Kirby, in reaction one of my comments on his blog, wrote a post in his usual incendiary style, WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR. At the center of our disagreement is a limited notion of neighborness on Kirby's part, vs. an unlimited notion on mine. Kirby thinks this is important, as do I.
Anyway, I wrote a long two-part comment in response to a challenge from Brett, who felt that I was resting too much of my argument on the parable of the Good Samaritan. I think he had a good point, but ultimately, my reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan reflected a much more broadly scripturally-based understanding of key concepts that occur in that parable, and in our discussion of it.
I'm taking this opportunity to correct some infelicities in formatting and language in that extended comment, and to develop my thoughts a bit further.
There is a serious philosophical problem here, and it should not be glossed over. How do we interpret scripture, and especially, the stories, teachings, and parables of Jesus. Does each story refer to a limited set of circumstances, or is it Jesus's (i.e., God's—we're trinitarians here) intent to illustrate the general through the specific? Clearly, I believe the latter. It cannot be, e.g., that the right definition of “neighbor” for Kirby consists of all of the people he feels positively disposed to, plus a Samaritan who lived and died two millennia ago. That would have robbed the parable of it's purpose.
I know that some will object, but I think Ockham's Razor applies here. We should seek the simplest theory that is consistent with scriptural evidence. My theory is that Jesus's intent is that everyone is our neighbor; that it is not God's will that we harden our heart to anyone.
Indeed, that is the classical language, to harden one's heart against someone, which means no more than to define someone as not being a neighbor, someone whose pain and suffering is immaterial to us, indeed, which we might even wish to cause.
In the NSRV, there are only four passages where the word “harden” and “heart” co-occur; three in Exodus, referring to God hardening Pharaoh's heart within the Exodus story, and the following, a major dissertation waiting to happen—
Isaiah 63:17 Why, O LORD, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage.
Forgiveness
In interpreting the story of the Good Samaritan, especially as regards the priest and robbers, I look to passages in the New Testament that deal with forgiveness:
Matthew 18:20–22 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
Admittedly, this refers only to members of the church—certainly an anachronistic claim in Matthew! But I think it is reasonable to assume that there is a legitimate Jesus pericope that underlies this, in which “church” would have been “neighbor.” Here is another:
Mark 11:25 “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”
This does have universality. If we're to forgive anyone who we hold something against, how can we then say that that person is not our neighbor?
And then, there's this verse:
Luke 6:37–38 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.”
Again, there is no limit w.r.t. whom we are to forgive. I assume that it means anyone who has given us offense. Everyone is our neighbor.
And to be perfectly honest, there is this:
John 20:22–23 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The problem for the Kirbys of the world is that we don't get to interpret this in isolation. There are those other verses. How can we retain the sins against any one that is God's?
Neighbor
The notion of neighbor has a nontrivial history in Old Testament and New Testament thought, along with the notion of God. During the monarchical period, YHWH was viewed as a national God of Israel and Judah, and a clear distinction was made between citizen/neighbor (i.e., fellow Jew) and alien. Yet even so, God required of Israel and Judah that no distinction in treatment be made between neighbor and alien.
Leviticus 19:33–34 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
and again,Leviticus 24:22 You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the LORD your God.
and this,
Jeremiah 7:5–7 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.
But in the exile, the Jewish people began to develop a new conception. YHWH was not just the God of Israel (their only God), but indeed, the only God, and so God of all the nations. This is sometimes called “strong monotheism,” and it is hard to remember after 2500 years that a weaker monotheism was once the norm. But a concomitant of a universal God is the notion that all people are God's people. The word “alien” hardly occurs post-Ezekiel.
Finally, consider this:
Matthew 5:43–48 “You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
It is not just one story, but a consistent, coherent message. Our God is one God, the only God, and God of all people. Every one who is God's is our neighbor.
Peace
18 comments:
Professor Kurtz--
I hope you're feeling better.
Enjoyed the logic/philosophy chats, though do not enjoy Kirbyland (again, KO's no more christian than Foxnews is, and really an arrogant, selfish schemer).
