Pursuing God's dream where everyone belongs, everyone matters, and everyone can thrive.
Have you ever heard the sound of wealth? Listen carefully to the sound of wealth… Remember, wealth is not your income it is all your assets minus all your debt. This includes your house, your car, money in the bank, etc. Listen…
After “hearing” that, how might that affect how we understand our society, if it does at all? What might a Christ shaped response look like? How might the covenant community (aka the church) respond collectively? Flow with me…
Rev. Dr. Drew G. I. Hart is an associate professor of theology at Messiah University and has 10 years of pastoral experience prior to teaching. He currently directs Messiah University's "Thriving Together: Congregations for Racial Justice" program and co-hosts Inverse Podcast with Jarrod McKenna, an award-winning peace activist from Australia. Hart is the author of Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism (2016) and Who Will Be A Witness?: Igniting Activism for God's Justice, Love, and Deliverance (2020). And he is also a co-editor and contributor to the recently published book entitled Reparations and the Theological Disciplines: Prophetic Voices for Remembrance, Reckoning, and Repair (Nov. 2023). Hart received bcmPEACE’s 2017 Peacemaker Award, the 2019 W.E.B. Du Bois Award in Harrisburg, PA, and most recently in December 2023 Life Esteem Ministries recognized him in Harrisburg with the Harambee Award for the Nguzo Saba Principle of Umoja—Unity for his faith-based activism and public scholarship in the community. Drew and his family live in Harrisburg, PA. View more posts
Drew G. I. Hart
I can’t comment on this latest installment because I’m still laughing too hard and since I’m hoping you’re not gonna say you were jokin all along even though this post really has me sayin Mmmmmm…
I think I would rather just ask a simple question…
What nation in the world has ever had the sort of utopian state you would like us to model?
Please don’t use the apostles and the people who were gathered together right after Jesus left for Heaven – they thought he would be back quickly – so what did it matter if they sold their belongings and shared everything in common…
When they realized he wasn’t coming back in their life time – they went back to their day jobs and Christianity while trying to earn a living in the midst of fallen man.
No, I’m looking for the country/nation (at ANY time in history) that’s done it right and you want us to immitate.
PS…
In one of my last responces – you misunderstood one thing – I wasn’t saying that any and all aid given to people was only for education. I was trying to say that people should be inrolled in a program of education in order to qualify for whatever aid they needed otherwise.
and
Please be careful of who’s company you think you would do well to be in – had you been in Russia or Cambodia or China when the likes of Stalin, Pol Pot or Mao came to power – you who have horded education to yourself and have a faith in the one true God – would be one of the first to be shot and allowed to drop into a mass grave.
I’m sending you a book.
Light reading for the bathroom.
2 pages per subject.
love ya
D
Look, I obviously do not think there is any perfect system. We have seen people err in all different directions. I have no problem with a capitalistic system, I just think it needs to be regulated, and those who have power (whether it be political or economic) need to be held accountable. There is no perfect system that I am suggesting, but that does not negate the need to critically look at the flaws of our system and trying best to tweak it so that there is more protection for those who are most vulnerable economically.
Fare enough with the education… I have no problems with that idea (yes we can agree on something).
I think you misunderstood me as well, I am not saying that I want to be associated with all socialists… I am saying that I want to be associated with heroes like Martin Luther King who were labeled as such for his critical yet constructive approach in America. Although being killed for my faith (while obviously nothing to romanticize or take lightly) is what we are called to take on. Am I looking to die, of course not… who is. Are we called to take up our cross… absolutely. Christian history tells a very interesting narrative. When the church is persecuted it looks much like that of the authentic church described in the New Testament. When the church seeks to be “powerful” in worldly terms then it tends to do the persecuting. The early church use to say “the blood of the martyr is the seed of the faith”. My American comforts unfortunately pull me away from this type of faith, my prayer is that God would stir me up in a way that I would be willing to die for him and let go of the things that seem so important to me like money.
“I want to know Christ — yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
Philippians 3:10-11
Only Christianity can temper raw capitalism–not the government.
You cannot regulate and legislate morals and ethics. That is the approach of a worldview that has abandoned God (it’s called materialism and in one sense Socialism is its child).
If the heart of man does not change, then nothing will change.
One look at Communism (and boy did they have equal wealth distribution) should tell you that.