The eCrozier

There is nothing a Christian can claim of personal significance. Everything that I am, that I do, everything that I have ultimately is corporate…If you stand out in a crowd it is only because you are standing on the shoulders of others. Desmond Tutu

We have just endured another nasty election cycle. While some rightly argue that our elections have always been such (the 1800 contest between Jefferson and Adams may be the nastiest on record) that should not give us any comfort. It only means our generation did not invent such behavior. It is part of our fallen human condition. That, of course, is nothing to celebrate. On the contrary, it is a call to a deeper repentance and amendment of life.

What we see being played out on our current political stage is the timeless argument between what is personal or individual in terms of rights and responsibilities and what is communal or corporate. Pick any issue that is currently contentious and you will find the thread of this tension running right through it. We find it in the Bible as well. In the last Sunday’s epistle from 2 Thessalonians, St Paul writes quite plainly: “You don’t work, you don’t eat!” Of course, St Paul also wrote: “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)”

So which is it? Are we just supposed to take care of ourselves and our own (however they get defined) or are we supposed to care also for others (again, however they get defined)? If I were on the high school debate team, I could argue either side of the argument. For example, I could never expect myself to love and care for other children more than my own. If that were the case, then I could put my three children on an airplane, fly to any remote destination in the world, and exchange them for three randomly selected children. It would be ludicrous to expect that I would love and care for those randomly selected children more than my own. The powerful love a parent has for a child is, I believe, divinely infused. Yet, because I am a parent that loves my children, I know that other parents likewise share such love for their children. So, I want them to be able to care for their children. That means they need to make a decent wage, have good health care, and get the opportunity to be well educated.

Archbishop Tutu is right. None of us has achieved anything that we can claim solely for ourselves. Parents, teachers, mentors, neighbors, and colleagues have all provided the foundation on which we stand. The self-made person is a myth; as is the person who claims self-reliance.

Let’s go back to the image of the high school debate team. The truth is both of those extremes are dead ends. The more helpful national conversation we should have is how we can best keep the individual and the corporate in appropriate balance and creative tension. The hyperbolic cacophony of voices currently dominating our national conversation is not helpful. They only lead us to Manichaean, binary choices that are decidedly unchristian.

+Scott