[love and disgust]

From Richard Beck's book, unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality.

As the self gets symbolically extended so does disgust psychology, the primal psychology that monitors the boundary of the body. Disgust accompanies the self as it reaches into the world, continuing to provide emotional markers denoting “inside” versus “outside,” the boundary points of the extended symbolic self. With this understanding of the self in hand, we are well positioned to understand human love, intimacy, and relationality. Specifically, as the notion of “one flesh” highlights, love is a form of inclusion. The boundary of the self is extended to include the other. The very word intimacy conjures the sense of a small, shared space. We also describe relationships in terms of proximity and distance. Those we love are “close” to us. When love cools we grow “distant.” We tell “inside” jokes that speak of shared experiences. We have a “circle of friends.” “Outsiders” are told to “stop butting in.” We ask people to “give us space” when we want to “pull back” from a relationship. In sum, love is inherently experienced as a boundary issue. Love is on the inside of the symbolic self.

….

What we discover in all this is that disgust and love are reciprocal processes. Disgust erects boundaries while love dismantles boundaries. This was the conclusion of St. Catherine noted in the quote at the start of the chapter: sound hygiene was incompatible with charity. One also thinks of St. Francis rushing up to kiss the leper. Love is, at root, the suspension of disgust, the psychic fusion of selves.

Beck, pp. 86, 88.

See the jesus febrezus cartoon in the previous post.

jesus febrezus

It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met him. They kept their distance but raised their voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

Luke 17:11-13, The Message

While the cartoon is consistent with our western attitudes toward those who are unclean (whatever that means to each of us), this is not how the real Jesus responded. Here's the rest of the passage:

Taking a good look at them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests."

They went, and while still on their way, became clean. One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus' feet, so grateful. He couldn't thank him enough—and he was a Samaritan.

Luke 17:14-16, The Message

This is the first cartoon in my "unclean" series, inspired by reading Richard Beck's book unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. I will be pairing these cartoons with related quotes from Beck (usually posted after the cartoon), which I recommend you read.
Edited June 25/2012

business as usual

What should be the church's "business as usual? What have you experienced it to be?

Churches and Christians often act as if their purpose is to focus on right and wrong, even to the point of enforcing this in the lives of others. What's with that?

Was Jesus' life focused on right and wrong, or on loving people and speaking the truth in ways that they could hear it? Granted, he also had this annoying habit (annoying particularly to the very religious people) of upsetting the status quo, overturning power structures, and breaking social mores. He probably wouldn't be welcomed in most churches....

[God's partiality]

From Miroslav Volf's book Exclusion and Embrace:

Consider, second, God’s partiality. In the biblical traditions, when God looks at a widow, for instance, God does not see “a free and rational agent,” but a woman with no standing in society. When God looks at a sojourner, God does not see simply a human being, but a stranger, cut off from the network of relations, subject to prejudice and scapegoating. How does the God who “executes justice for the oppressed” act toward widows and strangers? Just as God acts toward any other human being? No. God is partial to them. God “watches over the strangers” and “upholds the orphan and the widow” (Psalm 146:7-9) in a way that God does not watch over and uphold the powerful.

Why is God partial to widows and strangers? In a sense, because God is partial to everyone—including the powerful, whom God resists in order to protect the widow and the stranger. God sees each human being concretely, the powerful no less than the powerless. God notes not only their common humanity, but also their specific histories, their particular psychological, social, and embodied selves with their specific needs. When God executes justice, God does not abstract but judges and acts in accordance with the specific character of each person. Do we not read, however, that God’s Messiah will “not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth” (Isaiah 11:3-4). But should we conclude that his eyes will be closed when executing justice? To the contrary. He will judge truly because he will not judge by appearances and hear-say. God treats different people differently so that all will be treated justly.

