Sadly, these days many of us our having trouble understanding what our Christian faith is all about. I'm especially concerned with our fellow Christians who are mistaking their personal political views for expressions of Faith.
A severely anti-Christian example is coming from our fellow Christians who are aiming their wrath at immigrants with brown skin, while crusading for a return to a time of White privilege. How could some of us agree with our president who imprisons innocents and tears children out of parents' arms. How could we refuse to acknowledge that many of these people from countries south of the border are legally seeking asylum from drug corrupted countries? How could our fellow Christians not see that our president's mistreatment of them is directly from hell?
Speaking of drugs, how could our American Christian brothers and sisters not see that if there was no market for drugs here in the U. S., the drugs would not be sent here? How could the People of Jesus Christ fail to see the wooden beam in our own eye? (Mt. 7:3) How could we forget Jesus Christ and his sacred self-sacrificing love for us and proclaim as our savior, a president whose only motivation is to use people for his own self-aggrandizement.
My answer is that too many of us Christians have forgotten what our faith means and how it truly empowers us to act in today's society and culture that we ourselves have helped create.
Our faith is not a set of dogmas and moral laws. These are important but they are only guides to living our faith. They are not our faith itself. Our faith may be described as our deep, loving, life-inspiring sense of belonging to God. Our faith comes to us directly from God, who fills us with divine presence and thus with the life-evolving and life-fulfilling energy of love.
Contrary to what some of us appear to believe, our faith is not totally identified with our American economic system, politics or culture. Our faith is intended to influence and enliven and where necessary correct our humanity itself and therefore our educational and economic systems, and our politics and culture.
Our faith tells us that God is present and active deep within us, forming, enlivening and empowering us to live a life of reasoned, creative, healing and self-giving love for everyone and everything without exception.
Our faith is the soul of our life as individuals, families, communities, neighbors, citizens, voters, employees and employers, political leaders, service people, professionals, and all others.
If our faith had a color it would be blood red. Today, too many of us are suffering from spiritual anemia. The greatest enemy of our faith is our superficiality, which moves us to substitute our prejudices, fears and even our anger for our truly human gifts of reason and love. Without true, red-blooded faith, we easily fall victim to those who incite our basest emotions and mislead us for their own benefit. It becomes all too easy for our true humanity to be attacked and perverted by self-serving, cowardly government leaders and by salacious radio, TV and Internet commentators. If asked, some of them would say that they are Christians, while they daily spew hate-filled, self serving propaganda to willing viewers and listeners.
The sad, even tragic result of our superficiality is that too many of us Christians are so caught up in our own fears and hatred that we are not qualified to be the prophetic people that God is so urgently calling us to be.
Prophets do not fall for the superficial and squalid features of our society. They do not live and act at the periphery of our society and culture but immerse themselves in or society and culture and speak and act from the living depth of our society and culture where Divinity is clearest and most powerful. From within their deep sense of loving belongingness to Divinity and to the everyday world, they speak not in religious language, which today's society simply disregards (and helps explain why today's clerical churches are losing members), but in the everyday language of today's education, politics, economics, labor, families, professions, etc. in a way that we can all understand, relate to and act upon.
They know with great clarity the kind of people we should vote for, the kind that should have corporate and economic power, the kind who should be teaching in our schools, the kind who make the truest and most loving families, etc., etc. And they know what all these leaders must do to truly enhance our beautiful humanity.
But if we live a shallow faith we will not understand the prophets and not heed their saving guidance. We will allow loveless people of narrow minds and self-serving hatred to have power over us. As the People of Christ we should know better. In truth, we must know better.
Finally, we Christians must not be naive. In a society infected with all kinds of wolves, we must be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. (Mt. 10:16). With true, deep, strong, living faith, and only with such faith, as humble prophets, we will revisit our faith and Christianity itself, and shrewdly and simply recognize and reject those who are deceiving us as we work together with all people of good will for the good of all people and the environment without exception, and with special preference for the poor, sick, vulnerable and outcast.
