There is a small faith-filled Anglican parish community in the Christchurch seaside suburb of New Brighton which, despite its meagre resources, daily offers the poor and the homeless food, a hot drink, clothing options and other essential resources.
I don’t think they know much about ideology nor give much time to studying it. But they do know what is humanly best for the poorest.
They do know what God wants and the Gospel calls for, namely ‘love of neighbour’.
They do what Jesus, who once walked this earth in person and now lives on in his risen presence, taught his followers to do.
‘Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, shelter the homeless, look after the weakest, protect Mother Earth, and follow me by taking an option for the poor and the neglected.’
They have accepted that such hospitality and outreach sits at the heart of the gospel for our time.
Ideology
I have spent much of my life studying various ideologies, some a lot closer to the gospel teachings than others. Ideology can often be the fall-back
position of those unwilling to open their hearts to further expansion.
While corporate capitalism (think the US, UK, Australia and NZ) is about as far away from the teachings of Jesus as you can imagine, state socialism
isn’t much better.
Just look at Russia and China, to mention only two giant players. Both corporate capitalism and state socialism rely on materialism and its bastard off-spring, consumerism, as their primary goal.
Its siblings are greed and status, their principal driving forces. The more one accumulates the better one is perceived to be. Both systems fail the gospel test – they fail to take account of how greed corrupts the soul and materialism cannot ever fill the heart.
In New Zealand, we see the effects of corporate capitalism every day.
To take one huge example. We hear about the ‘housing crisis’ which is very real and has wealthy speculators to thank for much of its development.
Forty years ago there was no ‘housing crisis’ per se.
Getting a first home was manageable for most steady workers who were paid enough to get a house and pay a mortgage. Now tens of thousands in this country cannot afford a place to either buy or rent a suitable home.
This has led to a huge growth in poverty levels, inadequate warm and safe homes, growing homelessness and the associated lower standards of
living (food, adequate healthcare, stable education) that accompany rising poverty levels.
A couple of other measuring sticks. There are many houses in affluent suburbs with only one of two occupants bigger than that some medieval
English castles.
We also see on our roads vehicles, nearly all of them bigger by half than the ones our parents drove. One suspects they are seen mostly as signs of status by their owners.
Who cares about the earth warming when we can drive these huge vehicles, block up our highways and look prosperous? Bigger, flasher, more expansive is the name of the corporate capitalist game.
Ideologically bound
The thing about ideology is that it can enslave people within its parameters and not allow them in any way to think ‘outside the square’.
The co-founder of the Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, saw this through learned and sometimes bitter experience as she moved from dappling with communism, through radical feminism and socialism – and found them all ideologies which short-changed her.
After studying the Gospels through the eyes of the poor and living with them for decades, she came to see that while all ideologies fall short of
delivering on their promises, the practice of personalism – recognising the divine spark of God’s presence in everyone and honouring them for that – was closest to the teachings of Jesus.
He did not judge people rather their actions. He had friends among both rich and poor.
Remember, he was buried in the wealthy man Nathanael’s tomb. But he mainly identified with the poor whom he saw were closest to God in their living and more open to his message.
Dorothy always sought to blow the embers of those divine sparks into life through friendship and meeting the primary needs of the poor. And through creating small supportive communities among them.
She even argued every parish should have a house of hospitality for the homeless and the needy. And why not is as valid a valid question today as it was in
her time.
Synodality
As the institutional Church in the developed world continues to shrink in both size and influence, we could do well to learn from such experiences as the New Brighton Anglicans (and there are some other parish communities around the country who do similar outreach as well) to help add some vibrancy and life to what appear to many to be tired old Catholic structures.
New Brighton offers a model of what a synodal church might look a bit like – localised but linked to the centre, outreaching, guided but not dominated
by its minister, living a gospel fuelled with compassion, justice, inclusivity, openness and holding a special sensitivity towards the poor, neglected,
isolated and abandoned.
It’s not perfect model but it is a good start!
A synodal church will not change doctrines but will broaden our vision as to how we go about our business of witnessing to Christ in our time. And our time may be shorter than we think.
With the world becoming more crowded and forced migration exploding, the planet heating up and more species becoming extinct daily, the so-called free-market economic system betraying the vast majority of the world’s peoples, Pope Francis has warned that time may be short to take the radical steps necessary to
prevent a catastrophe of even greater proportion injustice developing inour lifetime.
Conclusion
That should set us all thinking. We all have a part to play in saving our planet for future generations and developing the Church to meet the needs of our time.
If we believe the teachings of Jesus are the way forward as did Dorothy Day in the Great Depression, World War II and the 1960s – 70s, then there is no time to waste in our generation of uncertainty, rising inequality, war and the climate crisis.
As the prophet Emmanual Charle McCarthy teaches, “Christ is Risen does not mean Jesus lives on in history as Lenin lives on in his revolution.
“Jesus does not live on because people have faith in him and proclaim his teaching. The reverse is true.
“People have faith in him and proclaim his teaching because he lives.”
If we truly believe Christ is Risen and lives on in our lives, we have no option but to become involved working to improve things on our planet, in our country and our local communities. And that means social justice for all.
- Father Jim Consedine was ordained in 1969. He has been a member of the Catholic Worker in Christchurch for 20 years and writes on peace and justice issues.
Related Posts:
News category: Analysis and Comment.
