Demanding Justice, Grounded in Faith

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II stands undaunted at the intersection of faith and social justice. He sees what he calls a battle for public theology taking place in America today, with messages of faith having been hijacked to promote policies that “serve the rich and harm those Jesus called ‘the least of these.’”

He adds, “Many have responded to this hijacking of faith by distancing themselves from faith communities, seeking the common good under the banner of partisan politics or secular justice movements. In so doing, however, they abandon the moral power of a movement rooted in our deepest faith and constitutional traditions — a force that not only motivates people for struggle, but also sustains and guides us to become something we have not yet been.”

Barber frames these issues as not right versus left or conservative versus liberal but, quite simply, as right versus wrong. “We’ve got to build a movement,” says the founder of Moral Mondays in North Carolina. “We’ve got to think deeper. We must engage in action that shifts the center of political gravity in this nation.”

Armed with a scholar’s depth of the Bible and a passionate belief in helping others, he stands firmly — fiercely — at the intersection of faith and social justice, demonstrating how to walk the walk, recognizing that changing the national consciousness will happen not from the top down but from the bottom up.

— Writer Julie Mierau offers a more in-depth look at the work and passion of Dr. Barber in the January 2018 issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine. Additional information can be found at the website of his organization, Repairers of the Breach, www.breachrepairers.org.

1926 Classic Still Works

“One of our greatest stumbling blocks is complicating the simple,” Rev. Dr. David Ault says as he introduces the 1926 classic “IT WORKS.” The booklet, Ault adds, “could very well be your answer for reentry into taking your power back — power you didn’t even know you’d given away.”

This pamphlet, which could easily have expanded to a massive length, summarizes what is possible if you’re willing to do the work. It offers a concrete plan and “Three Positive Rules of Accomplishment.”

As the booklet proclaims, “If you know what you want, you can have it.” Test it for yourself: http://winnersworld.com/motivational/R_H_Jarrett.pdf.

Building Faith, One Moment at a Time

Jeffon Seely asks: “If we all are filled with the essence of the Infinite, why would people choose to live small? If we are empowered by the Creator of the Universe, what causes some to doubt their greatness, dreams and power?”

He suggests that faith is built day by day, focusing on the Infinite Presence within all things, seeing the possibilities and divine opportunities ahead. In the January issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine, Seely suggests we embrace the following every day to enhance our faith:

• “Affirm daily that there is One Power, One Presence flowing through all things, and It dwells at the depths of you,” he writes. “All is one, and God is all in all.”
• He asks that we spend more time focusing on the positive experiences that lie ahead, rather than dwelling on negatives from our past.
• “Know that you are a seed of the Infinite,” he says, “and can blossom any way you choose based on the way you use your energy to direct your thoughts, choices, emotions and actions.”

“As a seed of the Infinite,” he asks, “how will you blossom? How will you use the greatness within you?”

What Are You Carrying into the New Year?

— Dr. Ernest Holmes

Since we are entering a New Year, it would be well for us to consider what we are carrying into the New Year that doesn’t belong. Have we really freed ourselves from the burdens and the cares of yesterday, or are we carrying them like dead things into tomorrow? Now, yesterday has forever passed and tomorrow will forever elude us. Today is the only day in which we can really live. Isn’t it wonderful that life has already provided for the day in which we live?

It is the habit of many to make great resolutions on New Year’s Day. And it is a good thing to set an ideal before the mind. …

How would it be if we were to start the New Year with just one simple resolution: to try to live as though the Kingdom of God were at hand; to try to believe that this physical body is being daily renewed, and that the circumstances and situations in our lives are governed by a supreme Intelligence which knows what to do and how to do it, and is willing to do it.

Let’s trade in the old physical body, with all its weaknesses, its aches and pains, and see if we can transform it by the renewing of the mind, by thinking of the perfect life that exists at the center of every cell, every action, every function, every organ of the body. …

There is a light at the center of your being. It is a perfect light, put there by This Thing Called Life. Be sure this light shines in your new model. And since neither you nor I, nor anyone else, could have the power, or the intelligence, to put that light there, the only thing we can do is to stand aside and let the light that God put there shine for us.

— Excerpted from “New Lives for Old,” by Ernest Holmes, as heard on “This Thing Called Life” radio show, Sunday, January 1, 1950, reprinted in the January 2018 issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine.

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