Poverty, Power and the Kingdom of God

My first introduction to Jayakumar Christian, the national director of World Vision India, came in the fall of 2007 through the Christian Vision Project, a really cool initiative led by Andy Crouch. For three years, the project served as a wonderful forum for an array of evangelical leaders to answer big questions about culture, mission and gospel.

In the CVP interview, Jayakumar articulates some of the key thoughts he’d written nearly a decade earlier in God of the Empty-Handed: Poverty, Power and the Kingdom of God, a book I’d be assigned to read for my “Theology of Poverty� class the next fall. For those who haven't experienced the joy of grad school, one of the key skills one acquires  is the ability to skim, since it’s more or less humanly impossible to read everything that’s assigned. But this book I read cover-to-cover. I ate it up.

Crouch describes Christian as “one of the developing world's most articulate theologian-practitioners on the role of the church among the poor." I think that nails it.

Last fall, while in New York City for an event at the UN with a lot of diplomats and leaders of NGOs and foundations, I met Jayakumar. I was an intern at the time, at the bottom of the proverbial food chain, and in the company of people with words like “director� and “ambassador� printed on their well-circulated business cards. There was a lot of hobnobbing and power playing going on, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It was a bit off-putting, to say the least.

But in stark contrast with all of this was Jayakumar, who is just as well-educated and, by NGO standards, just about as “important� as anyone else in attendance. While a group of us were walking to an Italian restaurant in Midtown East, he politely interrupted a prolonged conversation with a very nice and very successful woman to introduce himself to me and to ask me about myself. It was quite unexpected. He told me he admired my school and I told him I appreciated his book. He asked me about my plans for the future. I asked if his out-of-print book would ever be in print again (I am clearly obsessed with books). The next day at the UN, where he was featured in a panel discussion as an expert on child health, he sought me out, remembering my name.

None of this should have come as any surprise to me, of course, because his book had been all about power and relationships and how people who call themselves Christians have no business abusing their power or taking it for granted. And maybe if I met more of the writers I admire I’d find out that they all embody what they write, but in the context of meetings with big wigs at the UN, I didn’t really expect Jayakumar to apply his words and theories in interaction with an intern. But he did, and I won't forget it.

I just reread his book and was once again challenged and inspired. I recommend it to anyone interested in exploring the dynamic between powerlessness and poverty in the context of the Christian faith. In addition to my work in the field of international development, it gives me a lot to live up to in my relationships and in my interactions with those I meet even in passing - perhaps especially with strangers.

After all, the last thing I want is to become one of the guys in suits, climbing the ladder, under the watchful eye of some nameless intern, oblivious to the futility of it all.