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Kingdom Ethics in the Local Church

Larry Bollinger

Our Inseparable Mission

One of the joys of the doctrine of the Church of the Nazarene is that we do not have to enter into the troublesome debate between evangelism or justice and concern for the poor. With in the Wesleyan tradition there is no conflict between acts of mercy and justice and necessary proclamation of the gospel and propagation of the message of holiness. Ours is a gospel of word and deed. Our manual even argues that they are inseparable:

903.4 The Church of the Nazarene believes this new and holy way of life involves practices to be avoided and redemptive acts of love to be accomplished for the souls, minds, and bodies of our neighbors. [ . . . that Jesus commanded His disciples to have a special relationship to the poor of this world;] One redemptive arena of love involves the special relationship Jesus had, and commanded his disciples to have, with the poor of this world; that [Christ’s] His Church ought, first, to keep itself simple and free from an emphasis on wealth and extravagance and, second, to give itself to the care, feeding, clothing, and shelter of the poor and marginalized. Throughout the Bible and in the life and example of Jesus, God identifies with and assists the poor, the oppressed, and those in society who cannot speak for themselves. In the same way, we, too, are called to identify with and to enter into solidarity with the poor and not simply to offer charity from positions of comfort. We hold that compassionate ministry to the poor includes acts of charity as well as a struggle to provide opportunity, equality, and justice for the poor. We further believe [that] the Christian’s responsibility to the poor is an essential aspect of the life of every believer who seeks a faith that works through love. [Finally, we understand] We believe Christian holiness to be inseparable from ministry to the poor in that it drives the Christian beyond their own individual perfection and toward the creation of a more just and equitable society and world. Holiness, far from distancing believers from the desperate economic needs of people in this world, motivates us to place our means in the service of alleviating such need and to adjust our wants in accordance with the needs of others. (Exodus 23:11; Deuteronomy 15:7; Psalms 41:1; 82:3; Proverbs 19:17; 21:13; 22:9; Jeremiah 22:16; Matthew 19:21; Luke 12:33; Acts 20:35; 2 Corinthians 9:6; Galatians 2:10) [Manual, 2005-2009].

It’s ironic that in the past 100 years there have been entire church movements more passionate about making their distinctions in one camp or the other. It seems these distinctions have become more important than Christ-given responsibilities to make disciples and love one’s neighbor. The enemy to evangelism is certainly not justice and mercy and likewise the enemy to justice and mercy is certainly not evangelism. You might argue from Scripture and social concern that the enemy to both is the disjointing of the two because they are far more complementary than they are exclusive. If both are understood then they are powerful partners for our task in reconciling this world to God.

A Biblical Understanding of Kingdom Ethics and Justice

When we think of justice we often think of the statue that sometimes sits outside of courthouses of a blindfolded women holding up a balance scale implying that no matter who you are you get treated equally under the law. One does not have to look very hard in our justice systems to see that some people are often represented as more equal than others.

The biblical idea of justice, however, actually goes beyond equality with regard to law and speaks to the ethics of God’s Kingdom and peaceable reign. Kingdom ethics speaks into unjust social-systems and lifestyles. While our salvation frees us from personal sins, a kingdom perspective on biblical justice compels us to consider our collective sins and reflect on how our salvation and justice bear witness one to another. A Wesleyan perspective of holiness expresses itself in kingdom ethics that obliges us to engage both.

Kingdom Ethics: Beyond Compassion

My wife and I served as missionaries for the church in the Philippines. Through an interesting chain of events, we developed relationships with a family who owned a clothing manufacturing company that exported their products to some well known retailers in the United States.

They asked us many questions about why we were living in the Philippines. As we explained we were missionaries with the Church of the Nazarene and that our work specifically was in the area of compassionate ministries they became very curious and a light went on in the husband’s mind. He said, “Oh, you work with your church to help poor people!” Yeah, something like that, I said. A smile came across his face as he exclaimed, “My wife and I help poor people, too! In fact once a year around Christmas time we have a special dinner at our house for some poor people. It happens to be in a couple of weeks. Please come and join us.”

We gladly accepted his invitation but I was not completely prepared for the lesson I would learn at his house. His party was a true blessing to the families that attended. His servants carried in tray after tray of delicious food and laid them out on long buffet tables. We all ate like there was no tomorrow.

