In his recently published book, “In Defense of Faith,” Jewish author David Brog celebrates the role that members of religious congregations have played in the history of the Western world.
Brog specifically credits the Judaeo-Christian tradition with recognizing society’s ills down through the centuries and powerfully effecting social change. The writer also laments that today’s secular society rarely accords men and women of faith the credit due them for advancing civilization. From the early Christian community’s emphasis on chastity, marital fidelity and parental responsibility in overcoming the excesses of the Roman Empire in the ancient world to alleviating the scourge of famine in today’s Third World, largely thanks to the concern of Irish entertainer and man of faith Bono, the world’s faith communities have been admirably and perennially responsive to the needs of mankind.
In the 16th century, Bartholomew de Las Casas, a Hispanic layman from South America, was profoundly moved by a sermon he heard delivered at Mass and began to understand the harm that the greed of his fellow Europeans was visiting upon the Native Americans who were being displaced and even decimated by the tactics of New World fortune hunters. With a resolution born of faith and with some measure of success, Las Casas brought the genocide being perpetrated in the New World to the attention of Europe’s royal families and ecclesiastical hierarchies, including the pope at Rome. Edicts were issued and some consciences were pricked by Las Casas’ efforts.
In the 19th century American society faced the deeply entrenched evil of slavery. A man and woman of faith, William Lloyd Garrison, a Boston clergyman, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of a clergyman, among others and in quite different fashion, confronted this threat to American justice. Happily, Garrison, by his preaching, and Stowe by her writing (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”), overcame many challenges and much tragedy before eventually seeing the successful elimination of slavery from American life.
In the 20th century, American society recognized the evil of racism in our midst. Again, a man and a woman of faith, Martin Luther King Jr., a charismatic preacher, and Rosa Parks, a deaconess in her church community, faced up to this evil and, with much help, began to erase institutional racism in great measure from American life.
While these heroes of Western society did not work alone and certainly persons of many different backgrounds and beliefs cooperated with them in dealing with native populations in eradicating slavery and in lessening racism, it must be acknowledged, in fact, it must be celebrated that religious faith played no small part in their confronting and dealing with the evils of their day.
Now in the 21st century, American society is sadly confronted with the evils of abortion and terrorism, both of which are random and arbitrary acts of violence directed toward innocent persons. American society is also faced with an equally deliberate and focused evil, the dissolution of the traditional family. Under the guise of individual rights, spouses and offspring are being deprived of the full meaning of marriage and family. To abortion, terrorism and family dissolution must be added the problems that today’s society faces regarding employment and immigration, both of which tend to promote and prolong class differences.
Around the nation today and in our own community, men and women of faith occasionally and sporadically gather for prayer, reflection and resolution regarding the life-threatening and community-rending issues that constitute today’s headlines. While many men and women of different backgrounds responded immediately to these calamities and continue to do so, only history will reveal whether effective heroes of national and even global proportions will arise to confound the evils and injustices of the day. It must be our prayer today that God will raise up new heroes, born of faith and guided by belief, to meet and eliminate these menaces to life, family and society.