Ciao
one thing i've noticed J in assessing the thoughts and actions of human beings
the distance between qualifications of judgement and the actual truth can be somehow
insurmountable
presuppositions amongst people we do not know will often limit the flow of anything worthwhile
there's a way of being self assured
yet
there's also away of being
light and humourous and
less adamant
nobody that i know on olsonz blog is staking their life upon the rhetoric there
not even kirby
the tone of your rhetoric
is immediately inimical and it behooves anyone to wonder why this is the case
that you're branching out and testing your rhetoric on other sites is a good thing
maybe one blog of clowns is too confining
for your intellectual interests
i appreciate some of what you say
no doubt something of an intellect is at work there
and you seem to make no excuses for your acerbic tone (s)
yet it is experienced like a random cold water splashing in the face and it does nothing but aggravate not toward the truth but toward pity and horrid helpless sentiment...the sort nietzsche despised
i would beg you to stick with the contenet of this blogpost and respond to the authors' inquiry into neighborliness as it derives from our scriptural heritage
not as a test
but as an aspect of gentlemens' agreement to engage in discussion
with an open-ended regard for conclusions
in the mean time
peace
dude
jh
Oh, I'm perfectly rational, and my points can all be substantiated. More than can be said for you, or your rambling, sentimental rants, JH. Foxnews: that's Unsanctified, hermana. As is Kirbyland. And it's not amusing, anymore than Hermann Goering was.
stu i hear tell you're under the weather
i'll say a prayer for you today
you've done quite a lot to open my mind
to areas of thought i'm either lazy about or ignorant about or both
strange to have friends i've never really met
peace to you and your family today
br john
Peace.
I have indeed been sick for the past several days. To sick to play solitaire! To sick to think about participating in any of our shared communities.
Brother John, I am grateful for your prayers! I am doing much better now. My pastor cooked and brought my wife and I a chicken soup dinner, which was my first meal since Wednesday. I'm feeling very well cared for, and am thankful. I might even be able to make it work on Monday. In my wife's case, this took a turn into pneumonia, so she's going to have to be out longer.
J, I hope you'll take a look at my comment on Kirby's current thread (the one that starts by banning you). If you have a reaction, please feel free to reply here if not there.
Let me say here that I think that some of your criticism's of Kirby are valid, but also that some of the criticisms that his blog's regulars had of you were also valid. A good case in point would be Brother John here, who is a political liberal in (as near as I can tell) all matters except women's issues and abortion. Certainly, he's no dittohead. You ran through the blog piling up enemies when, with a little more consideration, you could have picked up some allies.
And it's charming and optimistic to believe that sound arguments will win a debate, but my experience is that this is the case only if there's a judge to declare the winner. In open-ended debates on the internet, it's much more difficult to convince someone to reconsider their positions. Alienating them is hardly ever a useful first step to getting them to open their minds.
Let me put it this way. Do you believe that it is possible at this point that JADL could ever convince you of anything? I doubt it. It's not just logic that matters. I doubt that JADL ever convinces anyone of anything, but I'm sure he counts it as a victory whenever they leave the fight, or he's asked to. Is this a model you want to aspire to? I believe you can do better than this.
And evidently, still too sick to chose between to/too with any great reliability...
I don't object only to the Kirbylanders' anti-rationalism , stu, but to the politics--ie, the Fox/GOP ditto-ness--and to the hypocrisy (like putative "Christians" allowing Jadl, self-professed lover of Nabakov, AIPAC, and Limbaugh to bark his little poodle-yaps, and the Emmy broad to proclaim her lust for Aynnie Rand. At least she could provide a link).
J—
Kirby, JADL, and Emmy are very conservative, Fox-loving folks. They are what they are. I don't believe we're going to change them. Kirby, a slim chance. The other two, none.
