Building Bridges and the Poor
I am fascinated with boundaries, with the point where something stops and another thing starts. If you and I disagree on an issue, I want to try and go back to figure out exactly why. We agree here and here and here, but right here is the point where we diverge—why? Most of the time I think we can pin down the reason for the divergence, even though it’s often not obvious at first just why we disagree. Many disagreements arise because of a disagreement about an underlying principle, not so much in the points above or below that point. If I believed as you did at that crucial juncture, then I would agree with you about the final apparent disagreement, and vice versa. I find there is value in determining that critical divergence point. Usually it helps people stop seeing the one they disagree with as less than human.
For instance (as I hope to elaborate upon later), many people who care about the poor find satisfying political expression of that caring by voting for Democrats, progressives, liberals. I’ve never voted for a Democrat. Once a progressive knows this about me, if they don’t know anything else about me, they are liable to write me off as a shill for rich businessmen who cares nothing for the plight of the less-fortunate. But I care a great deal about the poor, and hope my work in the world is some small contribution to benefiting them. To many progressives, this makes no sense. In their minds, the only reasonable course of action to combat poverty is to join political progressives to shape society to make it more just for the less fortunate. People who don’t do this can’t be very serious about combating poverty, they believe.
I hope that my writing here can help explain some of these conundrums, and dispel some caricatures. Perhaps I might change a mind or two along the way, but I’m not holding my breath. I’d be happy to build understanding, to create a few more human connections between different people and groups of people.
Reality is the Bridge
I want to speak and write the truth. I want to see how the reality of things can be a bridge between the imperfect way that one person sees things and the imperfect way that another person sees things. If we believe that each person has their own truth, then we are islands, irreconcilable, disconnected islands. The reality of the way things really are is the bridge between us. But if we believe that somehow the true nature of things is permanently and completely hidden from our comprehension, then we won't look for that bridge.
Harmony Among the Branches
When I try to think clearly about God, I start from assumptions similar to Thomas Oden. His systematic theology (originally in three volumes constructed on a trinitarian framework, but more recently combined into a single volume titled “Classic Christianity”) handles its sources in a pyramidal fashion. It relies most heavily on, includes the most references to, Scripture itself. Then it draws on the church fathers—less than it does Scripture, but more than succeeding generations. So you will find fewer references to 20th century theologians than you will to the earliest centuries’ theological sources.
Another assumption of mine is that, because God loves all people and is always at work, we will find fingerprints of the Holy Spirit in all societies throughout history. That doesn’t mean that all claims are true, or that all people are or will be saved (I don’t know that one—only God judges). But (for example) one of my long-term goals is to evaluate the Tao Te Ching for evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit. Because I also observe that, even among devoted Christians, different cultures and eras emphasize different aspects of biblical theology and worldviews, I expect to find that the work of the Holy Spirit in other cultures and eras will emphasize things we underemphasize or ignore completely. I would hope that, by looking through the Tao Te Ching for resonances with Scripture and orthodox theology, I would see highlighted for me not ideas that are opposed to Christianity or a biblical worldview, but themes that I might otherwise skip over in our own theology. I would hope that the Holy Spirit would take that work that He initiated in ancient Asian cultures and let it be planted and bloom in my own life and theology.
So, when I try to think and pray through an area of theological and/or spiritual inquiry, I expect that (for example):
- Eastern Orthodox sources will have different emphases and details from Roman Catholic and other orthodox theological streams.
- Sometimes one branch of Christianity will “get it right,” while all the others are off base on a particular point. But I expect that to be the exception, and not the rule. I expect that the Holy Spirit will guide us primarily via (among other ways) the agreement, or at least harmony, between the branches.
These expectations shape my interpretive filter. Thus, where a partisan of one of the branches might be more likely to read another branch’s work and focus on or see mainly differences, I’m looking for the ways the different branches are in agreement. For example, I try to respect the definitions intended by the users of various pertinent terms, but given those definitions, I’m looking for the ways their ideas might legitimately at least rest side by side, if not be wholly in agreement, with other branches’ ideas in that area of inquiry.
