marching on

I have been watching the protests over government spending cuts in London. I have been impressed by the official protest's sensible demeanour - I have been appalled at the  few hundred protesters who have run amok and caused chaos.
One of the biggest false prophets of our age is that it is OK to give up - that it is OK to allow anger to rule us - that the world is violently against us in some way and that we are "fighting back" by causing chaos. I would actually argue that the sort of anarchic behaviour which certain groups promote is not fighting back at all - it is simply confirming every stereo-type which the rest of us have and playing into the system nicely. It certainly does not augment peaceful and awful protest - threatening to turn those who were moderately in support of the legitimate march into opponents on a "see what happens when you open that can of worms....." basis.
But whatever the politics of protest we are facing a real problem in this country. Economics is not my strong point so I will not wax lyrical about how the economy might be remedied but I do think that some sort of cuts are probably going to have to happen and this means that people, who are already tightening their financial belts, will be further tried and tested.
At this point the false prophet of modernism will kick in and whisper that it is all hopeless and we should just hunker down and ride out the storm. This message might be especially tempting in the Church where our own resources are tight and we seem to be straining at our financial seams. But giving up or living in any sort of despair are not Gospel values in any way, shape, or form.
I think that saying we can avoid cuts at all is a little simplistic, what they should be is a different question. How we should respond is entirely in our court. Do we simply stay inside our ancient buildings and mumble quiet words and hope that the heating bill will get paid or do we do what we are actually called to do and go out and  find those in need.
It can sound a bit difficult, but think about it, in our Churches we have people who are good with money - why not offer a household budgeting seminar for people who are struggling, people who work in the financial services industry - why not offer some debt reduction advice, people who can cook - why not have a low cost community meal once a week for local people, people who can use computers - why not offer free lessons. The list goes on and can get more complicated and technical - there are good reasons not to do any of this, people will take advantage, people will be greedy and ungrateful.....but not most people, most people are just trying to get by and perhaps most people will stop and wonder whether that large building which they have always seen as for other people might have some other people in it who are not so different from them after all.
We should speak out against injustice and poverty but we cannot just talk and we certainly cannot allow injustice and anger to become excuses which create situations where people are forced to live in fear. We have a choice and more than just about any other organisation in the country we have a presence and a voice. Yes, life is getting tougher but that does not mean we bury our talents and hope that we can ride out the storm.