;)
Questions on Wealth and Response to the Gospel
Posted by David Rogers in Bible & Theology
Usually when I write a blog post, whether it be here at sbc IMPACT! or over at my place at Love Each Stone, I write in order to advocate a certain position on an issue about which I have given a certain degree of thought, and already arrived at my own opinions. Today’s post is a bit different in that regard. In order for this post to be of much value, I need you, as the readers, to pitch in and contribute your thoughts. This post is about questions, questions for which I don’t yet have a firm answer. I’m thinking that some of you may have some good insights that may be able to help me with my questions, though. And who knows? Maybe some of you have similar questions, and might be able to be helped by the discussion as well.
The context of my questions is 18 years of missionary service in the country of Spain. Overall, Spain is a country that, when compared to most other places in the world, has not shown much positive response to the preaching of the gospel. There have been some scattered results, but comparatively little, when held up against some of the amazing results we are seeing in other places around the world.
A particular issue that has captured my attention, and which serves as the backdrop for the questions I am asking here, is the relationship between wealth and response to the gospel. Look at the following chart based on information from a recent Pew Study on Global Attitudes.
One thing that stands out to me on this chart is that the countries of Western Europe are all among the wealthiest per capita, and the least religious, in the world. Spain, in particular, in the last 40 years or so, has gone from being practically a third world country to the #7 economy in the world. The United States, however, appears as an important exception, being significantly more religious overall than other comparatively wealthy countries.
Of course, we all know that Jesus said, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). We also know that Paul told the believers in Corinth that “not many of [them] were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth” (1 Cor. 1:26). I also think the Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14:15-23 is relevant here, when the master of the banquet, after the (apparently wealthy) invited guests declined his invitation, says: “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (v. 21).
With all the above in mind, here are my questions:
- Is it biblically warranted or prudent to plan mission strategies that specifically target the “up and out”?
- Is it good stewardship to dedicate significant mission resources toward reaching the “up and out”?
- Is there biblical warrant to expect or even hope that materially prosperous people groups that have historically been closed to the gospel might change and become more open to the gospel?
- Is there a time to “shake the dust off of our feet” with regard to entire people groups that appear to show little response to the gospel? How do we know when that time has come?
- Why is the United States so exceptional among economically wealthy nations in its high level of religiosity?
- Besides the obvious relevance for mission work in Western Europe, do the questions I am asking here have any relevance for evangelism in the United States as well?
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
Excellent questions. I too have marveled at the spiritual indifference and low response of the more wealthy here in Ecuador. Without a doubt the poor respond far more readily to the Good News of Jesus Christ than the rich. I have often used the Luke 14 passage to describe what we see the Lord doing here in Guayaquil.
One thought on the matter…
The years we spent in the Teleamigo evangelistic counseling ministry led us to hundreds of “up and out” contacts. It seems that the economically better off have as many (or more) problems as the poorer classes. When one starts with the felt needs of whatever class, our experience has been that there is an opening up to the spiritual side of things. With the “up and out” if you go in straight with the Gospel, they don’t see the relevance of its message with their world. As they are quick to say, “we already have our religion.” But start with their felt needs and (at least here), they are quick to open up their hearts.
All this to say, have you ever attempted something along the lines of Teleamigo there in Spain?
Consider this: at one end of the scale we have crooks in jail. They may be tough, but inside they KNOW they have a problem; I mean, they’re in PRISON! I had a friend in the prison ministry and he said that, when he got to know them, they were easy to witness to, for that reason.
At the other end of the scale, there are “up and out” folks, who don’t think they DO have any problem. They’re doing fine, thank you, and unless & until the Holy Spirit convicts them, they won’t see it.
It’s kind of like selling homeowners insurance rather than life insurance. If you have a mortgage, you have to buy homeowners insurance. So that’s easy to sell. In life insurance, you FIRST have to create the need in their mind, and THEN make the sale.
This is apart from the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, of course.
Guy,
Thanks for your response. Yes, there are always some among the relatively rich who do respond to the gospel. Jesus said, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And then, He turned right around and said, “But with God, nothing is impossible.”
