Tag: works

A recent series of posts written by a blogging friend of mine raises some serious questions.  In it, he discusses ways in which many of us who mean well go completely wrong.  We live in a post-Christian society, but we carry over aspects of religiosity of which we may not even be consciously aware.  In seeking to be Good Liberals™, we reveal our indebtedness to the same relative framework, one held also by our ancestors.  Before I introduce my larger point, I need to assert here that I am not arguing that anyone ought to hold racist ideas or that doing so is acceptable.  Rather, I’m critiquing the means by which we often resort to eradicate them.  Here is the first.

A Quaker minister recently spoke my mind and, as it turned out, the minds of many.  The thrust of his message asserted that we who are people of faith (and even those who do not identify as such) have over the years split into two camps.  One of them seeks to love his or her neighbor by means of social justice and direct service.  Some build houses for the poor.   Others seek to educate and empower those who live in Third World countries.  Still others take jobs in helping professions or non-profits designed to assist the less fortunate and the needy.  It is this aspect that is emphasized most heavily in progressive faiths and certainly by liberal unprogrammed Friends.