Re: [pf] Multinationals take aim at protesters [long!]

by Nan Hildreth

20 December 2000 06:28 UTC

Yes, I love Greens but detest their intolerance and righteousness.   They say 
we most hate those faults in others that are our own.   Are we also guilty of 
fearing, blaming, scapegoating, and demonizing "them strangers"?  

"They" are potential allies.   Today I emailed the CEO of a Houston business 
non-profit, inviting him to help us improve Houston's quality of life and make 
it more attractiveness to new business.  I also sent simplicity info to a 
Catholic parish Director of Social Ministries.  I wrote a note to the preacher 
of a "doctrinally conservative Christian chruch." about redeeming the world, 
but didn't send it. 

Isn't the evil paradigm that pulls apart families and the communities, causes 
rising moral corruption, the same evil that squashes the poor and consumes the 
environment?   

"They" are as diverse as we are.  Look at their values, not their labels.  At a 
conference of "them" a year ago, one said "to convert we have to be open to 
conversion."   Yes.  In my outreach, I've converted and been converted.  
Learning together.  It's a process.  Little by little. 

I've learned that comfortable conservative Christians hope to redeem the world 
and bring on the Kingdom of God.  It seems the same as our hope of "Turning the 
Titanic".  Conversion is redemption is transformation is paradigm shift.  

Yes, our people can be so passionate they slip into idiocy that polarized 
rather than unites.  Me too.  So I can forgive them their sins.  Even the 
Greens.  They have passion. 

To insult a Christian, call him lukewarm.   This weekend I read a book by a 
theologian criticizing mainline Protestants as being "lukewarm".  "Mainline, 
oldline, sidelined" said Methodist John B. Cobb, Jr.  in Reclaiming the Church, 
1997.   Hoping for a good brainstorming, I reported on it to my Christian 
friends.  I offended them.  Truth hurts?  

We activists have conviction but lack emotional intelligence.  We don't talk 
enough about values.  We don't have a consensus about the right way to treat 
each other in order to build our community.  Morality is the word for it.  

They have training in ancient wisdom.   Learning from each other will enrich us 
both.   Together we could do a great job of defying the immorality of the 
oppressors.  Gandhi and Martin Luther King showed us how.  



Nan Hildreth, 713-864-7108

"My first fight is with the demons inside of me, my second fight is with the 
demons in my people, and only my third fight is with the British."  - Gandhi 
quoted by Jim Wallis in Who Speaks for God? (1996)