follow and the distinctive Way he leads us.
Related:
Grace + Truth 
For Jon Kuhrt,
I had some difficulty commenting on your important post. In case it didn’t go through, here it is:
Thank you, Jon, for the reminder about the power of faith in everyday life to give us confidence in reimagining social structures. I recommend the following lecture-discussion series on Prison Abolition in Boston on April 21 and 25, and in Chicago on May 9. Lectures can be attended in person or online. The first lecture was given on Thursday here in Boston. https://www.minnslectures.org/
Homeless and poor folk are one of the targets of the broken system of incarceration. This system must be questioned from its very beginnings given the attendant assumptions that endure to the present day. Most of society tacitly maintains these assumptions even though they have been consistently and pervasively vitiated across generations.
Minns Lectures are an annual series of lectures since 1941 “bringing religious perspectives to everyday life” consistent with 500-year-old principles of religious freedom, reason, and tolerance. This is important given that the power of faith can be used for good or bad. Multi-perspectival dialog across faith traditions can turn the tide in society from degenerative secular divisiveness to generative collective intelligence that is needed to solve wicked problems. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/garyriccio_home-minns-lectures-activity-7186708025137635328-4nrd?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Kind regards, Gary
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Thanks Gary – much appreciated – I will check out those links. Thanks for reading and commenting!
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