On St Douglas Todd’s Watch

It was noted in a headline last week that churches are becoming concerned about the poor. About time I thought. Upon reading the article however, it became clear that what the pastors were concerned about was the fact that these poor people were using the church bathroom. Heaven forbid.

And as to all this teddible world poverty, Douglas Todd writes recently about world leaders like Mandela, the Dalai Lama and now he generously includes Sir Geldof stating that “something about their spirituality calls them to overcome their human indifference to the many poor with whom we share the planet.” And Todd repeats a comment from evangelist Jim Wallis about sparing “a special moment for worship, always identify with them, always be on their side.”

While Douglas Todd has been at the helm of the spiritual ship of Vancouver writers, columnists and editorialists for many years now and has written a book examining the spirituality of celebrity artists in which “he skillfully draws thoughtful responses from the most reluctant of atheists,” it has been on his watch that Vancouver has seen the extreme growth in numbers of the desperately poor and homeless. In that time, Todd has written hundreds of thousands of words about spirituality and religion and God and the church and so on. While counting angels dancing on the heads of pins, he has been enjoying what he describes as his “mini celebrity” and the poor right here remain hungry and homeless, sometimes using his newspaper as a blanket or in the absence of an open church, butt wipes in the bush.