after my post quoting a couple of bruce cockburn songs and briefly mentioning economic justice issues in iraq, this morning i read this excellent post on the organic church blog, which contains a lengthy excerpt from an interview with n.t. wright by the u.s. national catholic reporter.
tom wright is one of the humans i most respect in the world today, and i think what he says in this interview is spot on. so much of what we worry about in the west are first world, top of the mudheap issues, happily ignoring (or willfully ignorant of) the serious economic injustice that underpins our lifestyle, that keeps 'us' on the top and 'them' on the bottom.
i seriously believe that this is a life and death issue for the 'western church', something that must be addressed if it is to survive. its not good enough to lie back and accept the economic status quo as 'just the way things are'. god's concern for economic justice is overwhelmingly obvious throughout the bible, and jesus repeatedly said "go and sell what you own and give to the poor?" if the church, the body incarnate of jesus in this world, fails to live out this concern, it is at best just a jesus fan club, a bunch of people who admire the guy (and sing songs ad nauseum about it) but who aren't too interested in taking what he said seriously.
i often think that its too late, especially for the institutional church in 'the west', but there is always grace. if we don't treat the situation as critical, though, we'll soon choke to death on our affluence. of course, we might go on looking alive for years to come, but only because we humans are so adept at perpetuating our own man-made structures (and all structure is man-made), but no quantity of programs or pretty buildings or exciting meetings will be able to cover the stench of the corpse for long.
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