A Contemporary Challenge to the Gospel Call for Charity [a guest blog by Jack Conroy]

This post is the work of my good friend (and also my first guest-blogger) Jack Conroy, Ph.D., Retired Assistant Professor of Theology. Thank you Jack for your contribution to this blog.

A Contemporary Challenge to the Gospel Call for Charity

Matthew 25:31-46 has been well known as being the Scriptural root of organized charity. In it we have the Son of Man who sits on a glorious throne before all the nations and separates everyone as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The sheep have the honorific location on his right and the goats on his left. What is the rationale? Four times in the pericope the rationale is given: response or non-responses to hunger, thirst, being a stranger, lack of clothing and alienation because of prison. Why would anyone feed others or give drink or any of the other activities listed? The “punch line” is verse 40: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” We have two issues: a) the recipients are the “least.” This implies that there are people who are at the bottom of the social scale, and these have needs that for some reason are not being met. And b) the Son of Man/King identifies with these least, so that one responds not just to an impoverished individual, but to the Son of Man; of course, the reader knows that the Son of Man is Jesus himself, who gave himself for all of us. This affirms that the “least” of human beings have the same dignity as Jesus. It is a primary reason that people will give of their wealth to those less fortunate.

We were fortunate to have a Kenneth Burns film on the Roosevelts shown recently for a full week. Perhaps the most interesting element focused on Eleanor Roosevelt; she was the first advocate for government to take a positive role in the alleviation of the suffering in our society. She was not portrayed as a religious person acting out of a gospel mandate. She just sensed a need and then worked to respond to that need, whether it be food or drink or clothing. Her influence on FDR reflected itself in the multiplicity of government programs where the economic life was not segregated from the political life.

We find ourselves today in a world Eleanor would not have imagined. The problem is that about 42 million people in the US live below the poverty level. That’s about 13 percent of our population. Now there exist many programs to respond to this reality, including food stamps, rent assistance, utility assistance and free medical and dental services provided by various governmental agencies. The difficulty is that the variety of programs have in some cases created a multi-generational reliance on government instead of on a culture of work. Thomas Piketty has written a book called Capital in the Twenty-first Century that draws from extensive research the conclusion that inequality in the world is growing, and that with the larger number of impoverished people in the system, social instability is a potential result. He drew the conclusion that it was this inequality that produced the French Revolution, and suggests that other revolutions could be in the offing.

So, here’s the problem:

• Our biblical roots demand response to those who are “least.”
• Reliance on individuals did not solve the problem, historically, so Government stepped in.
• Many have become reliant on the Government and, for a complex set of reasons, find they don't need to—or are unable to—work.
• They become angered at the system since they remain in poverty and consider revolution to be the answer.

Where’s the solution?

This, I propose, is a field of research that could be effected through an intellectual team of theologians, economists and business-school scholars. Great universities have focused their research on science and technology.  Here is an area where co-operating scholars operating together might come up with a socially acceptable solution that would provide guidance for those who see Matthew 25 as a springboard for solving the problem of what happens to “the Least.”

Maintenance Learning, Shock Learning, and Innovative Learning

In his classic work On Becoming a Leader, Warren Bennis talks about three kinds of learning: maintenance learning, shock learning, and innovative learning. I find this three-fold distinction provides a valuable lens for understanding the fast pace and unprecedented scope in which change is occurring in higher education today. Some of the changes happening around us appear to be driven more by economic and practical realities than by educational or pedagogical philosophies. Particularly in the realm of theological education, typically a more traditional segment of the educational world, changes in delivery modes and in pedagogy facilitated by technology have presented challenges for many schools. In my own context, one that has already embraced the use of technologically-mediated education, faculty and students are now wrestling with what it will mean to have some master's classes that run on an eight-week session instead of a full-term of fifteen or sixteen weeks. As a way of framing that change for myself, I outline below Bennis's discussion of these three kinds of learning.

Maintenance learning is the kind of learning that facilitates and maintains the status quo; learners are largely passive and seek to acquire the knowledge and skills that an authority has deemed valuable.

Shock learning is the kind of learning that occurs because it has to occur for survival; it is often in response to a crisis and is reactive. It is characterized by a sense of the learner not being in control but having to do only what the situation requires. At the moment, this mode may characterize some of the ways schools are responding to and learning from the real societal and economic changes occurring around them. It is not the students but rather the institutions of higher education themselves that are learning by shock.

