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In this week's blog, Ross Ahlfeld reflects on some of the issues of our time and warns against a passive acceptance of injustice.

Glaswegians of a certain vintage may recall a well-dressed gent who used to stand at the bottom of Buchanan Street, being ignored by all the shoppers he was calling to repent, while wearing a huge sandwich board which read ‘The End Is Nigh!’ in reference to his expected Biblical Apocalypse described in the Book of Revelation.

These days, you don’t see such evangelicals around the city centre, which is ironic considering these billboard-wearing Christians were correct: the end is indeed ‘nigh’. Especially according to a report by the National Centre for Climate Restoration think-tank in Australia which suggests a high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end starting in 2050. 

Depressingly, and much like Glasgow shoppers ignoring street preachers, most of us, including our governments, don’t seem bothered by the terrifying flood of pessimistic (and scientific) predictions of climate catastrophe. Subsequently, Extinction Rebellion has been forced to come into existence and take direct action.

Similarly, a recent UN study blaming austerity for increasing poverty levels seems to have barely registered. The report states that a fifth of the UK population, 14 million people, live in poverty, and 1.5 million experience destitution.

Yet, not only has this shocking report been ignored, it has also been denied by Chancellor Philip Hammond who simply rejected the claim that vast numbers of Britons are living in poverty.

For me, the two worst aspects of this are to be found in our passive acceptance of austerity and food banks as the new norm; and the advent of post-truth politics which allows the likes of Philip Hammond to dismiss obscene levels of poverty as ‘fake news’.

Don’t get me wrong, food banks are needed but they are no substitute for a decent welfare state. We are duty-bound as Catholics to engage in action against the root causes of poverty. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said -

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice; we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” 

In modern parlance we might say that our Christian charity is incomplete without a pursuit of justice and for us in 21st century Scotland, this pursuit of justice must include the restoration of a fair national living wage.

Bonhoeffer knew exactly what the ‘Banality of Evil’ looked like; he’d seen how easily we Christians could be scandalised through our submission to tyranny.

Therefore, in this post-truth age, it is vitally important for us not succumb to a passive acceptance of injustice. Rather, we Christians must discern everything together, pray and defer to Church teachings.

In doing so, we may well be out of step with wider society. Anyone familiar with the pro-life movement will recognise that sense of being at odds with the prevailing culture of the age.

In his book The Audacity of Hope, even Barack Obama ponders the idea that those holding the reasonable centre ground are rarely vindicated by history. Rather, Obama suggests that it is often the radicals who over time, are proved correct, slavery being a case in point.

Perhaps elderly Glaswegians wearing sandwich boards are prophets too.

Sr MaryIsabel Kilpatrick, a former National Secretary of Justice & Peace Scotland, reflects on the challenge of Laudato si: Care for our common home.

Philippa Bonella has spent three months living and working as an Ecumenical Accompanier in the Occupied West Bank and this week Philippa writes about her experiences in our blog.

A few months ago, I got back home to Edinburgh after a three month stint as an Ecumenical Accompanier with the World Council of Churches’ EAPPI programme in the occupied West Bank.  Over autumn 2018 I was living with three other ‘internationals’ in a tiny village just south of Nablus.  We spent our days visiting Palestinian communities, reporting on human rights abuses and acting as protective presence to help Palestinian families go about their lives under occupation.

I met so many wonderful people who asked me to tell their stories back home.  One I’ll never forget is Yara (not her real name).  Yara is 54, with 6 children, and has lived in the same village all her life except for two years from 2002.  Then all the villagers were forced to flee after threats from the Israeli settlers who live in an illegal settlement outpost a few yards further up the hill.

“The evacuation was very difficult and sad for everyone,” she told me.  “We went to the next town to live with my husband’s family.  We were very cramped and the children were unhappy.  But we couldn’t stay here.  My children were very small then.  Every Saturday the settlers came down on horses with dogs.  They would point their guns in the doorway of our house where my children were watching.  They would stone the windows.  Their dogs ate our chickens and they would set our sheep loose on the hill.”

The family came back home once an international presence had been established to protect the villagers.  “My children still remember those days.  If the [Israeli] army or settlers came, everyone was afraid.  But now that has changed because they see international people coming to help.  They are not afraid anymore.

“Life here now is good – for me anyway. We have had no problems with the settlers since March last year. I have my goats and sheep, chickens and bees.  We still have 30 olive trees in our field – the rest are up the mountain behind the settlement.  We can’t reach those ones most days because the settlers will come.  But we can be free here and the village families work together to run small businesses.” 

Yara worries about the future, though. 

“In the future only old women and old men will stay here.  There are no jobs here and we cannot sell our produce.  We cannot build in the village so our children have to move to the town when they get married.”

This situation exists because this area is under military rule and building permits are rarely granted to Palestinians by the Israeli administration. 

As I travel around Scotland now, telling Yara’s story as she asked, it is hard not to worry about her future, too.  But we can all contribute to creating the conditions for peace.  Please help me repay the debt of hospitality I owe Yara and so many others, by reading the blogs of Ecumenical Accompaniers working in the West Bank today and taking whatever action you can.