Friday 19 March 2010

Who does God really think should win the SA election?

Back to the half an hour to spare praying in the Dean's Chapel at the Cathedral and for the State election.
In my last entry I just noted that what many commentators are declaring is that it's OK for people to believe what they like as long as it's not religious.
This is a false view of what religions actually shed light upon. They do not only tell us about people's supernatural beliefs they also describe for us a whole way of looking at life.
Now part of the difficulty is that different adherents of, say, Christianity or ,say, Islam arrive at different conclusions about what is faithful and what is not.
I am a Christian, for example, who hears the major thrust of Christian teaching to be about liberty, forgiveness, justice, and the establishment of peace and shared proosperity.
It is clear that there are others who don't believe that. I think they are wrong. Wrong often in their understanding of scripture, wrong often in the conclusions they draw, wrong in the policy they educe. I am prepared to defend that.
For me, as a religious person who thinks that God is just, righteous and freedom-giving; I think that's who God want to win the SA election.
You will need to make your mind up where to cast your vote if you think that is the goal we are trying to advance.
I also believe from my religious conviction that God values all people. That God does not prefer the rich over the poor, one racial type over another. So I have no hesitation putting racists last.
So...........
In the Dean's chapel, we were being urged to pray for Anglicare's concern that we address the needs of the homeless. That seems to me to be God's desire. Or that is what the scriptures tell me.
Now that is not just 'belief' it is also 'social policy'.
Each of us will have to decide who best expresses those things we hold dear. It is impertinent, and indeed wrong, to suggest that because my faith informs my social desires that my insights should be disregarded.
They are not infallible. But nor are they worth less than a Dawkins or an Adams simply because my value system is different from theirs.

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