Respect for the
sanctity of human life
Part Three

Many who are deeply concerned about the poor often get so carried away in their readings of certain passages in the Bible that they speak of God's one-sided preference for the poor. This view leads to the conclusion that being poor in itself becomes a spiritual blessing.

However, some years ago, when I lectured to pastors in Bangalore, India, I heard another visiting lecturer, Ronald Sider, speak to the same group. He said, (and I thoroughly agree):

I do not mean that the poor, because they are / poor, are to be idealized . . . the poor sinfully / disobey God in the same way that we / wretched middle class do. And they therefore / need to enter into a living relationship with / Jesus Christ as we do.

But we are called to do our part as individual Christians and as a Church, because for millions to be so poor is contrary to God's intention for human life. In the Manila Manifesto of Evangelicals that met a few years ago, the delegates as a group declared: "We are outraged by the inhuman conditions in which millions live, who bear God's sacred image as we do."

At the time they met in Manila they saw for themselves the slums of Metro Manila, particularly the then Smokey Mountain in Tondo.

For the Church of Jesus Christ and for us as individual Christians, the Christian Conference of Asia has published the following guidelines:

1. Go and learn; meet the suffering persons in depth. Whether we be of the middle class or of the wealthy class, we should have a sense of awareness and know poverty in depth. 2. Take your share in the struggle to alleviate poverty. See to it that whatever is your calling, let it have some aspects of it that relate to improving the plight of the poor. 3. Develop a theological habit of expressing the church's concern for those who have less in life; express this concern in prayers, sermons, in the Church budget and in organizational projects. 4. Develop a lifestyle that somehow mirrors the lifestyle of the masses. Someone said at a meeting of the World Council of Churches: "Live simply so that others may simply live."*

TO BE CONTINUED

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