And, as you point out, most definitely, people, whether rich or poor, will be more responsive when we are addressing their “felt needs.”
At one time, actually, I was looking quite closely at what you have done there in Ecuador with Teleamigo. We have done some similar things, but never to the scale you have done it there. I agree that strategies like Teleamigo, in which people’s felt needs are addressed, will be the most effective in Spain.
However, overall, I still have my questions related to how much effort should you put forth in order to reach the rich, when the poor seem to be so much more responsive. Not to say I have given up on the comparatively “rich” of Spain. We are planning on going back. And, we are still praying about, and thinking through, how best to “be all things to all men in order to save some.”
But, these are questions that are always in the back of my mind, and about which I’ve always wanted to interact with others who may be able to give some good insights.
Bob,
I believe you are correct.
Neil Cole says, in his Greenhouse Church Planting conference, that bad people make the best soil for sowing the gospel seed.
Here are my thoughts: The ‘up and out’ are excellent gateway people (see Dr. Roberts’ Glocalization) and they may often times be a person of peace. In the lists of Paul’s acknowledgements/greetings, he is generally speaking of the fairly well-to-do as being those having a huge impact for the Gospel.
Here in the poorest country in the world, we have a slightly different view on things because there is a huge gap between the very few ‘well off’ and everyone else. Although most of our ministry is with the poor and rural, the relationships we have made with the governors and mayors and political officials have made all the difference in our work, including allowing us to stay in this country.
I know you have much more experience than I in missions, but the longer I am at this thing, the more I think, ‘What would it be like if we focused on the governors?’ ‘What would it be like if we focused on the seekous? (regional Qur’anic teachers)’ ‘What would happen if God would call out the President?’
I try to work in a balance. We gain favor with the movers (generally the rich), and show favor to the poor. That’s one of the reasons I love using human needs projects; they tend to go both ways.
Shadrach,
Thank you very much for your thoughts. I am glad people like you and Guy who are working with mostly poorer people groups around the world are responding to this. I think you have a very important perspective.
I have not yet had a chance to read “Glocalization,” though I do read Bob Roberts blog from time to time. I will have to check out what he says about “gateway people” when I get a chance.
I also ask what you ask about “what if we focused on the governers, etc.?” I haven’t studied it out thoroughly, but my initial hunch is that God, more often than not, when there have been great spiritual awakenings, has worked from the grassroots up, rather than from the influential down. That was the case, from what I understand, for instance, in the Wesleyan revival in the latter part of the 18th century in England. I would be interested to hear of testimonies where God has moved significantly throughout a people group, beginning primarily with the “up and out.”
Thanks again for your thoughts.
I will not have internet access for a good part of the day today. But please keep those comments coming. I will try to get back, and respond, as soon as I get a chance.
David,
This is a great post for God’s Glory and Harvest. In your comment # 6, I am reminded of and to think about Saul / Paul. Paul was among the better class as well as Timothy.
God chose Paul more than anyone else to emulate Jesus Christ.
May God continue to use All of His People and especially Missionaries to further His Kingdom.
In His Name
Wayne
david,
i think that you are right. the more wealthy people are, the less open they are to the gospel. and, i think that bob cleveland hit the nail on the head. they dont see the need for God. they’re doing fine.
so, to answer your question about is it being a good steward to spend money on reaching out to the wealthier nations? i say, first of all, that the Lord wants us to reach out to the entire world. so, we must send missionaries to these places. but, secondly, we ought to emphasize more on the poorer nations. we ought to spend more of our money and time and effort on reaching out to the less wealthy nations. but, dont forget the more wealthy.
also, in response to your thought about why the u.s.a. has a higher religiosity level than other wealthy nations….i’d have to say that it could be due to the great awakenings of the past…we have a rich heritage of strong churches from these awakenings…especially in the south….and, the fact that our nation has really just become a wealthy nation in recent days. in fact, if you’ll notice in our nation, i’d bet that the seniors attend church more than the younger crowd do. the seniors grew up in some hard days, financially. they went thru a world war. they struggled. and, they tend to be more active in church.
good post, david.
david
Isn’t it interesting that before the times of revival in the days of the judges, Israel always had to experience some sort of economic hardship.
