Words of Hope For All the World

• The Legacy of John Paul II
• Justice, Mercy, and Johnny Cash
• The Transformation of Mr. Jabez

By Dwight A. Moody, Dean of the Chapel
Georgetown College, KY

The Legacy of John Paul II

     Millions of people are out of work and many others change jobs every few years. But one very important person has kept his job for a quarter century and this fact alone has brought him a great deal of attention.

     I write, of course, of Karol Wojtyla, better know as John Paul II, bishop of Rome, and thus pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. He is number 262 in a line of leaders that goes back, according to church teaching, to Peter.

     Most popes served less than ten years, and many less than five: an astounding 46 popes stayed in office less than 13 months! Only two have served longer than the current pope: Pius IX and his immediate successor Leo XIII, covering the second half of the 19th century.

     Mostly, the opportunity to celebrate a silver anniversary is a matter of age: Wojtyla was only 58 when his election in 1978 was signaled by the plume of white smoke rising from the chimney of the Vatican.

     “Do not be afraid,” he said in his first public address; and for these 25 years he has practiced what he preached—mostly.

     Hope has been the theme of his reign: “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” was the title of his best-selling book at the turn of the millennium.

He has been fearless in confronting both the atheism of the East and the hedonism of the West. He has faced down the Communist in his native Poland; many give him significant credit for the collapse of totalitarianism of the Soviet Union.

With enormous moral authority, the Pope has challenged the self-centered materialism of many Christianized countries, rightly calling it a contradiction of the gospel that lies at the root of our culture.

John Paul also stood against the American invasion of Iraq and has championed the cause of the Palestinian people. At the same time, he became the first pope in history to enter a Muslim mosque and pray at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He sought better relations with Orthodox Christians in Russia and Greece, and also with Protestants in Europe and Evangelicals in America. He is a legitimate candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Perhaps only Mohammad Ali can rival the Pope as the primary global celebrity of our time. He has traveled the world, taking up the cause of the poor and advocating a consistent life ethic: condemning war, abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment. This has not been easy; he is a courageous man.

But the Pope is not totally without fear and these lingering fears have kept him from unleashing the kind of Christian practice that could bring a radical transformation to the world as we know it.

John Paul, it seems, has been afraid of two very important groups of believers. He fears what might happen if they are set free from the artificial boundaries that he (and most religious leaders) impose.

The Pope fears the intelligentsia, specifically the theologians whose writings explore the edges of orthodoxy and challenge the current consensus.

Time and again he has denied the right of free expression to those who dissent from his version of the Christian faith. Such restrictions on thinking, writing and speaking bring little hope to a world often dominated by ignorance and ideology.

John Paul also fears the women, writing and working to prevent women from assuming their needful, rightful place in the affairs of church and state.

John Paul's affection for Mary and his elevation of Teresa toward her inevitable sainthood do not obscure the fact that he has resisted the chief need of our time: freeing women from the patriarchal structures that keep them everywhere marginalized.

A crusade (even led by the Pope) on behalf of women of the world is the single most effective evangelistic strategy available to Christians. It would protect women from the violence, illness and poverty that is most often their lot in life; it would extend an irresistible invitation from a religious community that embraces fully their dignity as people made in the image of God.

Do not be afraid, John Paul, to bring the full-orbed hope of Christ to all the people of the world, and in this way finish the splendid ministry by which God has blessed the world for these twenty-five years.

Justice, Mercy, and Johnny Cash

     When Johnny Cash died I went right out and bought a CD of his music. It carries the subtitle, “A Concert Behind Prison Walls.”

     Of course, it includes his famous “Folsom Prison Blues.” But item number three on the disc is the lesser known ballad called “Jacob Green.”

     Johnny introduces it with these words: “I've learned one thing, that when a man is at rock bottom, when there is no place else he can go except up, that the only thing that is really important in the world to him is that somebody, somewhere cares.”

     The song tells the true story of a boy who was arrested for possession one night and prior to being dumped into the holding cell was stripped and shaved by the jailhouse crew. Early the next morning, before he could be brought to arraignment, young Jacob Green hung himself in shame and despair.

The chorus is haunting: “It happened yesterday and if you turn your head away . . . it could be somebody that you love that gets done like Jacob Green got done.”

Songs and stories like this come to mind when I contemplate the recent directive of the Attorney General of the United States. He sent orders to federal attorneys throughout the land that similar crimes should have similar charges and that convicted felons should receive the maximum penalties.

“Just as the charges a defendant faces should not depend upon the particular prosecutor handling the case,” John Ashcroft writes, “so too the sentence a defendant receives should not depend upon which particular judge presides over the case.”

The first rule is about fairness. “It is important that when the law is broken in Milwaukee, it's attended by the same consequences as when it's broken in Denver,” he explains.

He could have illustrated his point with cases in western Kentucky and North Dakota. Recent accidents in each place featured a driver who ignored a stop sign, hit a vehicle and killed another driver. In Kentucky, the driver was charged with murder; in North Dakota, with manslaughter.

What is the difference?

