Omri Elisha

9-10/13 B&C review by Naomi Hayes of Moral Ambition by Omri Elisha

Several years ago I received a copy of the Wheaton College alumni magazine with the words, "Why is student activism on the rise?" on the cover. What I remember most about the articles that answered this question was their ambivalent tone. While the goal of the authors was clearly to celebrate campus efforts toward social engagement, these pieces took great pains to communicate that activism had in no way replaced the verbal proclamation of the gospel as the primary objective of Wheaton College students and faculty. The tension evident in this set of articles reflects the uncertainty conservative American Protestants often feel about social engagement. In part this is the result of the evangelical history of separation—or at least distinction—from the "social gospel" of the liberal mainline.

Elisha defines "socially engaged evangelicals" as believers who "draw strong associations between religiosity and social conscience" and who are "notably active … in promoting and participating in various forms of organized benevolence." As evangelicals who have had what they sometimes refer to as "social conversions"—that is, personal transformations that raise the position of social engagement on their list of religious priorities—these believers find their Christian vocation in mobilizing others to join them in outreach to the inner city.

While his evangelical informants do not offer a critique of capitalism as such, they are aware that economic privilege has its dangers; the comforts of middle-class life are gifts from God, but they may easily lead to spiritual stagnation or the neglect of family relationships.

In it he draws on key themes in the anthropological study of exchange to analyze the simultaneous emphasis that believers place on compassion and accountability in their interactions with the inner-city poor.

By including accountability as a component of their outreach programs, believers ask that those they assist adhere to certain standards with regard to work ethic, sobriety, and humility. Put in terms of exchange, compassion represents a free gift given without the thought of a return, an act of love and care that does not take into account the potential of its recipient to reciprocate but is instead motivated only by his suffering. Accountability, in contrast, requires that the beneficiaries of evangelical ministries respond with appropriate actions and attitudes.

Negotiating the demands of these divergent models of exchange is especially difficult for conservative Protestants because their efforts to feed the hungry or care for the sick are always subordinated to, and described in terms of, evangelism.

This clear contradiction is further complicated when Christians romanticize the compassionate quality of their efforts. Because the actions of socially engaged evangelicals are described in terms of love and compassion, they are not recognized as requiring reciprocity, as leaving their recipients beholden to the generosity of another. Rather, the beguiling power of the apparently free gift allows the economic and racial inequalities inherent in evangelical social engagement to be obscured and perpetuated.

What emerges from Elisha's account is a picture of a group of believers who have different ideas about the position of social engagement in the constellation of evangelical priorities.

When the mirror of ethnography is held up to one's own community, it makes sense to look.… (meer)