The Christian Church Has No Alternative...

The Christian church has no alternative but to engage in actions which challenge the evils of society—poverty, ignorance, disease, oppression, injustice, war, and prejudice—and to attempt to create more human alternatives. The Christian faith community therefore is called: to stop contributing to our social ills; to take a stand on social issues; to raise a prophetic voice against injustice; to take positive action on behalf of liberation; to influence public opinion; to join with others working for social justice; to identify with and become the advocate to the cause of the outsider; to eliminate the chasm between personal and social religion (why don’t we turn the current enthusiasm for the Holy Spirit—long overdue—into a concern for the manifestation of the works of the Holy Spirit?); and to respond to people’s hunger for spiritual life by relating worship and prayer to social action, for both together are the work (liturgy) of a faith community.

John H. Westerhoff III, “Will Our Children Have Faith?”