Ashley Green-Thompson
Image: Supplied
For most South Africans, faith is an important part of life. Many take the teachings of their religions seriously as guides in how to live good lives. These teachings would ask of adherents to foster a better coexistence with others, and that they live out the values of justice, compassion, and kindness. This is not to deny the many contradictions that come with institutionalised religion. Too often there is judgement, moralistic superiority, and marginalisation of vulnerable people. Patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia are the most visible of these contradictions – the harm they cause is so starkly at odds with the command to love each other. I am in awe of how faithful poor people can be to their churches when so much of formal religion relegates them to the margins of society.
The church too often uses charity to avoid standing in active solidarity with poor communities in their fight against systems that impoverish them. And then there’s the literal, uncritical, and blind interpretation of sacred texts as if they have the miraculous ability to morph into ‘how to’ manuals for every human situation and context.
This week I spent two days with 30 Christians from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia. They were an eclectic group of community organisers and agitators, pastors and priests, theologians and academics. The Joburg chill was made bearable by the beautiful surroundings of the Jesuit Institute in Auckland Park.
It was a chance to pause, not to try to solve the world’s problems, but to reflect on how we appear in the world. We were asked to consider a Bible verse from the book of Jeremiah: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it.’ This was no Bible-punching session or Sunday sermon, but an invitation to interrogate what it is people of faith are called to do in a world so defined by a politics and practice of death.
Standing at the crossroads and looking at the world is not as simple an act as it would seem. You could get knocked down by the traffic; you could get mugged. You could irritate those travellers in a hurry to cross by standing in the way. You could become part of the traffic jam that crossroads often are. But you might also find life and companionship with travellers, with those who live and work at these confluence points of humanity. Being at the crossroads allows you to see the options that can be taken – the traveller has to choose which way to go. Standing and looking allowed us a moment to see the world and understand the context in which we live and practice our faith.
The text doesn’t just ask us to observe. We have to ask about the ancient ways, and look for the good paths amid the hustle and bustle of the crossroads. And yet to ask is to be vulnerable – in a world where certainty and expert knowledge are so valued, not knowing appears as weakness. You also don’t know what the consequences might be of your asking. The answer might challenge us to action, or disruption, and so we would rather limit our curiosity and not ask. When you ask questions of authority, you are in danger of being cast out as a troublemaker. Institutional power – religious or secular - remains intact by limiting the questioning of that power. Someone shared an idiom that it is not the role of the cow to ask the farmer what he does with the milk.
There is the danger that we romanticise the ancient ways as the answer to the alienation of modern life. We hanker for the good old days, and yet the practices of the past do not provide simple, ready-made answers to how we deal in current challenges. We are called on to be critical and discerning about what we take from our past. The West African Sankofa bird provided a powerful image of taking what is good in our past to use for the present and future.
The convening was called Faith in Solidarity. It was a space to ask what faith demands of us – to be unquestioning bystanders, or to be path seekers and sojourners in the search for a more just world.In the midst of global crises and local struggles for survival, this was a moment to explore what it means to have faith in solidarity – that thing that is so elusive, but critical to building peace and justice.