In fact, when we were with you,That's the NAB translation of second Thessalonians 3: 10. The NRSV doesn't soften it any:
we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work,
neither should that one eat.
For even when we were with you,And it doesn't get any gentler if we set it in the bigger context. The very next lines go on to say,
we gave you this command;
Anyone unwilling to work
should not eat.
For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Christ Jesus to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.Think about that: Earn your own living! Or starve!
That is the thing that troubles modern Christian thinking. Not the notion of work or even hard work but earning your own living combined with the suggestion that anyone unwilling to do so should be left hungry. Evangelizing and charity and ministry are all work but they aren't what the author* of this epistle has in mind here.
To earn your own living means that you have to do work that has market value: work that others are willing to pay for as opposed to something you may feel called to do, and that you must do enough of this work to pay for your own room and board. An awful lot of recent Christian thinking has pulled away from this.
It's easy to see why modern Christians, particularly modern Christians motivated by a need for what they call "social justice", would be made uncomfortable by this. For this epistle very clearly pushes an idea of social justice that is middle class and market friendly and would be a stumbling block to anyone who would suggest that communities should collectively support their members.
This good news is a very individualistic good news. It is as bourgeois and middle class as you can get. It makes a lie of the social gospel.
There is also a bigger question here that I won't get into other than to indicate what it is. The entire New Testament presents us with a Christianity that is very clearly Hellenistic through and through. Much of the recent scholarship, in fact the core of what you will get if you study the Bible in a secular setting, is an attempt to peel away all this Hellenism so as to get at the core that may have existed beforehand. This supposedly more authentic Christianity is meant to counteract the Christianity of tradition.
As it worked out, Christianity became a Hellenistic religion. It spread through the Hellenistic world. Those of us who believe God is actually, you know, God believe it happened this way because he wanted it to happen this way.
*Quite possibly Paul as tradition has always held it but some argue not.
Its interesting that some are predicting that in the Church of the future, out of economic necessity and demographic changes the Priest--like Permanent Deacons today--will hold a full-time job during the week, e.g., doctor, lawyer, construction worker, for which he is paid a salary, and then do his priestly duties, i.e., celebrating Mass, on the weekends. The other duties that priests currently do would be handed off to lay volunteers. I'm very much in favor of this. It would remove the priest from the ivory-tower life many of them lead, and maybe give them an understanding of what its like to live in the real world. It would also give them less time to get into trouble. It would give them a better education than they get in the seminary as far as dealing with people and life in general. When you think about it, many religious orders of priests, nuns, and brothers, have always operated this way, and of course the Permanent Deacons. I know nuns who are lawyers, para-legals, teachers, and priests who are full-times teachers and doctors. Sometimes they live in communities but often live in apartments or houses that they pay for with the salaries they earn. There is a rather famous Abbey of nuns 20 minutes from me who run a self-supporting farm. Our permanent deacon owns a lumber company and aside from saying Mass does everything the priest does. Sometimes they live in communities like the Abbey I mentioned, but many live in apartments which they pay for out of the salaries they earn. The notion of the priesthood or religious life as a full-time job is a fairly recent notion in the history of the Church.
ReplyDelete"This good news is a very individualistic good news. It is as bourgeois and middle class as you can get. It makes a lie of the social gospel."
ReplyDeleteWell..........I'm also reminded that Leo drew a distinction between money as the fruit of one's own labor and money as the fruit of someone else's labor. The owner of the company, for example, can acquire great wealth because of the actual labor of others, while he sits behind a desk. Some might argue that sitting behind a desk and making important decisions--or working on the trading floor and essentially placing wagers--is labor. But, its not the same kind of labor that the seamstress--in some cases children--in Sri Lanka who sew buttons on the pants we wear. And when you consider what the man behind the desk or the traders earn, compared to what the seamstress who does the actual work earns.....this did not go unnoticed by Leo, or Pius IX, or the USCCB.
So I think dismissing the social gospel as a lie based on that reading from Thessalonians is a bit short-sighted. As you have pointed out, its dangerous to draw conclusions on the basis of one or selective passages from Scripture. But its ok, I think we all do that at various times to support our own interpretations. That's why I believe that our own experience informs our reading of Scripture, whether we want it to or not, its unavoidable. And this doesn't even factor in the predispositions of the redactor(s) and the translators and "What is God really saying?" as we've discussed. As I think I've said before, we all order our religion a la carte.
And keep in mind, this is Paul's (or whoever wrote it and then translated it) opinion. Contrast that with Jesus' own words "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me" (where He was quoting almost verbatim from Isaiah 58:7) and "Whatever you did for the least of these my brothers you did for Me." When I taught CCD to 7th graders, I would always tell them if they remembered nothing else from our class, remember those passages. Because, as I see it, everything else about Christianity is built upon that foundation.