After dinner, children stripped down to the bare essentials and gleefully jumped into his swimming pool while adults made off to have a merry time singing old Frank Sinatra songs in the Karaoke room. They gave away door prizes and no one left empty handed because every family received a large bag of rice that would probably sustain each family for weeks.

His hospitality, in this event, for the poor was unmatched. It was a lesson to us all. I can only imagine what it must have felt like for families who were routinely in difficult circumstances to be invited to such a place. It must have been the event of a lifetime for them.

“This is great!” I said, “Where do all of these people come from?”
He said, “Oh, we have invited some of the poor workers and their families that I employ in our factories.”
The irony hit me like a ton of bricks.

I suddenly had an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. His guests were both beneficiaries and victims. According to the ethics of God’s Kingdom, he scored a 10 for hospitality and another 10 for compassionate acts of mercy. However, he scored a zero in the area of biblical justice. For all I knew, the shirt on my back was made in his factory.

Understanding a biblical and Wesleyan view of kingdom ethics involves us in the business of going deeper in our response to injustice, from addressing the symptoms and results of poverty and marginalization (i.e. a lack of food and education for a family) to asking and addressing why persons are poor and marginalized. It can be complicated because we soon find ourselves entangled in systems and structures, powers and principalities.

The compassionate will give a man a fish, the development worker will take the next step and teach a man to fish. The just, however, questions at hand include: Who owns the fish pond which is the means of economic production? What value do we place on the human capital that helps bring these goods to market? When our economic systems require that some of the hardest working people need our compassion just to survive, then injustice lies within the system.

There are billions of people that are expert fisherman, coffee growers, or seamstresses, and so on. However, their children still go hungry and remain uneducated. They live on a dirt floor. They are only able to afford one meal a day, if that. They don’t have access to basic health services. But, they work harder in one day than you or I do in a week. Meanwhile, many of us are able to buy two Sunday shirts for the price of one on sale racks. We strive to be “good stewards” of our income at our local church by buying the least expensive coffee to drink in our Sunday School hour, while these low prices perpetuate unlivable wages for coffee growers and while in our Sunday School class where we learn of God’s salvation, but not always of His justice. God’s stewardship, as an expression of kingdom ethics, is different than ours and it extends into world systems that generate both wealth and poverty.

My friend had not committed a crime or done something out of context for our global economy, nor had the exporters, the distributers, the retailers or the consumers. It was all legal and appropriate, and yet, still somehow unjust according to gospel standards.

This particular sin is social, communal, corporate and systemic. What do we do with these kinds of sins when we find ourselves guilty by compliance? What do we do when our apathy and ignorance outweighs our God-oriented stewardship in our decision-making process as consumers? These are not easy questions, but they are important ones. They are ones we are called to wrestle with.

Sometimes our compassionate acts inadvertently reveal the degree of our own hypocrisy.

Kingdom Ethics in the Local Church

Not all of the stories of injustice are thousands of miles away. You will find them in your neighborhoods—whether it be disparity in access to quality education, the treatment of the immigrant, access to healthcare or the rights of the unborn child. As we engage these issues in a holistic, thoughtful and loving manner, our demonstrations of the kingdom ethics of the gospel will coincide with our proclamation of the good news and we will become powerful witnesses for Jesus Christ to the glory of God.

1. Incarnating kingdom ethics: Do your evangelism and community outreach go hand-in-hand with your acts of mercy, food pantries, education and vocational training and other sorts of poverty alleviation? Then add to your works by continuing to ask the question why? Why is poverty in your local community? Continue to act according to the gospel as you find answers to these questions.

2. Incarnating kingdom ethics: Make yourself and your congregation aware of global injustices. Begin to change your habits locally, in some small way, in order to influence and diminish the global demand for oppression and exploitation.
3. Incarnating kingdom ethics: Be prophetic on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. Find ways to speak God’s truth into the institutions and social systems that bind us together in our collective sin.

As we incarnate kingdom ethics and do these things, in some small way, we join with the Father as He answers Jesus’ prayer: “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.

For more information on steps toward Christian awareness and action visit:

Nazarene Compassionate Ministries

ncm.org/awareness/fairtrade/ and

ncm.org/act/compassionatelifestyle/

Larry Bollinger is Director of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries.