Searching for God, Ignoring the Issues?
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We were in the seminary at the
time, and volunteered to go with a group of seminarians to
that area of Kansas City, not known for its tolerance of people of color. We knocked
on doors to get petitions signed for a proposed Fair Housing act.
I was on one side of the street
and Gerald on the other when I saw him running from a front porch. He was the
only one to have fled violence, as far as I know, but all of us encountered
hostility from residents opposed to fair housing for people of color.
A couple of years later, in
April 1968, shortly after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., Kansas City became one of 37 cities in the United States
to be the subject of rioting. It was sparked when the police department tear-gassed
student protesters outside city hall. Subsequent rioting resulted in the arrest
of over one hundred adults, left five dead and at least twenty admitted to
hospitals.
The Kerner Report
That same year, President Johnson appointed Otto Kerner, then governor of Illinois, to form a commission to determine the cause of the riots and try to prevent a recurrence. Called the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, it simply became known as the Kerner Report.
That same year, President Johnson appointed Otto Kerner, then governor of Illinois, to form a commission to determine the cause of the riots and try to prevent a recurrence. Called the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, it simply became known as the Kerner Report.
“The report became an instant
bestseller,” according to Wikipedia, “and over two million Americans bought
copies of the 426-page document. Its finding was that the riots resulted from
black frustration at lack of economic opportunity.” The report's most famous
passage warned, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one
white - separate and unequal."
A new study building on the
Kerner Report, called Healing Our
Divided Society: Investing in America Fifty Years after the Kerner Report, notes
that poverty and the inequality gap between white America and Americans who are
black, brown and Native American have increased.
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These data would produce a yawn
in many people. Others would say, “This is political and has no place in a blog
about faith and religion.” I disagree. This post is not about politics, but
about Christian values - the same values to which so many Christians appeal
when talking about abortion or assisted suicide. And people searching for God, it seems to me,
can’t ignore the issues.
Faith, after all, is not just a
matter of belief. It’s principally a matter of relationships, between us and
God and between each other. In other words, the search for God begins with our
attitude toward, and treatment of, others.
People searching for God who
ignore or oppose efforts to create a more just society, where people of all
colors and beliefs have equal opportunity, are on the wrong road, in my
opinion. You simply can’t separate social justice issues from the search for
God because, besides prayer and study to bolster belief, the search for God means
becoming more God-like.
Some would say that such efforts
are strategies in class warfare, pitting the rich against the poor, and that
inequality is a staple of history that will always be with us. That later part
may be true, but it’s also a convenient way to avoid our obligations toward the
poor which nearly all religions, including Christianity, demand.
Nothing to Fear
As for class warfare, if it exists in the U.S., the rich have already vanquished the poor and middle class so have nothing to fear from advocates of equality. Liberal or conservative? Democrat or Republican? When it comes to caring for others, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that people searching for God show that they’re serious by advocating for people who need help.
As for class warfare, if it exists in the U.S., the rich have already vanquished the poor and middle class so have nothing to fear from advocates of equality. Liberal or conservative? Democrat or Republican? When it comes to caring for others, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that people searching for God show that they’re serious by advocating for people who need help.
The new study shows that doing
nothing has proven ineffective in improving the lives of our fellow citizens.
People searching for God should advocate for the poor, especially poor people
of color, at every opportunity. This would include advocating for more and
better mental health programs, addiction prevention and treatment, and
employment and training opportunities. (In my experience, people who say that
the poor are poor because of their own incompetence or laziness know very few
poor people.)
For people searching in the
Christian tradition, it’s mandatory. Christian love can’t be abstract and vague
but evident in concrete action.
"A new command I give you,”
said Jesus in the Gospel of John. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so
you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another."
The word “gimmick” can be thrown around to describe a major element of a film that changes up the ordinary tropes we’d expect from a rather straightforward flick. There is 3D, timeline splicing, animation, found footage, you name it. Some films almost even fall into these places as a genre. When they do, you get the inkling that the people responsible for thinking up the movie likely have these elements in mind at the forefront with the story as an afterthought. > Reviews Searching Only when that occurs do I call those elements gimmicky. And it’s not that a gimmick is a bad thing, but if that is what you rely on to make your story compelling, it will often become a crutch for poor storytelling or one-and-done enjoyment. Sometimes it is done right, in which case the gimmick works… but most of the time it has that negative connotation for good reason.
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