RON SIDER
Spoons + Taps = Transformation An Indian bishop told me the following story about 30 years ago during a trip to India: There was once an institution for the mentally ill that had a simple way to determine if someone was well enough to return home.They would take the person over to a water tap, place a large tub under it, and begin filling it with water. Then they gave the person a spoon and asked the person to empty the tub. If the person started dipping the water out one spoonful at a time, without first turning the tap off, they knew the person (to use the bishop’s language) was still crazy. To a large extent, that is exactly how evangelicals try to solve social problems. They seek solutions one spoonful — or one person — at a time without understanding the underlying structural causes and solutions. Christian Smith, an evangelical sociologist now teaching at Notre Dame, has written a good deal on this problem. In American Evangelicalism (University of Chicago Press, 1998), he showed that “American evangelicals are resolutely committed to a social-change strategy which maintains that the only truly effective way to change the world is one individual at a time.” Leading individuals to a personal relationship with Christ, who can change hearts from the inside out, is the way to transform society. In spite of massive political engagement by evangelicals for several decades, that still seems to be the dominant attitude. In fact, Smith points out that evangelicals’ primary strategy for political reform is to “elect good Christians to political office,” with the implication being that our basic need is just good individuals.
Are evangelicals right or wrong in their “one-spoonful-at-a-time” strategy? Yes and no. Persons are converted to Jesus Christ one person at a time. And again and again evangelicals see firsthand the powerful effects of conversion. A living relationship with Christ does lead to improved behavior which in turn produces more wholesome families, communities, and nations. But a one-sided or exclusive emphasis on personal change blinds us to the powerful ways that socioeconomic institutions and structures also mold people. The massive research by social scientists makes this abundantly clear. It is striking that white evangelicals are far more likely than other American Christians to give an individualistic explanation for the fact that, on average, black Americans have inferior jobs, income, and housing compared to white Americans. Sixty-two percent of white evangelicals say the reason for this huge difference is that blacks lack the motivation and willpower to improve. Less than a third point to structural causes like poor education or discrimination. A more biblical understanding of sin would help correct the problem. I have been writing about this since the first edition (1977) of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and I would have hoped for more progress than I’ve seen. The prophets condemn both personal and social sin. Amos 2:6-7 is typical: God will destroy Israel “because they sell … the needy for a pair of shoes — they that trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth … [and because] a man and his father go to the same maiden.” Economic injustice and sexual sin are equally displeasing to God. In Isaiah 5, the prophet denounces both those who seize the fields of poor farmers and those who abuse wine (5:8-9, 22-23). It is very clear in the prophets’ writings that God abhors evil institutions: both unfair legal systems and unjust economic systems (see my chapter on PRISM 2010
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justice in The Scandal of Evangelical Politics). Psalm 94:20 condemns rulers “who frame mischief by statute.” Isaiah 10 explicitly denounces those who writers and implement unjust laws in order to rob the poor: “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppressions, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right.” Nor is the idea of social sin or structural evil only an Old Testament understanding. In the New Testament, the word “cosmos” (world) and the concept of the “principalities and powers” convey an understanding of institutionalized evil (see chapters 6 and 7 of the 2005 edition of Rich Christians). It is absolutely essential — if evangelicals are to have any lasting, comprehensive societal influence — for us to recover a biblically balanced understanding of sin and social change. Wrong personal choices (about sex, drugs, etc.) do produce destructive social outcomes. But so do racist educational systems and unjust economic structures. Therefore converting individuals as well as correcting unfair structures must both be central to a biblical strategy for societal transformation. Yes, we can significantly change society one person at a time. Giving a person a fish immediately after an earthquake is good. But teaching people to fish and, even more important, changing the structures so that everyone has access to the fishponds are the only ways to enable people to fish for a lifetime. Structural change must be one central part of a comprehensive, evangelical strategy to transform society. Both the biblical teaching on social sin and the social sciences’ detailed understanding of the impact of systems on individuals help us understand that. But we dare never forget the awesome transforming power of personal faith in Christ. Let’s work and pray for converted individuals and transformed institutions. Q