We Can Change Things

"First, we learn that we can change things. Our despair, cynicism and laziness may insist to us that nothing ever really changes and that we can never really make a difference. But on high we see a great cloud of witnesses stand to their feet with a different testimony." - Gary Haugen, Good News About Injustice

This is a great reminder and encouragement. A couple examples of these 'witnesses' include Dr. Kate Bushnell and Rev. Murphy. The first helped take on the 'dens of forced prostitution' that were rampant in the logging camps and mining communities in the Upper Midwest in the 1880s. No one would properly investigate, so she infiltrated brothels and interviewed hundreds of women to get proof of the conditions that existed. She then made it public. The second, could not stand to see the oppression of tens of thousands of children under age fourteen who toiled in the textile mills in the American South. He helped bring about the abolition of child labor in America. The point of of the author is, in part, that these examples are of pretty normal people who really did change things because they refused to despair and do nothing.

I'm not thrilled with the writing style of this author, but his call to 'uncommon courage for common Christians' is very good.