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How many children will that cost
me?
by Andrew Bale
How would we
react if the currency we had to use every day didn’t consist
of pounds and pence (or dollars and cents) but consisted of
small children. How would we feel if every time we bought a
bottle of Coke it cost us three small children? Every time we
bought a computer magazine we had to hand over 9 children and
every visit to the movies (popcorn included) meant the
execution of another 10. I wonder how we would feel about the
following potential purchases?:
• Annual cable
TV subscription (with movies and sports) = 1000 children
• A ride on a London bus = 2 children
• A high definition TV set = 4000 children
• A music CD = 30 children
• An iPod = 140 children
• A recently released DVD = 25 children
• A small family car = 25,000 children
• A middle of the road BMW = 60,000 children
• A newspaper = 1 child
• A cappuccino = 3 children
• A big Mac = 2 children (‘Super size me’ for an extra child!)
Imagine also
that the deaths sanctioned by our purchases weren’t quick and
painless but were slow, lonely and agonising. In such a world
how reluctant would we be to buy anything other than the very
essentials? Yet impossible though it seems this is the world
in which we live.
30,000 children die every day from preventable diseases and
malnutrition . That’s the same as 1 coach load of children
dying every hour on the hour, every day of the year. Of these
children 65% die from the following three causes:
1. Acute respiratory tract infections
2. Diarrhoeal diseases and the resulting dehydration
3. Immunisation preventable diseases: measles,
tuberculosis, tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and pertussis
(whooping cough).
The cost of curing some of these diseases is as little as 50p
(80 cents). 50p will also buy more than enough food to keep a
hungry child alive. It is a sobering thought that every time
we spend 50p on something non-essential we are effectively
sentencing a small child to death.
Let me set before you a hypothetical situation:
Imagine that a child associated with our Corps was dying of a
rare disease; the death was slow and painful. Whilst no cure
was available in our country there was a Doctor overseas who
had discovered such a cure. The cost to transport the child to
this Doctor is £10,000 ($18,000). In the face of such a
scenario would our Corps (and the friends of our Corps) not
rally together and raise the necessary funds?
Is our sense of responsibility, indeed our moral obligation to
help the dying limited by geography? Children die every day
for the want of 50p – we wouldn’t even need to raise any money
we probably have it lying around in a coin tray in our car or
in a pot on our dressing table.
Last February I found myself standing on the platform
launching this year’s ‘Self-Denial’ campaign at my Corps.
There, I was encouraging wealthy Salvationists who live in a
hungry world to sacrifice one non-essential for one month. The
sermon I preached that morning asked the question ‘If our
world is hungry and what we are giving up is non-essential
then why just one month? Why not for ever”
This question (directed first and foremost at myself) haunted
me over the coming weeks as I began to mentally keep a record
of my non-essential purchases and possessions. All of this was
happening at a time when I was reading the biography of George
Scott Railton. GSR’s commitment to a simplistic lifestyle
bordered on the dangerous. Railton possessed no clothes other
than his uniform. He ate when people reminded him that he
ought to. He once slept on the floor because he had given his
mattress away to someone who had no mattress. He was known in
mainland Europe as the ‘Franciscan Salvationist’.
As all of these influences began to hunt me down I also found
myself drawn into a company of people committed to fasting and
making corporate repentance on behalf of the Army. Again the
question came up – why deny yourself once a month? Why not
adopt a lifestyle of God-inspired self-denial?
With all these hounds barking at my heels I set off for Roots
UK and there I finally surrendered in inevitable capitulation.
Now, the purpose of this article is not to tell you how you
can help alleviate such suffering; people far better than me
are doing that already. Indeed, part of the process that led
to the writing of this article and the lifestyle changes it
calls for involved such initiatives.
The Be a Hero campaign
and the work undertaken by
The Salvation Army’s International Development Fund has
certainly helped the Holy Spirit push me into the corner out
of which this article has come. The purpose of this article is
to highlight the fact that the way most Christians live their
lives in the west is an offence to God, a block to revival,
and a death sentence to millions of people.
The Bible says in 1 John 3:16-18
”This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down
his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our
brothers If anyone has material possessions and sees his
brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of
God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or
tongue but with actions and in truth.”
This is a painful but unavoidable truth and like most
unpalatable scriptural truths it is specific and contains no
loopholes.
John says that Christ’s sacrifice has shown us what love
really is and a direct result of that knowledge should be
self-denying love that shows practical pity to others. John
goes even further and dares to say, ‘Brothers, if anyone has
material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no
pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?’ This is scary
stuff and it ought to cause us to react in an extreme way.
Add to this Paul’s comments in Romans 12, The Parable of the
Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25, the rich young ruler in
Mark 10, the widow’s mite in Luke 21 and Isaiah 58 (in fact
most of the Bible!) and a pretty convincing argument begins to
build.
