There is lots of food for thought in Tom Ehrich’s commentary on “the way forward” over at the Religious News Service blog.
COMMENTARY: The way forward is not an escape from troubled times
From Religion News Service
. . . These are troubled times, and those troubles cut broadly.
This is the moment for Christianity to step up and offer a way forward. Not a way backward, as many religious traditionalists offer; not a cantata of scapegoating, as the Glenn Beck-Sarah Palin “religious revival” would offer; and not a phony patriotic fervor that is self-service wrapped in a flag.
I mean the way forward that Jesus offered. People in his era, as in ours, were distracted, seeking escape, wanting easy answers, fearful of change, hungry for wealth and power, blaming foreigners and strangers, pulling inward, and willing to give up their freedom to the strong-willed.
Jesus’ answer was clear, albeit threatening. Love me first, he said. Love your God before all others. Love your neighbor before yourself. Don’t baptize your desired way of life and call it holy, but conform your life to the true holiness of God. Seek the courage not to be afraid.