from their problems? Jacques Ellul, French sociologist,
historian of social institutions, professor of law, and an
active Christian leader in the Reformed Church of France,
asks the question thusly,
“Who tells us anyway that all human problems should or can be
solved? Perhaps unsolved problems are more important for God
than solutions are...since they remind us of man’s sin and the
divine redemption. Perhaps man’s problems are so complicated
and so badly put that they are in fact insoluble. The problem of
wealth and poverty will never be solved except as it remains
unsolved. The organized battle of the Church against temporal
evils like slavery, intemperance, and national division runs into the
same difficulties as the Crusades. Its experience gives us good
reason to ask to what extent it is the church’s mission to solve
these temporal problems.” 1It is certainly legitimate to question whether it is the task of
Christians to attempt to solve problems within the arena of
the fallen world-order.
The story of Daniel and King Belshazzar, recorded in
the fifth chapter of Daniel (5:1-31), seems to set the stage
for a consideration of whether we have any responsibility
to engage in problem-solving in the context of the world-
system. King Belshazzar, son of King Nebuchadnezzar,
while in the midst of idolatrous carousing saw some
handwriting on the wall. Disturbed by what he saw, he
determined to seek an alliance with religion to interpret and
solve the problem (a mutually expedient alliance