Categories: uncategorized
Date: 07 July 2007 08:06:54
I am a hypocrite, probably of the worst Guardian reading, alt Christian kind.
As a wooly liberal I will sit with glass of wine in hand spouting off about my views on unjust economic relationships in our world, and sign petitions for groups such as Stop the Traffik , thinking that refusing to do my main shopping in Tesco's and buying fair trade tea and coffee is really very good and making some sort of statement. I think I am doing something worthwhile by refusing to learn to drive or use internal flights when a train or a coach can get me there, just not as quickly. I nod my head or look appropriately shocked in all the right places when I watch events like todays Live Earth concerts on tv, (Virtual Festivals have the running order for the London concert here ) or read my latest edition of Schnews .
However, I refuse to think about how my i-Pod may have been made (because I love it and it's an Apple and no other brands simply won't do, there is something special about owning one....). I focus purely on my own families needs when I go and buy my daughter her Nike trainers because I know they should last, and she won't get picked on for wearing that label. I block out thoughts of everything I know about the company and what the McLibel case showed us when I eat the odd McDonalds because it's cheap, easy and they do food I like. Oh and the vending machine at work doesn't do fair trade chocolate so it's not my fault that I just tend to eat Cadbury's or Galaxy. It's again not my fault Coke just tastes so much better than the other choices (apart from possibly Dr Pepper, Sprite or Lilt) and so it's not my fault. When I go for a label I know exactly what I'm getting.
Actually putting most of my principles into action would just be too hard and we have to be realistic don't we. Yes, in the end I come out with the same answer as practically everybody else.
Therefore, when I sit there on a Sunday getting fed up that everybody appears to be singing bad theology, and living in a never never land because if they understood the radical implications of taking their faith on board their lives would be soooo different I have to acknowledge I'm actually one of them. For all my huffing and puffing and refusing to sing lines I don't believe and wanting to look like I'm refusing to play the game I am infact just another middle class Christian. A hypocrite of the highest standard and probably of the worst sort because I recognise another way is possible if I were willing to actually live a life which involved sacrifice and difference. I know that if I were willing to follow the way of the master and actually embrace a sacrificial lifestyle (giving up the labels and comfort for others, being willing to endure the hardships of life without the brands, etc and the insults that would be likely to bring as an increasingly corporate materialistic world didn't understand) I could live my faith. As it is I admit discipleship and ethical living has too high a price for me at the moment and so atleast for a while I'm going to carry on playing let's pretend religion and / or plastic imitation ethical living with all the other fluffy liberals and smiley Christians.