I'm not a blogger. I'm a lousy blogger. I'm only blogging because of the pressure that is being exerted upon me by my colleagues. Why don't you just give me a call if you want to know what I'm thinking? Yeesh.
However, my recent assessment based on the Enneagram, Myers Briggs, and other psych tests (um, not phil-might-be-crazy-tests--just work-related evaluations...) concluded that indeed I "require an outlet for writing and motivating in order to maintain balance in (my) life." So, I'm just reaching for straws here, and thought I'd comment on something that came up in class today...
Do you really think that a good Christian ought not assert their rights as a human being?
As followers of Jesus, Christians are rightly concerned with the great law of life--the law of agape, or self-giving love. But does this mean that it is wrong for followers of Jesus to feel they have rights? And is it even worse for them to assert these rights?
I don't think so.
I think sometimes we forget that in order to practice self-giving love there really has to be a self that is doing the giving. I cringe a little at the romantic and sentimental sense that I hear in church language that assumes that this self-giving love will "just happen" because we've invited the Self-Giving One into our hearts. Authentic self-giving love--even that which appropriates the great work of the indwelling Spirit of Christ--requires volition. We (our selves) have to give, and in doing so we really are giving something up or giving something away.
Further, I think that the practice of self-giving love (not just the idea of it) does not diminish the validity of the rights of each self but rather most fully validates them. It is in willingly and actively (as opposed to passively) giving of ourselves that our rights are most fully affirmed. I think it is wrong to suppose that a follower of Jesus should shut up and suffer. This isn't agape! Rather sin must be named, wrongs must be condemned, violence opposed, injustice resisted and deception exposed--and the forgiveness and grace of self-giving love must be extended and expressed nonetheless. This means naming and identifying the evil "that has trespassed against us," but refusing allow evil to beget evil in our lives--refusing to allow our rights that have been transgressed to become twisted into the weapons of rationalization and moralization of our own violent or vengeful reactions. It is in knowingly laying down our rights for the sake of God's kingdom and for the great law of agape that we most fully affirm our rights. Not as passive victims, but as active participants in the agony of love.
Finally (although this is far from finally), I think that the acknowledgment of rights is essential to the pursuit of justice and love. I mean, really, what do we think/feel/believe when we see people being trampled by more powerful people or unjust systems? I sometimes wonder if our weak-kneed aversion to asserting rights might have more to do with our aversion to taking responsibility for what's happening to others in our spheres of influence than it has to do with self-giving love. After all, love that does not have justice as its end is not love at all, but rather sentimentality. To truly practice agape is an active, participative joining in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. It is to identify sin as sin, and extend forgiveness nonetheless. It is to name what is broken and bent among us, and extend fellowship nonetheless. It is to acknowledge the real areas of sickness and filth and disease, and go into them to bring healing nonetheless. These strong expressions of right-relinquishing agape ultimately affirm the rights of selves--of your-self and those of the other.
What do you think?
Phil in Canmore... up really late.
6 comments:
How about this thought:
I believe that assertive defense of the rights of others in the pursuit of justice is one of the mandates of a Christian.
I also believe that I have rights that should not be violated and I do not give those up because I am a Christian – unless I do so by, as you said, “knowingly laying down our (my) rights for the sake of God's kingdom.
Unfortunately, in everyday life, the opportunities to set aside my rights voluntarily for the sake of the Kingdom occurs fairly regularly – little things usually. Martyrdom would seem more noble than offering to give up some free time to babysit or some such act of kindness.
Well... how about that thought :)
Yep, I think we need to maintain a "cruciform posture" and not just hold out for a crucifixion...
Excellent stuff. I can't disagree with that.
I wonder, does it matter what type of right we're talking about? For instance, is it rights in general or rights that are inherent in being God's image-bearers?
As I read this I thought immediately of a lecture by Stanley Hauerwas in which he has this to say:
"Indeed I want to argue that America is the only country that has the misfortune of being founded on a philosophical mistake--namely, the notion of inalienable rights. We Christians do not believe that we have inalienable rights. That is the false presumption of Enlightenment individualism, and it opposes everything that Christians believe about what it means to be a creature. Notice that the issue is inalienable rights. Rights make a certain sense as correlative to duties and goods, but they are not inalienable. For example, when the lords protested against the king in the Magna Charta, they did so in the name of their duties to their underlings. Duties, not rights, were primary. The rights were simply ways of remembering what the duties were.
Christians, to be more specific, do not believe that we have a right to do with our bodies whatever we want. We do not believe that we have a right to our bodies because when we are baptized we become members of one another; then we can tell one another what it is that we should, and should not, do with our bodies. I had a colleague at the University of Notre Dame who taught Judaica. He was Jewish and always said that any religion that does not tell you what to do with your genitals and pots and pans cannot be interesting. That is exactly true. In the church we tell you what you can and cannot do with your genitals. They are not your own. They are not private. That means that you cannot commit adultery. If you do, you are no longer a member of "us." Of course pots and pans are equally important." (Link)
(I link to the lecture reluctantly, because I don't want his specific topic to cloud the issue you're discussing.)
At first I thought you and Hauerwas were in conflict on this issue, but now I'm thinking maybe you're not. What do you think?
Hi Marc,
I think Hauerwas and I are in conflict often enough, partly because of my appreciation for Reinhold Niebuhr's "Christian Realism." Perhaps it rears its head here again. Although Hauerwas (and moreso Yoder) has been an influential voice in my own theological formation, I think he often overstates his case. I mean, even here in his example of the Lords protesting the Magna Charta, the duties to their underlings was evoked because the underlings had rights that they felt were being transgressed. Duty and rights are not two ontologically different categories, are they? Rather, I think one mistake in the thought of those schooled in Hauerwas is that rights=self interest only, rather than allowing for the possibility that it is the rights of others that make a claim upon us, demanding responsible, just and even gracious treatment. The right of a woman not to be sexualized; the right of a child not to be abused; the right of a man not to be destroyed by another's greed... This understanding of rights, in my thought, precedes the American constitution (or the enlightenment, for that matter)--it is the right of the aliens and oppressed, as people made in the image of God, that caused the prophets and biblical law-makers to cry out against injustice and for just, equitable, even hospitable treatment of the "other."
Anyway, I love the narrative theologians; I disagree with their tendency towards exaggeration in the name of "making a point." It just leads their students into often extreme positions that are neither biblical or tenable.
I think, anyway...
hey phil I just wanted to say Hi and happy to read your thoughts and pace of life
Hey Daddy its Ava so weird to read all this. now that its 2011. cool to find this though. by the way why have you never told me you blogged??
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