Does Social Service conflict with Social Justice?

In a speech I heard today by Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, Bond responded to a question about the rates of volunteerism among the younger generation (contextually, everyone considered a youth vote-that is, everyone 18- 30).

He concluded that, while extraordinary and commendable, the high rates of volunteering among our nation's youth end up in hours almost entirely in social service-Habitat for Humanity and similar organizations. This was not true in the 50's and 60's, when America's young people worked stridently for social justice- social change in civic centers.

"If you had social justice," he concluded, "you would not need social service."

That, I've decided, was a deliberately provocative statement. And because this is not an editorial but something different, I'm establishing some rules: first, let's set aside the issue of generational difference. There's not much we can do about it at any rate. And let's set aside the conflicts of the 60's, which I've never considered particularly interesting; this includes the question of ennabling dependency vs. addressing need. And, to be monkish about it, let's put it in a Gospel context- what advances the Kingdom of God?

So, all of that being said, does social service conflict with social justice? Obviously, we should and must do both. But, given a limited lifetime and finite resources, is my generation's propensity for ladling soup and spackling the homeless itself a sort of injustice by ommission? Or is the act of giving of oneself for the sake of others the most justice one can ever do, whatever comes of it? Obviously, pace Paul, we must answer individual callings- but should we consider our broader social context when doing so?

This is usually when I yell at myself about being abstract. But we're talking about real people acting toward other real people in very real ways. It would behoove us to know if we're better off going down to People Serving People or applying to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And the real decline of talent in civic service is a hugely lamentable thing- but the Church's role as the hub of charity to millions cannot be overlooked, and it's on the decline, too.

Perhaps it's the split, not of ideology, but of people, that buggered us.

I'd be curious, too, about where liberation theology would come down on the question. What would the poor themselves think about this? What can we learn in the faces of the poor in this regard?

Well, this is your chance to editorialize! I haven't decided yet myself, so I'd like to know what you think! It is not good, after all, for Curious Monk to be alone.

I look forward to your comments below.

Daily Prayer: Tuesday Dawn

We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in him and we cannot help being happy: we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which we are destined in our creation. If we love everything else but God, we contradict the image born in our very essence, and we cannot help being unhappy, because we are living in a caricature of what we were meant to be.

Daily Prayer: Monday Day

Examen

Perhaps I am stronger than I think.
Perhaps I am even afraid of my strength, and turn it against
myself, thus making myself weak.
Making myself secure. Making myself guilty.
Perhaps I am most afraid of the strength of God in me.
Perhaps I would rather be guilty and weak in myself,
than strong in Him who I cannot understand.

Benediction

And lo! God my God!
Look! Look! I travel in Thy strength.
I swing in the grasp of They love, Thy great Love's
One Strength.
I run Thy swift ways, Thy straightest rails
Until my life become Thy Life and sails or rides
Like an express!

Editorial: God is in the Cheez-Itz

Since the original purpose of this blog was a specific kind of journalism, I suppose it would behoove me to write occasionally about an actual event. So, that being said, the recent Interfaith Church Crawl was a rousing, if rather extended epic, success. A group of over 20 people listened to a short talk in each of three sacred spaces: Masjid An-Nur, Temple Israel, and St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral.

What made it worth going, though, was when the Jewish organizer of the event said, "We really don't need any more Christians"...in regard to that faith's over- representation in the program.

Beyond that, the three talks, each by a member of the downtown clergy, described the sacred space each Abrahamic faith incorporates into religious life.

The Islamic faith creates a sacred space around each of its adherents. The worship area denotes a small space around each person specifically for prayer and standing, bowing, and prostrating. To my idiotically small understanding of Islam, this makes sense as the five pillars center around individual practice and individual devotion.

This is not to say that Islam cannot generate communities of faith- quite the opposite, the nation of Islam considering- but it is to say that its theological intention of Islam is the submission of the individual before God. Prayer may be stronger in groups, teaching and instruction occur in groups, but the basic building unit of Islam is the individual believer.

Temple Israel, alternatively, denotes sacred space in a different fashion, and for a different reason. That is to say that it does not center on the person at all. Everything in the sanctuary of the Temple- yep, they use the word sanctuary, too- orients one not toward the practice of prayer but to the center of the service: which is, of course, the five scrolls of the Torah.

A hint to what I mean: because the scrolls are all that matter, anyone can read them. There are no clergy among the (reformed) Jews, we learn. There are only professional Jews. Faithful Jewish observers emphasize the text so much that memorization takes second seat to reading one's marriage vows aloud.

Christian sacred space seemed a bit harder to describe, but I believe that we got there anyway. Because we got into an extended discourse on the apostolic succession and the communion between Anglican and Catholic bishops. Now this may seem a pedantic point, and, as I said to the Vicar, "but it's quintessentially Christian to exaggerate trivial distinctions to the point of absurdity."

Morever, it only matter because nothing matters more to Christianity that the body of its believers. The building block of Christianity is not now and never has been the individual but has always been the ecclesia, the body of believers per the example of Paul's letters. So disputes about who is holy and who is allowed to do what end up mattering a very great deal.

