We are used to hearing about ‘innocent’ victims. I wonder whether the word is used too glibly sometimes? Or whether there are degrees of innocence?

In the book of Proverbs in the Bible, it says ‘he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent’.

Our complex modern world seems to be run on principles of unfair trade, might is right and ‘the Devil take the hindmost’. So many ‘ordinary citizens’ in successful economies are caught up in supporting the institutions and assumptions which perpetuate these selfish, destructive tendencies.

I am not really ‘innocent’ in this context. Can we claim ‘innocence’, when we buy products which involve labour exploitation, or deplete finite resources or damage the global biosphere? When we fail to protest when politics and profit are wielded through the arms trade to supply the means of war and other forms of violence? When we prefer to dismiss or condemn ‘extremism’ without trying to understand the frustrations and injustices to which it responds?

Simon the Zealot was a freedom fighter but the Romans would probably have called him a terrorist. Jesus accepted his discipleship. And Jesus also came to challenge the complacency of those who managed and benefited from the status quo.

As Christians, we cannot be complacent about our individual ‘innocence’ within a society which is not. We must look for ways to be God’s hands and voices for love and justice in this darkness.

Written by Martin Dodds of Western Dales Mission Community.

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