Thursday, January 20, 2022

“Cure or Painkiller”

 


The prophet Isaiah says that the Lord will be a stumbling block for
many, meaning that the majority of us will have difficulties living the
way we ought to. Working in the field of social justice only seems to
add another dimension to that difficulty. Poverty, economic inequality,
and eradicating racism, sexism, and the like are all issues
that "progressive Christians" care about, but how much do we really say
about how things got this way?

From my experience, the progressive Christian movement has shown that
it can advise its constituency on how to assist in uplifting burdened
communities, but I've noticed an absence in acknowledging what got us --
a collective "us" -- into places of suffering in the first place.

Effective movements all have two key elements: first is a thorough
understanding of the root causes of their issues in order to heal
whatever the "disease" may be. The other is an unrelenting commitment
to be a cure and not a treatment. Where we are right now in history
begs the question: Do we want 
a cure or just a painkiller
?