Conversion, Incrementalism and Confirmation

Right this minute, I’m writing from a room full of irreflexive, very privileged, privately educated 19 years old. I think they’re sweet. Are they horribly selfish? Should someone use violence against them in an effort to bring the realities of the world closer to where they are?

If some of these students are Christians, I’ve no idea how to make committed, compassionate "radicals" out of them. I’m not even 100% sure whether it’s needed. I can’t decide whether I’m in favour of radical conversions or of meaningful incrementalism.

My partner thinks that conversion is a process, with some important moments in that process, but a process nevertheless. I tend to think that conversion is a one-off plunge which you take or do not take (and I don't think I have).

To be precise, in theory I’m in favour of "one-off" conversions, but in practice I expect no more than (significant) incrementalism from my friends and from my young students.

If this were to tie into ecclesiology, then I think that Christians get confirmed way too soon, and without being overly reflexive. In my opinion, confirmation should be undergone much later -I’d say 25 or above-.

That or we would need a further milestone, sometime around 30, whenever people have started having jobs, mortgages, and adult responsibilities in general. As a kind of comprehensive general life overhaul, I think it would be helpful.

The little red post

Marx thought that capitalism would destroy itself, and be replaced with a harmonious society.

It would happen when exploitation got too dire, and the working class would organise itself and launch a revolution

In order to avoid this (exploitation getting too dire), it made sense to organise the working class as soon as possible – this is political communism, which didn’t really work.

Nowadays exploitation (and deprivation) are getting dire.

And instead of organising themselves as a class and unpicking the mechanisms of global capitalism, people just think that the other tribe is the enemy.

All wars start because the other tribe is doing supposedly something so wrong that it justifies violence, or even eradication. The others are “cockroaches” who oppress us, thus our “liberation” means getting rid of them, as a step towards the utopia that we’re going to build.

And all of this starts because people (collectively) have no access to resources. And they do want access to these resources.

The problem is that they want it from people who think that the resources they have are too scarce to share. And sometimes this is objectively true. If there’s a drought in your country but the next country is less affected, the other country is by no means affluent, it is struggling too!

The West depicts the warring parties as “savages”. And in any case, it’s their problem.

Class did not organise itself. Evidence suggests that scapegoating takes place instead. When exploitation and deprivation get dire, we’ll blame the neighbouring tribe. Not the pension funds.

Thus capitalism doesn’t get challenged. And it keeps on doing its thing: concentrating resources in the hands of the few, and not giving a rat’s that some people are left with no land, no job, no money and no food.

If you’re left with no land, no job, no money and no food, and there is not obvious enemy, you can always migrate to the cities.

There, if you’re lucky, you’ll find an institution that organises solidarity among its members. There, if you’re lucky, those who still have a job will share their stuff with you.

Every now and again, developers will see your community as “a slum”, they will blame your community for all sorts of social evils and threaten to rase it, sometimes successfully.

And the world will wait for Western Christians to decide that they, too, may want to be members of that institution which organises solidarity among its members.

Duo of quotes

I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our socio-economic system. What I do mean is that all that thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realise that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

The aim is "to bring about the kind of society where it is easier to be good.'' - The Catholic Worker.

Return of the Bossy Bitch

We're taking a group of 50 second years to Glasgow on a fieldtrip next week. The fieldtrip leader is making it clear that we'll be co-responsible for running the thing and I need to be able to step in and take charge some of the time. Right now I've got to get all psyched up for it and think up some structure, structure, structure. There better not be any "difficult types" in the student contingent :-)

And the week after that I've got to run the catering for my Church's regional meet up. Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea for 80 people. Doom. Doom.

Intractable?

But modern human aspirations include not only liberation from exterior pressures which prevent fulfillement as a member of a certain social class, country, or society. Persons seek likewise an interior liberation, in an individual and intimate dimension; they seek liberation not only on a social plane but also on a psychological. -Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation.

On Friday I was at the pub with some friends. In that pub, there was a guy that most everyone avoids like the plague: he smells and he is "too far gone". Upon bumping into him, that was my thinking too: "OMG, he's a goner".

This type of encounters always leads me into big metaphysical reflections: Why does God let that happen? Why do we have such hellish alienation in our midst? Why is it that even the nice guys I was with avoid him like the plague? Why do I want to run away too?

I dwelled in my own thoughts for a while, half an hour or so. Quakers have a policy of always "waiting for leadings" anyway, they're very wary of premature action. So there I was. It was the twentieth such guy I've encountered, and I did not want to engage. I wanted to stay out.

At some point, I did feel able to engage, but I knew I had to have rock solid boundaries in place. I don't mean boundaries as in not allowing myself to like the guy. I mean boundaries as in being able to step out before it started feeling wrong, to step out while I was still unconditionally supportive. And it would start feeling wrong. Hell, this guy "felt wrong" to the entire pub!

So I did that. I flirted with the guy for fifteen minutes, sending out my "love vibes" and sustaining eye contact. It sounds like a tiny achievement, and God knows it is, but this guy hadn't looked anyone in the eye for -what do I know?- a week?