I haven’t thought through the missiological implications of that, but there is no question that the ringing truth of the gospel seems to be drowned out by loud clanging of coins.
Wayne,
Thanks for your encouragement and support, both to me personally, as well as to missionaries in general. Yes, Paul & Timothy are examples of educated, and perhaps, relatively privileged, individuals who responded positively to the gospel. Well, Saul/Paul did only after Jesus dramatically got his attention. Another one who comes to mind is the Ethiopian eunuch. Paul also made a special point to preach to people like Felix, Festus, Agrippa, Crispus, perhaps even Caesar himself.
But, what I am asking here is a slightly different question. Should we specifically taylor our evangelistic and missionary strategies to reaching the “up and out” as a population segment?
David Worley,
Thanks for your thoughts. I think you are probably right. If we have to choose, in our allocation of resources, between the more responsive and less responsive, good stewardship would lead us to choose the more responsive. And, usually the poor are more responsive than the rich. But, there are also other factors. I believe we should also give higher priority to the comparatively unreached. And, sometimes, people groups are more unreached because they are less responsive. Or, at least, they haven’t responded to the types of methods we have tried so far.
Also, I agree that we in the USA seems to have a special spiritual heritage, and to be the recipients of some special spiritual blessings. Perhaps, spiritual openness in the USA is decreasing as economic prosperity increases. But still, the statistical differences with other prosperous countries are so great, I can’t help but wonder if other factors are at play as well. Should we automatically expect, for example, that spiritual openness will continue to decrease in the USA? Should we pray for economic crisis, so that there may be greater spiritual openness at the same time?
Dave Miller,
Yes, it does seem that economic ease gets in the way of a people humbling themselves before the Lord, which, in turn, gets in the way of God sending revival. How do you think this should affect our desires and prayers for God’s material blessings in our country?
Warning: Biased thoughts on the way . . .
One way to reach the up and out is to reach college students. This is one reason I am so passionate about our ministry–reaching the future professionals and “influencers” while their hearts are still soft.
OK, to answer your question I think we should have part of our resources dedicated to the professional classes. At one time we had a team here in Manila that did just that. It is slower work, but it only makes sense to target those who have more influence in society.
That’s my two cents.
David, I hope our paths cross one day. We work with similar cultures.
Wealth often results in better education (and vice versa). It might be difficult to reach the better educated (at least, that`s what I experience in my own circles).
Greetings from wealthy Holland and keep up the good work.
Kevin,
Yes, what you are saying makes sense. In the Philippines, from what I understand, though, you have a whole lot more poor people than we have in Spain. I believe the response of the poor leads to an overall culture that is somewhat less resistant to the gospel.
Also, in a place like the Philippines, where the poor are relatively more reached, it may be higher priority, missiologically, to concentrate more resources on population segments that are not as reached, even if they are somewhat more difficult to reach.
Antje,
Yes, wealth and education do seem to be related, which makes it difficult to isolate one factor as over against the other. A possible exception that comes to mind is Cuba. They are quite well educated, from what I understand, and quite poor at the same time. And, especially in the last 10 years or so, the response to the gospel has been very encouraging. I pray God would help you to be faithful to the work He gives you to do there in Holland.
David,
I don’t know (or believe) that education is the issue. I tend to the that the issue is “hope.” Jesus knew this when He spoke of the difficulty that the rich find in receiving the Gospel and entering heaven. Jesus Christ brings hope and rest to the hopeless. It is difficult for the already hopeful, physically comfortable, recreating and resting crowd (with four cars in the driveway, two houses, and a couple of boats) to give much thought to a need for Jesus.
Kevin makes a good point that we all need to pay attention to … reach people while they are young, before they seek their “salvation” in materialism and wealth.
