"You've heard the story," Heinz writes; "it is the end of the age and all people are lined up, like sheep and goats, before Jesus as the cosmic judge. A series of questions ensues and judgments are made. Did you see me among them, Jesus as King asks, when there were homeless to be sheltered, naked to be clothed, hungry to be fed, thirsty to be given a drink, strangers to be welcomed, the imprisoned to be visited? If you did these things for the least of these, you were serving me. Now you will inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world."
For Heinz, "Matthew 25 Christianity: Redeeming Church And Society" ($29 in paperback from Cascade Books; also for Amazon Kindle) has both an inner and outer expression. Within the Christian tradition "new movers and movements came to take Christianity seriously, and were gripped by it, and made the concern with 'the least of these' the cause of their religious life" (think Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther King Jr.).
But today "we have isolated or distanced the poor, or insulated our social imagination" until "it is nearly impossible to see them." He proposes churches identify as "Matthew 25" congregations--but there must be more.
If his book seeks to take the likely original reference in Matthew 25 (to Jesus' itinerant disciples, often poor) and bring it into "new social contexts" and a care for "all the people of the world who are in need," he also advocates for the institutionalization of such a social gospel framework within governmental structures. It's not a theocracy, Heinz writes, but a call for the voice of Matthew 25 to become part of public discourse.
In the end Heinz invites readers to "sell all and sign on": "The apostle Paul took a world-friending God public, rendering the Jesus movement a light to the world. What are we going to do with this?"