Quite frankly the response of the contemporary church is
derisory. Christians are talking the talk but quite simply
failing to walk the walk. Now it is not for me to outline
those things which may or may not be essential in the lives of
others – If pushed I could write a very long list –whatever I
say would not be as comprehensive as that compiled by the Holy
Spirit! (However reading
Campbell and
Court’s ‘Be a Hero’ would be a good place to start). What
we do need to do is to open our eyes to the true state of our
world and ask ourselves if we are prepared to anaesthetize our
consciences any further.
Salvationists need to ask themselves some serious questions
about lifestyle and they need to ask those questions with a
clear understanding that the answers they give have lethal
consequences not just for others but also for themselves.
Surely the only way a Christian can go is to (as much as one
can within the affluent west) embrace poverty and invest all
of our disposable income, time and effort into feeding the
hungry, clothing the naked, fighting for social justice and
reaching the lost – quite simply fulfilling what Jesus called
the greatest commandment.
Now there are many counter arguments that are raised against
the adoption of such a simplistic lifestyle, the following are
some that I have heard:
• We must
bring people up to our level not sink down to theirs
• Jesus came to give us life in all its fullness
• What about the alabaster box of perfume?
• It’s impossible to embrace poverty in the affluent west
• I will draw attention to myself and distance myself from my
friends and family
• Jesus was called a glutton and a drunk
It is not for
me to knock down these arguments but it is down to the
individual presenting them to offer a defence – not to me but
to God. A Christian aged 30 who spends £50 ($80) a month on
non-essentials and lives until they are 80 will be responsible
for the unnecessary deaths of 150,000 children. As long as
they are satisfied that such arguments stack up in the face of
such accountability then that’s fine – I for one want to stand
before Christ having done absolutely everything I can to save
both the physically and the spiritually lost.
Now I am a father, a husband and an employee as such I have
responsibilities. I am also the member of a wider family and
social network. Within this network I have responsibilities,
which I cannot shirk. However I still believe it is possible
to strike up a reasonable balance between meeting these
responsibilities and adopting a way of life, which will still
release resources into a hungry world.
To this end I have come up with a personal lifestyle
manifesto, this is an extension to my soldier’s covenant and I
would urge others to adopt this or come up with their own.
This list is by no means comprehensive but it is at least an
attempt to respond to God in a practical way:
• As long as
people are hungry I will eat only the minimum required to
remain healthy.
• As long as people go thirsty I will drink only water.
• I will not waste or mince my words while there are people
who remain deaf to God's word.
• I will not abuse my freedom in Christ but will use it to
release those who are bound by sin and addiction.
• In a world of increasing leisure and dubious entertainment I
surrender all my spare time to God to reach the distracted.
• In a world of increasing materialism and consumerism I will
embrace poverty (as much as I practically can) and surrender
my money to God to reach the dissatisfied and sell all
personal possessions, which are not essential to my mission.
• In a fragmented world of broken relationships, where
individuals are increasingly marginalised, I will not forget
my own family in my enthusiastic efforts to welcome the
excluded.
• I will remember that rest is a command and obey it even
though to do so is against the grain.
• In an environment damaged through the apathy of greedy
industry and lazy humanity I will use the minimum of both
natural resources and energy. Practically, I will wash only
with cold water, walk (where possible instead of drive) and
where I can travel by public transport.
• In a world of political, economic and social oppression I
will fight for social justice, champion the cause of the
forgotten and bring those out of sight into mind. I will make
myself aware of, and join in, campaigns for social justice, I
will use any purchasing power that comes my way to shop
ethically.
• In a world of political correctness and Christian hypocrisy
I will hate and oppose the sin but adamantly refuse to hate
the sinner - I will love the unloved as Christ loves me.
• I am a resource in God's hand made freely available for him
to spend as he wishes. I give myself totally and without any
reservation to God and the Salvation War.
These are
resolutions not regulations and as such are about purpose and
motive rather than legality. Sometimes obedience to God may
require me to break them, sometimes I may be allowed to enjoy
times of God-ordained celebration when to keep them would be
self-righteous and exclusive. They are simply a framework
within which I believe my witness will be more effective and
my limited resources better utilised.
The church often struggles with finding the appropriate
evangelical methodology for the present age – I believe more
than ever that lifestyle will be at the heart of any
successful revival. A lifestyle that lovingly and willingly
surrenders what is sinful, what is doubtful and what is
non-essential.
I cannot honestly see that there are any other options open to
the serious Salvationist other than absolute surrender of
everything. As the song says:
‘What is divine about my creed
If I am blind to human need?
For you have said they serve you best
Who serve the helpless and oppressed.”
(SA Song Book 518)
abale@ntlworld.com
www.bloodandfire.org.uk
Beyond the brook
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