Innovative learning is a kind of learning that is more dynamic, imaginative, and creative than either maintenance learning or shock learning. Innovative learning is anticipatory, participatory, and self-directed. Bennis explains the characteristics of innovative learning as including:

• Anticipation: being active and imaginative rather than passive and habitual; 
• Learning by listening to others;
• Participation: shaping events rather than being shaped by them (Bennis, 72)

By framing learning in this active and participatory way Bennis can talk about innovative learning as “a way of realizing vision” (72). He calls it “a dialogue that begins with curiosity and is fueled by knowledge leading to understanding. It is inclusive, unlimited, and unending, knowing and dynamic. It allows us to change the way things are” (73). These descriptors themselves offer a vision of positive, optimistic, and creative ways of dealing with change.

While it may be tempting to try to paint the recent history of higher education with these broad strokes, the most fruitful use of Bennis's categories is to consider ways that schools can foster and encourage innovative learning on the part of students and faculty, and on the part of the school as a whole. Rather than entering survival mode or simply reacting to each change that occurs, the concept of “innovative learning” provides a way to engage with the changes in higher education in a positive and healthy manner, one that focuses on how the individuals involved can shape the way forward.

In considering Bennis’s views on learning, I find encouragement to make a concerted mental effort to identify and move beyond a maintenance learning or shock learning mindset, and to foster an innovative learning mindset. Faculty and students with this kind of approach are the ones who will be able to learn together in meaningful and transformative ways even in times of rapid change.

John Chrysostom on Scripture

Today John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) is remembered in the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches (his feast day is Nov 13 in Eastern Orthodox tradition). Known for his impressive rhetorical skills (chrysostom  means "golden-tongued" in Greek), many of his sermons and homilies have been preserved. Here are a few of his comments about Scripture excerpted from a larger set of quotations compiled by Eugenia Constantinou (University of San Diego).

On the importance of learning the Psalms in childhood:

"For whatsoever soil the plant stands in, such is the fruit it bears; if in a sandy and salty soil, of like nature is its fruit; if in a sweet and rich one, it is again similar. So the matter of instruction is a sort of fountain. Teach him to sing those psalms which are so full of the love of wisdom. When in these you have led him on from childhood, by little and little you will lead him forward even to the higher things"  (Hom. IX  On Colossians) 

On the Bible as a resource for facing the challenges of life:

"Listen, I entreat you, all that are careful for this life, and  procure books that will be medicines for the soul…get  at least the New Testament, the Apostolic Epistles, the Acts, the Gospels, for your constant teachers. If grief befalls you, dive into them as into a chest of medicines; take from there comfort for your trouble, be it loss, or death, or bereavement of relations; or rather do not merely dive into them but take them wholly to yourself, keeping them in your mind."  (Hom. IX  On Colossians)

The above two excerpts are a reminder and encouragement to children's Sunday School teachers (as a new Sunday School year begins) and religious educators of all kinds: what you are doing matters in the lives of the children and young adults you teach.

The next quote is a reminder and a challenge to all of us as adults (and especially as theologians and biblical scholars) to be aware that in changing times and contexts, the Bible may be brought to bear in fresh and innovative ways as it is considered from new angles.

On the inexhaustible nature of the Scriptures: 

"It is not possible, I say not possible, ever to exhaust the mind of the Scriptures. It is a well which has no bottom." (Hom. XIX On Acts)

And accordingly Christians have believed that Scripture is a resource that has value and applicability in every age. In this case, through the words of John Chrysostom we are reminded of the importance of good theological reflection from childhood through adulthood.

Greek Religion in the Iliad

In working on course content and lecture material for my upcoming graduate seminar "Worship in the New Testament," I have been focusing on the cultural matrix of early Christian worship practices. After cataloguing important aspects of Greek and Roman religious practices (with due acknowledgment of the problems inherent in the differences between contemporary meanings of the term "religion" as opposed to ancient conceptions), I have been looking for primary texts that illustrate the phenomena I am discussing.

