fragments and reflections
Fragments & Reflections
O ierarhie de obscenitati
Elena Parapiru a scris un articol in Viata Libera entitluat ‘Cersetorie si obscenitati‘. As intreba-o pe d-na Parapiru ce este mai “obscen”: comportamentului cersetorilor sau reactia noastra fata de ei? In loc sa afle numele si povestea celor care cersesc, e suficient doar sa-i dezumanizam? In loc sa raspundem cu compasiune omeneasca, doar ii judecam de sus? In relatarea d-nei Parapiru, cersetorii sunt vinovati si ‘cineva’ trebuie sa-i stranga. Dar care este responsabilitatea noastra sociala? Saracia este obscena. Nepasarea fata de oamenii saraci este obscena. Mai obscena este educatia pe care o dam copiilor nostri: in loc sa-i invatam mila, ii invatam dispret. Poate daca am cauta sa vadem umanitatea celor care sufera la semafoare, am descoperi propria noastra umanitate.
A hierarchy of obscenities
The Galati newspaper Viata Libera (Free Life) published an article this week called ‘Begging and Obscenities at the Traffic Light.’ The author, Elena Parapiru, describes the offenses of beggars who irritate drivers with their crutches, their intoxication with paint inhalants, their dirtying rather than cleaning windshields, and their public masturbation. She is especially offended because these terrible images are witnessed by her child in the car. Parapiru asks, “Why the hell doesn’t someone roundup those on the streets? Why does my child have to see these terrible images?”
Parapriu’s article is disturbing. However, it’s not so much the horrors that Parapiru describes that disturb me but rather her reaction to them.
Certainly, there is something obscene in public masturbation and in begging. But I would rank them low on the hierarchy of obscenities. How can we complain about public masturbation when every newsstand displays the pornography it sales or when our banks and hypermarkets use sex to sell their services and products? Isn’t the objectification of women more obscene than the public masturbation of an intoxicated beggar?
Perhaps the reality of beggars offends us. But is it their begging us that is an obscenity or is it our complacency and indifference? Shouldn’t we call hunger obscene? Shouldn’t we be offended by the lack of shelter, the lack of education, and the lack of healthy families?
I find Parapiru’s reaction to beggars obscene. I am offended by Parapiru’s disregard, lack of compassion and blaming of the beggars. More than that, I find it high on the hierarchy of obscenities that Parapiru is educating her child in the school of disdain. Parapiru’s child should be offended more by the actions of her mother than by the actions of the beggar.
Rather than expecting ‘someone’ or some government institution to respond to the beggars, I would call on each citizen to respond. At the very least, we can stop and learn the names of the beggars and listen to their stories rather than standing in judgment from afar. Maybe together we can evaluate the complexities of poverty, the history of the impoverished, and practices that can alleviate poverty. But blaming the poor and blaming society’s lack of reaction to the impoverished without taking personal responsibility is cheap and non-constructive.
I would invite Mrs. Parapiru to respond humanely, if not Christianly, by finding ways to truly help beggars find alternative means to survive and work. Perhaps by discovering the humanity in the poor beggars, we can discover humanity in ourselves.
The Servant Nature of God
Q ideas just published an article that I wrote some years back on the Servant Nature of God.
Peace & Justice Symposia – George Fox University
This time last year:
Negotiating Citizenship: Nonviolent Resistance
In pre-modern times, empires would give citizenship rights to vassal countries that paid the empire its dues. This practice continues today, albeit in different forms. Yesterday, the Romanian President visited Washington D.C. to sign a missile defense treaty. The U.S. military will build an anti-missile system in Romania and will station 500 U.S. troops in Romania. In exchange for this agreement and for Romania’s participation in the war in Afghanistan, Romania is asking for a visa waiver for its citizens to travel to the U.S. For military alignment, Romania wants some of the benefits of citizenship in the empire.
To counter and critique this militaristic basis for citizenship, those with citizenship in heaven commit to loving those on the other side of the missile ‘defense’ so that we may share together in the citizenship of heaven. Although we may lose the benefits of the empire by not participating in its claims to protect through violence, we know that the empire ultimately cannot deliver on those claims.
Those with heavenly citizenship resist battling with flesh and blood and name, unmask and engage the powers and principalities that dehumanize, oppress and kill those created after the image of God.
Negotiating Citizenship: Matriotism
There is something in me that commits to place. I feel it when I visit my native state or the city where I was born. It’s as if the land of our fathers and mothers taps on our inner compass needle, calling us home to our Fatherland.