Volf, pp. 221-222

ticket to heaven

Fr. Ron Rolheiser, omi, wrote:

"The great Jewish prophets, the forerunners of Jesus, coined a mantra which ran something like this: The quality of your faith will be judged by the quality of justice in the land and the quality of justice in the land will be judged by how "widows, orphans and strangers" (biblical code for the three most vulnerable groups in society) fared while you were alive.

Jesus wouldn't disagree. When he describes the last judgment at the end of Matthew's Gospel, he tells us that this judgment will not be, first of all, about right doctrine, good theology, church attendance, or even personal piety and sexual morality, but about how we treated the poor. Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor. Jesus and the great biblical prophets make that clear."

Source: WCR, posted Feb 7/2011; retrieved jan 14/2012
Thanks to Laurier for pointing me to this quote from Fr. Rolheiser.

It's pretty obvious who the orphans and widows are in our culture. Who are the strangers? Just people we don't know, or perhaps people we find to be strange (viz., different than us)? Who are the most vulnerable groups in our society?

sermon from the pit

[lady gaga, jesus, and little monsters]

Richard Beck on his blog has an excellent post about Lady Gaga and how she embodies the gospel:

In short, in this song [Bad Kid] Gaga is trying to get on the inside of these "monsters," to speak to their brokenness, sadness, loneliness and alienation. To society these are "bad kids." But Gaga sings to them "You're still good to me."

And I ask you, doesn't that sound a whole lot like Jesus?

Gaga calls out to the little monsters. And Jesus eats with tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes.

...

This is what I think. I think every Christ-following church should start talking to their youth groups, saying unambiguously: We want you to be a wall of protection for kids like Jamey. Seek out and protect--emotionally and socially--every weird, weak, nerdy, lonely, queer kid at your school. We don't care if they are a goth, or a druggy, or a queer. Doesn't matter. Protect these kids. Churches should train their youth groups to be angels of protection, teaching them to find these kids and say, "Hey, I love you. Jesus loves you. So no one's going to bully you. Not on my watch. Come sit with me at lunch." That's what I think. I think every Christ-following church should start Guardian Angel programs like this, teaching their kids to stick up for kids like Jamey. Not with violence. But with welcome and solidarity. Because it's hard to bully a group. So let's welcome these kids into a halo of protection and friendship.

From The Gospel according to Lady Gaga by Richard Beck. Reading the entire post is recommended!

What a difference it would make for today's youth, if churches encouraged and equipped their young people in this way! What a challenge to be outwardly-focused in a way that is concrete and desperately needed.

[hitler’s sweater]

From Richard Beck's book, unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. Regarding a study which (put briefly) investigated whether people would be willing to put on a sweater purportedly worn by Hitler:

What studies like this reveal is that people tend to think about evil as it if were a virus, a disease, or a contagion. Evil is an object that can seep out of Hitler, into a sweater, and, by implication, into you if you try the sweater on. Evil is sticky and contagious. So we stay away.

What we see in this example is how disgust psychology regulates how we reason about and experience aspects of the moral universe. Disgust psychology prompts us to think about evil as if it were a virus or polluting object. When we do this the logic of contamination is imported into moral discourse and judgment. For example, as noted earlier, we begin to worry about contact. In the domain of food aversion contact with a polluting object is a legitimate concern. But fears concerning contact might not be appropriate or logical in dealing with moral issues or social groups. Worse, a fear of contact might promote antisocial behavior (e.g., social exclusion) on our part.

The example of Hitler might sound extreme, but consider another study done by Paul Rozin, Maureen Markwith, and Clark McCauley. In this study the researchers observed that many people don’t want to wear sweaters previously owned by homosexual persons, or even lie down in the same hotel bed if a homosexual person was the previous night’s occupant. In short, just about any behavior judged to be sin could active disgust psychology, subsequently importing contamination logic (e.g., contact fears) into the life of the church.

Beck, pp. 25-26.

man's best friend

Once in a while, Pastor Stickman's resistance to wearing his reading glasses does him good.

