Whether assisting people at point of need or campaigning to eradicate the causes of that need it is important to remember we are engaging with individuals, not clients, customers or units. Engagement should look beyond the immediate issue for an individual to its causes and consequences Pastoral care and campaigning for systemic change to achieve social justice.
Poverty, homelessness, misogyny, racism, deprivation, discrimination, marginalisation, exclusion have causes to be addressed, people in need of immediate practical support. Often the effect on individuals is to engender apathy, lethargy, despair, depression. It is all too easy to be caught in a mindset that perceives no escape from the situation a person finds themselves in. Having personally experienced poverty, homelessness, unemployment and loneliness I understand how difficult life is: live through today and dread tomorrow. I believe faith and secular organisations are engaging more with holistic appoaches and seeking to break down the us as provider and you as recipient approach. We need to listen, show empathy and dispel patronising attitudes.
The authors of the synoptic gospels attribute to Jesus the principle of love your neighbour and the instruction to follow him in his concepts and actions. But do Christians engage in social action only because it is expected of them? I don't believe this to be the case. Major religions and secular philosophies profess to follow the Golden Rule: do to others as you would have done to you. But I have a nagging doubt that the agenda of faith groups is not simply to assist individuals in need of support but to use the engagement as a means of evangelism, however softly that is done.
Ask the question: is this the approach attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels?
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