Re: "A thought on suffering and the call for Christians"

In response to the post A thought on suffering and the call for Christians.

I like your friend Tom’s message very much! I wish that all christian organizations could embrace it. The world is full of suffering gone ignored, and in some cases intensified, by so many christians. But indeed helping to alleviate suffering, going to where it’s found and doing what we can, is something that christians and non alike should be doing. But there’s more!

An example: why that calcuttan baby was dying alone in the alley? Let’s say, for the sake of the example, that the baby is an AIDS orphan. The question then is where was Mother Theresa when that baby’s parents should have been educated about safer sex; learned that condoms effectively prevent the spread of HIV?
Now I know that is a hypothetical, but it’s not an outlandish example, and it serves well to illustrate my point. That point being that suffering shouldn’t just be dealt with, it can be precluded.

What a wonderful challenge that would be! Instead of simply feeding the poor and visiting the sick we could prevent the poverty and the disease.

We could create inclusive environments for all children, so they don’t end up hanging from the rafters in their grandmother’s barn because too many of their peers called them a fag. We could support the aforementioned safer sex education (even if so many churches don’t – I’m looking at you, Vatican), so that there are less orphans. The list is exhaustive.

I’ve noticed this trend with christian charity. Lovely and kind and thoughtful as it often is, it’s too often a bandaid and not a vaccine.