Religion, Politics and Hope

Posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago at 12:41 pm. 0 comments

When I read God’s Politics by Jim Wallis I became hopeful that there were American Christians who thought and spoke sense. It was great to read this challenge to the Church and to have it explained so intelligently and passionately. So I enjoyed this video of him on the fabulous Daily Show:

Christianity and Politics obviously conflict alot in America, but much less so in Britain. I have long rued the lack of voice the Church has in both Politics and the Media in Britain. By “Church” I don’t mean the institutional leaders, but the people themselves. The Church has not been speaking out loudly enough over the last 50 - 60 years about social and political issues for many reasons. One might be the rise of the individualistic gospel making faith more of a personal gain and private matter. Another might be the rise of the less needy middle class in the Church which does not have an understanding or proximity to the poor.

Whatever the reason, the Church has become more and more irrelevant to the general public and the number of Christians has declined drastically over the last few decades. Meanwhile, Politics has become more and more capitalist, keeping the poor poor and the rich richer.

But I have seen a rise in young Christians become more socially and politically engaged in this country and this makes me hopeful - both that this nation’s social ills can be corrected and that the Church could become more like who she was created to be.

Please Church, stop naval gazing!

Your Days Of Plenty Are Numbered

Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago at 11:33 pm. 0 comments

I very much enjoyed watching The Edukators this morning. It is a germna film about some young anti-capitalists who break into rich people’s homes and mess with the ornaments and furniture by rearranging them and pilling them on top of each other. They don’t steal anything, instead they just leave a note saying “Your Days Of Plenty Are Numbered”.

Mary-Lou and I have been thinking alot about our finances recently and about what our morals are regarding the poor. A friend who works with destitute asylum seekers recommended Shane Claiborne’s book “The Irrisistible Revolution” as the most challenging book he has ever read. Then he pointed me to this video:

Up until a year or so ago I used to obsess about the problems, injustices and dangers of the global economic system we live under.  It often left me with a sense of hopelessness since I couldn’t see what I could do to change anything. Slowly (which is typical) it dawned on me that engaging locally would mean that I stood a chance to make some difference to some people rather than hopelessly doing nothing.

I’m still trying to figure out how to engage with the injustices I come across locally. We learnt recently that we live on the 7th poorest ward in the country - Moss Side, Manchester. Yet we comfortably live in our own house and have a disposable income each month. What should be our response to that fact?