The Proletariat of God

As I said in my last post (which was quite a while ago), the modern effort to eliminate entirely a societal phenomenon because it is considered wholly and irrevocably evil (poverty, war, hunger, taxes?) is not only so ideologically implausible as to render practical efforts based on it futile, but at odds necessarily with the Christian tradition of a nuanced view of suffering. That is, of course, not to say that we as Christians do not have it as our charge to embrace suffering, to care for the poor, to foster peace instead of violence and conflict, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. This our Savior has given us as a clear mandate. What I object to, in addition to the "suffering is evil" ideology upon which these efforts are based, is the lack of particularity, the amorphous moral generality that makes such efforts possible.

Here's what I mean. When you tell me you want to eliminate poverty, you're not telling me you want to begin with eliminating the lack of resources of a particular person. You're telling me you mean to commence your effort by skipping right to your ultimate end, which is that no particular person will have the status of "poor" because you have eliminated the state of poverty itself. Your efforts will quite necessarily involve broad, sweeping changes on the societal level, or at least favor methods that will eliminate the phenomenon of poverty not by addressing individuals but by addressing groups. Yours is a sociological approach, one that is not entirely without merit but is understandably a requisite for the ideology you're seeking to enact.

Once again, when I read the Scriptures, I am struck by a sharp contrast. I am presented with a particular God, who approaches individual humans, elects a nation above all others, sends his only Son to die for that elected people, a Son who choses twelve men above all others to follow him, whose church is composed of small groups, spread by extraordinary, life-changing encounters between ordinary believers. Though we serve a God who loves all people infinitely, whose Son died on behalf of the sins of the whole world, whose purposes are to restore every hidden corner of his vast creation to unity with Him, it is this same God who has consistently encountered us particularly, in the burning bush, in the belly of a whale, in transforming a shepherd into a king, on the lonely cross. Though it may seem, by modern standards, a tremendous waste of time and resources, it is only through the particular that we can hope to save the peoples of the world. It will not come just through addressing a certain state of existence within which suffering individuals can be categorized (though there may be room for systemic change in just about any category), but by addressing, in particular, individuals who suffer under such a state. That is the imitation of Christ, the one who saves many.