ReplyDeleteJules, I believe the prominence of 'social gospel' as I encounter it at church is out of proportion to the present society in which I find myself, and would prefer a little more, you know, ordinary salvation--the awesome kind--preached on Sundays, so I have trouble criticizing a critic of the excesses of social gospel (keep it up please).
ReplyDeleteBut you commit excesses of your own. The scripture you quote talks about people UNWILLING to work. That leaves vast amounts of space wide open for social gospel--it certainly doesn't make a lie of it. As I understood my 1st year European history course, this Christian socialism thingy got started in the 19th century when urban Europeans weren't just working hard, but in what amounts to slavery. We can thank the Christian socialists & social justice crowd that we had a weekend for a few wonderful decades (government employees still do), and a 40 hour work week (even if it is spread out over 7 days) that leaves time for thinking, reading, making love, worship, prayer, and otherwise being God's creatures.
BobbinCT (1st comment):
There are jobs and then there are jobs. I don't want my priest flipping burgers becuase some laity somewhere begrudge them their contemplative time and think real work will put hair on their chests. I couldn't do my job and deliver the Priestly goods on Sunday. It takes two days away from customer service just to become human again--forget about leading others to God.
But I appreciate the thrust of your post & enjoyed hearing the scripture read out in church. I wondered how many people were squirming and even speculated on who they might be (yes I am ashamed of myself). Maybe that's why we had a hideously limpid social justice hymn--to make them cosy again (there I go again).
ReplyDeleteIsn't it odd that, as far as I see, it is the middle/upper-middle class are drawn to a deracinated social justice Christ optional gospel, and that the less comfortably established prefer the other-worldly Isaac Watts one. Actually, nothing odd about it I guess.
"It takes two days away from customer service just to become human again--forget about leading others to God."
ReplyDeleteLOL, welcome to the real world!! I think it would do most priests a world of good to flip burgers for 40 hrs a week and then need two days to become human again, much less lead people to God. Indeed! Maybe that's why most Amercian Catholics don't take anything priests say seriously anymore. (see latest Pew Survey of American Catholics). The nuns at the Abbey of Regina Laudis near me who get up at 4:00 am to milk cows after getting up at 3:00 am to recite the Divine Office don't feel the need to "decompress" and do a very good job of leading people to God--not so such by what they say but BY THEIR EXAMPLE.
"social justice Christ optional gospel"
On the contrary, Christ is the centerpiece of the Church's teaching on Social Justice. Read it, and then weep. And its more relevant--and necessary--today than when it was first promulgated and has been consistently reaffirmed by every Pope in the ensuing 100+ years.
I'm just back from mass.
ReplyDeleteThe point that both you make that dismissing the social gospel on the basis of this one reading is stealing a few bases is legitimate. There is a lot of detail in the argument and other scripture and so forth that would be needed to make that argument adequately. I believe it can be made but I have not made it and you are right to call me on that.
In the meantime, I would point out that we should not conflate charity with social justice. The two have no necessary connection. When the Bible exhorts us to care for the hungry, the widow and the orphan it is telling us to take care of people who otherwise could not take care of themselves. It is not telling us to back up unions nor is it telling us to make the rich pay.
The project of reforming society so as to change the economic relationships between workers and bosses is something else altogether. I won't make the argument here but I honestly think that the biblical case for the social gospel is pretty close to nonexistent.
Bob is correct, however, to point out that there are bits of official Catholic social teaching that can be cited to back it up. Under the current and previous pope, the church began to move away from that position, inspired in no small part by the excesses of social gospel and liberation theology. It will be interesting to see how that teaching evolves in the coming years.
As to priests flipping burgers, I note that Paul himself made tents. I was thinking of my dear departed Uncle Christopher the other day and he used to argue that he could see supporting priests in their other priestly duties but felt that paying them to preach was simply to encourage them in their worst habits. As I get older, I find myself more and more in agreement with him on that.
I'm a big fan of religious orders making cheese and wine and other products. My enthusiasm here is purely sentimental I must admit but I don't discount it for that.
Thanks to both of you for your comments.
Sorry BobinCT, what I was thinking (but neglected to type) about in my "Christ optional" comment was about the contrast between two hymns heard in my Anglican parish today, and had nothing to do with Catholic teaching which I recognize as Christ-centred in everything including this. Sorry for my sloppiness.
ReplyDeleteThe social gospel hymn certainly was Christ-optional, the closest reference to anything Christian being the last word of the hymn, and it seemed a bit embarrassed there. It did mention "workers claim[ing] thier rights" however. And when it spoke of "freedom's light to captives" it meant it literally.
That's great for six days of the week, but today I'd prefer the message of a very specific kind of freedom -- salvation -- for example as found in a hymn by Isaac Waats (the guy that did 'Joy to the World'). The thrid verse of 'Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun' is:
Blessings abound where'er he reigns;
the prisoners leap to lose their chains;
the weary find eternal rest,
and all who suffer want are blest.
