Dancing on Injustice

Today, in church, we sang a song by a band called Delirious? called "Did you feel the mountains tremble".

In the chorus of that song, there is a line that reads:

Open up the doors and let the music play
Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring your hope
Songs that bring your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice.

This brought to mind a story told by Jim Wallis at a talk in June 2007 with Greg Boyd at Bethel University (you can listen here) about politics and faith. In the talk, Wallis relates a story about a discussion he was a part in at Notre Dame.

He relates:

I was at Notre Dame during the last election and had a room full Catholic students. They cared about the poor, they cared about Iraq and they cared about abortion. They didn't fit either party framework.

A young woman raised her hand and said, "4000 lives were lost today because of abortion. How can I vote on any other issue than that?"

I let the question hover just to see what might happen. Another student stood up and said, "Fair enough! 9000 people died today because of HIV/AIDS. What about them?"

A third student said "And 30,000 children died today because of needless hunger and poverty!".

And we decided after an hour and a half that there was no consistent ethic of life candidate running in the election. The right and the left have selective moralities.

We, as followers of Christ, are looking forward to a time where these injustices cease. On the other hand, we are commanded to do our best to make those injustices cease before then. Politics won't do it because it is too self serving. The Church has abdicated our responsibilities far too long.