The Equity System: Everything Must Change

The buzz in evangelicalism today, thanks to the work of Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren and others, has bee social justice. The Evangelical Manifesto, released yesterday, says this:

We must follow the model of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, engaging the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness, by promoting reconciliation, encouraging ethical servant leadership, assisting the poor, caring for the sick, and educating the next generation.

And this:

A proper understanding of Evangelical and the Evangelicals has its own contribution to make, not only to the church but to the wider world; and especially to the plight of many who are poor, vulnerable, or without a voice in their communities.

And this:

We believe that being disciples of Jesus means serving him as Lord in every sphere of our lives, secular as well as spiritual, public as well as private, in deeds as well as words, and in every moment of our days on earth, always reaching out as he did to those who are lost as well as to the poor, the sick, the hungry, the oppressed, the socially despised, and being faithful stewards of creation and our fellow-creatures.

And this:

What we are about is captured not only in books or declarations, but in our care for the poor, the homeless, and the orphaned; our outreach to those in prison; our compassion for the hungry and the victims of disaster; and our fight for justice for those oppressed by such evils as slavery and human trafficking.

And finally this:

We urge those who share our dedication to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed to join with us in working to bring care, peace, justice, and freedom to those millions of our fellow-humans who are now ignored, oppressed, enslaved, or treated as human waste and wasted humans by the established orders in the global world.

McLaren speaks to the topic of social justice by explaining what he calls the "equity system." The Equity System was originally put into place to protect the prosperity of the people. Police, militias, courts, and legislatures have the people’s interest and justice in mind—at least that is the hope. Too often, we see these institutions fail us and justice stomped into the ground. People are treated unfair by the institutions that are supposed to protect them. This is seen most poignantly in the global economy. The quality of life of an average person on this earth, when measured against that of the wealthy reveals an incredible economic disparity that effects the livelihood of a person, as life expectancy of the world’s most poor is twenty to thirty (in some places nearly forty!) years lower than the West. The injustice of the global economy is cheating people out of the long life we all deserve. Equity needs to be redefined outside of the capitalist/communist dichotomy of wealth distribution. Equity needs to involve more than wealth, instead it needs to be a holistic valuation of the fiscal, social, environmental, political, religious, and health-related needs of a person. Unrelenting economic growth is making our world an place full of inequity, as the rich grow wealthy on the backs of the poor. And that is not because they are evil people conniving to beat the poor into the ground. Globalization has created a world where the world’s financial and economic means are so entangled with middle men and intermediaries that the wealthy never see the shanties and poverty of those who they are breaking with injustice.

McLaren, through the infiltration of Jesus’ message into the security, prosperity, and equity systems, images a world changed by Christ that so shares in the equity found in the kingdom that where you live does not determine whether you live. That is the noble goal we should all aspire to accomplish in our King’s name.

Go back to read part one, part two, part three or part four.