Have I any idea what I'm doing?

I haven't been posting lately, mainly because of the annual Resolved Conference held last week in Long Beach. I was there from Friday to Monday, and spent the rest of last week thinking about all I heard and saw and sang about. I think that as long as I keep going to Resolved (perhaps only another year, perhaps longer) it will serve as a nice recalibration tool for me. It's not often I hear preaching as expository and "fundamentalist" as as Resolved. It keeps me from neglecting good doctrine, while giving me an opportunity to assess how Reformed theology and compassion, humility, and charity can and should interact.

Anyway, enough excuses. I hope to post regularly from here until spring break.

So, my initial question: have I any idea what I'm doing? With this blog, with my faith, with the topic of social justice. What am I really in for? Integrating Christian doctrine, and specifically the Christian gospel, and even more specifically from a Reformed perspective, with social work is hard. Really hard. It's asking a lot. It would take a lot of personal sacrifice. It would take a lot of local church involvement. It would take a lot of Christian community commitment.

Take the issue of sanitation and hygiene in Africa. We could go and give them fresh water wells and magic filtering drinking straws and ways to take out their trash and not contaminate living areas. Let's say, in theory, this would reduce infant/child mortality by an impressive untold percentange. But wait - the mothers of these children have little in life to hope for. More living little ones also mean more mouths to feed. Little formal education means little understanding of why sanitation is crucial.

So we must not only give materially (or, in American fashion, send out $33 a month) but educate mothers about the importance of sanitary living conditions. We must convince them that it will improve their quality of life in a desirable and tangible way. We must teach them how to use what is available to them - we must teach them to teach their children. But wait - what good does quality or quantity of life do when life consists of only bleak options? Why should the mothers make cleanliness and health priorities when there are more pressing matters like having shelter and daily bread?

So we must not only educate and try to impart hope, but also give a reason to hope. We must not simply treat symptoms but give them The Cure! (Not the 80s band, the gospel.) As John Piper said on Monday at Resolved, "If you don’t care about the spiritual disease, social action is a lie." A mere bandaid or suture is not love or compassion.

You see now how much work this takes. Maybe not anything an individual can do. In fact, certainly not. And certainly not even anything a community or a nation or even the worldwide church can do, because though saved we are still but lazy, selfish, sinful people with our own problems and children and sicknesses.

But we do have Jesus Christ. We do have the Spirit of power and comfort. We do have a call to come and die. And I say this only with utmost fear (what if it comes true!), but... I do hope I'll summon the strength to go and die.