Rearticulating Humility with Christianity

Underlying Agenda, Part II:  Rearticulating Humility with Christianity

           I’m directing this blog at an audience of tolerant American Christians and secular activists coming from a mixed Christian background. The message is this, that self-defense against a supposed enemy (for example, Muslim war targets and proselytizers) only serves to undermine Christian agape and further contributes to the loss of compassionate Christian identity. As I see it, the more that louder “strong-arm” Christians claim institutional identity for themselves, the more compassionate, open-minded Christians quietly pack up their humility and bail on Christianity altogether.

          Since when was religion about streamlining? Making faith about literal translations from a wildly assorted spiritual text has the effect of throwing the baby out with the bathwater: the precious, mindful element takes off, and nothing of the original revolutionary caritas remains. Without humility, Christianity is nothing but false triumphalism. Into the oppressive Roman Empire God sent His Messiah, as a baby, not a warrior, who preached (among other anti-intuitive points) that the meek will inherit the earth, whose most violent act was throwing a hissy fit outside the Temple, and who was executed in humiliation. Even the Resurrection didn’t set the repressive conditions right (the Romans destroyed the Temple a couple of decades later), for the point of salvation is internal transformation. It’s not about forcing others to live by an inflexible code; it’s about internalizing the message of Christian love, which leaves one aghast in gratitude, searching for ways to show that same unmerited, unconditional love to the most different of others.

Thus the Christian’s struggle in the world becomes ever more complex, in the effort to distinguish between the reassuring appearance of propriety and actual expressions of love.

It’s a shame that people comfortable with complexity think they have to abandon their Christian heritage, whether elbowed out by the effects of “streamlining,” or by prioritizing complexity for its own (empty) sake.  Where families’ traditions diverge, it may seem narrow-minded or arbitrary to commit to one denomination (or religion) or another, but opting out entirely rationalizes a lack of commitment. Likewise, deferring the decision to attend church (synagogue, mosque) until the children of a “mixed marriage” are “old enough to decide for themselves” usually results in their lifelong agnosticism. I’ve even known people who attempt to keep their children from becoming indoctrinated in a single ideology, but that’s just trusting popular culture (i.e. watered-down, sometimes warped Judeo-Christian morality) to provide their children’s foundational ethical narrative. Rationalizing and delaying commitment are simply easier routes.

 However, there are those who consciously lead their children into rechanneled commitment to worthy activist causes. In fact, I suspect that there is a lot of latent Christian motivation in the secular antiracist, green and Occupy movements, and how can that be bad? Indeed, it is very good when people are advocating on behalf of the disadvantaged. I would go so far as calling that Christian, not to force a necessarily self-professed allegiance onto people, but rather to recognize that their actions may very well spring from Christian compassion.

But why label it? Because dissociating humility from Christianity cuts people loose from their innate spirituality, and it robs them of the rich historical allusions present in the Christian narrative of redemption. I’m sure that I could find some statistics (if I took stock in statistics as a method of proof) on the high percentage of non-practicing people with a Christian heritage who say they are “spiritual.” Let’s say it’s a trend, rampant in Europe, too. By separating their good deeds from their spiritual impulses their ethics become subjective, they are cut off from corporate worship, and religion becomes so private as to be embarrassing.

Thanks to Freud and Alfred Kinsey we’ve brought sexuality partially out of the closet, so why would we shove the equally basic human instinct to worship a Creator back into it?

No doubt faith is unintellectual. Yet my “intellectual” reason (there are other more primal reasons) for not converting to Islam is that I view religion as deeply embedded in culture. I’m Christian partially because it’s inscribed into the language I speak and read, and comprises the cultural stories of redemption that I encounter again and again. I’m Christian because I think in trinities and dozens, and because “The Shawshank Redemption” and other Stephen King stories echo through me. Some people are spiritual seekers looking for new experiences with the divine, whereas I groove on the deep resonances I find between Charles Wesley’s lyrics and the early Church fathers’ writings. Religion’s more than a subject of study, though, for I’m embroiled in uncovering layers and making meaning for my own life.      

It could be argued that all Americans with a Christian heritage have access to these layers of meaning inscribed in our very way of thinking—or that alternately, am I arguing that people without a Western heritage cannot be Christian?—but the point is depth of investment. Christians coming from non-Western backgrounds are actively making connections between their cultural wisdom and Christian tropes, whereas secular Westerners have available the history of Christianity but lack the holistic investment needed to completely appreciate its legacy.

But I’m not defending Christianity’s track record, which is abysmal. I’m not staying with Christianity for its anti-Christian abuses throughout the past 2000 years (although I am implicated in those abuses and need to work within Christianity to atone for them), but for its revolutionary compassion that quietly emerges from time to time. Humility may not only spring from the Christian narrative, but the story of Jesus, God’s living message on earth, provides a clear model to follow. It’s a model that undergirds much secular American activism. I choose to dig into my tradition, seeking awareness rather than alternatives.

This blog will attempt to re-articulate humility and Christianity in both senses: to speak anew about the largely abandoned concept of selflessness, as well as to attempt to rejoin the two, the way a limb is rearticulated after being severed from the body.

Witness to Humility in the Extreme

Underlying Agenda, Part I:  Believe Me, I’m a Witness to Humility in the Extreme

          Let this be an addendum to the stated purpose of the blog. Essentially I’m endorsing an improbable, unpopular action: living in Christian humility in all interactions. Furthermore, I’m assuming, under the current state of affairs (post 9/11 and due to the continuing US wars, not to mention xenophobia exacerbated by high unemployment), that one of the most extreme stretches for most Americans would be behaving humbly towards Muslims.

