The clergy dazzle us with heaven,
Or they damn us into hell.— The world turned upside down by Leon Rosselson
Judith’s story
Our most trusted institutions – church and state – have sometimes been useful. The state provides us with some physical security and modest public services; and the church sometimes provides real emotional comfort to some people during the darkest hours of their lives. But for the few useful services these institutions sometimes provide they are also primarily responsible for causing massive misery, and impeding social progress. It has always been like that, and it still is.
The United States, for example, is the self-proclaimed leader of the modern world. It’s the richest and most powerful country on the planet, with the most advanced technologies known to human beings. Yet huge swathes of its population suffer dreadful poverty, injustice and endure the terrors of homelessness; and vast numbers of Americans, many of whom are well-educated, seriously believe the biblical explanation of evolution, rather than Darwin’s.
But the US is far from being alone in this situation. Similar examples can be provided in many other supposedly modern countries. For example, Britain’s Times newspaper recently published an article (25.2.17) which illustrated the point quite well.
The Times is Britain’s most well-established national paper. It’s considered by many to be a “serious” publication, one that could be entirely trusted to tell…