Everything is Broken

When I was growing up, we had a community centre in my parish. At that time, in Roman Catholic Ireland, most community activities were connected to the church in one way or another. Three things have changed since. Firstly, I became an evangelical Christian when I was 18. I started to see my evangelical church community as my community. I’d hadn’t really visited the community centre much before then. apart from kids discos and so on. And the sort of people who would volunteer and take charge of community activities were few and far between. People admired them, but they sometimes came across as a little pompous and bossy. So, people generally made their own friends and did their own thing.

Anyway, two other things that changed were that people drifted away from the church into a more secular world view. And Ireland has become a multi-cultural society. So, the church isn’t in a position to take as many community initiatives or even sustain initiatives that they begun in the past. And staff levels, both professional and volunteers, seem much lower.

The Irish media have many journalists who are quite left wing and anti-church, so they are quick to focus on flaws in the Roman Catholic church rather than all the good that they contributed to Irish society. And you do get some Protestants and evangelicals who are happy to see the influence of the Roman Catholic church declining. But I’m not all that sure that I like what might replace it. Things start to feel broken.

I have theological disagreements with Roman Catholicism, but in terms of ethics and community life, there’s very little that separates people. You do get awful religious people who commit terrorist acts in the name of their god and so on. But I would think that by and large, religious people have committed much to community life everywhere. And I know plenty of atheists and non-religious people who have what I would term “Christian” values.

Sometimes modern evangelical churches have a big emphasis on community life. Some might even see it as a means of attracting people. But I think that churches should be about worship and mutual encouragement in the Christian faith. I’m never keen on bribing people to believe. Terms such as souperism (an allegation that Protestants used soup to convert Catholics during the 19th Century Irish famine) and “Rich Christians” are sometimes used of Christians who help out in famines, poverty-stricken area etc. Maybe the same objections could be raised for “friendship evangelism”, “love bombing”, or using a network of people who might do you favours to attract people.

So, community life is probably best run on a secular basis. There’s no reason why religious folk shouldn’t help out. I’d like to see government-funded community centres everywhere. And perhaps they could be self-funding to some degree, through coffee shops, entertainment venues and so on.

Maybe schools and colleges meet many social needs. And for elderly people you have men’s sheds, and active retirement groups. I wouldn’t be the best person to attempt to improve the community. I’m not much of a social animal, but for those who crave companionship, I’d like them to find a place to meet others without some proselyting agenda that religious groups might adopt.

Still, if a church owns a building or a hall, they could allow the community to use it. It might even make people more comfortable attending the church services if they’re in and out of it for other purposes. But community life should be open to everyone.

There are circumstances where Christians might be forced into their own community. For example, the New Testament church faced persecutions from Jews, Romans, and other religious groups. In such circumstances, you’d probably be safe to stick with your church group. And in some regions across the world, people might live in similar circumstances. But now that we’ve gone some way towards avoiding tribal attitudes in Ireland, perhaps we should encourage people of all faiths and none to interact at a social level. And think of how better it would be if you saw that across the world.

When John Lennon sang “Imagine no Religion”, I don’t think that he was wishing that people would stop loving God and loving others. Maybe he had in mind those who persecute others and automatically take the side of their own “tribe” even if they are causing conflicts. Even in a world without religion, people might act in similar ways because their tribe is culturally, politically or racially different to other tribes. Think of the various communist countries of the 20th Century, and the Nazis, who had little interest in religion unless they could use it for their own purposes.

Anyway, here are a few songs that promote harmony.