Flip a coin

The Church is many things. Some are bad, some are very good. The papers write of some of it, some of it are never mentioned in the public realm. Not everything is meant to be talked about, we have the sacraments, we have the mysteries, we have the lover´s secrets, they are not meant for propaganda. The Bible prophesies and promises a world that will ever throw all kinds of shit against the Church, rumours, accusations, gossip, some true, most false.

Truth fades with the distance, rumours increase with it. Take the christians of the United States of America. Surely they are all bigoted, all voting Bush, all have guns and like to shoot muslims? Expect the black christians who do some pretty funky gospelsinging...

What´s not all there is to it, of course, but it´s the public image. Recently the Swedish magazine Ordfront wrote of the Christian left (as in socialistically inclined...) and included a piece on the president contender Barack Obama, who very much comes from a Christian American context (actually muslim as well on his father´s side), founded on social concern and commitment. The civil rights movement of the sixties is unthinkable without the Church. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr was not only a doctor (of systematic theology) but also a baptist pastor and founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference which was a major force in the struggle for equality and liberty in the U.S.

But that´s not the first thing that comes to mind, is it? When we talk of Christian America, we mean the bigots, the hipocrats, the men in power who like to keep themselves there. And some of that is true. And I think some of what went on in places like Moral Majority (but oh, the double standards..) has a place in the Church, as a reaction to a time what just doesn´t give a fuck about God, sin or saintliness. I thought about calling this piece, “The other church”, but really there is only one Church of Jesus Christ. If I have any problem with the people that God has included in that Church, maybe I should consider God could have a serious problem with me hanging about in it. He decided to go for grace, so should I...

For a whiff of that other side of the coin, check out this video of Mavis Staples from YouTube. It´s all there, the freedom marchers, the protesters, the police and the rubber batons, the mob beating a black man for being a black man who think he´s a man. The burning crosses of Ku Klux Clan...

Is the Church doing anything like this today, marching for freedom, going like sheep into the pack of wolves? Not that I can think of, not in Sweden anyway, but then we live in different times. The fight for tolerance is largely won, but there is a greater battle against ignorance still to be fought. How many people today are lonely and not seen by anyone? How many suffer and no one gives a damn? How many humiliate themselves for a few moldy breadcrumbs of attention? For to be seen is the great bliss of our time...

To be a Church is to be struggling in the world. Yet we don´t seem to know what we´re fighting, for, against, with, we see through a glass darkly. And no answers here, just this one question: What are we fighting for?


PS. I love Mavis recent version of this traditional song, but you can also watch it as performed in the heat of the battle. A version with Len Chandler, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan (though his contribution is looking uncomfortable...)