As I said in an aside, "There is no holier space than the space between us." In other words, Christians sit in pews. All in a row, all in the same overturned boat. "Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there am I..." We could just as easily have gone to Chipotle and broken out our Bibles, though this might be harder to do with some Episcopalians than others.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Imagine two friends sitting on a couch. They're watching a DVD, maybe it's the Incredibles. They have a snack on the cushion between them: bright red box, little yellow crackers. At the same time, they both reach in. Their hands touch. There is a frisson, a shiver, a moment of unexpected connection.

That's Christianity. God is in the Cheez-itz. The most sacred space of all.

Cliff Notes: The First Urban Christians

Change in social status was a factor in the growth of early Christianity. However, status itself is never simple and is a composite of several economic, cultural, and political factors.

For instance, trademen could rank quite high in Roman culture economically, but would not rank as high culturally, not being tied in to Greco-Roman arts and tastes. And someone as socially low in status as a slave could become a philosopher or a successful business owner, but would always carry the social stigma of slavery.

What is true of Christianity in its early days is that is set about equalizing the social status of key groups of individuals. That is to say that a slave or former slave carried no social stigma in Christian belief- one can see where this would be compelling for a freed slave trying to make his or her way in a Roman world and never quite getting there.

Similarly, though women could be wealthy and manage households under Roman custom it is only in Christianity that their sex carried no social disregard- and it precisely the women who brought Christianity into the Roman upper classes.

And though the army would only later become an engine for the spread of Christianity, it was key as another place where social status could be leveled out- Roman soldiers could earn high respect but never be wealthy; Christian communal practice of sharing wealth and seeing great wealth as an impediment to spirit might have done well to help their conversion along.

So it is not surprising that Christianity spread in precisely the places where these status inconsistencies proliferated: in the Roman household, in the Greco-Roman club, and in the tradehouses and places of work in Roman cities. Rather we should only note that it spread as swiftly and freely as an illness or contagion of those existing Roman institutions.

These were the places of relationship in Roman society, and Paul went there if he failed to succeed in the initial Jewish synagogues. Indeed, the most significant thing about Roman cities is their lack of private space. Extremely dense even by modern standards, every urban place was public or semi-public. Word- of anything- thus spread rapidly. Initial contacts spread the word- to everyone, including those who most wanted to hear.

Another key factor in spreading the contagion of early Christianity would have been an ethnic community internal to each Roman city- especially the Jewish sections. A new convert would thus be even more immediately connected to members of club, broader family and fellow practitioners of his trade.

Cliff Notes: The First Urban Christians

Paul was a city person. Where Christ's language rings with rural Aramaic, Paul writes fluent urban Greek. He uses Greek rhetorical devices from gymnasium, stadium, and work- his own work of tentmaking being itself an urban trade. He was such an urban person that he only ever describes the city, the wilderness, and the sea. He lacks the language for the productive Roman countryside. He seems not to see it.

Thus the Christian mission he embarked on seems an urban trend. He preached in flourishing Hellenistic cities. He was not alone in doing so; every city boasted a large and vigorous Jewish community- the country rarely had them. What we call Pauline Christianity was the urban trend of a broader religious movement, and just as city Judaism was, urban Christianity was the largest and most developed flavor of its faith.

In moving from rural Jesus-ism to urban Christianity, the following of Christ had to pass the most fundamental divide of its time- the breach between city and country, polis and province- and changed irrevocably as a result.

It did so at perhaps the most turbulent time of the Roman empire: at its beginning. As they transformed their domain from republic to empire, Rome's rulers used the city as an instrument of imperial power- as modeled by their hero Alexander. Each of their cities contained a citizen body, a governing council, and a gymnasium, all in good Greek fashion.

The Pax Romana occurred as part and parcel of this movement. Octavian's commonwealth of partially self-governing cities meant stability, security, and consistent justice. It allowed the hope for any justice at all. As the Roman empire spread east into provinces such as Judea, it shifted the relationships among persons and classes; Augustus put the system of patronage to good and full use.

Cities brought the chance, however slim, of economic and social mobility. Urban society became more complex. Cities attracted large groups of foreigners insistent on maintaing ethnic identity through religious cults and voluntary associations.

All of these changes happened in reaction to Roman authority and power. And they did not happen simply: not all rich supported Rome, anymore than all the poor opposed it. But cities were the places where everything happened, especially new cities which offered the most chances for new life.

The shared Greek language of urbanity meant to some degree a common Greek culture, the unity in the expanding Rome's diversity. Common culture meant shared commerce, especially maritime trade. Cities were the hubs of Roman travel, easier then than until the nineteenth century.

Travellers brought Christianity with them, just at they transmitted Rome's many pagan cults.

Next: four modes of social change in Roman cities

Daily Prayer: Wednesday Dawn

Responsory

Although we know no hills, no country rivers,
Here in the jungles of our waterpipes and iron ladders,
Our thoughts are quieter than rivers,
Our loves are simpler than the trees,
Our prayers deeper than the sea.

Canticle

We have found, we have found,
the places where the rain is deep and silent.
We have found the fountains of the spring,
where the Lord emerges refreshed every morning!
He has laid His hand upon our shoulders
and our heart, like a bird, has spoken!