{"id":419,"date":"2009-02-08T23:23:59","date_gmt":"2009-02-08T23:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html"},"modified":"2009-02-08T23:23:59","modified_gmt":"2009-02-08T23:23:59","slug":"millard-fuller-service-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html","title":{"rendered":"Millard Fuller: Service, Justice and the kingdom of God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of years ago a group of Princeton students went on a Habitat trip to Mexico. They learned about Mexican culture, relished being away from the pressure of the Princeton bubble and, of course, built houses. \u00a0One of the most memorable parts of the trip was the fierce debates the students had as to whether Habitat, and groups like Habitat, were band-aids that keep an inherently\u00a0unjust\u00a0society able to hobble along without addressing any of the root causes of the extreme poverty experienced by a large percentage of the population. \u00a0<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The passing of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/02\/04\/us\/04fuller.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=1\">Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity<\/a>, reminds me of that perennial question and the ongoing debate between those who feel called to do work of &#8220;charity&#8221; meaning direct service to those in need, and those who feel called to do &#8220;justice&#8221; work, meaning the structural changing of society.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Both sides can be dismissive of the other. Those involved in justice work can feel that those in charity are only prolonging the problem by offering artificial fixes; while those\u00a0involved\u00a0in charity believe that the justice seekers only think in big ideas and do not care about the desperate immediate material needs of those whom they purport to serve. \u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I never met Millard Fuller, but he seemed to bypass this polarity by addressing both sides of the issue. \u00a0He certainly supported the philanthropic efforts of service and charity as evidenced through the million homes that have been built under Habitat&#8217;s direction. \u00a0But he also looked at systemic questions of poverty, questioned the charging of interest on the poor, and spoke of the &#8220;economics of Jesus. &#8221;\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He added another\u00a0dimension\u00a0by\u00a0introducing\u00a0the question of how we live our own life, and whether our manner of living reflects our convictions about the\u00a0transformation\u00a0of the world we are seeking. Reading <a href=\"http:\/\/newsweek.washingtonpost.com\/onfaith\/undergod\/2009\/02\/millard_fullers_theology_of_en.html\">David Water&#8217;s commentary<\/a> in the On Faith section of the Washington Post I came across Fuller&#8217;s Theology of Enough. \u00a0Waters pulls this moving quote:\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\"><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">&#8220;God&#8217;s oder of things holds no place for hoarding and greed,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;There are sufficient resources in the world for the needs of everybody, but not enough for the greed of even a significant minority.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>It reminds me of that saying &#8211; live simply so that others might simply live. \u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What Millard Fuller&#8217;s life may teach us is that those of us who strive to dwell in God&#8217;s kingdom on earth as in heaven can simultaneously serve others, work for justice, and live in a way that reflects our values in the here and now.\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of years ago a group of Princeton students went on a Habitat trip to Mexico. They learned about Mexican culture, relished being away from the pressure of the Princeton bubble and, of course, built houses. \u00a0One of the most memorable parts of the trip was the fierce debates the students had as to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-poverty"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Millard Fuller: Service, Justice and the kingdom of God - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Millard Fuller: Service, Justice and the kingdom of God - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A couple of years ago a group of Princeton students went on a Habitat trip to Mexico. 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They learned about Mexican culture, relished being away from the pressure of the Princeton bubble and, of course, built houses. \u00a0One of the most memorable parts of the trip was the fierce debates the students had as to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2009-02-08T23:23:59+00:00","author":"Paul Raushenbush","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html","name":"Millard Fuller: Service, Justice and the kingdom of God - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-08T23:23:59+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-08T23:23:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/millard-fuller-service-justice.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Millard Fuller: Service, Justice and the kingdom of God"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805","name":"Paul Raushenbush","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","caption":"Paul Raushenbush"},"description":"Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}