And further to dog's love for us, the Archbishop of Canterbury has asked,

What difference would it make if I believed I am held in a wholly loving gaze which saw all my surface accidents and arrangements, all my inner habits and inheritances, all my anxieties and arrogances, all my history, and yet loved me wholly with an utterly free, utterly selfless love? And what difference would it make if I let myself believe that each person around me is loved and held in the same overwhelming, loving gaze, and that this love made no distinctions of race, religion, age, innocence, strength or beauty?

(as quoted in a sermon by Bishop Jane on March 4, 2012).

And that is what dog is like, loving us with an utterly free, utterly selfless love, no matter what, and wanting us to do the same for others.

trump

Why is it that the "gay = sin" card so often trumps the "love your neighbour as yourself" card?

I realize that some people believe "gay = sin" is Biblical, and others do not. The point here is that, for those who do believe it, why do they so often stop believing in love? Why do they find it so easy to treat people in ways which are opposite to the way of Jesus?

Why, when faced with ideas that seem contradictory, do we find it hard to choose love?

[in or out]

I couldn't resist posting this image from www.postsecret.com (week of January 21/12). It illustrates how we sometimes judge people based on the silliest things.

FYI
Postsecret.com is a website to which people send their secrets on postcards. Each week, a selection of postcards is shown online. The postcards cover a wide range of topics and emotions. Richard Beck has written about postsecret.com on his blog, particularly from his perspective as a research psychologist. On his first post on the topic, Beck says,

No doubt, many with find PostSecret odd, exhibitionistic, ill, and voyeuristic. I think these adjectives do apply. But at its core I think PostSecret has touched a nerve and is meeting a need. A need for authenticity and acceptance that the church has failed to address.

defining anti-gay

The pastor and church doesn't treat lgbt people the same as straight people, yet claims to not be anti-gay. Do you agree? Does it matter how lgbt members of the congregation feel about this?

Who defines anti-gay — the powerful or the powerless? The privileged or the marginalized?

Compare this cartoon with the 'defining hate' cartoon — there it is pretty obvious that we wouldn't and shouldn't let the slave owner decide whether he is being hateful toward his slaves. Is it as easy to decide with this cartoon? While the overall situations are not parallel, do the same principles apply in terms of the minority being given a voice and the right to say whether they feel those in power are against them?

defining hate

Would you believe the slave owner who says that he does not hate his slaves? Would you even need to ask the slaves their opinion on this question? Or would you say that owning someone is inherently hateful regardless of whether you "take good care of them" or not?

Who defines hate - the powerless or the powerful?

[psychological non-starters]

From Richard Beck's book, unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality

In sum, the antagonism between mercy and sacrifice is psychological in nature. Our primitive understandings of both love and purity are regulated by psychological dynamics that are often incompatible. Take, for example, a popular recommendation from my childhood years. I was often told that I should “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” Theologically, to my young mind (and, apparently, to the adults who shared it with me), this formulation seemed clear and straight-forward. However, psychologically speaking, this recommendation was extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to put into practice. As any self-reflective person knows, empathy and moral outrage tend to function at cross-purposes. In fact, some religious communities resist empathy, as any softness toward or solidarity with “sinners” attenuates the moral fury a group can muster. Conversely, it is extraordinarily difficult to “love the sinner” –to respond to people tenderly, empathically, and mercifully—when you are full of moral outrage over their behavior. Consider how many churches react to the homosexual community or to young women considering an abortion. How well do churches manage the balance between outrage and empathy in those cases? In short, theological or spiritual recommendations aimed at reconciling the competing demands of mercy and sacrifice might be psychological non-starters.

Beck, p. 3

After drawing numerous cartoons which comment on the idea of "love the sinner, hate the sin," I found Beck's take on this from a psychological perspective very interesting. And it's pretty obvious that most churches who believe this infamous saying aren't doing a good job of following it.

opposites

And how can we encourage one another to be more like the Jesus we read about in the Gospels?