God is not a Capitalist.

I need to be writing an essay for school. I can't. My mind is being pulled in a hundred different directions. Unfortunately, not one of those is leading me down the path to completing (or even beginning, for that matter) this essay.

I was walking through the living room, and in passing heard a preview for an upcoming 700 Club segment. (Let me clarify that no one was in the living room, watching the 700 Club. I'm not sure why I feel such a strong need to tell you that...My pride doesn't want my family to be associated with Pat Robertson.) Anyway. The sound bite was something like, "See how one missionary's ideas could change an entire country in Africa." My initial intention of getting water from the kitchen was completely forgotten and I froze and stared at the TV.

REALLY? ONE man is going to change an African country with HIS ideas? His picture flashed across the screen and as I suspected, he wasn't himself African. He was a white American.

I didn't take the time to watch the segment. Its possible that the guy has pure intentions and a solid plan. But, more often than not, it seems that people waltz into other people's context thinking that they know the answers to everyone else's problems.

I think it is terribly unfortunate that people (myself included) see the world through such a biased, ethnocentric perspective that we believe that our way is the best way and everyone else is doing life wrong.

In the big picture, that means (to me) that it is not our job to take Capitalism and Americanized Christianity to the rest of the world. Just because it works (or does it?) for us does not mean that it is the solution for the world's problems. We are not called to proselytize. We are called to LOVE. I believe that an essential part of loving people is allowing them to use their own God given power, creativity, and perspective to build their own structures of government and their own practices in worshiping their Creator. If it is not simply the message of God's love, grace, and hope that we are taking to the lives of our brother's and sisters -- if we are attempting to indoctrinate them, to convince them to see the world through our eyes and to live according to our values and norms...then we become oppressors.

God is not confined to our systems, our beliefs, our practices. God is outside of and above all of those things. Certainly, he can use our pitiful attempts at government to further his work. But, that's all they are -- pitiful attempts. Everything established by man will fail. It will not last.

It is the message of the Kingdom of Heaven we cry out. A Kingdom of peace, justice, equality, grace, and love.