Father Stephen Freeman – salvation > “issues”

Someone will get what he wants. But not for the reasons that he thinks.

Couple weeks ago heard a podcast by Father Stephen Freeman from May 16 2009 entitled “Personal Issues”.

The transformation of the world will not come about through the successive addressing of issues. It will, according to the Fathers of the Church, come about through the transformation of human persons, whom, having been restored to the proper image and likeness of Christ, are able to restore others and creation around them. It is thus that the “movers and shapers” of our world may never be acknowledged by the world itself. …

I am not suggesting that we cease to care about people or the things that effect them. I am suggesting that our concern for “issues” falls far short of actually caring about people and the things that effect them. It is possible to love humanity and actually hate people. I have seen it far too often and have done it myself.

It is much easier to trust someone who wants to “save the world,” if they have also bothered first to “save themselves” (yet another paradoxical statement).

From a post which you can read here.

Some might rightly challenge one of his central points. One which Clark Carlton also makes in his podcast “My Two Cents on Capitalism”. Namely that our primary concern should be the salvation of our souls. Too often we focus on what we perceive to be the sicknesses of society rather than the sickness that lies within the human heart.