It's not the one by him we sung today (it was 'O God, Our Help in Ages Past'), but Christ certainly wasn't optional in it.
Again, sorry to be so sloppy.
Jules, thanks for the tip about conflating charity with social gospel. I'll have to chew on that. I'm not sure how far the two can be separated, but am ready to concede that we* have probably gone beyond that point.
ReplyDeleteI could use the definition of social gospel you are working with or an example. If you've already dealt with that here, would you be so kind as to point me in its direction?
*I realize the 'we' has some problems as you are Roman Catholic and when I say 'we' I'll probably be thinking of liberal Protestantism, but I do think 'we' are all more or less in a similar boat on this one.
Billy, I refer to two encyclicals, Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII, and Quadrogessimo Anno of Pius IX, and the Pastoral Letter on the Economy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which they published somewhere around 1985. In RN, Leo specifically cites the rights of workers to organize, and that capital should be at the service of the family and not the other way around, which has been reaffirmed by every Pope since then. That the last two Popes might have chosen to "soft-pedal" that is only indicative of the more pressing matters they've--well at least the current Pope--has had to deal with, e.g., damage control about the sexual abuse crisis, which shows no signs of abating any time soon, people leaving the Church in droves, abortion, and same-sex marriage.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between social justice and charity I think is a systemic one. We are all called to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, and most of us do it in small ways one person at a time. What Leo and Pius called for is more systemic, the creation of a just society that respects the inherent worth and dignity of every human person, and the right not to be exploited. This is the same Biblical basis that the Church uses to justify its position on abortion, that was the underpinning of the civil rights movement under Martin Luther King Jr., and provided the framework for the various theologies of Liberation.
Jules, your Uncle Christopher could not have been more on the money, as the situation here in the US has proved. I'm in complete agreement with him.
ReplyDeleteAlso Jules, I don't see the Church's Social Justice teaching changing or evolving much at all. The USCCB has been in the forefront of Immigration Reform and Amnesty for all illegal immigrants--the Church's only growth here in the US has been among Latinos. Worldwide the only growth has been in third-world countries where people are often exploited and live in abject poverty. So for the Church to modify its social justice teaching would imperil that growth both here in the US and around the world, not to mention do further damage (if that's possible)to its almost irreperably damaged credibility because of the sexual abuse crisis.
ReplyDeleteBob, thanks for the references. I've located them online (on the Vatican website, no less) and look forward to reading.
ReplyDeleteBob & Jules, I've really got some problems with clergy working probably due to my experience in the LDS church (Mormon). A lot of the children of the men serving as the LDS equivalent of the parish incumbent are deeply resentful of the time these very dedicated me gave to their Church. They were absentee fathers, who when they weren't at their full-time jobs were at church, and trusted God to fill the gap. They had no lives outside the two--not for their family, not for themselves.
I realize a celibate clergy doesn't run into this problem. But I can't help feel that's cheating! :-) And it doesn't help the Proddies, who are facing similar issues & prospects for clergy.
I agree there are jobs which would be compatible with the contemplative life (milking cows certainly qualifies) but not others. Work for work's sake isn't going to help.
And what happens when you're priest refuses to cash your cheque, or turns down your loan application? For most people, the fact that it was a priest doing this would just be another reason to get their hate on.
I have many Protestant friends, some Anglican, some Lutheran, some UCC. The problems you cite in LDS are also present in those denominations as well. I've heard children of ministers express resentment that their father was more available to his congregation than he was to them. I've also heard this from wives of Protestant clergy who resent the congregations because they get "two for the price of one" because clergy wives are expected to do certain things or have official capacities with no remuneration. There is also a high prevalence of alcohol abuse, I know among Anglican clergy here, but I'm sure its not limited to that denomination. And these are ministers who work full-time as ministers. It is a little bit different in the Catholic Church because of the celibacy rule.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there are some occupations that would be more approriate for a priest or a minister than others, that's a judgement call I guess. But I think that a priest or minister can bring an added perspective to some jobs that the average person would not. An Anglican priest here--married with children--recently retired after 40+ years as a successful practicing M.D. Psychiatrist. I know several Catholic priests here who went on to receive master's degrees in Counseling, or Social Work, so that they could be better priests. With those backgrounds they could easily obtain gainful employment. I can think of other professions, e.g., working for a Social Service agency, running a business, that would be appropriate for a priest or minister. I think we all--priest and laity alike--have to make time for contemplation and reflection. The problem here in the US is that too many priests use their free time unwisely on the laity's dimes, driving BMWs (I kid you not) and living lifestyles far in excess of the ability of most of the members of their flock.
Thanks for your perspective. Since posting last, I thought of a situation I know of where I imagine a job would have been both very appropriate & beneficial. There are really so many factors. (I can't imagine my own priest being expected to work additionally--they really do church full time).
ReplyDelete(Luxury cars. That's disappointing to hear, but it certainly makes it easy to understand where you are coming from. I get it!)