          I am in the ideal position to attest to the challenge of humility towards Muslims; after all, my well-intended homemade cookies were rejected at the women’s university in Riyadh because my hands are considered dirty. “Who needs ‘em? I’ll save on cookie dough” might be a natural, perhaps benign, response. For me, the ongoing effort to live in humility with Muslims is both very real and provides an extreme example of the challenge of humility. How does one remain open-hearted in the wake of cultural denunciation while not internalizing it? I pray for the courage to be loving. The upshot?: I don’t believe that I have dirty hands, yet I’m willing to allow Muslims to obligate me with their hospitality, despite the fact that my reciprocity is sometimes rejected.

Who am I kidding? Over the years I’ve retreated somewhat from these painful encounters. Still, I have plenty of cultural conundrums to recount for the sake of pushing humility to its limits.     

Tuglool

Tuglool:  A mild pejorative in the Arab Magreb.  It is used for a person who doesn’t react to a taunt, and means “bump on a log.”  When I was taunted in this interactive Mediterranean culture, my German-Scottish reaction was to “rise above” and not “lower myself” to the level of the person teasing me.  While I may be slower than most Americans at the quick retort, and don’t think that retorting is necessarily un-Christian, in my bruised state I defended my nonreaction as “turning the other cheek,” thus theologizing what could be viewed as a simple cultural difference.  Still, the issue recurs from time to time, and I defend my gullibility as an indication that I don’t carry a chip on my shoulder.

Love Your Enemy

          If any group has been constructed as our modern day enemy, it’s the besieged Muslims under fire by our war machine across the world, as well as their relatives living inconspicuously in the United States. Instead of allowing their different perspectives and too-similar religious foundation to worry us into avoidance, we need to apply Jesus’ exhortation to embrace our enemy with agape, Christian love. This means challenging the Christianity-lite that glosses this basic Christian obligation, or trivializes it to the point of “forgiving” somebody who steals the prime parking spot, for example.

No, Muslims have been Christians’ blood enemies since the reprehensible Crusades, which are essentially being repeated under the vague guise of “security,” (i.e. access to resources so we can continue polluting the earth? Or for the sake of American imperialism?). Americans are actively defining Muslims as enemy targets, as enemies-by-association with extremists, and as theological threats. Notice that I’m not denying that Muslims are enemies (to whatever extent) to American Christians; I’m saying that Jesus says to LOVE our enemies.

          Loving one’s enemies means accepting them on their own terms.

          Whoa!!! “On their own terms”?! Don’t we expect people to meet us halfway? Did Jesus go halfway to Jerusalem, carry half the cross halfway to Golgotha, and suffer half the pain of death? Islam denies the Passion on the principle that such a beloved prophet shouldn’t need to suffer. True, the crucifixion wasn’t necessary. In fact, it’s absurd that the Son of God would die in ignominy; it’s scandalous even. Because my theology has been shaped in relation to Muslim views of Christianity, my explanation is that the Passion and Resurrection are the Great Follow-Through, the undeserved gift of hope and unification with God. Our grateful response, as limited as it is, must be to attempt to love others unconditionally, especially our enemies.       

Being Evangelized with Blessed Assurance

          We were living in married student housing and had at the time two preschoolers and a baby, when a very nice Asian Muslim came over to visit. She was a liberal Muslim, even a music student, aware that some factions of Muslims frown on music. She charitably confessed to singing classical Christian music, but she drew the line, however, at singing the Gloria Patre. I completely understood this boundary, for the Gloria Patre is dear to me as the standing up, memorized high point of a church service. Singing it I always look upwards in praise towards the cross and the sky. I rejoined her with my inability to repeat after my twinkle-eyed mother-in-law the Shahada, and we were off into a four-hour religious discussion.

          By the time she left our cordiality had leathered, and I was not just all-day-factory-tired but on the verge of resentful. She must’ve been equally surprised at the length of our discussion, maybe even at the upwelling of her own evangelism. We both tried: she, to convey the irresistible beauty of Islam, and I, to remain open. For Muslims, the religion of Islam is the culmination of the Judeo-Christian prophet cycle, which includes the beloved prophet Issa, Jesus; the Quran sets the tradition straight once and for all. It’s similar to the way Christians view the New Testament as a supplementary corrective to the Torah: why stay stuck in the old version when there is a definitive, all-inclusive update? My husband had also been genuinely surprised that I didn’t convert.

          One reason that Christian and secular Americans avoid Muslims is this very self-assured, sincere evangelism. Honestly, I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I weren’t concerned with Christian-to-Muslim attrition. I’ve even contributed to it with four Muslim offspring and now a daughter-in-law. However, another part of me says Eh? what’s the problem? they’re worshipping (and faith is good) the same monotheistic Creator called Allah by Arab Christians. What's more, my open-minded influence has a positive effect on the development of homegrown American Islam, through them. The twinge of bereavement I feel as a congregant during baptisms is a small price to pay for being an example of tolerance.   

          It takes understated courage, but it is possible to encounter Muslims without risk of loss of Christian identity. On the contrary, Christian humility as more than a stance or demeanor, but as a way of life, is not passive or weak, or easily erased. Rather, the humility it takes to undefensively hear out sincere Muslim proselytizers may strike Muslims as quaint, and most other Christians as absurdly foolish. However, there’s a proud history to Christian humility, and it’s needed now more than ever.