Good post … sorry I’ve been away. Caught some kind of buggie in old Peru.
Geoff,
Yes, I agree, the issue is “hope.” There are some rich people who find themselves, from time to time, in apparently “hopeless” situations. And there are windows of opportunity at these times. And, we should seek to take advantage of them. But, for the most part, as you well state, the rich live in a false security that prevents them from seeing their need of God.
Brother David,
I am super busy right now. Getting ready to take a team out next week. But I did want to weigh in on an aspect of this. You said:
If we have to choose, in our allocation of resources, between the more responsive and less responsive, good stewardship would lead us to choose the more responsive. And, usually the poor are more responsive than the rich. But, there are also other factors. I believe we should also give higher priority to the comparatively unreached. And, sometimes, people groups are more unreached because they are less responsive. Or, at least, they haven’t responded to the types of methods we have tried so far. – end quote
I just wanted to affirm this statement. We have no reason whatsoever to focus more resources on areas that are more responsive. If anything, we should be able to focus less resources as indigenous leaders emerge and the local church becomes autonomous and healthy. When looking at movements of God in people groups we get really excited over the exponential growth of churches (CPM), but sometimes forget that there is typically a MINIMUM of 25 years of intense labor (without much fruit) prior to those exponential numbers.
Samuel Zwemer (1867-1952) is considered by many to be the “father of modern missions to Muslims” and the “Apostle to Islam.” Some record that he saw no converts in his lifetime, others say “probably less than a dozen during his nearly forty years of service” and his “greatest contribution to missions was that of stirring Christians to the need for evangelism Muslims.” Yet we learned much from his ministry and there is no doubt that he is just as much a part of the current movements going on in the Muslim world as those that God used directly in these movements. His role was just different. Our culture tends to measure success by numbers. God measures success by obedience. And He has called us (the Church) to proclaim the coming of the King to ALL peoples…
His Kingdom come,
From the Middle East
PS – My apologies for jumping all over the place with this comment.
From the Middle East,
Thank you very much for your comments. It is because of things like you say here that I have stayed in Spain for the last 18 years. And, I very much respect and support the efforts of those who are laboring in the Muslim world, many times with very little visible fruit for their labors.
At the same time, I still (I believe out of a desire to be more faithful in my stewardship before the Lord) like to ask the hard questions about why we get the returns we get for our efforts. I wonder, for instance, if there is an inherent difference in working among “hard-to-reach” Muslims, who are “hard-to-reach” because of their cultural and religious background, and among Western Europeans, who are “hard-to-reach” because of their relative prosperity (in addition to their cultural and religious background). It is interesting to me, for instance, that in places like Bangladesh, which is both very poor, and very Muslim, we are seeing a significant harvest.
By the way, I very much appreciated what you had to say back a couple of months ago on Bart Barber’s blog related to “The Camel Method.” I left you a comment there, but after most everyone had left that conversation. It is the last comment at:
http://praisegodbarebones.blogspot.com/2008/01/perplexing-review-of-camel.html
Wow, good comments all.
I don’t think that up and outers are necessarily more hostile to the gospel’s message per se, they really just don’t see the need for it in their own lives. At least in the West. I’d be curious to know if that’s also the case in the East and global South.
I do think that it is prudent and good stewardship to plan strategies for reaching the up and out, just not at the expense of reaching those who are historically more responsive. Tim Keller has written and spoken often about the importance of major cities to reaching a nation. And typically, wealthy and influential people drive and influence the social, moral, and spiritual climate of the city. So we must keep working on strategies to reach them.
But we must be realistic in our strategies for reaching the “up and out”. We do not any longer (except perhaps in the southeastern United States) have the luxury of a population who sees the church at the “center” of the culture. We must realize that whatever strategy we devise for reaching the “up and out” will be a strategy FROM the margins TO the center, and not vice versa as in generations past.
As to your original questions 6 and 5, David…yes it’s relevant because the US is headed to where Western Europe is now. Look at the religious commitments of the wealthiest people outside of the South.
