10 days in Central America (pt. IV)

(Typically this blog will update once a week with a reflection about the Trinity. Recently, however, I spent 10 days in Central America, and was unable to update. As such, this is the last entry in a series of four reflections of the trip.)

Part IV.

Evangelical Challenges:

The most significant challenge I encountered was the reality of a globalized economy that favors some and creates overwhelming poverty for others. This is a challenge for a number of reasons. For one thing, poverty anywhere in the world undermines the basic proclamation that all of creation has its being in Christ (1 Cor. 8.6, A Social Statement on: Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity and Culture).

A practical challenge global inequality creates is how sisters and brothers in Christ are to live together. Global inequality reinforces the historical discrimination that puts western and northern Europeans above all other ethnicities of the world. This historical discrimination is apparent in America’s Immigration laws (Historical Discrimination in the Immigration Laws), and in praxis it is apparent in the lines of global wealth and global poverty.

As long as this discrimination separates sister and brothers in Christ in reality, there will always be tension and conflict. These tensions will (and have) make any global fellowship difficult. There will be difficulties in the fact that many Christians in America will either look upon Christians in the Global South paternally or lead to the rejection of the self for white Christians (Social Statement on: Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity and Culture).

This discrimination can create an environment where church in the global south no longer want to relate to churches in western and northern Europe. This can be seen from the perennial threat that Lutheran Churches in Africa will cease to identify with the ELCA if the homosexuality statement endorses clergy in committed same-sex relations.

I, personally, experienced this sentiment of resentment when talking to youth resisting the military coup in Honduras. These youth clearly articulate how destructive a “neo-liberal economy” (a free-market global economy) is fiscally destroying their country. This is not to say that these youth resented me, instead these youth resented an economic system which favors me and is destructive for so many others.

The reality of historic discrimination, which is no longer bound to one country or another, radically undermines true Christian fellowship. Part of declaring the message of God’s love is, daily living that love of God out. This living of God’s love is difficult for those who are privileged at the expense of others. The living of God’s love is difficult for those who are discriminated against for arbitrary reasons.

A global economy which is actively creating vast disparities between privileged and the rest of the world is an obstacle to true evangelism abroad and within the United State (especially in a globalized world). A global economy which in praxis privileges western and northern Europeans clearly undermines the claim that all of God’s creation has it’s being in Christ, regardless of race, nation, or any other factor which separates people. In Christ all separations (distinctions) are overcome (Gal. 3.28).

(Follow RoboPreacher's link to his Picasa page to see more photos from the trip!)