Al TIZON. Christ Among the Classes: The Rich, the Poor, and the Mission of the Church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2023. pp. 240. $26.25 pb. ISBN: 9781626985186. Reviewed by Daniel LLOYD, Summerville, SC 29485.

Tizon’s book is meant to be, and is indeed, a spiritually challenging book. Although written from the world of missionary work experience and missiology as a discipline, the book is also meant for a wide and general Christian audience. As some other reviewers note, and as the author himself implies (p. 162-63), the book positions itself as a prophetic call to radical personal and communal transformation. It does so primarily by suggesting that classicism is the primary sin which fuels and sustains all others, such as racism and sexism. Tizon defines classicism as: “collective prejudice formed into a system of inequality based on socioeconomic stratification; it too is undergirded by embedded cultural narratives concerning the poor, and then instituted by the powers that be at the expense of the poor” (p. xxii). At its core, Tizon’s understanding of classicism functions like racism does for antiracism proponents; the existence of stratification and inequality indicates the structural sin of classism from which no one escapes the personal sin.

The introduction, called “What is Classism?,” outlines classicism’s definition and various expressions. It also lays the groundwork for the rest of the book, which is divided into two parts. The first, called “Christ Among the Classes,” describes numerous biblical perspectives which demonstrate, through their stories and teachings, the connection between poverty and dehumanization, as well as the friction between following God and seeking personal gain. Tizon’s reflections on Mark 10 (the rich young man) and Luke 19 (Zacchaeus’s conversion) are a foundation for his approach throughout the book (p. 43-46). For Tizon, both stories indicate the same call to total personal divestment and generosity. This is a very important difference from those traditional interpretations of the texts which have understood Jesus’ instruction for the young man to sell all that he has and give to the poor as specific to the young man and his situation. (St. Anthony, for example, heard this passage as directed to him in a literal way, whereas most of the Christian tradition has not seen this passage function as necessitating total personal divestment unto personal poverty for all Christians.) For Tizon, both stories represent the same call, despite Zacchaeus not having claimed to give up all, as Christ instructed the young man.

The second part of the book Tizon describes as a path of “bite-sized” steps towards living in justice by consciously and practically rejecting classicism and money (p. 136). This is the heart of the book. Building off Christ’s teachings to serve the poor, Tizon powerfully inverts traditional ideas about ascending towards union with God. Instead, Tizon presents six steps as leading down to the experience of Christ among the poor, which all Christians are called to experience and give their lives to. These steps include: awakening to compassion, self-gain to generosity, accumulation to simplicity, propriety right to hospitality, savior complex to friendship, and safety to solidarity (all of which are shown helpfully as an illustration on p. xxxi). The chapters describing these steps function inherently as a “justice audit” in which we are challenged to evaluate our own personal engagement with the poor as well as the organizations with which we are associated (p. 47). The book itself concludes with an actual audit Tizon designed (CACI, Church Among the Classes, an Inventory), which is self-scored for attentiveness to the poor and which also includes possible action steps.

Tizon’s passionate call for constant Christian formation in solidarity with the poor is a message which all Christians should hear and hear frequently. On the one hand, he is clear from the start that the book is “not a manual for poverty alleviation” (p. xxxii). On the other, Tizon offers a number of religious, cultural, and economic observations which are fundamental to his thought, but that may make it more difficult for many Christians to be as deeply affected by the work as might be otherwise possible. For example, the emphasis noted about Tizon’s application of the rich young man in Mark 10 sets an underlying paradigm throughout the book suggesting all Christians who do not strive to forsake all material wealth are limping along a dangerous road of selfishness and hypocrisy. Greed is certainly a common sin, but the Christian tradition has never embraced quite this framework.

Similarly, Tizon blends the realities of political-economic and religious views to suggest that a desire to make money is equivalent to worshipping it (p. 60). The idea that capitalism itself spawns a total worldview based on absolute self-centeredness (p. 59) seems to derive from the perspective that living within a highly developed country’s standards is directly related to the impoverishment of those in less developed countries. This is an understanding which many economists would dispute, despite the increasingly intwined global economy. Relatedly, Tizon suggests that viewing capitalism as a good economic system typically involves only a perspective of taking care of oneself and one’s family: “To do good for others beyond that depends entirely on the voluntary benevolence of each person” (p. 60). Americans in both major parties, however, disagree by wide margins on just this kind of assertion. Rather, most Americans see our economic system as providing for the welfare of individuals and the community simultaneously, but in more complex ways than Tizon gives credit.

Christ Among the Classes raises topics and ideas all Christians should be challenged by. Tizon powerfully writes with an unabashed desire to challenge Christians on some fundamental Christian ideas, which are too often ignored. That the ideas about increasing solidarity with the poor can, at times, seem to some readers to be a bit muddled by social, political, or economic ideas is neither surprising nor very problematic for such a book. Such responses might be inevitable to the genre of the writing itself. In fact, a critical reading of this text in small or medium sized groups would be highly recommended for processing and questioning the many ideas found here.