A week to change the world

It’s Christian Aid Week from 11th-17th May when 20,000 churches across the UK and Ireland will be raising funds for rom 11th-17th May the charity. Christian Aid works with partners around the world, taking action against poverty and the causes of poverty, empowering people to develop sustainable lifestyles.

This year’s Christian Aid Week focusses on work with some of the 42 million people globally who have been driven from their homes by war, supporting them through the immediate trauma, and helping them get their lives together again. Last year, the Week raised £12 million. It’s a week to make a difference, a week to bring light into dark places, a week to change the world.

Last week Steve Jones, a Professor of Genetics at University College, London aired his view that poverty and religion go hand in hand. Looking across the world, and back through history, he argues that ‘there is a precise fit between social unfairness and the power of the priesthood.’ He continues ‘In countries whose governments are fair and effective the influence of the clergy fades.’

As examples of religion flourishing in unequal societies he points to the continent of Africa, and to the rise of mega-churches in the USA, concluding that ‘the most devout nations’ are those with the most social problems, and that ‘Chaos and credulity go together.’

One wonders why a genetics expert feels able to pronounce with such confidence on a subject not his own. Does Professor Jones seriously think all religious belief is the result of unquestioning credulity? Has he never met any deep-thinking religious people who have struggled with faith and the many questions it gives rise to, and have concluded that there is good cause to believe in a God beyond all our imagining?

Steve Jones seems unable to distinguish between true devotion to God, and toxic religion. It’s the latter he’s criticising. And people of good-will, whatever their religion, join him in condemning religious leaders who seek to control and manipulate others, to enrich themselves, to build power-bases while turning their backs on what Jesus called ‘the kingdom of heaven.’

Toxic religion is one of the many darknesses currently overshadowing the world. And the same controlling toxicity found in extremist Islamist groups is not unknown, although to a lesser degree, in some Christian churches.

True Christianity, on the other hand, empowers and liberates. True Christian leaders are servants, love-driven, expressing the peace and justice of God, bearing light into dark places.

This is what Christian Aid stands for, and we are reminded this week that we are called to join in God’s world-transforming project. We play our part, not just by praying and making donations to charities, but by being light-bearers, breathing peace and love into every situation we find ourselves in, every conversation, every relationship.

We may think that a small loving act is of little global significance, but just as small donations to Christian Aid this week are both valuable in themselves and contribute to a large total, so our small acts of love are precious in their own right, and contribute to the bright shining of God’s kingdom of love.

The Professor’s views remind me that although chaos in our lives and communities can lead us into the grip of toxic religion, it can also, if we seek discerningly, lead us into the arms of God.

When our lives are in chaos we look for answers, and question everything we’ve built our lives on hitherto. Our desperation may open our eyes to the reality behind what we once dismissed as foolish credulity. And thus in recent months both people whose lives have been thrown into financial turmoil by the recession and affluent professionals facing personal crisis have found that it is when we come to an end of ourselves that we discover the one who is our beginning.

The possibility of toxic religion means that as well as expressing love, and modelling the faith which heals we will as appropriate point to the source of our love, to Jesus Christ, the source of all love, who models genuine faith.

This Jesus, far from building personal power structures, became the servant of humanity, allowed poverty and injustice to embrace him, and came to an end of himself to give us a new beginning.

And so the first Easter week was the week that changed the world. Christ’s death for us and return to life was an explosion of love which sends powerful ripples through the whole of history, bringing peace, reconciliation and freedom from fear. None of us are untouched by these ripples: Christian Aid Week reminds us of our moment-by-moment challenge to carry them forward, as empowered by Christ’s presence they grow not weaker, but stronger until the day God’s kingdom comes.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 15th May 2014)