The driver in Kentucky is a young black male with no criminal or traffic record; prosecutor, judge and jury were all white; he was found guilty.

The driver in North Dakota was the former governor of the state, now a U.S. representative in Washington. He has a long history of traffic violations; a trial date has not been set.

While these two cases are state procedures and therefore do not involve federal attorneys, they do illustrate why our judicial system needs an infusion of fairness. If Ashcroft's first rule helps address such inequity it is a good thing.

But his second is not about fairness, it is about meanness.

In his memo, Ashcroft orders all attorneys general to charge defendants with maximum crimes and seek maximum penalties. It denigrates judges who give lenient sentences and directs prosecutors to avoid plea bargains that allow criminals to serve less time than possible.

This harsh attitude toward those convicted of crimes fails to acknowledge the role of race, poverty, prejudice, power and mental illness in judicial proceedings.

Already the United States among all nations in the Free World has the largest percentage of its population either incarcerated,  probated or paroled. Apparently, Ashcroft wants to make sure we do not surrender this distinction to some country whose prosecutors and judges are as quick to “love mercy” as they are to “do justice.” (See Micah 6:8.)

I for one am just glad these new rules were not in effect in the spring of 2001.

The federal judge who sentenced my son had options: from 92 months to 115 months. After rejecting our plea for “diminished capacity” he tempered his justice with the right amount of mercy and issued his order for the minimum.

Seven plus years is a long time for a father to wait for a son or a young man to wait for freedom.

But seven years is shorter than ten and the difference between them will allow the two of us more than 800 days to kick back, put on some Johnny Cash, and meditate on  the difference between meanness and mercy.

The Transformation of Mr. Jabez

Evangelist and author Kenneth Hagin died on September 19th at the age of 83. What did not die with him is the gospel of prosperity he advocated in broadcasts that circled the globe and books that sold 65 million copies.

"Name it, claim it" is the phrase used to describe this doctrine of health and wealth in the name of Jesus. It swept like a brush fire through the underclasses of America then leaped the Atlantic to settle with equal success among the indigenous poor of Africa.

Perhaps this explains why millionaire Bruce Wilkinson abandoned his lucrative ministry in America and embarked on an imaginative endeavor on that other continent.

Wilkinson's money came from the sale of his little devotional book, The Prayer of Jabez. The volume highlights an obscure prayer in the Bible that can be summarized: "Bless me, prosper me, protect me, keep me."

Two years in succession (2001, 2002) it was the top selling religious book in the country.

In keeping with American marketing habits, the success of the book birthed a family of Jabez-theme merchandise: posters, calendars, jewelry, even clothing, and, of course, additional books now being promoted at www.thebreakthroughseries.com .

But there is a down side to this “me-centered” prayer and the success syndrome it asserts. At the least, it confirms the worst stereotypes of evangelical Christians: intellectually shallow, ethically narrow, and spiritually self-centered.

At the most, it raises a critical question: what has any of this to do with following Jesus?

The egocentric spirituality stands in sharp contrast to the “we-centered”version of praying and living outlined by the prayer of Jesus: "Give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us."

But now Wilkinson and his jabez-funded ministry have taken a turn toward redemption with impressive strategies for healing the sick, feeding the hungry and gathering the dispossessed of Africa.

First, Wilkinson put his resources into the fight against HIV/AIDS, now the world's premiere health epidemic: "It is the worst catastrophe to befall the human race since the biblical flood," he said.

He launched "Turn the Tide for Children," an initiative motivating Christians to sponsor an AIDS orphan (now said to number more than 20 million) for $20 per month.

Second, Wilkinson moved to Johannesburg. It is a racially-charged environment, having suffered decades of church-sanctioned apartheid and now enduring the aftermath of economic and social oppression.

Mr. Jabez, as he is known, has taken up the cause of racial reconciliation, not just for South Africa, but for all of the continent.

The project is called Transformation Africa and Wilkinson is focused on Namibia. In May of this year, witnesses said more than five million Africans gathered in 138 venues "to sing, dance, blow shofars, beat drums, and pray for revival and social healing."

Finally, there is food.

Wilkinson responded to the ubiquity of hunger by embracing a locally-grown ministry which encourages people to turn even the smallest patch of dirt into a food-producing plot.

He calls them "Never Ending Gardens." This fall more than 600 such growing efforts are under way. It is a small beginning but has great promise.

It is hard to imagine three efforts that flow more naturally from the prayer Jesus (and not Jabez!), who taught us to pray: "Give us today something to eat. Forgive us our sins of racism even as they forgive us for treating them that way. Deliver us from evil, especially the epidemic of AIDS now sweeping our continent."

The feeding, reconciling, and delivering that arise in response to these prayers are God's answer to the lead petition of the same prayer: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Yes, these works of mercy are made possible in part by the enormous wealth generated by the Jabez book and its gospel of prosperity.

But more importantly they are tied to the transformation of him who once brought Jabez to the world but now brings hope and healing to the least among us, our brothers and sisters.

Therein lies redemption.

© 2003 Dwight A. Moody

Updated Monday, February 02, 2004