Jim Wallis’ newest book examines the deepest problems this world faces. What we need is a commitment to an ancient idea whose time has urgently come: the common good.
ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
The Common Good Forum
From the Common Good Forum
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world — about 1.6 million people in 2010. Mass incarceration in our country is a problem, one that too often serves to line the pockets of for-profit prisons while tearing families apart and targeting people of color disproportionately.
Indeed, we must give up our personal or private identities to the service of all. But how do we do this as a culture, a global church?
This week marked six months since Superstorm Sandy left entire communities devastated. But in the midst of this natural disaster, many banded together. Here, a New York filmmaker shows us how tragedy can turn into a joint effort to acheive the common good.
I like Wallis’s three rules, but I think there is an important one missing when it comes to the common good. If the common good is for everyone, then how do we treat the team that loses? And if we happen to lose, then how do we treat the team that beats us?
I wonder if one of the things that we can think about in terms of the common good is learning to practice neighborliness in the inconsequential moments so that when we face the bigger political difficulties of our shared life — when we start talking about the common good in the larger sense around some of the other issues like violence, and fear, and money — that maybe if we've already built up habits we can have these larger conversations with greater ease.
