The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.
OPPRESSION (part 2 of 3)
There is no denying that Christian history can look irredeemably grim when it comes to the church's treatment of women, minorities, homosexuals, and anyone professing another religion. Like most religions, Christianity is at its worst when it becomes defensive. Often enshrining orthodoxy into words has caused more trouble, more pain, more evil in the world than it was worth. But when Christianity has gone on the offensive against rank, systemic evil, it has done much good. The abolition of slavery in the United States, and the advances of the civil rights movement in the twentieth century could not have occurred without Christian believers throwing themselves, heart and soul, into the fray. The theologians who gathered in the 1930s and composed the Barmen Declaration in opposition to the Nazi attempts at co-opting the German churches would be pleased, I think, to find the redoubtable Montana Association of Churches using Barmen to model its recent Declaration on Distortions of the Gospel as part of its active resistance to the misuse of Christian theology by white supremacists and anti-Semitic hate groups.
What does the Good News bring to life? It brings into our lives a word of unconditional love. That love causes all sorts of character traits to come to life among us. Those traits have a way of keeping our eyes open and our hearts open to the condition of life all around us. Therefore, under conditions of fear and hatred that often lead us to oppress people who are different from us (looks, life style, opinions, education, wealth), God's love for us inspires us to see more than what has the potential to divide us. Among us will flourish lives of resistance to divisiveness. Among us will flourish lives of mercy that keeps our arms open to receive and welcome those we would most often want to exclude. Oppression will always be a great temptation...but it will never be the final victor as the Spirit inspires us to follow our Lord, Jesus.
Connection: It is amazing how quickly we can turn our opinions and actions into forms of oppression. How important it is to see that happening to us and to have friends we can trust who will point out when it is surfacing in our lives. Today may be a good time to find out who those people are who will say something to us and to whom we may offer the same gift.
Ruler of All That Is, we praise you for within your gracious rule you call us into the community of saints who are called beloved. When the power of separation attempts to divide us, be the power that binds us together and remind us of what it means to be "in Christ" as we encounter our world. Amen.
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