Religion has a downside. We can use our religious faith to avoid dealing with reality. We can limit what religion is supposed to accomplish in human life. The most obvious example of misuse is the to avoid coming to grips with the evil that humans do. People can use their religious faith to practice daily prayer, share in the Sunday worship and help the homeless. We can practice our religion in the security of our religious buildings/traditions and avoid the black side of human life.
We have a long history of very devout Christians making war against each other. We have an almost five-hundred year history of practicing slavery, all the while going to Church every Sunday. Criticism has been fairly leveled at Christianity in the Americas for its continued practice of racism. And in our generation we are slowly coming to grips with the sins of humanity against the earth (i.e., global warming and the abuse of the resources of the earth).
The presence and the movement of God is not limited to church buildings or sacred practices. God’s ever-creative presence fills all parts of the earth and all sections of human society.
We must never hesitate to stand in situations where people are not paid a living wage (i.e., so many of our sweatshops in the Third World) and ask, “Why are these people exploited for their cheap labour and we in the First World over-consume inexpensive clothing?
Why have we as human beings so glamorized the practice of war? Why have certain corporations made substantial profits by manufacturing war equipment? Why would we not take all that tax money that we spend on war and use it to feed the hungry of this world?
Never hesitate to ask your fellow Christian why First Nations women suffer neglect and serious poverty. At this point I am thinking of the “missing and murdered women,” of whom the majority are of First Nations descent. Why do poor women suffer such violence?
Our people can be very generous in their gifts toward the food banks. But ask your fellow Christian, ‘In a country so rich as ours, why is there hunger?’
People may want to isolate God into church buildings. We do this and neglect the moving presence of God among the poor and suffering of this world. One of the strongest complaints that God makes throughout the Scriptures is the neglect of the poor and the suffering.
A mature and healthy spirituality stands on the street corner and recognizes the suffering of others. The gospel calls us to brutal honesty about the injustices and exploitations that are happening within our Canadian society. We want to listen to the suffering of the earth which finds its forest being stripped bare, its waters polluted and the air becoming unhealthy.
What does God want of us in these instances of injustice and exploitation? What is the Spirit of God moving us to bringing this world to a more just society and a more sustainable earth?
How do we find God in the places where we so often avoid?
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