James Frank Solís: So, uh, what is the ‘good news’?

27 October 2006

So, uh, what is the ‘good news’?

12:37 PM

Jim Wallis has recently written a piece titled, “If It's Not Good News, It's Not Evangelical.” In the piece, he describes a bit of his visit to Bethel University in the Twin Cities, which he calls a “fertile ground for recruiting by the Religious Right.” Fair enough: it probably is that. I don’t know, and I don’t care. But I do care if someone wishes to examine the economic implications of the gospel, while criticizing those of his brothers and sisters who desire to examine the political implications of it, especially if he does so under the guise of taking the faith ‘too seriously’ to politicize it.

Challenging students to make clearer what it means to follow Jesus, Wallis told students that in order to be true evangelicals they must focus on the root meaning of the word ‘evangel’. And he’s right so far as he goes, the meaning of what it means to be evangelical is rooted in the word ‘evangel.’ (I have just written a little about this myself, but in a different direction, over at Westminster Brass.) But he’s frankly wrong in the application he makes here. “The word [i.e., ‘evangel’],” Wallis informed his listeners, “ was first used by Jesus in his opening statement in Nazareth, recorded in Luke 4, where he defined his own mission by saying, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news (“the evangel”) to the poor ....’ ” Wallis then told his audience that “any gospel that wasn't good news to the poor simply wasn't the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Apparently, the gospel of Jesus Christ is about economics, not soteriology. The good news is not that we are saved by grace from the just deserts for our sins through the finished work of Jesus Christ, but that we are to be saved from our poverty because the rich shall be soaked (apparently for no other reason than that they can well afford to be) and our poverty done away with. O, happy day!

Actually, while it is true that the Greek word ‘evangel’ was first used in Luke 4, it is more relevant that Jesus is quoting from the prophet Isaiah at chapter 61: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.” (Note: Luke renders ‘meek’, ‘poor.’ That’s okay; the King James Version renders it ‘afflicted.’ There is a shared meaning element. The Hebrew word ‘ânâv has a variety of meanings including ‘depressed’, whether in mind or circumstances (including financial circumstances), ‘lowly’, ‘humble’, pious, and, of course, ‘poor’. Luke’s text provides Wallis with just the nuance he needs, I suppose, for he apparently felt little need to do the least bit of Bible study on the matter.)

But that isn’t all that Isaiah has in chapter 61. The fuller context demands different teatment than Wallis provides:

1The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; 2To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; 3To appoint unto them that mourn [i. e., the meek, the depressed], in Zion [i. e., God’s chosen people] to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. 4And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. 5And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. 6But ye [i.e., the people of God] shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you [i.e., the people of God] the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. 7For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them. 8For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the LORD hath blessed. 10I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. 11For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

Economic status isn’t the point of Isaiah 61; and it wasn’t Jesus’s point either. It is interesting that, in discussing what it means to be evangelical, Wallis wants to look to Luke 4 (and ignore Isaiah 61.1, which Jesus is quoting) and not a text like Mark 1.14-15:

Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

So this good news that Jesus preached (to the ‘poor’, no less) was, “Repent.” What could the poor have to repent of?

And the religious left wants to talk about the religious right’s perversion of Biblical texts? This is not to say that we do not have a duty to the poor. But it is to say that the gospel is not about the economically impoverished; it is about the spiritually impoverished, not those who live below an arbitrarily set ‘poverty line.’ Even Bill Gates can be poor (i.e., ‘ânâv) as the term is used in Isaiah 61. Is there any ‘good news’ for him? I guess not. If the ‘good news’ for the poor is that the rich shall be soaked, there can’t be much ‘good news’ for the rich.

But that isn’t all that Wallis said on the issue. According to him, the students he addressed have an agenda that “is now much broader and deeper than just the two things the Religious Right continues to talk about as the only ‘moral values issues - abortion and gay marriage.” The students he spoke to aren’t going to accept anymore “the narrowing of scripture to only two hot-button social issues” because they “have found those 2,000 verses in the Bible that speak of God's concern for the poor and vulnerable.”

I found that interesting because I did not know that the religious right only talked about abortion and gay marriage. But as one of the commentators to Wallis’s blog informs us, we can know that these are all that the religious right talk about because they are the only things that James Dobson of Focus on the Family (and others of his ilk) talk about. I get it: the loudest mouth on the right gets to be spokesman for it. This despite the fact that I, and many of my blogging friends, don’t really raise these two issues in our blogs. I for one can’t think of a single time I’ve blogged on either.

Given his reference to the 2000 verses in Scripture that mention God’s concern for the poor and vulnerable (and we’ve already seen how plays a little fast and loose with the Bible) one must conclude that Wallis believes in what I call ‘verse-democracy.’ If there are more verses on one topic than on anther, or if more verses seem to support one view on a given subject than on another, the item with the greater number of verses wins and we can ignore or downplay the importance or relevance of the rest.

How many verses, Reverend Wallis, talk about justification by faith? How many verses discuss the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity? Not very many, if any. But this doesn’t keep a Spirit-inspired Paul from building a theology on the fact that as Adam’s sin is imputed to us, so is Christ’s righteousness when we turn to Him in faith. In fact, the gospel (that ‘evangel’ which Wallis wants us to focus on) makes very little sense, if any, without this understanding of imputation. And yet, there are not 2000 verses in Scripture which deal with that subject. So the fact that there are those 2000 verses doesn’t mean the religious right doesn’t have a case.

Perhaps the right concentrates on these two issues when it comes to government because governments have historically done only about two things well: protect life and regulate marriage and family relations, since society is the result of marriage and child-rearing (even if you want to permit same-sex marriage: gays exist because males and females make babies). Duties to the poor, however, are properly religious duties, not state duties.

But I’m just guessing. I don’t spend too much time worrying about abortion. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I believe God doesn’t care about it. It’s just that abortion is really a consequence of the sexual revolution and our nation’s rampant individualism and materialism (two things which make children rather undesirable, except perhaps in moderation). As long as those things remain in place, there will be abortions—one way or the other. So, while not too many of my sympathies lie with my brothers on the left, I’m not as exercised about abortion as my brothers to the right.

But even for all that—even if I agreed with Wallis’s treatment of ‘evangel’ there is still a logical problem. It is one thing to say that the gospel is for the poor in some special sense. But it just doesn’t follow that my being truly evangelical requires that I support (or at least don’t oppose) government programs for the poor or legislation designed to end poverty. And it also doesn’t follow from my opposition to (or failure to support) such programs that I don’t care about the plight of the poor. Support for the welfare state just is not a logical implication of the gospel.

I styled this posting, you’ll note, “These people are brothers and sisters?” You may wonder why. Well, just read these comments upon Wallis’s blog from members of both the religious left and the right. Not very encouraging to say the least.

And I can't imagine how anyone who didn't already know could read Reverend Wallis's piece, or the comments, and find out just exactly what that 'good news' is. In one hundred words or less: What is the 'good news'?

So, uh, what is the ‘good news’?

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