Monday, March 28, 2011

The Irresistible Revolution

"When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with folks who struggle, we start to ask WHY people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to chairty. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Caholic Bishop Dom Helder Camara:

'When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint.
When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.'

Charity wins awards and applause, but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world.

People are not crucified for helping poor people.
People are crucified for joining them."

-From The Irresistible Revolution: Living As An Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborn

3 comments:

L said...

Yeah, let's cut Head Start, Pell Grants and good medical care. Let's keep them poor, and unhealthy on top of it all. Oh and privatizing Medicare? Just so huge companies like GE and Chevron get tax REFUNDS!!! They haven't paid a penny in taxes for years, even with billions of dollars in profits. For reals.

It makes me want to throw up. I just don't get this new Republican mind set. Tax breaks for the rich at the expense of the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. It makes no sense to me. NONE!

Similar in analogy only, like Thomas More said in Utopia, we first make thieves by keeping them uneducated and desperate, and then we punish them.

We make the poor, keep them poor, and then punish their children, prevent them from being able to afford college, and give them NO medical care.

What a joke.

Christina said...

The debate in WA is making me sick. I can not believe there are people who actually think we should cut every social program in the book, and then lower taxes for the rich. It is so incredibly aggravating that I can't even talk about it- it makes my blood boil!

srbushman said...

Completely off subject, just wanted to celebrate with you too about President Obama and the Armed Services in finally getting Osama Bin Laden!!! Job well done.