Pt 5. Back to Jesus

So, what can I learn from these two amazing stories, of Jackie Pullinger and SAFE? They seem to embody those two opposite sides of the debate: “How do we help broken people change?” “With spiritual power!” “No, with careful use of the latest academic methods!” “No, what we need is power!...”

I’m kind of convinced by both positions, and flit back and forth between them, agreeing with whichever I happen to be thinking about at the time. (Both, it occurs to me, can be excuses for laziness or lack of faith) However, in sitting here chasing these ideas around my brain, I have a proposition that might get us somewhere: what Jesus seems to have done in Hong Kong and Southampton may shed more light on what he was doing back in the day.

SAFE’s approach is based on the observation that people experience difficulty in all different areas of life – relational, emotional, spiritual, physical, psychological, economic, socio-cultural, political... and that these all effect each other, but that each area needs different help to be relieved. You tackle relational poverty by spending time with people and including them in community. You tackle psychological poverty by helping people think more realistically and positively (particularly about themselves).

How do we interpret Jesus’ toolkit (preach, heal, hang out, bash demons) when it clearly ignores many of these areas of life? Let me try out some answers.

“Jesus’ toolkit was tailored to the specific needs of the society he lived in. And it happened to be that those needs could be dealt with instantly. People’s needs in 21st century Britain are more complex, and so we can expect their solutions to be similarly complex.” Um, maybe not. How can we be sure that 1st century needs were any less complex? I tend to think it was like the majority world today. ‘You know, simple poverty’. But depression, alcoholism and debt are as prevalent in Africa today as in the UK. And Jesus didn’t liberate Palestine from Roman occupation or turn over the means of production to poor farmers.

Another. “Jesus’ toolkit wasn’t for the purpose of tackling poverty now, but only saving people eternally. Engagement with needy people was important, but was only for the purpose of saving their soul.” I don’t really buy that, either. The unique (and central) Christian ideas of the Incarnation, the new heavens and the new earth, and the kingdom of God, all emphasise Jesus’ commitment to the current material world. Jesus made nobodies into leaders, sex workers into heroes of the faith. As with Jackie Pullinger’s drug addicts, saving people from poverty was necessarily a partner to saving people from sin.

So what is the answer then?