This society which praises capitalism for its efficiency in driving progress, justifies the destruction of life under the claim it has permission of both the people and God. These justifications are not only unacceptable, they’re also lies. The dominant culture is driven by neither Democratic or Christian values which it pays so much lip service to.
Democracy and Christianity are frameworks for creating equality among people, in theory. In practice the dominant forms of Democracy and Christianity have been co-opted by the powerful to serve as tools that concentrate wealth and power to reward themselves and punish everyone else.
It’s easy to despair that the result of this dominant culture optimizing their implementation of these frameworks has lead to so much death and destruction around the world. As members of society it is important to hold these atrocities with appropriate weight, the suffering of us all is a shared experience. However to allow that despair to consume you robs you of the energy you need to be effective change in the world around you.
As mentioned earlier, Democracy and Christianity are tools, learning and using them in your community is how you can bring about change to your society.
Let’s go over an example of how you can do this.
Say you want to live in a community that ensures everyone is fed regardless of wealth, you can volunteer your energy to helping feed the homeless, very likely the groups in your community who you can help are based in religion, be them Jewish, Christian, Muslim and the uncountable variations of these theologies. By feeding the homeless in your community you are directly solving a problem for people, this is a great start to making change, but it’s not the end.
Through meeting fellow community members living rough you’re going to start to build an emotional connection to real people, and better understand how things need to change to help them. You’re going to start getting a sense of the current policy issues that they are facing, where the government and its institutions of enforcement need to make change.
The passion and drive this produces should be used to get involved in the political operations of your local government. Not only voting, but engaging with more of the levers of power, attending community meetings to press on policy points, to question authority, to make those who rule over you and your brothers & sisters accountable.
Of course if you were living in a democracy the relationship wouldn’t be that these people were ruling over you, it would be that they were serving you, serving your communities needs, solving problems faced by members of the community at all levels in society.
Right now at all levels of government, the corrupt politicians serve the wealthy elite, the banks and corporations with the majority of wealth. The policies they propose, support, and enforce are prioritized not based on the good of the people, but on the desires of the rich and powerful. These people have subverted democracy by making elections cost millions to participate in and forcing politicians into their pockets to ensure election, or by forcing loans to underfunded governments and use austerity agreements to ensure that funds are funneled back to the rich, at the cost of the community services that benefit the poor.
The only way that we will change the status-quo is by making those politicians accountable to us, making them dependent on voters who care about policies, are engaged with their community, and want to see real change.
You cannot have a democracy if you don’t engage in your community, you cannot claim to operate under christian values if you don’t value policy and politicians who create a society based on justice, kindness, and equality.
If we work to change our society and culture locally, then the world will change in turn.
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