The Spiritual Practice of Activism

The central insight of Jesus of Nazareth was that you cannot love God without also loving the people around you. When God's love flows through us we become more able to love our neighbours. But the more we think about what it would really mean to love our neighbours the more we realise it will involve a truly radical way of life.

Loving our neighbours means following God's universal love for every person in the world. But the structures and systems of our world mean that many people face prejudice, racism, poverty, and many different forms of oppression. To love our neighbours means to side with those most oppressed.

A Universalist Christian spirituality is a spirituality of liberation, a spirituality of activism. This often means standing against powerful forces in the world, including government and big business. Sometimes campaigning, arguing, and signing petitions is needed. Sometimes nonviolent direct action is more appropriate. Modern prophets such as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King inspire us to work to confront the forces of injustice with the transforming power of love. This often means joining with others in action against war, violence, inequality, and climate change.