Thursday, April 21, E minus 3

to seek justice and resist evil,

Surely the business of church is related to seeking justice and resisting evil. We used to ask baptizing people to ‘renounce the Devil and all his works’. Why is church so often now assumed to be unjust and evil? Do we cause wars, or do greed, ambition and pride clothed in religious language do so?

What do we expect of church, if not moral guidance? What ever happened to our denomination, which opposed capital punishment till it was abolished and was identified with social justice, greater equality for all people? Perhaps we lost credibility through our anti-gambling and anti-alcohol campaigns – but are those causes so wrong?

Take a moment now, and remember a time you’ve been proud of a stand that your church has taken, seeking justice and resisting evil. Was it about equality for gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual and queer people? How about Jubilee petitions to forgive third world debt?

Many people think that the church to often speaks beyond its expertise. Our amateur economics, naïve politics, and clumsy psychobabble cost us credibility in the public square. On the other hand, when experts in science and social science introduce terms like ‘acceptable risk’, they’ve tumbled into the realms of ethics and morality outside their expertise!

Remember how we claimed our religious identity, committing to be good boys and nice girls, and imagining doing our duty and standing up for the little guy against the big bullies. What remains of that original vision and direction – are we still ‘seeking justice and resisting evil’?

Will Easter be a morally ambiguous moment of waffling on every issue – or a celebration of being a people who ‘seek justice and resist evil’?