Two rather good articles struck a chord with me in the past week. The first was from the ever excellent Scottish (and Catholic) commentator Kevin McKenna, over at the Guardian, entitled “Why I am proud to be a Christian and a socialist”. This is what he has to say about his family’s synthesis of faith and life:
The Christian narrative gave them a sense of their place in time and history and told them that they were so much more than mere flesh and blood and that there was much more to their existence than all that which they could merely touch, see and hear. This told them that tyrants, despots and juntas would never enslave them or possess them. Socialism gave them an opportunity to carry the teachings of their saviour into the secular marketplace where charity, compassion, equality and the dignity of work similarly underpinned the trade union movement and the Labour party. The Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes and the universal declaration of human rights were all linked seamlessly and, in this way, they could construct bridges that allowed them to cross from the spiritual to the temporal and back again. Thou shalt not kill; blessed are the peacemakers; all human beings are born free in dignity and rights.