Building Bridges Between Black Boxes
We have all put together in our head the way we think the world works. If x goes into Process A, then y will come out of it. But if we all have a different understanding of how the black box of mystery that is Process A (that is, some slice of life) actually works, we will come to very different conclusions.
For example, if one person's life experiences and the explanation for the world that they received growing up said that guns are powerful but necessary tools that help keep safe the people we love, then it's natural for us to say that people at a mass shooting would be safer if a few responsible people with guns were there.
But if you were raised only seeing guns in the movies, only as tools of violence and destruction, if you've never seen a need for one in your own direct experience, and no one has explained to you the legitimate uses for guns and how they can be a natural, even reassuring and comforting thing, then the idea that a chaotic scene of carnage would be limited or even stopped by private citizens with guns would seem ludicrous. You're likely instead to think that more guns would have only led to more chaos, more madness and death.
The difference I want to focus on between these two perspectives is not that one is necessarily more accurate about the world than the other, but that certain observations and concepts have been emphasized and explained more in one than the other, and vice versa. One perspective might be more accurate than the other about the world, but that's not my point here. Both people in the above example might feel totally justified in thinking their view was accurate about the world, but both people have a need to listen to the other, if for no other reason than to have a broader and more accurate understanding of what other people actually believe and why. That kind of understanding is of immense value in building bridges between people, building peace among a people, and maintaining a stable civilization.
Lying to Children
You can't get away with lying to children. They will sense your untruth. And children who have been abandoned once will be just that much more sensitive to any hint that you could ever abandon them again.
The Meek Inherit
The meek don't take over the earth by conquest, but passively receive the whole world, through inheritance.
Disappointment in Movements
I have seen repeatedly as I've grown older that movements arise around causes and goals whose core I agree with, but then the movement takes the sentiment a step or five further, into territory that, at the very least, I don't know enough about to know whether I agree with or not. It's this accretion of ideas, this complication of simple ideas, that I find frustrating. And, in the end, even though I might desperately want to support that core of agreement, I can't support the movement, either because I know I disagree with the accretions, or because I don't know, but have circumstantial evidence that I probably will.
Holiness is Not Harmony
The balance of yin and yang is not the same as the Holiness of God.
Holiness is not harmony, or balance, or yin helping yang. Star Wars made popular the phrase "bring balance to the Force." And now you'll hear people comment, perhaps in a joking manner, about having two diverging, different styles or ideas be present in the same situation as "bringing balance to the universe" (or Universe). But while there is often wisdom in human affairs in seeking a middle way between extremes, if we're attempting to follow Christ there's no inherent virtue in balance, or harmony between two things that are just different. Or goal, our striving, should be for Holiness, to imitate Christ, not just to live according to a compromise among the most popular worldviews in the zeitgeist.
What Can I Do?
It's not about doing what you've done before or saying, "can I do what I've done before?" It's about doing everything you can do, everything you were made to do, designed to do.
The Master's Forgiveness?
In Jesus' parable about forgiveness, concerning the 10,000 talents and the 100 talents, I just noticed that the master of the slaves first forgives the slave who owed him 10,000 talents, but after that slave's misbehavior he takes back that forgiveness. If this practice was common, or at least acceptable, in that era, then I would think that if someone had been forgiven debt, they would never sleep well because they would know that at any moment the debt might be reimposed.
This parable is supposed to be, to some degree, a metaphor for how God forgives us. Does the effectiveness of the metaphor extend to the Master's ability or likelihood to un-forgive the debt? Surely not, but what are we supposed to do with this little detail of the parable?
Social Justice and the Bridesmaids
Matthew 25:1-13 - where is social justice in the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids?
I had the question enter my mind of why Jesus gave specific numbers to both groups. He could've said a group of bridesmaids, and said some were wise and the rest were foolish. He could have said seven were wise and three were foolish. Or vice versa. But he said five and five.
My first guess at why he did this, that he said specific numbers and that both numbers were equal and that the numbers totaled up to all of them, so there were none who were neither wise nor foolish, is to indicate the equal opportunity everybody has to choose wisdom or foolishness. And as soon as the phrase "equal opportunity" entered my mind, I contrasted it with the current concept, as defined in certain circles, of social justice. One of the corollaries, if not at the core, of this idea of social justice is that everybody gets the same result. In this parable the bridesmaids do not all get the same result. But they apparently had the same opportunity. The difference was in how they applied or did not apply wisdom to their situation.
