"The Church and Civil Rights"
"The Church and Civil Rights"
Our people, by and large, haven’t developed a sense of social conscience. It’s amazing when we look at the 1960’s. You know what attitudes were rather blandly accepted by all of us in the early 1960’s, let’s say, in regard to race relations. Here and there stood out a man or woman of obvious conscience, one who dealt with good and evil, with truth. But they were few and far between. To our forever shame, it was by and large the movement of history, the movement of culture that raised our consciousness to the evil involved in denying people civil rights. Most of us didn’t een know this stuff was going on! It was the Spirit in history (what the Germans call the zeitgeist), that for the most part formed our consciences. And the Church cam along, caught the wind and said, Yeah, we believe in that too, that’s right, that’s the gospel! It is the same for militarism, slavery, human rights, sexism and respect for the earth. We have been “Peter-come-latelys” on all of these. Notice in the twentieth chapter of John: Peter (the Church) gets to the tomb late (after the lover, John) and finally believes. It’s always been that way, I guess. Simple love sees and believes even before the Church. But at least we finally get there and back it up!
from The Price of Peoplehood
Our people, by and large, haven’t developed a sense of social conscience. It’s amazing when we look at the 1960’s. You know what attitudes were rather blandly accepted by all of us in the early 1960’s, let’s say, in regard to race relations. Here and there stood out a man or woman of obvious conscience, one who dealt with good and evil, with truth. But they were few and far between. To our forever shame, it was by and large the movement of history, the movement of culture that raised our consciousness to the evil involved in denying people civil rights. Most of us didn’t een know this stuff was going on! It was the Spirit in history (what the Germans call the zeitgeist), that for the most part formed our consciences. And the Church cam along, caught the wind and said, Yeah, we believe in that too, that’s right, that’s the gospel! It is the same for militarism, slavery, human rights, sexism and respect for the earth. We have been “Peter-come-latelys” on all of these. Notice in the twentieth chapter of John: Peter (the Church) gets to the tomb late (after the lover, John) and finally believes. It’s always been that way, I guess. Simple love sees and believes even before the Church. But at least we finally get there and back it up!
from The Price of Peoplehood
posted by LuisVelasco @ 10:52 PM
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