Losing Our Religion

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has Faith but does not have works? Can that Faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also Faith itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Indeed, someone might say, "You have Faith and I have works." Demonstrate your Faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my Faith to you FROM my works." -[ James 2: 14-18].


America is losing its religion. Marriage is down 36% since 1960. Secularism [people claiming no religious denomination and attending worship as little as once per year] is now 59%, up from 38% in 1972-1976. [Source: Charles Murray, author of "Coming Apart."]

Frankly, America-- in dropping its religion-- is flaunting a nakedness that is all too obvious.

I cringe when people tell me that the Bible is obsolete . . . .This Scripture in James points to a heated argument that is just as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago. I have have known more than a few friends and co-workers who say, 'You can be a good person and be an atheist.' This is exactly like the person in this Scripture who says, "You have Faith and I have works."

I grew up in a household of no Faith and no charity. My family members would say, "Let those poor people get jobs. They don't WANT to work!" When I would suggest that we had enough money to give to charity, all members of my family would shout me down in unison, " WE don't GIVE the money away!!"

But, it is not all as simple as telling a guy to get a job.  Father Gregory Boyle, a priest who works in one of the most violent sections of Los Angeles, wrote a book called, "Tattoos on the Heart". He writes, "Part of the spirit dies a little, each time it's asked to carry more than its weight in terror, violence, and betrayal. . . It is a toxic shame, a global failure of the whole self."  And yet, we dare to demand that these wounded souls, who cannot even take care of themselves, go out and get and keep a job? HOW is this even possible?

My family, without Faith, had no compassion. I believe that you CAN have some compassion as a non-believer. But that faithless compassion is not deeply grounded in the poignant expressions of Jesus.

It is Jesus who says, "Love your neighbor as yourself."- [Mark 12:31].  What this means, quite simply, is that we are responsible  for each other!

It is Jesus who says, "A new command I give you:  Love one another, as I have loved you." How big is this Love? -- even to the point of a harrowing death FOR us humans, who are by very definition faulty and broken.

Not long after I began delving into Scripture in a serious way, I came across Matthew 25:31-46: "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are family members, you did it to me. Depart from me, into the eternal fire, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me."

And so, every time my family did not comfort my tears, but blamed me for them; every time my family did not feed me when I was hungry; every time I was thirsty for their love, but they denied me; every time I was cold and they denied me a sweater and told me that I was not cold; every time my pained, lost eyes gazed out at them from my prison of fear, but they did not comfort me --- THESE they did TO Jesus.

My aunt --and godmother-- used to say to me, " But, you are their daughter!"--This all makes me think of Mother Teresa saying, 'Don't we know that we all belong to each other?'

And so, I watch a candidate for President declaring that he will build walls to keep "those people" out. I watch a candidate saying that "those people" are all rapists and murderers and drug dealers. All the while, I hear the cries of the refugees calling, "WHY are we being treated this way?" And, I think -- How has our world become so very cruel? Beyond our saying, "Let them get jobs", are we now saying, "Let them perish"? Far from being an esoteric, archaic theological argument, this is about as real as it gets. .  .

Without our Faith and our knowledge of Scripture, we cannot possibly know how very personal this all is. Abandoning the poor, the refugee, the victims of gang culture, the sick and hungry, means abandoning Jesus -- and all of humanity.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said in the 1960's: "Injustice is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." And-- "The poor in our countries have been shut out of our kids and driven fro the mainstream of our societies because we have allowed them to become invisible."

I was once Invisible. I would not dare to do that to another human being. Being invisible is a slow kind of agonizing death.

How shallow is our Faith? How deep is our callousness?

[Related Posting: "Show Me Your Faith", Sept. 16, 2012; "The Least Among Us', November 18, 2011.]

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