The Stumbling Block

     

        The indignity thrust upon us during the holidays is exceeded only by the price we are expected to pay for it. The vulgar commercial incentives come as reminders that what we cannot afford to buy measures our worth as human beings.  In this dim light reality is not an option. Nevertheless, the spectacular holiday conjunction of a rising U. S. economy alongside unspeakable violence in the Middle East create obscene contrasts. Monday it was violence in southern Russia; Sunday in Iraq and Syria; the day before in Beirut and Sudan. The dead and wounded are like stigmata—moral wounds—that no candle or carol removes while the victims beg to know what in the world we think we’re doing as they die of violence or starvation and we sing carols?

A practical defensive answer might be that we’re shopping our economy back to health. The other answer, the true answer, is that we’re celebrating our well-earned righteousness.  We are calling on the heroism of the Maccabees, the obeisance of three kings, the beautiful music, the mercies of Allah—all understood to be both transcendent expressions of faith and signs of our superior, if competing, cultures  in this world. That’s the real reason bombs are going off from Boston to Kiev.

The vulgarization of faith for purposes of political empowerment or as footstools for our self-righteousness is the stumbling block to religious perspectives actually intended to bend the arc of history toward justice.

It is this failure to see faith as historic purposefulness that can bring everything to ruin.  As a ferocious 2014 looms with its spreading violent moods, its fossil fuel extractions and climate changes, its growing inequality, its chronic high unemployment, its violent perils, the proper exercise of faith will be finding the courage to stop, think and do justice.   

Have a Good New Year!