Everything has a down side. There is nothing or no one who is perfect! If you want to know what a particular person is actually like, try living with them for a few weeks. Their not so pleasant side will emerge very naturally.
All religion has its down side. All religion has its shadow side!
Perhaps one of the most insidious tendency is to focus exclusively on the ‘spiritual.’ The only thing that counts is when I am praying, studying the Scriptures or involved in public worship. The downside is such a concept of the spiritual/religion is that we can be in complete denial of some incredible evils. Our European ancestors have a great history of this. They prayed on Sunday but owned black slaves and beat them down into submission. Their business life was brutal.
The light side of religion is that it can challenge believers into tremendous acts of charity and justice. Here religion shines a light on the broken human condition and empowers believes to go forth and improve the lot of the poor.
But the dark side of religion is to live in denial or to avoid questions of greed, violence, exploitation and neglect of other human beings. This denial is all mixed up with the power struggle between those who are on the top (with power and money) and those who are on the bottom (without power, money or education).
Fortunately, we are moving into a Christianity that takes the care of the earth and all peoples seriously. Our prayer leads us out into the streets. This is why the prayer of Pope Francis tnames it well. All the ministers of the Church are to be so close to the people that they “smell like the sheep.” Can you think of any image more earthy and close to the struggles and the inequalities that exist among human beings.
A healthy Christian spirituality is one that embraces all that is human: the joys and the sufferings, the virtues and the sin, the generosity and the greed. It goes right where human beings live. Nothing that humans do is alien to the grace of God. An honest prayer person is embraced by the grace of God and looks squarely at the evils of their own country and district. There is no room for any type of double-think in an honest Christian pray-er.
Many Christian believers have been very generous toward the food banks in our larger cities. (Remember that the first food bank in Canada was founded in Edmonton in 1981). The weekly gifts of pasta and peanut butter are very good but the healthy Christian asks that hard question: “Why are people short of food in a country as rich as Canada?” We are not afraid of tackling some very difficult questions!
Even if many of our Christians find it difficult to embraces that hard issues of injustice, war-making, despoiling of the earth, racism and neglect of the elderly it does not mean that the light is not trying to penetrate their fear and hesitation.
Christian spirituality does not shield us from the tough questions of the day. Rather it moves us to embrace the sufferings and injustice that are inflicted on the poor. It means we are being moved by the healing hand of Jesus toward the wounded of this world.
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