More than a Slogan
“Did you say that pro-life activists who are also
conservative Republicans don’t care about racism or justice or anything like
that? You are so ignorant! Conservatives are always more generous giving money
and time to help – to help in every way you can think of! Check the data any
way you want to slice it!”
Whoo-ee. I hear the anger and frustration.
I’d like to explain something. It’s not a bumper sticker
slogan: the explanation will take a little time.
The history of hospitality in the Bible and the Church for
the past 3,000 years has five distinct phases. To understand why liberals and
conservatives who are serious about helping their neighbors are at each other’s
throats, it may help to look at the five stages.
1.
Old Testament: a national approach
2.
New Testament: a personal approach
3.
early Christian life (325 to ~1400): an
ecclesial approach
4.
Reformation to 1891: era of excommunication,
serving “us” not “them”
5.
Social Gospel: a global approach
I think that I can explain a huge part of the deep anger
between good people, by reviewing attitudes in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Hospitality
is an issue I understand; I think other issues follow the same pattern, but I
don’t know that. So this is in part about immigration, but what I’m after is more
general – making it easier for pro-lifers and social justice activists to
understand each other.
There are five different approaches to welcoming strangers
that are all in play today; and if you understand only one approach, or maybe
two, then you may resent and resist the other three or four.
First: the Old Testament approach was national. The Law that
Moses laid down included personal hands-on service, but it was national. Moses
commanded: “Welcome strangers, because – remember! – you too once were a
stranger in a strange land.” He asks us to recall a national memory, and draw
inspiration and insight from it. I personally was not a slave in Egypt, nor
were you; but “we” were. The nation
of Israel was oppressed by the nation
of Egypt, and God punished the nation
of Egypt to save the nation of
Israel. And later, when the nation of
Israel abused strangers, God punished the nation
of Israel by sending Israel into exile in the nation of Babylon.
One other example: the Book of Ruth. Her story is about
hospitality, especially the welcome (and love) that one man named Boaz offered to
one woman named Ruth. But remember her song: “Your people will be my people,
and your God will be my God.” National.
Second: New Testament approach is much more personal and
individual. Jesus affirmed the teaching of Moses unequivocally, but applied the
command to individuals, not the nation. The nation was under occupation, and
asking the nation to act properly was meaningless. So when Jesus talks about
welcoming strangers, he tells the story of the Good Samaritan, one individual
who helped one victim of one robbery. And when Jesus described the Last
Judgment, his words can be read as applying to societies, but they seem to be
personal – at least at first glance: “I was a stranger, and you (singular)
welcomed me.”
Another example: look at St. Paul’s Letter to Philemon,
about freeing a slave. Some people insist that the letter is not applicable to
the social evil of slavery, because Paul appealed to one slave-holder (Philemon)
on behalf of one slave (Onesimus). I think that’s pernicious nonsense, and that
the principles that Paul lays out (treat your brother as a brother) can be
extended to society. But it is certainly true that the letter – and indeed the
New Testament – deals with problems on an individual basis.
Third: the approach in the Patristic era and for centuries
afterwards was ecclesial. The early Church built squarely and explicitly on
Scripture, Old and New. However, the pattern of response to strangers was not
the same as that of Moses nor of Jesus. The Church responded as a church. St.
Jerome offers a clear example: he built a hostel attached to the monastery in
Bethlehem. The hostel served pilgrims, obviously, but also served all visitors
and guests and strangers.
Jerome was explicit and forceful about universal welcome,
pointing to Virgil’s “Aeneid” to explain. He wrote: “I am forced to cry out
against the inhumanity of this country. A hackneyed quotation best expresses my
meaning:
What savages are
these who will not grant
A rest to
strangers, even on their sands!
They threaten war
and drive us from their coasts.
[Aeneid,
Book I, 539-541]
Jerome continued: “I take this idea from a Gentile poet so
that anyone who disregards the peace of Christ may at least learn its meaning
from a heathen.” (The excerpt is from Jerome’s letter to the Presbyter Marcus,
in Philip Schaff’s Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers.)
