Reply #49: "Who are my mother and my brothers?"

[Joe Chi Minh]

Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

The above is absolutely pivotal to Christianity, as is clear from Christ's own description of the Last Judgment in Matthew 24: 31 - 46. In the end, it's not about religion as we know it, prayer, liturgy or ritual sacrifice; in one quite fundamental sense, it's simply accepting the grace to choose to do what many non-human mammals are moved to by instinct - to look after each other.* A tall order in a fallen world, plummeting ever faster into the Abyss, particularly, it seems, for those whose hearts are set on an ever-increasing abundance of wordly possessions.

*It happens that the beneficial role of mainstream religions (whatever their manifold and sometimes heinous institutional failings) and of the kind of native American spirituality to which H2O refers, is nowadays under siege by atheists overt and covert - to the horrifying detriment of the same materialistic Western society they so flagrantly misgovern.

The result is an endless splintering and fragmentation, which leads to exclusive concentration on personal agendas and neglect of what should be the over-arching priorities of other peoples' most basic needs. Social ties are sundered and give way to an ever-increasing anomie and violence.

It's all spelt out very clearly in the post-war (WWII) history of the UK. So much of the good achieved by the early Socialists (substantially based on a Gospel interpetation of economic justice), despite the indifferent character of so many of its leaders, has been traduced by the ever more prevalent atheists, who now virtually monopolise it. Ironically, one of the most striking losses occasioned by their dominance is a loss of the most elementary common sense. The blind leading an increasingly blind society. It seems as if only the people "at the sharp end" can see the madness being daily perpetrated by their putative betters.

It has to be said that this catastrophic state we are currently in must in large part be attributed to the failure of institutional Church leaders, firstly to promote those Gospel economic values, and then to prevent the work of its Christian founder, Keir Hardie, being taken over and distorted by opportunistic atheists, by taking up the task themselves. Writing learned Ecyclicals was never going to make the impact that was required.

Certainly, in Italy, there was no squeamishness on the part of clergy in promoting the political right to their flock at elections. But in any case, it is quite clear from Christ's fulminations against the Synagogue and religious Establishment of his day, as described in the Gospels, that economic justice and railing against the oppression of the more innately spiritual poor by the worldly should have become at the very least one of its absolute priorities.

That would not have been possible in the early Church, but mankind's move, however halting, towards the small measure of democracy we have until recently enjoyed, should have been seen by the church as a green light - although ideally, that same move should have come from the institutional Church, itself, of course. It's not even as if the betterment of all of mankind's lot on earth was scorned by the Church; indeed, it sees it as its one of its most primary duties!

Marx, a Jew, had been brought up as a Catholic and his sense of justice and compassion were clearly inspired by both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures. (The debt Christians owe to the Jews cannot be overstated). When Marx stated that the tragedy of the poor was the poverty of their desires, the Church should have understood what he was driving at - even if, in the final analysis, we should recognise poverty (in the sense, at least, of modest means) as a blessing.

I interpret the following Psalm 81(82) as a condemnation of religious leaders who fail to purposefully commit themselves to attacking the oppressors of the poor:

God stands in the divine assembly.
in the midst of the gods he gives judgment.

'How long will you judge unjustly
and favour the cause of the wicked?
Do justice for the weak and the orphan,
defend the afflicted and the needy.
Rescue the weak and the poor;
set them free from the hand of the wicked.

Unperceiving they grope in the darkness
and the order of the world is shaken.
I have said to you, "You are gods
and all of you sons of the Most High."
And yet, you shall die like men,
you shall fall like any of the princes.'

Arise O God, judge of the earth,
for you rule all the nations.