If they preach the cause of the poor, they're my people

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1981655,00.html

Where do we get moral leadership from today? As we pick up the pieces of another swiped out festive season it's a fitting question. Is there something more to life than the endless cycle of overconsumption? How can the Iraq war or exorbitant city bonuses be justified? Increasingly it is our religious rather than political leaders who attempt to answer these difficult and pressing questions.

The left must be fuelled by the vision of the good society. This has to be about more than just economics, science and rationalism, ending in an angry reaction to one of the few institutions in our society that is saying and doing the right thing.

As the lifeblood of morality drips from our body politic, it leaves a small pumping heart of socially and morally aware religious leaders and institutions. I don't care if they are Muslim, Catholic or Church of England - if they preach the cause of the poor and the needy in our bloated materialistic world, then they are my people.

We live in a society of smug complacency. All too often it is only religious leaders who puncture the anaesthetised contentment of our consumerised lives. Injustice, poverty, corruption, insecurity and disaffection sweep our nation. Technocratic politics has replaced religion as the opiate of the masses.

[pnorman]

1. Here's an observation by Howard Zinn:

"The cry or the poor is not always just. But if you don't listen to it, you'll never know the meaning of justice."

pnorman
NOT a card-carrying Christian, but we're probably reading off the same page.