HONOLULU (ABP) — A Canadian Baptist educator told delegates at the 20th Baptist World Congress July 30 in Honolulu that evangelicals in the West have tended to over-spiritualize Christ's mission to the poor and oppressed.
Janet Clark, dean of Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, said Jesus' first sermon focused on liberation. In that sermon, as recorded in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus declared: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free."
Canadian educator Janet Clark said all Christians need to be liberated as well being liberators. (Photo by Peter Trayham)
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Clark said it is "absolutely clear" that the "good news" for the poor included not only verbal proclamation but also action.
"Jesus' mission is both proclamation and liberation," she said. "Good news and good deeds go hand-in-hand."
Clark said that Jesus' ministry and mission were holistic, both material and spiritual. He confronted both economic as spiritual poverty, as well as physical and spiritual blindness.
She said Christians today often fail to maintain that balance. "In our day, evangelicalism — especially in its Western manifestations — has tended to over-spiritualize the references to the poor and the oppressed and ignore their political and social meanings," she said.
Clark said Jesus came to make people whole. "His mission was scripturally promised, spirit-anointed, holistically demonstrated and fully integrated," she said. "How is it we miss this?"
Clark said as followers of Jesus, Christians are called to be agents of liberation — both for others and for themselves. "Are the features of Jesus' mission and ministry reflected in my own life's mission, in the mission of my church, in the mission of the churches of the Baptist World Alliance?" she asked."Are our churches known for standing in solidarity with the poor? Are we known as tireless advocates for justice and as agents of liberation?"
While Christians have a duty to help liberate others, she warned that task is sometimes perilous. "Christian history is fraught with horrific examples of the use of supposedly Christian theology not to liberate but to oppress — to justify slavery, colonization, the persecution of Jews, the ruin of ancient civilizations," she lamented. "Often, this was done by well-intentioned people who were sincere in their beliefs but blinded by their social and theological locations and perspectives."
She said Christians must take steps to avoid these dangers.
"We as the global church must create partnerships of true mutuality and reciprocity as co-laborers in the mission of God," she said. This involves learning to listen well and finding and choosing partners who will criticize the mutual efforts — "challenge ideas, interpretations and directions, knowing there is sufficient trust in the relationship to bear it."
"My greatest hope for the Baptist World Alliance is that, together, we can create such a space, a location, for genuine partnership, true reciprocity, deep listening, mutual critique and shared obedience to the call of God to be agents of liberation … and understand the call to liberation as inseparable from the ministry of proclamation." Liberation is good news for everybody — even those who typically don't think they need it, she observed.
Participants at the Baptist World Congress included well-off and protected Westerners, as well as others who have experienced prison, poverty, persecution and oppression, she said. "For the privileged, it is often difficult to recognize one's own complicity in the oppression of others, harder still to recognize one's own oppression and need for liberation," she admitted. "Sometimes, bondage and oppression are hidden under outer trappings of apparent well-being, but its insidious impact is nonetheless crippling and life-destroying.
"This is not to over-spiritualize bondage or imply that all are oppressed in one way or another and thus gloss over horrific injustice. But it is to say that all stand in need of liberation from the forces of evil."
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Marv Knox is editor of the Texas Baptist Standard.