NEGATIVE ATTITUDES about the future should continue to be challenged, despite 2009 dawning amid an all-pervasive sense of insecurity and uncertainty, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin has said.
In his new year message, Most Rev John Neill said: "In the uncertainty that is part of life today we need to be reminded that there are things that endure. . . It is a sad situation when the so-called 'happiness index' is more about security and wealth than about love of God and love of neighbour, more about the passing phases of the economy than about the enduring love of God."
He said uncertainty and insecurity were closely bound together, and economic indicators offered more of the same week by week. "As we face into a new year, these negative attitudes must be challenged," he added.
The archbishop said that in a confused, uncertain and insecure world, God's message in Jesus Christ still spoke clearly. That message was of a world where there was enough for all, but where we had a "profound duty" to ensure that it was shared by all. "It is a message that asks huge questions of the economic systems that cause and perpetuate human suffering on a massive scale. It is a message that at the end of the day, it is God's world and not ours."
His prayer was that 2009 would be an opportunity to recover "something that can be trusted because it is grounded in God's purposes rather than in the very weak value systems which we have constructed. In this way, we may begin to grasp hope, in place of the despair being offered all around us."
In his new year message, Presbyterian moderator Rev Dr Donald Patton said people must be at the heart of government policies if the world was to be made a better place in 2009. He referred to those suffering because of house repossessions, job losses and pensions losing value. "Business talks in terms of productivity, but it's people we are talking about," he said.
"Zimbabwe has hyper-inflation, which means people can't find bread to eat and thousands sicken and die. The poor in Afghanistan are exchanging sons for money to keep the rest of their families alive. Violence and strife inflict misery on the helpless in many countries shrugged off as casualties of war. People must be at the heart of government policies and have a claim on our charity if we are to make the world a better place in 2009."
