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Q2
I'm a heterosexual cis-male. In short, a typical straight man. My rights are more or less safe, yet I recognize that I have some advantages compared to a gay man, and enjoy less discrimination as well. That alone is a sobering reminder of why I cannot sit idly by watching as the rights of others get trampled on. Because I'm human just as they are, I must realize that my words and actions add up eventually, and can make life better or worse for someone else. If I hear someone throw a slur at them, I have to call that careless person out. If they've been assaulted and violated, I must help them bear the pain and seek a solution.

Empathy goes a long way in this context: beyond doing unto others what I want others to do to me, it should come from a place of love and understanding.

Q3
In official matters, the Church cannot directly meddle with the government. Bureaucratic work is something not everyone has total competency with, and elections can only ever be decided by the people. But the Church can serve as a guide and moral compass, or as a conscience that stares statespeople in their faces to raise a question: "Are the things you've done, are doing now and will do the future merely serve your greed or serve a greater purpose?"

That is because the demarcation between the two entities only exists in terms of pure structural and functional differences, not because of a separation between morality and progress. Both the Church and the State concern themselves with serving others, so it is better to find the converging compromises that will let them work together while ensuring that neither party gets to dictate to another how it must work. That, to me, is the key to understanding why debates about the separation of church and state sometimes miss the cooperative angle. The Church cannot intervene directly to elections, for example, but it can guide people on how to evaluate candidates. In the same way, the State cannot infringe or silence criticism from the Church.

Q4



Q5
The mission of Christ is the mission of the Church. Put another way, the mission of the Church is to adopt the purpose of Christ's life and work for themselves, accomplish to the best of their abilities the same things as Jesus did and continue his ministry for as long as need be. He commanded this as much to the additional 72 disciples He recruited in the middle of his career: "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field" (Luke 10:2 NIV), and I reckon it applies here too, more than ever in history. Just as Jesus healed the sick, so must members of the Church who practice medicine. Just as He clothed the naked, so must dressmakers. Just as He cared for the poor and incarcerated, so should others do the same. Just as He berated swindlers, frauds, liars and hypocrites both from outside the Church and from within, so its believers must rebuke in the same way with the same vigour. Most of all, in the same way He forgave and understood and loved every person he met, so too must be the people who resolve to take up the cross and follow him.

It is deceptively simple, even more so now that Jesus compressed all of God's past words into the shortest and most concise of commands, butt in the name of love and God, it can and will be done. So every member of the Church, in essence, has one directive, split only to tasks that any person can do. In this way, we bring glory to God and prove that we can make the world a better place to live in.