At the same time (but for unrelated reasons) I have begun reading the Iliad. Reading it with eyes and ears attuned to the people, practices, prayers, and perspectives of Greek religion, I was quite pleased to find displayed before my eyes a fine sampling of the staples of Greek and (later) Roman religion. Within just the first three hundred lines of the Iliad, are references to prayers, sacrifices, vows, and offerings to the gods. We meet a priest (Chryses) as well as an augur (Calchas), with references to the flights of birds, knowledge of the past, present, future, and other tools of divination. In addition, there is the narration of the gods answering prayers, the belief that honoring the will of the gods may lead to their responding favorably to human wishes, the recognition that Zeus grants authority to rulers, and the understanding that the gods assign humans their place in life (they gifted Achilles and made a spearman of him). There is the clear belief that calamity comes from the gods for a variety of reasons including human negligence in fulfilling vows to the gods. In addition, there is the confidence that a diviner can discern the reason for the gods’ wrath and identify the appropriate way to appease them. There is direct communication to humans by the gods who come to humans directly (e.g. the visit of Athena to Achilles) or by means of dreams (which are understood to come from Zeus). The human-like personalities of the gods is in full play as Apollo becomes furious at Agamemnon’s disregard of Chryses the priest. The affairs of humans and gods are thus fully intertwined through a network of connections and relationships.

In these first few pages alone I found quick confirmation of N. T. Wright's claim in Paul and the Faithfulness of God that the people of Greco-Roman antiquity lived in a "myth-soaked culture" (255) in which "the gods were everywhere" (274). Like Wright, I'm convinced that a richer understanding of the practices by which the ancients interacted with their gods can lead to a fuller appreciation of the cultural matrix in which early Christian worship took its shape. And this can lead to a better grasp of the significance of the earliest Christian worship practices. Looking forward to exploring these ancient texts with my students next spring.

Resistance Literature and Biblical Studies

Thanks to several recent studies that succeed in examining early Jewish writings through the lens of resistance (Hugh Page’s Israel’s Poetry of Resistance; Anathea Portier-Young’s Apocalypse against Empire; Richard Horsley’s Revolt of the Scribes), I have begun working through some of the major works on the theory and history of resistance literature.

Barbara Harlow’s 1987 study, Resistance Literature (New York; London: Methuen), focused on the literature of 20^th century resistance movements that included the element of armed resistance. Looking at movements from Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, Harlow provided a rich picture of the ways in which literature contributes to resistance movements. While on the face of it, these movements in themselves do not appear immediately relevant to biblical studies, there are a number of elements of her analysis which can readily be seen to illumine the study of ancient texts. I enumerate six of these below.

First, Harlow is concerned with literature that is produced within a context of foreign domination, whether under occupation or in exile. Both of these notions, occupation and exile, figure prominently in the Hebrew Bible, early Jewish writings, and the New Testament.

Second, she focusses on literature that reflects an arena of struggle in which the culture and cultural heritage of the oppressed engages with the cultural, social, and political intervention of the oppressor. The writings of the ancient Israelites as well as those of Second Temple Jews show an awareness of and an engagement with cultural forces both within and without Israelite society or the author’s particular Jewish community.

Third, one important dimension of the struggle which she notes is that of the struggle to control the historical record. Early Jewish and Christian literature is heavily focused on the past, and particularly in remembering the events of the past in a way in which highlights the significance of these events for the present community. Complementary and even competing portraits of the past are preserved within the pages of scripture.

Fourth, in addition to the historical record, resistance movements seek to control the means of cultural production, even against the challenges of censorship or oppression by the dominant culture. In one instance, an author’s book was banned in Arabic and so he published it in Paris in French. Utilizing the language of the colonizing power allows an indigenous writer to adapt, invert, and even create new forms in the language of the oppressor. While not responding to precisely the same challenges, the translation of Hebrew scriptures into Greek, and the production of new writings either in Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew, can be viewed, in a context of cultural struggle, as practices of resistance or accommodation or both.

Fifth, Harlow draws attention to the potential within resistance movements of utilizing a “rhetoric of nostalgia” which seeks to return to a previous ideal age, a stance which can create a tension even within resistance movements between the need to deal with the pragmatic needs of the moment and the need to hold out a vision of a utopian future. Such dynamic tensions are observable within the biblical texts and traditions as well.

Finally, Harlow points out that Western readers can inadvertently fail to engage with non-Western literary products on their own terms by using reading strategies that are culturally conditioned. In particular she mentions the notion of looking for the universal element and ignoring the historical particularity in a given text. Such a recognition provides a valuable reminder to readers of ancient texts as well to beware of uncritical reading strategies which seek to domesticate ancient texts so that they fall within the framework of what is culturally acceptable in contemporary culture, whether Jewish, Christian, or secular.

Such considerations suggest the value of further studies which seek to appreciate the ways in which some biblical texts themselves may have been written, or at least utilized, to inspire resistance within their readers to hegemonic social forces and cultural ideals.