Have Your Faith and Rip It Too

"Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and not concerned about the city government that damns the soul, the economic conditions that corrupt the soul, the slum conditions, the social evils that cripple the soul, is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood."

- Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., excerpted from a sermon in Atlanta, 1962 (courtesy of Wired.com)

Comments

[Sam]

This relates to a well-known issue in evangelicalism - the tendency to neglect the physical/concrete care of the helpless, the poor, and the marginalized. Jesus was not a mystic philosopher who simply traveled as a peripatetic teacher espousing intellectual teachings. He concretely fed the poor, healed the sick, and cared for the whole man, not just the spirit. It is clear from the Gospels that He expected His followers to show the same care to these groups. In our zeal for powerful teaching and spiritual growth, we have tended to overlook the importance of rolling up our sleeves and getting dirty in real-life struggles and bringing the presence of Christ to these people and places.