Human events are in much confusion. A missionary to Mexico, Nancy Davis, is shot and killed by the druggies. There are riots in the streets of Egypt. The world is in financial crisis, the younger generations are rightly upset with this world’s political expediency. Injustice is the long tolerated norm of our politicians as they perpetuate abusive school and welfare systems. The hard working, tax paying, risk taking private sector worker is being victimized by American institutions that have been corrupted in the last forty years. As is, there seems to be few real options and little hope for future generations.
This reality confronts us every day. To date the only national response is for our politicians to kick the football around while the people suffer. Where can we look for authentic leadership in these times? Should the peoples of the world expect leadership from our spiritual and religious institutions? Where are they, saving the soul’s of men? Are they hiding behind their golden silence and the walls of the Church? The Church has volunteered to be irrelevant in the current crisis and therefore in the lives of men.
What have we learned in the 2000 years since Jesus walked the byways of Palestine? What has the Church learned since Jesus called to account the religious institutions of that time? Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter ten. The “robbers and thieves” of our time are leaving the people half dead and the predicted response of the “priest’s” and “lay leadership” is to pass on the other side in a time of crisis. Jesus did not open up a perpetual checking account for the man in crisis as some would assert. Rather the Samaritan showed mercy in a time of crisis which made personal responsibility possible.
The biblical mandates are clear and seemingly unavoidable. But where is the voice of the Church? The sinning church is an institution bent upon self preservation as opposed to doing Good. The Almighty dollar is the rule of this community. Those in institutional robes will retort, “who are you to criticize us, you are not Jesus”! Correct, but this chief among of sinners must speak out because the best of us won’t.
G.Goslaw
Victorville, Ca.
