Heavan and Humanism

Alan Wolfe of Boston College penned a worth-reading piece for today's Wall Street Journal. Rick Warren of "The Purpose Driven Life" is leading a massive mission to Rwanda, a country near to my heart. Wolfe looks into the meaning of this gesture:

Historians are likely to pinpoint Mr. Warren's trip to Rwanda as the moment when conservative evangelical Protestantism made questions of social justice central to its concerns. Given his huge wealthy Orange County congregation, Rick Warren could have become satisfied with his national success and ignored problems abroad. Instead he has chosen to make issues of global poverty central to his ministry and for that he deserves his identification by Time magazine as one of the most important evangelicals in America... My single greatest fear is that Mr. Warren and his followers will draw huge and enthusiastic crowds to their rallies, convert numerous souls to Christ and then leave when they discover that, for all their efforts, a country like Rwanda faces political and social problems beyond the reach of even the most earnest and popular humanitarian efforts. In short, there is a limit to the good that can be done until such countries alter the basic structure of their societies, eliminating corruption, curbing the abuse of power, setting up an independent judiciary and allowing a free press.

An additional concern is that Warren's original invitation came from President Paul Kagame, who is a strongman at best and a dictator at worst. I was in Rwanda during their last elections, and the only thing "free and fair" was the range of action permitted to the police in stiffling any opposition. Does this mean Warren and others should stop? By no means. But he (and Wolfe) should remember that a saved soul is not always free from poverty or oppression, nor is an affluent and free soul always saved. Yet these facts should not dim the efforts of either evangelists or humanists, or, in Warren's case, those who strive to be both.