Now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, a ministry of the Church of the Saviour in Washington DC, MCGovern recalls words from Peter Storey concerning America.
Often it takes a compassionate but truth-telling outsider to throw light on our country, its leaders, its policies. Bishop Peter Storey of South Africa, who walked the walk in his courageous, outspoken resistance to the apartheid regime, provides this prophetic word:
“I have often suggested to American Christians that the only way to understand their mission is to ask what it might have meant to witness faithfully to Jesus in the heart of the Roman Empire. Certainly, when I preach in the United States I feel, as I imagine the Apostle Paul did when he first passed through the gates of Rome—admiration for its people, awe at its manifest virtues, and resentment of its careless power.
“America’s preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps, than those faced by us under South Africa’s apartheid, or by Christians under Communism. We had obvious evils to engage; you have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white, and blue myth. You have to expose and confront the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion, and caring of most American people and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth. You have to help good people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them.
“This is not easy among people who really believe that their country does nothing but good. But it is necessary, not only for their future, but for us all. All around the world there are those who believe in the basic goodness of the American people, who agonize with you in your pain, but also long to see your human goodness translated into a different, more compassionate way of relating with the rest of this bleeding planet.â€
Let us begin the New Year with what Scripture calls “circumcised hearts,†before we ask that God bless America
This is the moral danger in which the Christian Right places itself in today’s America, under this present ruling administration. They have what I believe to be EVIL purposes; not in THEIR minds, but in their list of “acceptable means” to their ends. This is what evil is all about. Getting what WE WANT, regardless of the destructive and death-dealing consequences, never mind the absence of SEEKING JUSTICE. The opposite is in motion. It is a time for the Church to be present by BEING the Church.
I want to be involved. I believe the Internet is crucial to our sharing stories and keepin geach other informed via this alternative media, as the mainstream media becomes more beholden to pressures from those who are buying up corporate hearts and allegiances, and pressuring dissenting voices.
I just learned that the Communications program I went through in 1990-91 is being phased out, a nd no more classes being offered. What a shame. What an abandonment of a key ministry for the Church, needed more than ever in this time of cultural captivity for a scary portion of the Church in America. With atrocities such as Sudan and Iraq, and the shocking and apalling silence of the Church on both (more so on Iraq), we need resources that help us keep connected and aware of alternative resources. The blogging community that has arisen during this political season, and seen the need for progressive voices of Christianity to say a collective NO to the forces of empire that are particularly destructive in these past 4 years. May 2005 see a groundswell of renewal amongst God’s people to speak the truth to power, and recognize the need and desire of many who hear God’s call to do something in this time.
I just had a thought from reading that bit from Bishop Peter Storey:
Isn’t it a bit odd that most Christians in America are quick to admit that they are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God, but if you try to get them to admit that the U.S.A. has also sinned and does so every day in just about everything it does, you’re accused of being a blasphemer (“un-patriotic”)? Why is it that they will admit to a personal humility but then proclaim that the U.S. is some infallible arm of God?
I just don’t get it.