A severely anti-Christian example is coming from our fellow Christians who are aiming their wrath at immigrants with brown skin, while crusading for a return to a time of White privilege. How could some of us agree with our president who imprisons innocents and tears children out of parents' arms. How could we refuse to acknowledge that many of these people from countries south of the border are legally seeking asylum from drug corrupted countries? How could our fellow Christians not see that our president's mistreatment of them is directly from hell?
Speaking of drugs, how could our American Christian brothers and sisters not see that if there was no market for drugs here in the U. S., the drugs would not be sent here? How could the People of Jesus Christ fail to see the wooden beam in our own eye? (Mt. 7:3) How could we forget Jesus Christ and his sacred self-sacrificing love for us and proclaim as our savior, a president whose only motivation is to use people for his own self-aggrandizement.
My answer is that too many of us Christians have forgotten what our faith means and how it truly empowers us to act in today's society and culture that we ourselves have helped create.
Our faith is not a set of dogmas and moral laws. These are important but they are only guides to living our faith. They are not our faith itself. Our faith may be described as our deep, loving, life-inspiring sense of belonging to God. Our faith comes to us directly from God, who fills us with divine presence and thus with the life-evolving and life-fulfilling energy of love.
Contrary to what some of us appear to believe, our faith is not totally identified with our American economic system, politics or culture. Our faith is intended to influence and enliven and where necessary correct our humanity itself and therefore our educational and economic systems, and our politics and culture.
Our faith tells us that God is present and active deep within us, forming, enlivening and empowering us to live a life of reasoned, creative, healing and self-giving love for everyone and everything without exception.
Our faith is the soul of our life as individuals, families, communities, neighbors, citizens, voters, employees and employers, political leaders, service people, professionals, and all others.
If our faith had a color it would be blood red. Today, too many of us are suffering from spiritual anemia. The greatest enemy of our faith is our superficiality, which moves us to substitute our prejudices, fears and even our anger for our truly human gifts of reason and love. Without true, red-blooded faith, we easily fall victim to those who incite our basest emotions and mislead us for their own benefit. It becomes all too easy for our true humanity to be attacked and perverted by self-serving, cowardly government leaders and by salacious radio, TV and Internet commentators. If asked, some of them would say that they are Christians, while they daily spew hate-filled, self serving propaganda to willing viewers and listeners.
The sad, even tragic result of our superficiality is that too many of us Christians are so caught up in our own fears and hatred that we are not qualified to be the prophetic people that God is so urgently calling us to be.
Prophets do not fall for the superficial and squalid features of our society. They do not live and act at the periphery of our society and culture but immerse themselves in or society and culture and speak and act from the living depth of our society and culture where Divinity is clearest and most powerful. From within their deep sense of loving belongingness to Divinity and to the everyday world, they speak not in religious language, which today's society simply disregards (and helps explain why today's clerical churches are losing members), but in the everyday language of today's education, politics, economics, labor, families, professions, etc. in a way that we can all understand, relate to and act upon.
They know with great clarity the kind of people we should vote for, the kind that should have corporate and economic power, the kind who should be teaching in our schools, the kind who make the truest and most loving families, etc., etc. And they know what all these leaders must do to truly enhance our beautiful humanity.
But if we live a shallow faith we will not understand the prophets and not heed their saving guidance. We will allow loveless people of narrow minds and self-serving hatred to have power over us. As the People of Christ we should know better. In truth, we must know better.
Finally, we Christians must not be naive. In a society infected with all kinds of wolves, we must be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. (Mt. 10:16). With true, deep, strong, living faith, and only with such faith, as humble prophets, we will revisit our faith and Christianity itself, and shrewdly and simply recognize and reject those who are deceiving us as we work together with all people of good will for the good of all people and the environment without exception, and with special preference for the poor, sick, vulnerable and outcast.
