A Model for Christians: In Fond Memory of Ron Sider

You may find it hard to believe, but I once was a member of the KKK. Well, not that KKK. Not long after moving to Fukuoka City on the Japanese island of Kyushu, I became a member of the Kyushu Kenkyu Kai (kenkyu = study; kai = meeting).*

A little over ten years later, our KKK’s monthly meeting discussed Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (1977). That was my introduction to author Ron Sider, and I was one of his many admirers who was saddened by his sudden death in July. 

Ron Sider (1939~2022) in 2019

Ronald James Sider was born in Canada on Sept. 17, 1939. Following the completion of his Ph.D. studies at Yale in 1969, Sider took a position teaching at Messiah College’s Philadelphia campus and then in 1977 became a professor at what is now Eastern University’s Palmer Theological Seminary.

Sider was an Anabaptist, reared in the Brethren in Christ Church in Canada. He was ordained to the Christian ministry by both that Church and by the Mennonites.

Sider had a long and fruitful career as a professor, author, and activist. He published over 30 books and wrote over 100 articles for both religious and secular magazines.

By far, his most widely-read book was Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Hailed by Christianity Today as one of the one hundred most influential books in religion in the 20^th century, it has sold over 400,000 copies in nine languages.

Ron Sider was “a model for an evangelical Christianity committed to social justice.” That is how Tish Harrison Warren, an Anglican priest, describes Sider in her Aug. 7 New York Times opinion piece. I heartily agree.

When he was still 34 years old and before moving to Eastern, in 1973 Sider helped convene a group of evangelical Christians in Chicago. They issued “The Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern.”

Writing about that document in 2012, one author explained that “Sider and his colleagues condemned American militarism, sexism, economic injustice, and President Nixon’s ‘lust for and abuse of power.’”** (Sider and his fellow evangelicals then were quite different from many evangelicals today.)

It was because of “The Chicago Declaration,” which in addition to Sider was signed by over 50 progressive evangelicals, including Art Gish and Jim Wallis as well as James Dunn and Foy Valentine, two Southern Baptists I highly respected, that I was able to long self-identify as an evangelical.

Then, under Sider’s leadership, “The Chicago Declaration” became the founding document for Evangelicals for Social Action, a progressive group organized in 1978. (In 2020 the ESA changed their name to Christians for Social Action.)

I did not agree with all of Sider’s positions, such as his unwavering anti-abortion stance. Nevertheless, I appreciate the emphasis he made in his 1987 book titled Completely Pro-Life: Building a Consistent Stance on Abortion, the Family, Nuclear Weapons, the Poor.

Despite some disagreements, Sider was clearly a model for Christians, especially for those in the evangelical tradition, who take the teachings of Jesus seriously.

Ron Sider was an active Christian model into his 80s. In 2020, his succinct book Speak Your Peace: What the Bible Says about Loving Our Enemies articulated his Anabaptist understanding of Christianity and summarized the biblical case for pacifism and active nonviolence.

Also in 2020, Sider was the editor of The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump: 30 Evangelical Christians on Justice, Truth, and Moral Integrity. In addition to the Introduction and Afterword, he also authored chapters 8 and 11 of that book.

His last blog post, a 900-word article titled “Advance Both Religious Liberty and LGBTQ Civil Rights,” was made on May 29 before his death of cardiac arrest on July 27.

So, I post this in fond memory of Ron Sider, who as Warren wrote “helped birth a movement and blaze a trail. And though at times it seems that trail has been hidden under Christian political partisanship . . . many Christians are still trying to walk the narrow path he left behind him.”

Thank God for faithful Christian scholars and disciples such as Ron Sider!

_____

* One of my first blog posts, made here on 7/21/09, was titled “James Cone at a KKK Meeting.” Up to this point, there have been only 24 pageviews of it, but many of you would find that brief post about the black liberation theologian to be of interest.

** The words are from Asbury University professor David Swartz’s book  Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism (2012, 2014).