Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Keeping alternatives alive

"Only a crisis brings about real change. When the crisis occurs the ideas that are adopted are those which are readily available. It is part of the duty of the Church to keep alive alternative ways of thinking and living in preparation for the time when the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."

- Richard Chartres, Green economy possible with political will.
H/T Liz.

Do you think this is a helpful way of talking about one of the political roles of the church, as a witness to and guardian of the idea that other ways of life are possible, that repentance is the most fundamental freedom, that there is nothing inevitable about the present political landscape?

2 comments:

Juggernaut1981 said...

The Church has become stagnant with its own ideas. Crisis seems to have struck the Church again and again and it seems to have only bunkered down into the ideas it already had and not potentially admitted that the currently established Church may not be serving the Body in the way it should.

Christians should be ready to demonstrate the ideas contained in the Bible in a practical way as well as a theoretical way. The Book of James provides not just advice on Faith, but advice on how to show the results of Faith to others.

byron smith said...

Sorry to have missed this comment earlier.

You're right that all too often the church has been keeping tired ideas alive, rather than seeking to be faithful to the good news passed down to us by creatively keeping open alternative spaces for thought and action.