BOOK REVIEW: GOD OF THE EMPTY-HANDED, BY JAYAKUMAR CHRISTIAN.

Reviewed by Thomas Scarborough.

Why has the world been losing the war on poverty, despite humanity’s best efforts and intentions? How should the Christian Church integrate personal faith with issues of poverty? These are some of the questions which underlie this book.

Jayakumar Christian, in God Of The Empty-Handed, takes a vast and meticulously researched sweep over the problem of global poverty – both from a secular and from a Christian point of view. He begins by outlining major secular assumptions on poverty, and major development theories of the past 40 years. Then he moves into the assumptions of liberation theology and evangelical Christianity, discussing several historical responses of the Church. In each case, he details the strengths and weaknesses of the Church’s involvement, with some revealing observations (evangelism may succeed where social programmes fail – and vice versa).

One has to smile at the names of theologians whom Christian cites alongside each other without skipping a beat – Küng and Newbigin, Nolan and Volf. One wonders where this is all going. But the unsuspecting reader does not know just what a surprise Christian has in store in Chapter 7, “Principalities and Powers and Poverty”, where the book suddenly changes gear.

HAS THE WORLD BEEN WINNING AGAINST POVERTY?

One of Christian’s largely unstated themes is that the world has not been winning against poverty – neither on the secular level, nor through the Church. While many inroads have been made, nevertheless there has been widespread regression as a whole. The rich have grown richer, and the poor have grown poorer and more in number. Despite all the good that can be reported, it is a dismal picture.

Christian describes “increasing numbers below the poverty line”. He quotes the president of the World Bank: “We are making progress, but it is not fast enough.”. He states, “It appears the playing ground is tilted against the poor.” He describes how liberation theology in particular originated for the reason that “past attempts to deal with poverty were considered totally inadequate”.

He further outlines how strategies which were thought to look promising proved to be self-defeating. For instance: “Benefits of economic growth, poverty alleviation programmes, the green revolution, and so forth all tend to gravitate toward the few rich.”. The poor have merely transmuted into new elites, or the tranformed poor have not been reintegrated into society as a whole.

Christian casts his net wide in describing ways in which humanity – both secular society and Christ’s Church – has sought to remedy the problem of poverty. One wonders whether any options remain to be considered.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM, REALLY?

The problem of poverty has been variously defined. Christian takes the approach that each of the major “poverty assumptions” may be more or less helpful. All of these, in his view, contribute in some way to a “multi-variant analysis of poverty”. He is opposed to any “single-variable analysis of poverty”, each of which has proved to be inadequate on its own.

From the secular point of view, there have been various historical assumptions, including the following:

* The poor lack resources, which should therefore be opened up to them.

* The poor may be defined as those who fall below a so-called “poverty line”, at which point social benefits should kick in.

* The poor are backward in their social and economic practices, and need to be uplifted.

* Structural inadequacies skew the distribution of wealth, and these need to be corrected. Or

* The poor are burdened with too many dependents, which requires social intervention.

From the Christian perspective, Christian outlines a few major historical assumptions, including the following:

* The poor need personal conversion as the prerequisite for social, economic, and political transformation.

* The poor need education and reform, to which the Church has a Christian obligation.

* The poor lack modernisation, which may be provided through Church-based development projects.

* The poor are the victims of flawed public policy, which calls for prophetic challenge from the Church. Or

* The love of Christ is simply an irreducible motivation that drives Christians to serve the poor.

Throughout the book, each of these approaches, and more, is carefully shown to have been helpful, yet inadequate in isolation. Throughout the book, also, Christian builds the argument that poverty essentially has to do with power – the “power that keeps the poor powerless”. However, he does not adopt any of the major theories of “power creation” – rather he has something else in store.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION TO POVERTY?

History itself, writes Christian, “has no power to redeem”. Nor is it the case that God “passively takes the side of the poor”. Rather he suggests a “redemptive bias” for the poor on the part of the Church.

Whether he would see himself as presenting a solution to poverty is unclear. However, he clearly seeks to offer an approach which would succeed in integrating “the relationship of evangelism to social action”, and would promise a powerful answer to poverty situations.

Christian maintains that poverty is about inequality, “specifically about inequality in power relationships”. The non-poor systematically exclude the poor from access to education, wealth, and benefits from the system, and “seek to play god in the lives of the poor”, to form what he refers to as “god-complexes”. However, these complexes are not merely “inner spiritualities” as proposed by Walter Wink. “Principalities and powers are considered personal beings that have dominating influence on persons, social organizations and groups, and structures”.

In fact it is through his focus on principalities and powers as “personal beings” that Christian seeks to integrate evangelism and social action. The mission of the Church is to confront principalities and powers in all their multifarious activities, whether it be to blind the minds of those who do not believe, or to oppress those who are in poverty.

However, Christian is mindful of the fact that we are only human, and that these are principalities and powers. This means “humble acceptance of our natural powerlessness” and “dependence on God”. That is, we are all empty-handed. “Only through genuine recognition of powerlessness can we discover kingdom power.” Above all, this “requires prayer and fasting” as preparatory exercises for “confrontation with the devil and his forces”. Transformation itself is “the result of the Spirit’s anointing”, and empowerment “is in the final analysis the work of the Holy Spirit”.

In a final chapter, Christian fleshes out a “Kingdom-based response to the powerlessness of the poor”. But alas, this chapter represents a mere 14 pages of a book 238 pages long – a brief sketch of what might have been. This is surely the greatest single shortcoming of the book.

Further, Christian dedicates just four lines to the title: “Powerlessness Is the Experience of Real Persons”. In reality, the poor are frequently pushed beyond their emotional and spiritual ability to cope. What does the book have to offer such persons? I found little to address this.

CONCLUSION.

“Prayer and fasting”? This might leave some practitioners aghast. However, in Christian’s scheme of things, this is merely a prelude to serious action, and it is thoroughly motivated.

I see the presuppositions of the book applying to far more than poverty situations. All too many ministers have become bogged down in ministry by approaching principalities and powers in their midst, to use the words of Christian, under “the influence of Enlightenment thinking”, to the exclusion of “important dimensions of reality”. Christian considers that, in this way, missionaries in the past “became agents of secularization despite all their good intentions.” We would do well to note, he writes, that many situations which Christians confront today are not merely “rooted in the Fall of humans”, but are “a result of the present working of the Evil One”, and need to be dealt with as such.

This book deserves attention, at the very least to gain an insight into major poverty assumptions and historical responses to the poor. Particularly useful and insightful is Christian’s treatment of evangelical Christianity as he traces major developments over the past 40 years. For any Christian wishing to understand the “big picture” with regard to global poverty, this is the book. It is a tour de force.

CITATION OF REFERENCES

Christian, Jayakumar. God Of The Empty-Handed. Monrovia, California: MARC (World Vision), 1999. ISBN 1-887983-13-9. Publisher Price: US$21.95.

Rev. Thomas Scarborough is the minister of an Evangelical Congregational Church in Cape Town, South Africa. During the course of a Master’s degree through Fuller Theological Seminary, he needs to read and reflect on some 100 books – hence this review!