Focusing Priorities

In a quote to the Herald, Stonewall rep Colin Macfarlane became just the latest to suggest that the Church needs to fix her priorities:

When there are 1.2 billion people in the world living on less than a dollar a day, it’s a shame that the churches’ priorities are focused on [opposing the redefinition of marriage].

Aye, that would the same Stonewall who have been lobbying the UK Government to cut aid to some of the world’s poorest countries.   This is all part of a heavy handed carrot and stick approach (carrot supplied separately) to promote gay rights in parts of the two thirds world.

Literally, taking money away from the poorest in the name of gay rights.   To then suggest the Church needs to sort out her priorities?

Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?   For the benefit of Mr, Macfarlane, here are just some of the areas the church’s efforts are directed:

1. Establishing medical work in the towns of Lakhnadon and Chhapara – this has been handed over to Emmanuel Hospital Association
2. Blythswood Care – this month taking their annual shoebox appeal out to Eastern Europe
3. Tearfund – where to start… through their work, local church have been able to set up education, food security and healthcare programmes
4. SCIAF – whose Christmas appeal  is in aid of a girls’ refuge in Uganda
5. Just a quick local one here – Faith and Hope School in Zambia, the recipient of thousands of pounds raised by the local Church of Scotland in south Skye.   These guys don’t even have a website, they’re just a group of Christians trying to some good.

You see, the Church does have a concern for the poor.   But unlike the policy Stonewall have managed to get the UK Government to follow, it is a carrot and stick approach without the stick.   Showing genuine compassion, often in almost subversive, non-trumpeting ways – not threatening to withhold it – is proving time and again the one sure way of changing societies to be better.   That’s what it means to be salt and light in a decaying and dark world – and we do it following the example and instruction of Jesus.

Honestly, we don’t look for praise, just that you sort out your facts:

Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

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