Parakalein

I listened today to an interview with James Stewart the author of a new book, "Tangled Webs" in which he asserts that in the financial world and elsewhere we have sacrificed "speaking the truth" to the idea of loyalty.  We look the other way rather than confronting.  We look at what will better me rather than what will better the community of earth.

The passive and perplexing "going along with" parts of society and the aggressively and egregiously confrontative parts of society condone the deception of society and the individual in service of the community.  Not so much as it endemically and epidemically creates and recreates a false sense of security and community.  In this world, loyalty always triumphs over truth.

I recall a time in which I was a young pastor sitting with a family who was upset over another family member who had left the church in anger.   The family member I was sitting with acknowledged the wrong of her brother but said she had to support him as he was family and "blood was thicker than water".  I recall saying as a young pastor, what about the blood of Christ that makes us all one family in Christ.  The problem of making a God of loyalty and not authenticity is that the sense of community is undermined by the loyalty oath.  The honor code of living with integrity, speaking in integrity, and loving unconditionally i what creates true community.   Loyalty to a cause or an agenda or even a truth at the expense of "speaking the truth in love"inwardly and outwardly creates pseudo community at best.

Emptying ourselves of all agenda, of all dogmas, and all preconceived ideologies creates a loyalty to authenticity, to grace and truth in balance.  this is the open heartedness that nurtures community building.