Rejecting apathy

I was an early subscriber to Relevant Magazine back in the day, presumably because my twenty-year-old self wanted to be relevant. I was also interested in its tagline: “God. Life. Progressive Culture.” Relevant launched in March 2003, which, incidentally, happened to be when the US invaded Iraq. A lot has happened since then in our country and in our world. A lot of shifts. There have been huge shifts within the North American evangelical church alone. Perhaps most significantly, a shift towards concern for social justice, which has been evident in the magazine’s own evolution over the years.

I welcome this shift and in many ways I’m part of it. But I also worry. I worry because Christians like their trends, and trends are often rooted less in Scripture than in whatever’s marketable, whatever makes us feel good, whatever happens to be en vogue. I think that social justice is a fairly good trend, as far as trends go. If people are going to be passionate about something, it’s great if it’s something other than themselves. But this social justice trend is very much about us too. Compassionate consumerism, as it’s called, probably does some good at times, but it’s also disturbing on a number of levels, not the least of which being when justice becomes nothing more than wearing a t-shirt or a pair of canvas shoes -- and pricey, stylish ones at that.

When social justice becomes less trendy, I wonder what will be left. I’m not a cynic who believes it’s all just fluff. The church and the world will be markedly changed, I really believe that. But I’m also convinced that a lot of Christians will move on to the next Christian trend. What will stop that from happening? What will it take for this social justice thing to make it for the long haul, to bear lasting fruit? I can think of a couple of things.

First, as Christians, we need to see how justice is truly woven through the story of the Bible. It’s not The Story in and of itself, but The Story would be terribly incomplete without it. Churches that do a sermon series on social justice and invite guest speakers to address issues like child trafficking and creation care are taking steps in the right direction. But a truly biblical church is one that takes the Bible, the whole Bible, and treats it as if it’s all important, and all one book. Genesis. Revelation. The Minor Prophets. Romans. Leviticus. Proverbs. III John. The whole thing. A pastor would do well to give as much attention to matters of wealth and poverty as the Bible does, no more, no less.

Second, we need to cultivate lifestyles of justice, even (or especially) when no one’s watching. To do that, we’ll need to get informed, because helping can really hurt those we’re trying to help if we act prematurely. We need to understand the context where we live, as well as the broader context in the world around us. And we need to learn from the successes and failures of those who have gone before, and who are even now blazing new trails. And so, in a very roundabout way, I come full circle.

I started by mentioning Relevant Magazine, and now I want to highlight a new magazine it’s publishing, called Reject Apathy. It’s been rumored for a while, and has been a section in the original magazine for some time, but it’s finally its own entity. I’m interested to see how it evolves, as its parent magazine has, but initially it has five key areas of focus: (1) loss of innocents, (2) creation care, (3) preventable disease, (4) poverty, and (5) violence. It has snazzy design, and yes, some shoes and t-shirts make appearances, but it really has some depth and substance too, with a range of solid contributors in the first issue alone. All of this makes me hopeful that the magazine will continue to challenge my generation to seek justice and the common good. If you’re interested in it, you can flip through the whole magazine for free here.

As my generation of evangelicals begins to realize that doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God is exceedingly difficult and about 99% of the time not at all glamorous, I hope and pray that we won’t give up on it. I hope we will dig into Scripture, seeing where compassion and justice fit into that Story, and then, prayerfully, hand in hand with others, we’ll continue to do the long, slow, joyful work of weaving shalom where we live and wherever God leads us.