ON FAITH
An Occasional Act or a Lifestyle?
God Calls Us to be Advocates for Life
It is not difficult to attract Christian rest of the world.
college students to advocacy. They are
Describing these forms of advocacy
on the lookout for causes to believe in. in no way discounts their potential for
Most of them are idealists. They be- good. Sometimes things turn out much
lieve the solutions just can’t be all that better than we planned for or expected.
complicated.
Imperfect people can be agents in acFor some, advocacy is like a one- complishing very good things in the
time cross-cultural experience, which world. More often than not, however,
takes them temporarily into an exotic our efforts do not yield what we had
world of the “other” but that leaves hoped, at least not in the short run. Far
them virtually unchanged. They know too often, well-intentioned and hardit is a good thing to do, but they do not working people do not see the results
intend to be an advocate.
commensurate with their efforts.
For some, advocacy is another way of
God calls us to be advocates for life—
“coming of age.” It is a way of demar- not for a season. As believers, we are
cating themselves
to be there for the
from their own his“stranger” (Deutory, of making a
teronomy 15), for
“We are sometimes called
statement in their
the “widow and
to invest our lives in causes
own voice, apart
orphan” (James),
that seem to go nowhere…
from their parents’
for those who “are
because we know that
faith or political
in prison, naked,
nothing is wasted in God’s
and hungry” (Matbeliefs. But, in the
economy.”
thew 25:35). The
end, it is all about
challenge for colthem and not about
– Shirley A. Mullen
lege students, and
those for whom
for each of us, is
they are speaking.
For some, advocacy is a way of ex- to allow advocacy to become a way of
erting their gifts of persuasion and or- life and not a one-time experience that
ganization to come out on top. Yes, it inoculates us against a lifetime of truly
is all for a good cause. But the main seeing the needs speaking faithfully for
thing is the winning. It is all about those who cannot speak for themselves.
Advocacy is tiring work. Results
being “right” and proving that to the
Courtesy Shirley A. Mullen
By Shirley A. Mullen
are not immediate. The work is never
done. Even with occasional dramatic
victories, changing the law is a long
way from changing culture or changing hearts.
Sustained faithfulness in advocacy
must be grounded in a larger life of discipline, humility, and Christian hope
if it is to endure for the long haul. We
are sometimes called to invest our lives
in causes that seem to go nowhere, because it is the right thing to do, because
the tapestry of history is longer in the
making than our short lives, and because we know that nothing is wasted
in God’s economy.
God offers to work through us, finite
and broken as we are, in His redemptive plans and purposes in this world.
Shirley A. Mullen is president of
Houghton College, a liberal arts and sciences institution in western New York associated with The Wesleyan Church.
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