SEPTEMBER 3 — It has long been Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s axiom that God "helps those who help themselves.”

The main idea, of course, is to encourage people (not least the believing faithful) to dedicate themselves to working hard, to earn a good living, to building up their families and communities.

Such an earthly here-and-now focus cum "theology of progress” — indeed an Islamic version of the Protestant work ethic — has arguably been a key factor in our country’s modernisation and development in the 80s and 90s.

More controversially, this form of secular spirituality often clashes with the more fundamentalist kind of thinking which prefers to emphasise heavenly rewards.

I have no argument with Mahathir’s formulation of what Islam should be about. What I wish to do instead is to present the Christian version of that famous slogan and ask whether the Biblical God does, in fact, come to the assistance of those who work hard.

For, in fact, many Christians also proclaim the kind of divine emphasis the prime minister does. Throw 10 stones and you’d probably hit at least five Christians who believe that God favours those who seek to elevate their status in life (not least, although not exclusively, in the form of earnings).

But I now wish to suggest two divergences from the above kind of "theology of progress”:

1. ‘God helps those who cannot help themselves’

Interestingly enough, I read Christian theology as promoting a God who comes to the aid of the help-less i.e. God helps (mainly) those who cannot help themselves.

Assuming my reading of the Bible is not entirely off the mark, I gather that God’s heart beats most heavily for the weak, the poor, the meek, the persecuted, the orphan, the outcast.

If I’ve read the Old Testament correctly, it seems the God spoken of within its pages care a lot about the class(es) of people which society looks down or has abandoned entirely.

It’s not so much that God doesn’t appreciate hard work; it’s more like He feels deep compassion for the paralytic who cannot work or the schizophrenic who can’t function in an office or the kid who can’t go to school because the orphanage ran out of money to send him there or the refugee who has no home.

Note that this Christian perspective remains a very "earthly” view of divine attention; we’re miles away from "just focus on heaven” thinking.

Because think about what is implied by the theology of progress: God frowns upon those who do not help themselves.

In other words, and to push the logic further, you get the impression that should you remain poor or "unsuccessful”, it must be the case that you haven’t been "helping yourself.”

For if you have been doing so, why do you remain poor? Wouldn’t God have helped you if you had helped yourself in a responsible manner?

This is where the "swork ethic” form of spirituality flounder. It (almost) makes God into some heavenly Tan Sri who’s obligated to bestow favour upon you and your well-met KPIs.

2. ‘God helps those who help others’

One other problem with the theology of progress is that it smacks more than a tad bit of selfish materialism.

It’s hard to avoid the impression that the dimension which matters most, in the end, is financial reward and growth.

I have absolutely no doubt that in a capitalist-driven state like Malaysia, financial benefits are paramount. What I wish to interrogate, however, is whether or not the God spoken of in the Bible is One who’s very into His people’s bank accounts.

From what I read in the New Testament, however, it appears that "heaven on earth” is less about getting that brand new BMW and more about giving transportation to those who either can’t afford to pay for a car or can’t afford to pay.

God seems to care more about you showing how much you love other people by serving them, as opposed to, say, showing off how much you have.

The greatest manifest of the spiritual, in other words, revolves around giving one’s self for others, not about ensuring one can accumulate (with divine help, of course) whatever advantage the world has to offer.

Instead of a theology of progress, I suggest the Bible speaks more for a theology of compassion and service. And if there’s any truth to the idea that we can judge a society by its care for the least within it, then maybe such a way of thinking will be of value to Malaysia Baharu?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.