This is a broad-sweeping post. I will write more in the future on all of these things. I just want to create a platform first: looking at the voices of those who cry against their pain and shame, the voices of those who say it doesn't matter, and the voice of Jesus, who identifies with one of these to the extent that he says he is them.
There is a joy that our generation experiences that our parents and grandparents never knew. A flutter of the heart, an affirmation of identity:
Taking the buzzfeed quiz... and being told your personality is the same as that most admirable of fictional characters.
I have amassed a collective heroic identity of Gandalf, Sherlock, Chandler, Ned Stark and many others.
I know what you're thinking - how could such a wise, smart, witty and downright good man even exist? What can I say? (I missed out that I've also been ascribed the race of orc and been sorted into Hufflepuff)
Slavery
Anyway, welcome to my '12 years a slave' quiz:
Congratulations. You are Benedict Cumberbatch.
(So was I. Yay!)
If you haven't seen it (do!) then let me explain. Cumberbatch is a pretty good chap. He buys a violin for his slave, treats him with some dignity, clearly hates a lot of aspects of slavery (except the product of his industry), and tries to protect his slave from violence...
...At least, he tries to protect him from violence on his own land. I'm trying to use as few spoilers as possible. Benedict's character is faced with a situation where his hired hand wants to kill a slave. He 'protects' the slave - not by giving him freedom - but by selling him to someone who he admits he knows is a hard and wicked master.
But the suffering will be out of sight. Benedict's conscience is suitably protected.
Perhaps you know now where I'm going. I'm sorry I tricked you - I lured you in with the promise that you're like the most devilishly handsome, deep-voiced, dreamy Englishman ever to walk the earth.
What I'm suggesting is that we've come a long way since we thought slaves working the land was a fine sight. In fact, we hate the sight of it. Eugh! No, no. We've moved our slavery far away from us. To other countries, where we don't feel the jabs of conscience, only the comfy tread of slave-made trainers, the creamy taste of poverty-picked coffee. I am not judging you. We are all trapped in this - we don't know which companies use slave/crimilly low-waged labour - because it's not their priority to reveal these things - it's up to us consumers to create a situation where they can't afford not to let us know that they pay their workers.
Just like we've created a market where companies will proudly declare their food 'organic' and know that we'll pay more and buy more of it. Eggs are 'free-range' and jumpers are '100% cashmere'.
Maybe we could create a market where they'll sell more if they 'didn't abuse humans and increase the suffering of the desperate'. Not a catchy label, but you'd almost hope it goes without saying - I mean, we were indignant when we found out we'd been eating horse! Surely knowing that people aren't abused in the process of getting our stuff, is more important even than knowing if our food says 'moo' or 'neigh'?
I could finish off the post and drum it in. But I don't think it necessary and I can't tell you anything else. I can tell you that at the end of this slavery survey, you will be hyperbolically told how many slaves personally work for you (which they demonstrably don't), but you will also see just how pervasive the problem is. And it will show you which companies to petition. That's the stage we're at - we can't just end it - we need to transform this entire, hellish market.
Poverty
That seems heavy enough, but I want to talk more broadly about poverty.
It has become fashionable for the ostensibly conservative Christians to pretend that we are not called to care about such things. There is no mandate for social justice, we are told. The world will one day burn, and all that will be left is the saved - those who know Christ. Therefore all that matters is evangelism? We care not for the temporary suffering of those destined for eternal suffering. Is that not simply white-washing a tomb - putting a sticky plaster on an open wound? The thing we need to do is make sure we 'get heaven'.
There are many, many problems with that. I shall write more on it in the future.
For now, we shall say simply that it is surely the devil's jackpot if we both ignore suffering and decide that what we want is heaven, not Jesus. We become the Pelagians, but without the good deeds.
Because if we love Jesus (as opposed to 'paradise'), then we shall clothe and feed the naked and hungry. It's really entirely that simple. We long for Christ, not 'heaven'. This is the gospel - that we are no longer slaves, but sons of God. Not slaves to sin, but children who copy their father.
It's Islam that promises heaven: 72 virgins (or white raisins, depending on your translation), but Allah is nowhere to be seen. The glory of eternity is the presence of the Christ that we love. And the Christ that we love says that to ignore the poor is to ignore him (Matthew 25).
The 'code'
You will notice that I'm zooming out: slavery, to poverty, to the general call to compassion and holiness.
The problem is that poverty is now invisible. Even 'visible' poverty (I live in Edinburgh - there is a LOT of it) is invisible to us, because we are inoculated against it: The other day I was walking back from work, at 10pm on a Friday. It was freezing. There was a group of girls ready to go out, queuing to get into a club. One of them had such cold hands that she put one on the back of another's neck and she squealed and giggled at the shock. Directly beneath them - there was perhaps a foot of distance between them - sat a beggar, huddled against the same biting frost.
The cold was but a gimmick. Poverty was a gimmick. There was an invisible man next to them.
More on all of that at a later date. For now, I must make clear that this is not a judgemental post - I have walked past coatless, gloveless and hungry people enough times as to utterly shame me. But I also don't want to forget to give you the Biblical code for riches before I finish!!
"Give all you have. Your reward is in heaven."
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