Losing the Maturity of a People
A people can mature in long, developing ways that individuals cannot. As a people matures over centuries, individuals and groups within that people will be tempted to discard the slowly-developed elements within the people's culture, the elements that actually make the people mature.
Individuals are only as mature and developed as the people group if they cling to the long-developed principles. Every individual, and even the group as a whole, can abandon the people's maturity at any time. We do not automatically, unstoppably retain the maturity of our people just because we enter the world at a later point in time than others who carry forward the people's patterns and principles of maturity. We can always lose the maturity of our people if we reject the principles that brought the maturity.
The Lowest Seat
It takes inner security (rootedness in God's love for oneself) to voluntarily accept the lowest seat, the place of dishonor. Part of it is knowing that you are accepted and loved by God, and that's all you really need. But another part of it is also knowing that God will make all things right. He knows where credit is due, who is worthy or appropriate to receive honor, versus people who receive honor but really shouldn't. He has the power to set things right in this world if He sees fit, but has actually promised to set things right in the next life.
My/Your Justice
If everyone has their own truth--"that's true for you, this is true for me"--then everyone also has their own justice. If there is no objective truth, no shared truth, then there is no objective or shared justice; we can't point to some standard of justice that others "should" live by.
Stumbling Because of Jesus
“And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me."”
Matthew 11:4-6 ESV
http://bible.com/59/mat.11.4-6.esv
What if Jesus meant by this, "I am doing all these miracles. They are real, and are really happening. Blessed are those who hear these facts and do not stumble in their faith because they don't receive any of these miracles. Why did Jesus let John rot in prison? Was it because He had no miraculous power? No, look at all these amazing things He was doing. I don't see Jesus explaining why here, but He does recognize that Jesus' selectivity about who He gives miracles to could cause some people to stumble. Blessed are those who are not offended when I don't give them a miracle. Blessed are those whose faith does not rely on they themselves receiving miracles from God's hands.
The Soft Martial Law of the Civil Rights Act
The civil rights law that forced people to (formally and superficially, at least) treat African-Americans with equality and fairness (for example, not having a separate area for "Colored" and "White" in a restaurant, or refusing service to Blacks) was an anomaly in American history, and reflected a failure of the culture to deal with the problem of inequality. Other minority groups (every other one?) have entered the country, been marginalized and mistreated, but eventually have become accepted. They did not need the soft martial law of a civil rights act to force their integration and assimilation.
The plight of African-Americans has been unique, since they did not voluntarily enter the country, were enslaved and broadly and persistently dehumanized, and decades went by without a significant change. The civil rights act was arguably justified, but only because of the unique position and history of African-Americans. No other group has been as profoundly oppressed and dehumanized in America, or for as long.
Thus to no other group should that radical overreach of governmental power be extended. The culture is supposed to handle assimilation of minorities, and is supposed to do it humanely, with love and wisdom. By structure, definition, nature, and design, a government is good at holding a gun. That's ultimately what it always does, and the backstop for all its action. A culture, individuals, and even small groups of people can base what they do on love; not a government.
If the culture at large is working its way through a solution to a particular aspect of a minority's being mistreated (or at least believing it is being mistreated), then the government will only cause problems by exerting its power, "pulling a gun,"in the situation. No minority in America (except arguably Native Americans) can compare their mistreatment to that historically of African-Americans. The solution to their situation was uniquely draconian; it's not appropriate or constructive for freedom to move any other minority into the same extreme solution.
Another way of putting this is that the civil rights act was not the beginning of a new way to define how America and the government should treat all minorities going forward, but was a uniquely appropriate response to an historically unique situation. To act like every group requires the same heavy-handed solution is to minimize the unique oppression and suffering experienced by blacks over the centuries.
Defend Your Peace
The peace that God gives us is always available, in every situation. God's peace, in this sense, never leaves us. But it is possible for us to have our attention drawn away from the peace that is always available. It is our work, our job to defend our opportunity to experience God's peace. Defend your peace.