Jerome’s hostel set a pattern for the Church. It was an
institution built by the Church to serve those in need. St. Benedict adopted
Jerome’s idea, and Benedict’s Rule makes hospitality central in monastic life:
strangers are to be received as Christ.
St. Ambrose affirms the requirement to welcome strangers.
It’s noteworthy that Ambrose writes about hospitality in a work devoted to the
duties of the clergy – not the
nation, and not every individual, but specifically the clergy.
Some centuries later, this pattern as still in place. St.
Thomas Aquinas affirmed that the precepts of Jesus, including the command to
welcome strangers, are mandatory, and that a failure to obey these precepts is
mortally sinful. But Aquinas made clear that some duties, including this one,
are usually delegated – in this case, to a church-run hostel attached to a
monastery. So the duty to welcome strangers can be fulfilled by supporting a
monastery that welcomes strangers.
It’s immensely important to see and understand this third pattern
of response to strangers! Many Christians today hold up the example of Jesus,
and insist that we today should follow that example. What Christian wants to
say no to that? But when you understand that Moses and Jesus and the Fathers
all demanded, unequivocally and forcefully, that we welcome strangers – and then
you also see that they responded in a
variety of ways – then you can move ahead determined to get the job done,
without being tied to a single model.
Fourth: during and after the Reformation and
Counter-Reformation, hospitality was often side-lined by a new emphasis on
EX-communication. During the era of excommunication, there was a pattern of
defensive retrenchment in our tradition that must be acknowledged and
understood. In my view, it wasn’t a healthy response; it was a contraction, not
a positive development. But good or bad, there was a period of several hundred
years when the Church’s hospitality was different from the Old Testament
pattern, different from the New Testament pattern, and different from the
Patristic pattern. The Church turned inward, and focused on serving her own
members – and often refused to serve others. Far from welcoming each other, Catholics
and Protestants made war on each other. The command to welcome strangers
shrank; the Church worked to shelter the homeless in our midst, but turned away
from Protestant or Jewish or Muslim or other strangers. It was a time when
excommunication was in vogue, and may have been more important that community
in the thinking and practice of many people. For many Christians, the first and
sometimes only service that we offered to non-Christians (or to non-Catholics)
was proselytization.
The pattern of defensive suspicion rather than reflexive
hospitality is perhaps among the greatest evils of the time of the Reformation
and Counter-Reformation. In my view, the division in the Church damaged a great
treasure in ways that we are still struggling to understand and reverse.
This is grossly over-simplified. Many great things happened
during this period. But look at the teaching of a great hero of hospitality,
Pope Pius XII. Many efforts to explain the Church’s approach to welcoming
immigrants start with his encyclical about life in exile, “Exsul Familia
Nazarethena.” The letter opens saying that when Joseph and Mary took Jesus and
fled to Egypt, they became the archetype of every refugee family. The Pope said
that when they fled to escape the fury of an evil king, they became, “for all
times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien and
refugee of whatever kind.” All … all … every … of whatever kind. The Pope said
explicitly that this includes those who are compelled “by fear of persecution or
by want.”
The letter is powerful and moving, and no one who supports
care for immigrants will criticize the letter. Nonetheless, it’s noteworthy
that as the letter proceeds, one of his major concerns is meeting the needs of
Catholic refugees, and ensuring that Catholics have proper spiritual guidance.
His concern is universal, but still he has a special concern for his own – that
is, Catholics.
Fifth: the Church’s response to strangers today is global.
This new pattern began to emerge in 1891, and burst forth in the Second Vatican
Council.
In the past century, there has been a revolution in the
Church’s understanding of who we must serve. Pope Leo started the revolution in
1891, with his encyclical “Rerum Novarum.” Leo was committed to the principle
of subsidiarity, the idea (roughly) that the smallest social unit capable of
handling a problem should do so, without interference from others. (There’s far
more to be said …) If a family can deal with a problem, the village should stay
out of it. If the village can handle a problem, the state should stay out of
it. If the nation can handle a problem, the world should mind its own business.
