Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Protestant Christianity's Reluctance

From Calvin's "Institutes" - 3.7.5, "Now, in seeking to benefit one's neighbor, how difficult it is to do one's duty! Unless you give up all thought of self and, so to speak, get out of yourself, you will accomplish nothing here. For how can you perform those works which Paul teaches to be the works of love, unless you renounce yourself and give yourself wholly to others?"

As of late, I've been wondering why it's so difficult for Protestant Christianity to support justice - to stand beside the workers of America as their jobs are ripped out of their hands by a corporate power-grab that has overseen the largest transfer of wealth imaginable - billions out of the pockets of America's workers into the pockets of the rich, who have quickly shipped the money overseas. The hyper-concentration of wealth is destroying the middle class, but to raise a voice here is to be quickly branded a "radical" or a "socialist" or worse - but what would Jesus say? What would Paul or Jeremiah or Amos offer?