Reply #197: You and others are assuming that this never gets done [View All]

[hippywife]

just because you personally don't witness it. I will give you a good example of it being done and assure you things like this take place all of the time in communities around the world.

When it was announced that Fred Phelps was coming here to Tulsa to protest against a gay high school student and the school for allowing a Gay-Straight Alliance Club, the very first thing that happened was there was a vigil at the GLBT community center. This vigil was led by the UCC and UU ministers of the community. The other ministers that couldn't attend because they were conducting services sent their messages of support to be read aloud at the vigil. The news media was invited to attend and they did. The next day, we all went out and silently swept the sidewalk where his followers had stood when the kids arrived at school so that when they left they would know there are those who stood against the hate they had been greeted with that morning...and again the press was there, even the Washington Post.

Last Saturday at our anti-war march, the pastor emeritus at the UCC church marched with us. Local members of the Pastors for Peace are very involved in what we do as a peace and justice organization. Internationally, the PFP is huge into peace and social justice issues and they act on their beliefs: http://www.ifconews.org/ and it's leader Lucius Walker has endangered himself taking aid to other countries without proselytizing:
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/RevLuciusWalker.html

And there is Sr. Joan Chittister who puts her beliefs into practice and authorship: http://www.beliefnet.com/author/author_121.html

Then there is Fr. John Dear who does a beautiful job of calling out the Pharisaic views of the religious right:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0215-21.htm

For every Lucius Walker, Joan Chittister, John Dear, and Martin Luther King, Jr., there are thousands of pastors and millions of Christians doing the work they have been called to do by the words and examples of Christ. These people do what they do without trying to garner the glory of the media spot-light, which is also what Christ calls them to do.

Just because you have never seen it, doesn't make it non-existant. All you have to do is look around. Those of us among the Christian Left understand something about God that the Religious Right has forgotten (only one of the obviously many things they have forgotten) and that is he doesn't need us bloviating 24 hours a day defending his principles.