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“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance.” —Ronald J. Sider

Nearly 30 years ago, a bi-partisan U.S. Presidential Commission on World Hunger suggested that “promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to U.S. national security than most policy makers acknowledge or even believe.” The deepest causes for conflict in the world today, according to former U.N. Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali, are “economic despair, social injustice, and political oppression.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard much talk these days about overcoming foreign conflicts with generous giving, extreme kindness and courageous leadership with integrity.

Sider nails it when he says, “The rich often neglect or oppose justice because it demands that they end their oppression and share with the poor.” He continues, “We know that knowing more will make us morally obligated to change.”

So Now What?
“We must develop a theology of enough,” says Sider. “Christians in the United States spent $15.7 billion on new church construction alone in the six years between 1984 and 1989. Would we go on building lavishly furnished expensive church buildings if members of our own congregations were starving?”

“God casts down the wealthy and powerful in two specific situations,” says Sider, “(1) when they become wealthy by oppressing the poor; or (2) when they fail to share with the needy.”

Sider doesn’t mince his words. “Is the church really the church if it does not work to free the oppressed?”

But how much should we give? John Wesley gave a startling answer. One of his frequently repeated sermons was on Matthew 6:19-23 (“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” KJV). Christians, Wesley said, should give away all but “the plain necessities of life”—that is, plain, wholesome food, clean clothes, and enough to carry on one’s business. One should earn what one can, justly and honestly. Capital need not be given away.” But Wesley wanted all income given to the poor after bare necessities were met. Unfortunately, Wesley discovered, not one person in five hundred in any “Christian city” obeys Jesus’ command. But that simply demonstrates that most professed believers are “living men but dead Christians.” “Any ‘Christian’ who takes for himself anything more than the plain necessaries of life,” Wesley insisted, “lives an open, habitual denial of the Lord.” He has “gained riches and hell-fire!” Wesley lived what he preached. Sales of his books often earned him fourteen hundred pounds annually, but he spent only thirty pounds on himself. The rest he gave away.

John V. Taylor suggests that “the biblical norm for material possessions is ‘sufficiency.’” We see this concept of sufficiency throughout Scripture. Sider says that the “costly generosity of the first church stands as a challenge to Christians of all ages.”

He even goes so far as to dare church institutions to “undertake a comprehensive two-year examination of their programs and activities to answer this question: Is there the same balance and emphasis on justice for the poor and oppressed in our programs as there is in Scripture?”

Rich Christians is another one of those books that is either going to sit on a shelf filled with highlights and tear stains, or become a manifesto for change.

Read Part One

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