Caring intensely

Assistant Village Idiot has an interesting observation about assisted suicide: Christians often do not show that they seriously care about moral issues. "I don't think we actually do care very deeply about the moral issues we get exercised about. We care deeply enough to want someone else to do something, and are willing to help out in some small way, such as voting for them or signing something, or occasionally making a call."

Obviously this is a generalization; we’re all over the map. But it does seem to describe quite a few of us. Several things seem to feed into this effect.

Roles

I don’t know how many people spell it out this way, but we generally act as though we have a small set of roles and outside those roles we have the experts (or "those called and gifted") do whatever needs doing. This helps make the economic machinery go, albeit somewhat expensively (replace your own toilet if you’re strong enough to lift it, and don’t call the plumber). Unfortunately that tends to reduce us to cogs in the machine. And while maybe your preacher can explain the gospel very clearly, the fellow down the hall isn’t going to accept your invitation to go to church; if he’s going to hear the gospel you have to tell it.

Similarly, in the public square we tend to want the more articulate to do the speaking, because we mumble too much and can’t keep all the details straight. It can take a long time to become thoroughly informed about even as simple a topic as assisted suicide.

I don’t know if they still do Town Hall meetings in New Hampshire where everybody in town is invited to pipe up about town business. In this neck of the woods when I hear of a Town Hall meeting I know that a politician wants photo-ops with friendlies; uncomfortable questions aren’t welcome. We don’t practice democratic debate much.

Time

Tied in with this is the problem that the washing won’t get done if we don’t do it; and the homework won’t be done if we don’t supervise it. We can spend 15 minutes writing a letter that a clerk will read, check a counter for, and discard. Or we can spend several hours going to an evening meeting where no one will listen to us. Or we can take a day off work to go to a protest and not get paid.

So the upshot is that I should tend my own affairs, for which there is little enough time already.

Zeitgeist

I want to say that we imbibe the Zeitgeist with our mother’s milk, but it happens with adults too, and remarkably quickly. It is hard to avoid following the fashions.

The received wisdom is that because religious conflicts are so intractable, one should at all costs avoid stirring these up. And for some reason all moral questions are assumed to be religious. So you should avoid talking about moral questions outside of your tribe.

We also have an ambivalent attitude to choice. Sometimes we are determined to protect people from themselves (drug use: prescription or illegal) and sometimes we revere the individual’s perceived right to "do what he wants with his own life." Where the distinctions are to be made between "protection" and "liberation" is never made clear; it is part of the atmosphere. True, the atmosphere differs between tribes, but I never hear any first-principle discussion of this apart from libertarians.

If the moral question can be phrased in a way that makes it sound like a right, large numbers of us, even those who disagree, find it hard to object to someone else’s rights. This is, in part, because few of us have ever learned anything about the philosophical concepts involved.

Rocking the boat

I remember the calls for revolution from the 60’s and 70’s. Except for some few holdouts most people seem to have decided that the price was too high for the possible benefit. We have a very complex society; if a revolution disrupted it plenty of innocent bystanders would starve; an ironic effect for revolutions supposed to benefit the poor. We owe it to those in precarious circumstances to think of the consequences of our dramatic changes. (And of our less dramatic proposals and their unintended consequences)

I think we have an instinctive sense that our social environment is equally delicate, and that our social compacts can disintegrate if we press secondary issues too hard. In the conflict over each small hill we ask: "Is this little thing worth dying for?" and typically decide not. Only the really big things tend to rouse us.

Pietism

Arguing in the public square demands time and effort that we could devote to more clearly spiritual work: prayer, helping our neighbors, and so on. Any government is made by men, not God, and tends to be directed by the prince of this world. Making the compromises to achieve some good tends to involve approving some evil. How can any of this be perfect or pure? Best to stay home or in church or someplace where you can work on trying to live a holy life.

Seriousness

I cannot speak for all of us, but quite a few worship in ways that require nothing much beyond showing up most of the time and tossing a regular check in the basket. The band, or the priest, handle all the details. Whether this is acceptable to God is beyond my competence to decide, but it doesn’t encourage cultivation of the spiritual disciplines of insight and humility needed to engage fruitfully in the public square.

That makes it very easy to be appropriately angry or worried (within our tribe) and not feel as though anything is demanded of me.

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The upshot is that we typically don’t get involved: Sometimes for excellent reasons. Often that’s exactly what we should be doing, and I don’t like seeing churches in lock step with political parties.

I’d be more specific, but I’m trying to give up politics for Lent. I reckon that this is big-picture environment stuff and not advocacy. Even this annoyed me some; and trying for a more peaceful spirit was one of the goals.