(THE CHURCH AND POLITICS {1} [continued(5)])[4th April 1987]

[Redbook3:110-111][19870404:1821e](THE CHURCH AND POLITICS {1} [continued(5)])[4th April 1987]

.1821

[continued]

Imagine a man, a clergyman, inspired by the Love of Jesus, in a Parish in the Inner City. All around him is unemployment, poverty, and general deprivation: specifically, for example, men at home all day, brutalising their wives; women bringing up children without money for normal aids, i.e. doing the washing up by hand, travelling by public transport to far-away supermarkets; children with clothes too small or worn thin, shoes too small, poor food, no books; peeling wallpaper and damp homes; dirty streets and boarded-up houses. It must be very, very depressing. For a short time, with the Cyrenians*, I lived in** (but not of – although I believed I soon might be) these conditions, in North Kensington. [W] has also lived in them, when there was no immediate way out. For the Clergyman, it must be desperately depressing. In the words (?) of Prince David: Something must be done***. But what?

I have suggested two complementary approaches: Teach (and, if they want you to, organise****) the poor; teach (and if they let you, organise****) the rich. I can imagine that both these must be extremely painful and difficult things to do. The temptation to place the responsibility on an apparently all-powerful superior authority must be irresistible: I mean, of course, the Government, not God. For one thing, it is always far pleasanter to criticise an institution than an Individual, who may react with tears or anger. But the whole answer is to be found in the end within the minds of Men: and that means TEACH!#

*[West London Cyrenians, April – September 1976.]

**[perhaps as much among as in.]

***[Possibly the future King Edward VIII on a visit to the South Wales coal-mining Valleys during the Great Depression in the early 1930s?]

****(Not organise for political action, but to help.)

#Perhaps more concisely: It is not enough to teach men (for example) to help others; they must be taught to want to help others. That is, they must be taught Love. <870815>

Or have their minds opened to it. <890930>

See p146 [[Redbook3:146][19870408:1218#](THE CHURCH AND POLITICS {2})]

[& cf. [Redbook3:74-75][19870329:1210x](Church Material [continued(3)])[29^th March 1987].]

[PostedBlogger02022016]