Perhaps the clearest, though least obvious, sign of the apostasy of modern Christianity is its obsession with survival. Not only does modern Christianity wholeheartedly embrace the medical technology and state policing that prolong the life of its champions, it is paralyzed by the thought that one or another of its institutions might fail, say, one of its universities, seminaries, or denominations. It is similarly scandalized by the failure of the modern nuclear family to weather the social fragmentation that the obsession with survival has spawned.
The gospel, on the other hand, is also acutely aware of the fragility of life. Flesh is grass. Ashes to ashes. But the gospel beckons to us with the call, “Be not afraid!” The gospel is carried by the assurance that there are phenomena way more serious than death, that to live out into the gospel is to walk—head bowed, not abashedly, but in prayer—into the jaws of death, recognizing that death is truly and radically the end, but that in this end is a new world’s beginning, one that does not forsake the old, does not forsake the poor.
Good news for the poor is certainly food, shelter, safety, and vital goods, but it is above all a hope that the failures that only wishful thinking would deny will not in the (eschatological) end have the last word.