The Church's Task
"The Church is pledged to influence society and to criticise society.
"In this task its deepest influence should always be upon persons in their character as persons. Christ himself lived and died and rose again in a world full of social abuses, including the appalling abuse of slavery. But Christ's chief method was not to attack institutions, but to transform people. And there can be no substitute for the impact of Christianity upon people at their deepest level, always remembering that a person never lives in a vacuum; he is always a bundle of social relationships, both private and public, and these relationships all need to be Christianised.
"So the Church's mission to change personal lives cannot be separated form its critique of wrong attitudes in society."
-Former Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey on "The Church's Task" from Through the Year with Michael Ramsey: Devotional readings for every day, Margaret Duggan, editor, p. 85.
"In this task its deepest influence should always be upon persons in their character as persons. Christ himself lived and died and rose again in a world full of social abuses, including the appalling abuse of slavery. But Christ's chief method was not to attack institutions, but to transform people. And there can be no substitute for the impact of Christianity upon people at their deepest level, always remembering that a person never lives in a vacuum; he is always a bundle of social relationships, both private and public, and these relationships all need to be Christianised.
"So the Church's mission to change personal lives cannot be separated form its critique of wrong attitudes in society."
-Former Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey on "The Church's Task" from Through the Year with Michael Ramsey: Devotional readings for every day, Margaret Duggan, editor, p. 85.
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