NT Wright – Spectator
..All right: much popular reaction, Christian included, has been little more than anguished arm-waving. But soundbites are not the real clue. What counts is action. To look no further than my own church, the Anglican chaplaincies in Budapest and Athens have been working with tireless generosity. The Canterbury diocese, close to Calais, has been going the second mile, then the third and fourth. It’s risky to say, ”˜Look what we Christians do’; history is littered with our follies and failures. But the early Christians were first in the field of caring for strangers, the poor and refugees, just as they initiated public medicine and education. We’re still doing it.
This still begs Matthew’s question about priorities. But there should be no puzzle. The gospels pick up the ancient Israelite narratives of hope: hope for a coming king who would do justice for the poor, defend and deliver the needy, overturn oppression and take pity on the weak. ”˜Remember the poor,’ St Peter reminded St Paul. By the end of the second century, the Roman authorities didn’t know exactly what Christianity was, but they knew what bishops were: pesky nuisances, always banging on about the plight of the poor…