At What Cost?

If there is one thing I find truly refreshing yet inconvenient all at once …that one thing would have to be those moments in which my character is challenged and I have that obligatory decision to change the way I have chosen to live and think. For so long I have turned a blind eye to pandemic issues that have plagued our societies and even worse…. our congregations. The Bible teaches that evil is rooted in the powers and structures of our societies as well as our hearts… Many of us have the inability to even recognize these evils.  It is ironic how we can easily acknowledge our personal sins, yet when it comes to recognizing the sins of the institutions we adhere to, we have seemingly turned a blind eye, buying into an ideology which on all accounts seems right yet is rooted in social sin. Somewhere within the margins, we have all become consumers in our own ways…forgetting that we are the ones to bring social justice to a world of inequity, we swallow what is pleasing to ourselves yet forget about…not just the big picture…but The picture.
Perhaps we have not understood the nature of social Sin that has taken over virtually everything from our governments to our churches. The men and women we elect to oversee our communities and nation sacrifice morality for the sake of relevance as the pulpit has become a tool of monetary gain, as if the budget is the say-all to the church’s success. In this matrix of madness we have abandoned a heart of social justice for a heart of narcissism. For many of us the phrase “Social Justice” has been lost in translation and has been minimized to programs and wrist- bands. Jim Wallis said …“ Often, we are involved in destructive social arrangements without being aware of it. We are barely conscious of the harm we inflict on others when it is done through the social institutions to which we belong.”  I have never thought of it like this before, but we must become keenly aware of what we are socially involved with. We justify and defend the social systems that have grasped our lives. There is something wrong when a church has to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to “fill their seats,” yet neglect the fact there are people in their very community who are going to bed hungry…. the biggest travesty of it all is we choose to turn a blind eye and go on as if it doesn’t exist.
Gregory Baum suggests that “ we cling tenaciously to the beliefs and symbols that make our institutions seem right and good, and we easily over look the sin built into the system.”  At what cost will we sacrifice our duties as followers of The Way? At what cost will we continue to turn a blind eye to the social sin rooted within the institutions we have bought into? Now think…think about the girl who was molested…think about the mom who cannot afford to feed her children… or how about the homosexual who will die because of aids?…. have you thought about it? because that is what it will cost Us.
I will sign off with a challenge…a challenge first and foremost to myself, then to my pastor (I expect your feedback now, Doulos)- the challenge is this: go through a process of repentance then onto examining our conscience as individuals and social institutions. What will we learn from this? Jesus tells us we must make a complete change in the way we live and think…a life-style change… in order to be effective. If this means we must abandon the ideologies and protocols given to us by society…then so be it. If it means you must give up on what your heart tells you and do what Christ asks of you…than may you be blessed.
Keeping you on your toes one post at a time
Nathanael Ray Nielsen.