On Being a Christian in America
Friday in the third week of Lent
When I was 15 or 16 I began to take Jesus seriously. He meant what he said. We are supposed to care for the poor, the mistreated. We are not to kill other people. I saw at that age that Christian people did not really practice what Jesus taught. We still don’t. That is disillusion.
I am often disillusioned with life. I am disillusioned with the Christian church. I am disillusioned with American democracy. I am disillusioned with me.
It is not a Christian thing to do to go to war to protect our way of life and to do so claiming some higher principle which allows us to ignore Jesus’ teaching. We may not engage in preemptive war in order to spread democracy and our way of life; those are not our baptismal vows.
Lest you think this is a partisan political speech against one party, I don’t see a dime’s worth of difference between George Bush and John Kerry in regard to the war in Iraq and the so called war against terrorism. That too is a source of disillusion. How can you have a war against a technique of war? A war against al Kaida, or a particular nation I understand. But a war against terrorism is like a war against cavalry charges or arial bombardment. It is not just that we cannot ever erradicate terrorism, but we are as guilty of it as the other side. What makes flying a plane into the Pentegon terrorism and 'Shock-and-Awe' bombing something else?
Many of us struggle with American culture which is no where near as moral as it pretends to be. Or has limited morality to sexual issues.
Sisters and brothers , Christians are called to worship God, to tell the good news of Jesus Christ and to live as though the Holy spirit is igniting us. America fails to live up to ‘values’ because it is looking at the wrong values: purity, safety, security, ease and comfort.
Now let us get up on this Lenten morning and prepare for Easter by declaring our sins, placing our selves in God’s loving hands and begin again. Let’s do the same tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Together let us scour the scriptures for guidance. Together let us pray. Together let us show what it means to be accepting of all others, to be fearless in advocating truth and to insist on the priority of the poor. Let us be joy filled. Let us be witnesses for Jesus Christ in all the communities we inhabit.
When I was 15 or 16 I began to take Jesus seriously. He meant what he said. We are supposed to care for the poor, the mistreated. We are not to kill other people. I saw at that age that Christian people did not really practice what Jesus taught. We still don’t. That is disillusion.
I am often disillusioned with life. I am disillusioned with the Christian church. I am disillusioned with American democracy. I am disillusioned with me.
It is not a Christian thing to do to go to war to protect our way of life and to do so claiming some higher principle which allows us to ignore Jesus’ teaching. We may not engage in preemptive war in order to spread democracy and our way of life; those are not our baptismal vows.
Lest you think this is a partisan political speech against one party, I don’t see a dime’s worth of difference between George Bush and John Kerry in regard to the war in Iraq and the so called war against terrorism. That too is a source of disillusion. How can you have a war against a technique of war? A war against al Kaida, or a particular nation I understand. But a war against terrorism is like a war against cavalry charges or arial bombardment. It is not just that we cannot ever erradicate terrorism, but we are as guilty of it as the other side. What makes flying a plane into the Pentegon terrorism and 'Shock-and-Awe' bombing something else?
Many of us struggle with American culture which is no where near as moral as it pretends to be. Or has limited morality to sexual issues.
Sisters and brothers , Christians are called to worship God, to tell the good news of Jesus Christ and to live as though the Holy spirit is igniting us. America fails to live up to ‘values’ because it is looking at the wrong values: purity, safety, security, ease and comfort.
Now let us get up on this Lenten morning and prepare for Easter by declaring our sins, placing our selves in God’s loving hands and begin again. Let’s do the same tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Together let us scour the scriptures for guidance. Together let us pray. Together let us show what it means to be accepting of all others, to be fearless in advocating truth and to insist on the priority of the poor. Let us be joy filled. Let us be witnesses for Jesus Christ in all the communities we inhabit.
posted by Thomas Van Brunt | 9:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home