Christianity could address political chaos It is a rare occasion that I agree with
Michael Coren but I do think he is bang on in this Toronto Star article, Perfect time for the church to show leadership. In it, he argues that in the political chaos we see arising both south of us and across the Atlantic, might be addressed by a Christianity focused on social justice issues. The liberal Christian church has focused on social and economic justice issues for decades, beginning with the social gospel movement at the turn of the last century. Those interests expanded over the decades to include race, gender, environmental, sexual, and gender identity justice issues as well. Indeed, my United Church of Canada has been a leader in every one of those areas and I’m proud of the work we’ve bravely undertaken over our history.
Late in the game But it is late in the game and mainline churches are dying. Those intent on focusing on beliefs rather than the values proclaimed by the life of Christianity’s “
eponymous founder, who would have seen the current tide of anger, retreat, hysteria and blame as the hellish product it is,” are able to engage fewer and fewer in the work they once championed in the halls of power. The mitigating effect they had on our social norms has mostly disappeared. And we are watching the effects of that disappearance play out for us in viral youtube videos of Americans shouting they voted for Trump as they spew xenophobic slurs, the common citizen’s equivalent to the shocking appointments of racist, homophobic, misogynist, evangelical fundamentalists to some of America’s most powerful posts.
Coren has a peculiarly misty-eyed way of looking of Christianity, seeing clearly its struggles for human rights in the 20th century but apparently completely failing to notice that it was the state religion in all the slave states in the USA for 3 centuries, justified slavery from the Bible and the pulpit, and only finally gave this up after the US government pried its theist-racist grip forcibly loose. Coren closes his piece, somewhat ironically, with an idealistic quote from an Archbishop of Canterbury – in an era when the Anglican Church had been forced to give up running slave plantations but hadn’t yet confessed publicly that it had run them.
What is needed now is not a retreat to Christianity but a revitalized spirituality that is post-Christian and post-theistic. Unitarianism speaks of a ‘liberal faith’ and something like that is what is really needed, though that version is too diluted for our challenges today.
More than ever in the era of Brexit, Trump and anti-immigration, we need a muscular liberal faith that is not embarrassed to defend and constantly strengthen democracy, human rights in all its rainbow colours, judicial and journalistic independence, citizen responsibility as well as citizen freedom, and a relentless towards to one human world, where everyone has a decent opportunity to flourish.
Coren has a peculiarly misty-eyed way of looking of Christianity, seeing clearly its struggles for human rights in the 20th century but apparently completely failing to notice that it was the state religion in all the slave states in the USA for 3 centuries, justified slavery from the Bible and the pulpit, and only finally gave this up after the US government pried its theist-racist grip forcibly loose. Coren closes his piece, somewhat ironically, with an idealistic quote from an Archbishop of Canterbury – in an era when the Anglican Church had been forced to give up running slave plantations but hadn’t yet confessed publicly that it had run them.
What is needed now is not a retreat to Christianity but a revitalized spirituality that is post-Christian and post-theistic. Unitarianism speaks of a ‘liberal faith’ and something like that is what is really needed, though that version is too diluted for our challenges today.
More than ever in the era of Brexit, Trump and anti-immigration, we need a muscular liberal faith that is not embarrassed to defend and constantly strengthen democracy, human rights in all its rainbow colours, judicial and journalistic independence, citizen responsibility as well as citizen freedom, and a relentless towards to one human world, where everyone has a decent opportunity to flourish.
Coren has a peculiarly misty-eyed way of looking of Christianity, seeing clearly its struggles for human rights in the 20th century but apparently completely failing to notice that it was the state religion in all the slave states in the USA for 3 centuries, justified slavery from the Bible and the pulpit, and only finally gave this up after the US government pried its theist-racist grip forcibly loose. Coren closes his piece, somewhat ironically, with an idealistic quote from an Archbishop of Canterbury – in an era when the Anglican Church had been forced to give up running slave plantations but hadn’t yet confessed publicly that it had run them.
What is needed now is not a retreat to Christianity but a revitalized spirituality that is post-Christian and post-theistic. Unitarianism speaks of a ‘liberal faith’ and something like that is what is really needed, though that version is too diluted for our challenges today.
More than ever in the era of Brexit, Trump and anti-immigration, we need a muscular liberal faith that is not embarrassed to defend and constantly strengthen democracy, human rights in all its rainbow colours, judicial and journalistic independence, citizen responsibility as well as citizen freedom, and a relentless towards to one human world, where everyone has a decent opportunity to flourish.
Coren has a peculiarly misty-eyed way of looking of Christianity, seeing clearly its struggles for human rights in the 20th century but apparently completely failing to notice that it was the state religion in all the slave states in the USA for 3 centuries, justified slavery from the Bible and the pulpit, and only finally gave this up after the US government pried its theist-racist grip forcibly loose. Coren closes his piece, somewhat ironically, with an idealistic quote from an Archbishop of Canterbury – in an era when the Anglican Church had been forced to give up running slave plantations but hadn’t yet confessed publicly that it had run them.
What is needed now is not a retreat to Christianity but a revitalized spirituality that is post-Christian and post-theistic. Unitarianism speaks of a ‘liberal faith’ and something like that is what is really needed, though that version is too diluted for our challenges today.
More than ever in the era of Brexit, Trump and anti-immigration, we need a muscular liberal faith that is not embarrassed to defend and constantly strengthen democracy, human rights in all its rainbow colours, judicial and journalistic independence, citizen responsibility as well as citizen freedom, and a relentless towards to one human world, where everyone has a decent opportunity to flourish.
Coren has a peculiarly misty-eyed way of looking of Christianity, seeing clearly its struggles for human rights in the 20th century but apparently completely failing to notice that it was the state religion in all the slave states in the USA for 3 centuries, justified slavery from the Bible and the pulpit, and only finally gave this up after the US government pried its theist-racist grip forcibly loose. Coren closes his piece, somewhat ironically, with an idealistic quote from an Archbishop of Canterbury – in an era when the Anglican Church had been forced to give up running slave plantations but hadn’t yet confessed publicly that it had run them.
What is needed now is not a retreat to Christianity but a revitalized spirituality that is post-Christian and post-theistic. Unitarianism speaks of a ‘liberal faith’ and something like that is what is really needed, though that version is too diluted for our challenges today.
More than ever in the era of Brexit, Trump and anti-immigration, we need a muscular liberal faith that is not embarrassed to defend and constantly strengthen democracy, human rights in all its rainbow colours, judicial and journalistic independence, citizen responsibility as well as citizen freedom, and a relentless towards to one human world, where everyone has a decent opportunity to flourish.
The liberal Christian church has focused on social and economic justice issues for decades, beginning with the social gospel movement at the turn of the last century.
and i like itu