Sara Robinson offers “Six Reasons We Can’t Change the Future without Progressive Religion” on Alternet. One thing I’ve appreciated about the progressive church I attend, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian in Austin, is that people there are willing to confront the harsh realities of social and ecological breakdown. When the pastor there, Jim Rigby, takes a break, I get a chance to fill in. This past Sunday I preached on “Hope is for the Lazy: The Challenge of Our Dead World.” Here’s an excerpt:
Avoiding reality because it is harsh is not a winning strategy. We are not going to win by praying for deliverance by the hand of God or waiting for deliverance through the wizardry of gadgets. Religion and technology, understood historically and used wisely, are both important tools to help us cope. But religious and technological fundamentalists are weak and lazy, because they spin fanciful stories about how we can magically avoid a reckoning with the human capacity for desecration.
The full text is posted at the Energy Bulletin website and on Counterpunch.
The audio is online at St. Andrew’s website.