The Fatherland is a place not only for citizens but for friends. One of my favorite philosophers of ethics, Alasdair MacIntyre, criticized E.M. Forser for saying that if it came to a choice between dying for his country and dying for his friend, he hoped that he would have the courage to deny his country. MacIntyre said that if anyone can formulate such a contrast, they have no country, and they are a citizen of nowhere.
Of course, there are problems with patriotism, not least of which is the violence that underlies the competing claims to land, resources and ideology. Patriots usually define themselves by who is in and who is out. Those on the inside, our compatriots, are called on to protect the homeland and to guard against those who are on the outside. If I am committed to my fatherland and you are committed to your fatherland, we may eventually become entrenched in our tribe and enter into conflict.
Because of the violence associated with patriotism and because of the demands by our society to be a ‘patriot’ that I find incompatible with Christian convictions, I prefer to describe my commitment to place as matriotism. Rather than a commitment to the fatherland (patriotism), it is a commitment to the motherland (matriotism). By emphasizing ‘feminine’ traits of birth, nurture and cooperation and de-emphasizing ‘masculine’ features of violence, competition and machoism, I can celebrate a commitment to place that includes rather than excludes others and a place for hospitality rather than competition.
Negotiating Citizenship: Immigrants
What if citizenship in heaven translated to immigrants being made to feel at home and as fellow citizens because we too are strangers and aliens made to feel welcome and offered citizenship in a kingdom in which we are completely unworthy to visit, let alone call home?
What if citizenship in heaven meant that immigrants were viewed by the church as a gift rather than a threat?
Negotiating Citizenship
A country always calls its people to be good citizens. This commitment to citizenship trumps all other allegiances.
We see this in American Christians who do not differentiate between being a Christian and American but rather equate being Christian with being American. We fly American flags in our sanctuaries, support our troops, and encourage Christians to support the Constitution and to obey the laws.
The fact that the commitment to one’s nation is the paramount obligation is even more evident in the national discourse on American Muslims. At every turn, Muslims are asked to prove that they are “good” Americans, which they do by affirming the Constitution, their belief in freedom and democracy, their participation in and sacrifice for the military, and their fidelity in paying taxes. But the burden of proving their American-ness is constantly on their shoulders – and the shoulders of other non-White and non-Christian citizens.
In the ancient Greco-Roman world, citizenship was even more a privilege than it is in our democratic countries, and just a small portion of the population was citizens. Only males qualified for citizenship. You could not be a slave. Most were land owners. The Greco-Roman society was structured around its citizens, who were the Pater Familias, around whom other family members, servants, slaves and beneficiaries had their livelihoods and status.
Although cities were allowed to have their own civic religions, the emperor demanded utmost allegiance to himself. A good citizen was loyal to the king. Interestingly, one of the purposes of Josephus’s history of the Jews is to demonstrate that Jews are good Roman citizens.
In the early Church, there are also Christian claims to being good citizens. For instance, some speculate that Luke’s description of the Jerusalem church in Acts 2 and 4 depicts the ideal Greek notion of society.
However, most Christians were not citizens but rather, as Peter says, “strangers and aliens.” The early Church spoke about having their citizenship in heaven. Although they were not given citizenship in the kingdoms of this world, early Christians asserted their citizenship in the heavenly city. Today, I often hear interpretations of heavenly citizenship as being one’s passport to heaven. But for the early Church, heavenly citizenship was not so much about one’s eternal destination as it was a different basis for living in the present world. This citizenship shaped one’s convictions and actions. This citizenry was a place of belonging and social identity for the excluded and oppressed, particularly, for women, slaves, and non-property owners.
When the Church is later accepted and authorized by the Roman Empire, the distinction between Roman citizenship and heavenly citizenship is diluted. How did the Church respond? Many of the Church Fathers defended Christians as “good” citizens but still challenged the claims of the empire. Others renounced the privileges of the empire and lived in solitude or in small communities on the fringes of the empire, committing themselves to celibacy, poverty and other ascetic disciplines.
Usually, the ascetic commitments to celibacy, poverty and obedience are viewed as a reaction to the world’s dominant temptations of sex, wealth and power. While this is true, this view usually fails to see the social implications. Patlagean points out that these ascetic commitments redefined citizenship. The ascetic commitments challenged the foundations that shaped traditional identity: marriage, family and property. To be a “good” citizen in this new vision of society meant to choose poverty, celibacy, and ascetic generosity. This meant that relationships were based on freedom rather than power, on chastity and equality rather than progeny and misogyny, and on generosity rather than competition.
When I look at the vision of the early Church for a new society and its citizenry, I am challenged to renegotiate the places in which I commit to country and the places where I must resist its demands. I am challenged to re-evaluate my commitments to the state in light of my ultimate allegiance to my citizenship in heaven.
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