Pilgrim Soldier

Ok firstly a warning: I’m still not sure where my thoughts are going on this, but I feel the need to ask the questions! Feel free to offer constructive criticism.

The western world sees justice as being about the rights of the individual. Indeed individual rights have become almost sacrosanct. It might be naive or simplistic to say this, but this culture of individual rights is something that leads to the way people are quick to resort to litigation to stand up for their rights.

Individual rights can, when allowed, lead to the sort of situation that we see in The Salvation Army in the UK when ‘risk assessments’ have to be done for every activity. So in order to protect us from being sued for negligence, officers and leaders must go to the places they think about taking people in case a person trips over and breaks their hip because they weren’t looking where they were going.

In a world where legal precedent holds weight, the actions of the individual in upholding what they see to be their rights, is not necessarily a positive thing for society as a whole. I understand that this is dangerous ground, and that to withhold the rights of the individual is open to abuse, but it is something that we have to consider.

Also I’ve been uneasy for a while with the whole wealth increasing system of combating extreme poverty. All too often it feels that our solution to a problem is to implement a western capitalist model which ignores the good of a community and instead leads the community away from its traditional roots towards a model of life that is acceptable to our mindset.

Now when it comes to the church, a lot of church conflict is based around individuals exercising their right to individuality, yet within the body of Christ I think that this right is actually superceded by what is good for the body as a whole. I’ve even heard it said that in the Kingdom there are no rights there are only responsibilities. Therefore, we do not have the right to free speech, but we have the responsibility to speak truth.

Don’t get me wrong I believe in justice and human rights, but I’m starting to wonder whether it is as simple as that. When the Old Testament speaks about justice it is in terms of righteousness rather than rights. The rights of the individual amongst God’s people were often ignored in order to uphold the unity of the people of God. Almost always this was because of a lack of righteousness on the part of the individual.

So rather than forming a programme because this is the current trend within the church, the programmes we form must come out of the heart of God in our own hearts. Rather than simply fighting for the rights of individuals, is it possible that our churches should model a community that places the good of the community ahead of the rights of the individual?