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Editorial:
Thinking about the common good? From
the director: Untold stories Faith
and Politics After Christendom Comment:
Doing the Right Thing Give
Generously and Change the World? Economics
and the Common Good Interview
with Jim Wells (MLA): Polishing our Cars Review:
No Longer Strangers Division
and Diversity: Churches in a plural society Buying
in - Opting out Interview
with Fr Mariusz Dabrowski: Meet the neighbours Questions
& Answers: Reader survey responses Review:
Mark: Gospel of Action Bible
Study: The Common Good Difficult
Conversations: Let's talk about tax... |
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NOT NORMALLY given over to public displays of emotion, anyone who has ever watched a movie with me will know that it takes embarrassingly little to make me teary eyed as events unfold on screen. But a different emotion overtook me while watching Amazing Grace, the recent film chronicling the life of William Wilberforce. Several times throughout the picture I wanted to jump up and down and cheer out loud. At one point William Pitt is discussing his plans to become Prime Minister with Wilberforce who reacts with incredulity. “No one of our age has ever taken power,” he responds. “Which is why we’re too young to realise that certain things are impossible… so we do them anyway,” is Pitt’s riposte. And so, I sit on my hands in the cinema cheering them on quietly inside. Why this reaction? Perhaps daring to dream the impossible, as these men did, appeals to the lingering idealism of my “not-quite-thirtysomething” status. There is a purpose, a plan, and if only we don’t lose faith we all have the potential to make the world a better place. Lost statistically somewhere between Generations X and Y, I find myself increasingly uncomfortable in the i-generation – an individualised world where I make decisions based on the best outcome for me, being sure to allow someone else to shoulder the blame when it all, invariably, falls apart. Perhaps we are guilty of allowing our faith to go the same way. Many have found comfort during times of adversity through these words in Jeremiah, “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’” I find consolation in the knowledge that God is looking out for me, but how often do I neglect the instruction to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile,” written only a few lines before? If resting in the reassurance of the former becomes our primary calling as Christians, we fail to grasp fully our mission to be good news people, seeking to transform the world around us both socially and spiritually. To wrestle seriously with the latter leads us into a messy world, demanding that we hold grace and truth in creative tension, often without easy answers, the consequence of which may be that others benefit at my expense. The Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery before Jesus to find out how she should be punished. By the end of the encounter, there was no one left to cast the first stone. At what point do we stop staring in anger, pointing the finger at all that is wrong in our world? At what stage do we learn what it is to stand in anguish with our communities, to weep for the reality of the story unfolding around us (rather than the moving picture on the big screen) – not so that we can continually proclaim how black the darkness is, but instead to use that energy to create new light? What is our biblical response to the pain in our society that not only surrounds us but in which we dwell, breathe and earn our living? Our model and motivation for engagement is not what others might think of us, nor what might make life more comfortable for me. It is instead Christ who points to hope, to answers and to a better way to live. Wilberforce and his colleagues did the right thing because it was the right thing, not because it would result in personal gain. They took seriously the challenge to present Christ credibly in the public square and society was transformed as a result. We should follow their example and do the same. KAREN JARDINE is Public Affairs and Development Officer for Evangelical Alliance in Northern Ireland. |
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