Finally, this discussion has called to mind a book by Craig Blomberg, “Neither Poverty nor Wealth: A Biblical Theology of Possessions”. I’m not sure it exactly addresses the questions being discussed here, but worth your time nonetheless.
Stuart,
Good words. Sometimes I think indifference is a bigger barrier to the gospel than hostility, though.
Also, that is interesting what you say about a strategy from the margins to the center. Maybe you could give an example of what you mean by that. In your opinion, what would be a good strategy from the margins to the center?
I had heard the title of Blomberg’s book, but have not yet read it. It sounds interesting.
Blessings.
David,
I agree about indifference. I think that was what I meant to, but failed to, communicate in my first paragraph.
As far as a strategy from the margins to the center, I honestly don’t specifically know what it would “look like” in practice or as a particular strategy. It’s something that admittedly is easier to realize and to accept in theory than to put into practice.
I do think, historically, that’s how things were pre-Constantine. Back rooms and catacombs are pretty marginal compared to two blocks of the downtown square.
I also believe there are personnel in Central and East Asia and North Africa who could give us some insight on bringing the gospel to the center from the margins, but I probably shouldn’t elaborate further on an unsecure blog. Perhaps some of their strategies could be adopted and applied in open contexts too?
On a level, could it be as simple as saying that it goes back to relationships? Christians don’t all live, work, and play at the margins. Perhaps then a strategy for reaching the “up and out” involves Christian professionals (as opposed to “professional Christians”) who know their friends, neighbors, and co-workers well enough to know when those crisis moments of receptivity occur.
I’m not sure how coherent any of this is. It’s quite late. I’ll sleep on it and try to follow-up later in the weekend if this is still going.
Brothet Stuart,
I think you nailed it when referring to “professional Christians.” One of my contentions is that the “missionary” community should be continually working with and discipling “regular” Christians who work “regular” jobs among the unreached. Even if they are not affiliated with a sending agency, they have the potential to reach those they come into contact with on a regular basis. But training and mentoring is needed. In one very rich, very closed country there are literally thousands of Christians who work “regular” jobs. While some agencies have begun education, training, etc with these brothers and sisters, we must be diligent to always be on the lookout.
Please humor me with one quick example:
A few months ago I spoke at a church. Afterwards, I received a phone call and subsequently had coffee with a brother who may never go on a “mission” trip or be a “long-term missionary.” But this is what he said, “I travel all over the Muslim world for business. And I’ve been beating my head against a brick wall for several years when trying to witness to them. What can I do to be a more effective witness?” We visited for an hour or two, he took home some resources and now has the tools he needs to more effectively communicate with Muslims. Several times during our discussion, I could see the lights switching on. This is what we need. Many missionaries are already in place, they are just lacking training!
His grace be with you,
From the Middle East
Stuart & From the Middle East,
Definitely, I agree that the key is relationships. I think both of you are on to some key concepts here in reaching the “up and out.” Christian professionals, instead of “professional Christians,” will almost certainly gain a better hearing.
Here’s another angle… One of the identified “universal elements” of Church Planting Movements is “abundant gospel sowing.” This is usually interpreted as some kind of mass media approach. In Spain, we have seen very little response to the massive literature distributions we have done. Almost always, the response has come as a result of personal relationships, and practical ministry to the needy. What is the place of “abundant gospel sowing” when working with the “up and out”?
David,
You are correct in your understanding of poverty in the Philippines. It is a very different economic situation than Spain.
Blessings.
M.E. beat me to it. In our situation, the traditional religion followers are much easier to ‘win’ with the Gospel than the Muslims. Do we allocate more resource to reaching thsoe people? No. What we have actually done is pull out of those areas and reallocated those resources to our hard-to-reach Muslim brothers.
Also, per M.E., what is really going to win the up and out is not a bunch of short-termers evangelizing them, but long-term witnesses sharing their lives and work with those around them. It helps to be an insider and you don’t get that for nothing.
David,
Sorry I just realized I never got back to your last questions. The next few days don’t bode too well for that. Perhaps by the end of the week.