There's a human being underneath it all, and damn it, if we're not giving out any love, is he to blame? One's got to start somewhere. And if that somewhere is sustaining unjudging eye contact for ten minutes, then so be it!

"Stay tuned to what you feel", I thought. And I could feel my jedi powers starting to run dry. Time to exit. You can never "carry the whole guy". You can't even fully carry your friends for very long, let alone alcoholic strangers. "Great to meet you" I said.

For this short time, I was truly starting to like the guy, it just didn't last very long. I knew it wouldn't: the guy is not easy to love, practically everyone else has given up, and this is a very friendly pub that usually welcomes strangers into its social dynamics.

I got myself a pint and went back to my group of friends. I knew what would happen then. The guy would want more. A hell of a lot more. At this point stay firm. Supportive but firm. Convey that you want time with your friends and that's it.

Maybe start again next time. Say "hi", strike a chat, move out before you run out of jedi powers, remain supportive and start again a week later. Give little. Give very little. But give cheerfully. Genuine pleasure in the company of others. If that's not "love", then at least it comes pretty close, or so I tell myself.

Today's cheesy midi tune (in English)

For those at the back of the class who are still struggling with the Hebrew psalm, here’s a new (and long awaited) cheesy midi tune in plain English. And the best news, dear readers, is that you can even choose your own tune from this list or this one, so have fun with this lefty sort of hymn purloined from the Anglo-catholic socialism website!

O Hope of all the lowly!
To thirsting souls how kind!
What grace to all who seek you!
What bliss to all who find!

My tongue but feebly praises,
Yet praise be my employ;
Love makes me bold to praise you,
For you are all my joy.

Dwell with us, and our darkness
Will flee before your light;
Scatter the world's deep midnight,
And fill it with delight.

Oh humankind, behold him,
And seek his love to learn;
And let your hearts, in seeking,
Be fired with love and burn.

O come, O Sun of Justice!
Eternal judge and kind,
The longing world awaits you:
Arise, arise, and shine.

Coffee number nine: irrelevant

H. You guys are an irrelevance, you can't talk to the Prime Minister, you can't talk to Bill Gates, but the mainstream church can. If the Bishop criticises the government, it's front page news for a week, talk about leverage.

D. Well, I think that Jesus was an irrelevance to Rome too.

H. Absolutely! Jesus could not speak to Rome, but his followers could and that's a great thing! Constantine turning to Christianity is the best news since the Resurrection. What would we have been if this had not happen, another obscure sect that would have never taken on? Have you got any idea how many lives have been changed because of Constantinian Christianity?

D. In my opinion Jesus was clever enough to have a friendly chat with Pilates, it that had been what he was on about. But that was not it. I think he was on creating a new way of being together, quite apart from the structures of Empire. We're meant to be new creations. You've read the Costly Grace chapter right?

H. Your thing, your "discipleship and solidarity" thing, it sounds good over a glass of wine, but it will never work, it will never take on. I mean, I take it back, maybe it will for twenty people, and those twenty people will still be an irrelevance.

D. Bloody hell, I never thought we'd enact The Grand Inquisitor right in your living room. This is so existential, I feel like it's the biggest question ever asked. I don't know, I was looking for something else, the pearl of great value for which you would sell anything.

H. But you're not consistent! Just today you asked me to get a salad from the shop. Maybe that's from Kenya you know. You're not consistent. It's a rich kids' concern your stuff. It's not even real. You remind me of the college kids that set up a socialist workers' stand in the street. It's not real. Your ideals are too far removed from practice.

D. You're right I'm not consistent, and I don't even know anyone who is. But I know some who try, who try their hardestest, and I think that's beautiful. So I'm not committed? I say it's a continuum, I know people who are 85% consistent. While your conservative congregation, we're happy if they're 1% committed. Have they ever engaged with the stuff?

H. Don't criticise my people. I'm grateful that they're 1% committed, that pays the bills.

D. What bills? Your fucking leaking roof? Their investments are literally killing people in other parts of the world.

H. Yeah, the church's leaking roof. If that's all I achieve, then that's all I achieve. And anyway, a lot of people who are 1% committed will achieve a hell of a lot more than your handful of 20 weirdos who are 85% committed.

D. I'm not sure, but you might be depriving them of the Gospel.

H. No YOU are betraying the Gospel by turning it into an elitist club for saintly middle class freaks and implying that everybody else is out.

D. But hell H, we need the saintly freaks! More than ever. I don't know what drives you, but I think I really like that Leon Bloy quote that "Any Christian who is not a hero is a pig". And you know what? That church structure you've got, I don't like it. You say you've got lots of people knocking on the door asking for food or petrol money and that you do what you can. My point is, they shouldn't all be knocking on YOUR door. What's the congregation doing? What solidarity exists between your folks? Are we all locked into a liberal panopticon of sorts? I need to be challenged.

H. You're right, in a way, you're right and I do challenge them. But you walking about blatantly hating their guts is not the way to do it.

D. So civilised dining with the conservative members of your church is the way forward.

H. Oh yes, it is.