Thought for the Week

by The Rev Rob Hilton, Christchurch United Church, and Ben Rhydding Methodist Church.

I’ve been getting pretty fed up recently about the way Islam is represented in the press. For most of the world’s Muslims, who are faithful and devout people, their faith is a religion of peace, community care, holiness and charity. However, it’s not my place to promote another religion! My calling is to promote Christian faith, so I quickly scribbled down what it’s bare bones are for me. Firstly, Love is at the heart of it. Christian experience is an overwhelming experience of God who is love. God wants us to know that love, and Jesus came to communicate it. He lived an engaging life 2,000 years ago, within the power politics, and rural landscape of first century Palestinian Judaism, under Roman occupation, but through all that historical context, Jesus revealed a God of self giving love. Secondly, and following on from this I think, Christian faith is about Justice, tempered with mercy. For Jesus, the sick, poverty stricken, ill, and needy were often that way because social and political conditions either made or exasperated their condition. When he healed the sick, he then told them to go to the temple and pray, knowing full well that in doing so he was challenging a corrupt religious authority. The conditions are very different today, but whether it’s the elderly pensioner next door in need of help, gay people that need a church wedding, or an apartheid political system that needs to change, Christian activity is a call to justice. Thirdly, again because of love, at an individual, and community level, Christianity is about Wholeness. Repairing damage in whatever form it takes. Whether it’s our relationship with the environment, or a divorced partner; whether it’s our own honesty and integrity, or need to forgive or be forgiven, I believe there’s the possibility of reconciliation, peace, and good living in all aspects of life - personal, family, and social. God gives such possibilities because his nature is love, yet we have our part to play in making the dream reality. An experience of love, a call to justice, the possibility of wholeness - This is the Christianity I want to see in the world today.