Fine. But Leo also saw clearly that there are some problems that cannot be
solved locally or even nationally. The one that pulled him into action was the
question of labor in an industrialized society. The dehumanization of workers,
treating the children of God as cogs in a machine, was not something that could
be solved by an employer and a worker over a beer. It was an international
problem, and protecting the children of God required a global response. So the
Church declared – addressing a global issue – that workers have a right to
organize and strike, if all else fails.
Leo’s teaching was explosive. There are other problems that
are global – problems that cannot be solved locally or nationally. And the
Church is not silent in the face of these problems, nor restricted solely to
pious prayers for divine intervention. The problems that creep across national
borders include: plagues that refuse to obey no trespassing signs, drought and
starvation, war, poverty, pollution – and migration. In response, the Church
serves individual people in need. But also, the Church teaches and leads, when
appropriate. Including: the Church asserts that there is a God-given right to
migrate in search of a better life.
The change from previous patterns of response is made clear
at the beginning of “Gaudium et Spes.” One of the key documents of the Second
Vatican Council was this “pastoral constitution of the Church in the modern
world.” It opens: “The joys and the
hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those
who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs
and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails
to raise an echo in their hearts.”
The problems that we consider “ours” – our own – are the
problems of all humanity.
+++++
Is it useful to understand these five approaches? Consider
the following (edited) exchange.
JCOK: Restricting
immigration during a global refugee crisis will drive abortion way way up.
There are about a million pregnant women on the road annually, fleeing
persecution and war and violence. Have you ever anywhere heard a pro-life
speaker talk about that?
MB: I would direct
those women to my local pregnancy center [in New York City].
JCOK: We aren't
communicating effectively. These million pregnant refugees aren't in America.
You will not refer them to your local pregnancy center. Quite likely, you won't
let them get within a thousand miles of your pregnancy center.
MB: Oh, you're giving
us crap about border patrol. Last I checked we're allowed to protect our
borders.
A key problem in that exchange, I think, is that MB has one
model of hospitality in mind: a personal, one-on-one encounter. No Christian in
his or her right mind is going to criticize that approach! But you can’t deal
with a million people that way. You need a national or international approach.
But many pro-lifers are attached to a slice of conservatism,
and have learned to be suspicious of large government. AC, in the same Facebook
exchange, remarked:
AC: I don't know if a
global/One World outlook is good either. It's nanny statism on a larger scale.
But we need a global outlook. If you see abortion as the
decision and act of one trapped mother and one abortion profiteer, it’s not
possible to understand many aspects of abortion, and it’s definitely not
possible to see how to end abortion. There are some problems that are complex
and global, and they require a complex and global solution. One such problem is
the scourge of population control, which includes restrictive immigration. If
you restrict immigration into America, you must believe that America can’t
sustain millions more people flowing in. We’re not mixed out, but we’re
stretched. BUT: if you think America is crowded, then the world as a whole is
vastly over-crowded. And if you believe that, then Planned Parenthood has a
solution, and you support them, although you might want to tinker with the
tools a little – maybe a little more contraception and sterilization and a
little less abortion.
CS: Statistically,
people who are pro-life – with abortion being the obvious crux of valuing life
– do MORE in other arenas of social justice. To imply that somehow
anti-abortionists don’t care about other social justice issues is creepily
dishonest and meant to diminish dishonestly their actual contribution to the
pro-life cause. Where does this myopic view of charitable humanity even come
from?
I have spent most of my adult life amongst pro-life
activists, and I consider myself blessed to have lived among heroes. However,
the myopic view that CS refers to arises from a disagreement about the Social
Gospel. I don’t think my pro-life friends are careless about other social
justice. Rather, I am quite sure that they are often committed to models of
thought and action that don’t fit our time. Global problems need global
solutions.
We need new and renewed habits of understanding and
cooperation.