when everything fails try prayer

when everything fails try prayer
Originally uploaded by jonnybaker

Thoughts after preaching from the book of James

The Epistle of James says, when Christian communities are bolstered with self-regard, when they bask in the approval of the rich and powerful and convince themselves that the correct belief alone will justify them, they deceive themselves. This is especially the case when they simultaneously deny justice and dignity to those on the margins, to labourers, to people living on the edge – those who present to us the tangible judgement of God on the way we arrange our lives and our world.

In his 1977 book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, which prefigured much of the more recent concern among evangelical churches for people and planet, Ron Sider tells the story of a US pastor who causes great offence in the pews by delivering a fearsome manifesto denouncing the wiles of the rich and the mistreatment of poor people and workers. His congregation in turn accuse him of sedition and of ‘pulpit politics’. But he points out to them that, in fact, every word he has used is sourced directly from the likes of Isaiah, from Amos and from James. They call themselves biblical people, but the Word is apparently unknown to them when it comes to acting justly, seeking mercy and walking humbly before God as a social reality.

Yet the uncomfortable fact is that more often than not the Gospel reverses our ‘normal’ judgments, our idea of what is ‘natural’ and ‘right’. If we are to judge correctly, and not find ourselves hoist with our own legalistic petard, we need to discover what it is to live and to have faith with integrity, says the Epistle of James. This means seeking the knowledge of God that comes to us through merciful action, not through pious sounding words or recourse to the protection of religious tradition. In these terms, the Christian message is un-common sense – something rare and precious – rather than mere ‘conventional wisdom’.

Chanting the slogans of Empire, and making alliance with Caesar

Despite protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into Heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flag and chanted slogans of empire. It has assumed with the economists that "economic forces" automatically work for good and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that "progress" is good... It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and faults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation.
(from "Christianity and the Survival of Creation" pp 114-115 Wendell Berry)