If you think that intelligent engagement is going to result in them changing their minds, you're mistaken. A big part of their beliefs are driven by fear rather than reason, which Kirby would admit (part of why I see him as the more rational of this triumvirate). Just, I think, as a big part of our beliefs are driven by hope.
They are conservative, but of the neo-con, Podhoretz, AIPAC sort.
I'm not rabidly anti-semitic (KO was making sh**t up), but Kirbyland seems quite ...jewish (both Emmy and Jadl suggested as much, and let's not forget their love for Ayn Rand and Nabokov, as well as Fox, Beck, Rush, etc).
Were they honest about it, fine--but Kirby Olsonberg claims to be a christian.
J—
They are conservative, but of the neo-con, Podhoretz, AIPAC sort.
Neocon, sure. Podhoretz I've heard of, but I'm not really acquainted with his work. I'm not sure I understand why you're dragging AIPAC in -- it has it's own agenda altogether, and any correlations are just coincidences.
I'm not rabidly anti-semitic (KO was making sh**t up), but Kirbyland seems quite ...jewish (both Emmy and Jadl suggested as much, and let's not forget their love for Ayn Rand and Nabokov, as well as Fox, Beck, Rush, etc).
Kirby is Lutheran. He was atheist or agnostic, I'm not sure which, for much of his life, but ended up spending some time in Finland, where he was attracted to the stability of their culture, which he believes is rooted in their faith. So he became Lutheran. He also has a Finnish wife, and I don't know whether that played a role. His current congregation moved from ELCA to LCMS in anticipation of the ELCA's adaption of a sexuality statement.
Emmy and JADL are Catholics. AFAIK, Ed is the only regular Jewish contributor.
But here's a question for you to consider. You say you're not anti-semitic, but somehow it is important to you to identify your opponents as having a Jewish identity. There's a conflict there that you'll have to work out.
Let me make my stake in this plain. I grew up in a middle-class suburb of Philadelphia, which was 1/3 Jewish, 1/3 Catholic, 1/3 Protestant. It's one thing to say that I had Jewish friends, another, perhaps, to note that some of their parents and grandparents had serial numbers tattooed to their wrists, courtesy of the Germans.
Were they honest about it, fine--but Kirby Olsonberg claims to be a christian.
Kirby is Christian. But his view of the relationship between faith and life is definitely not the same as mine.
I grew up in Church's where our life of faith required action in the world, seeking justice for the oppressed. So I've walked on UFW picket lines as a teenager, and did time as a court watcher for the Detroit Interfaith Center for Racial Justice. I wish I'd done more.
Emmy said she was jewish. And she blessed Aynnie Rand. Even the most hypocritical catholics I ve met would not bless Rand (an atheist-materialist, not to say rightist). Jadl also suggested he was jewish (or part)--again, few catholics or christians of any sort would generally bless Nabokov (or Rand).
J—
Emmy said she was jewish.
Where? And even were it so, this is not inconsistent with being Catholic. Remember, Jewish these days may mean a cultural identity rather than a religious commitment.
As for her and her husband's reading styles and preferred authors, I think it is fair to say that political commitments figure very heavily into their tastes in reading. I don't consider this to be unreasonable.
On one of Olson's recent threads.
Either way, some putative christian says, "I am a christian, but just happen to love Aleister Crowley, Hitler, and the Marquis De Sade"--well, maybe you can finish the enthymeme (and that is about the situation with the Kirbylanders)
i'm always weary of pointing to the devils as a way of maintaining my own righteousness
in a world of surrealism we are forced to face up to many phenomena
just the way they appear
there are all sorts of events which converge to make life appear like a joke
we might as well laugh once in awhile
i like the fact J you're talkin some substance here
while i disagree
it is substantial
jh
J—
I did a search of Kirby's blog (thanks, Google), and found a passage in which JADL said he was 1/8th Jewish by ethnicity, i.e., he had a Jewish great-grandparent. I can see why this might lead to a certain additional willingness to identify/sympathize with Jews. I just don't see anything wrong with that, nor the least reason to believe his religious affiliation is anything other than what he has always claimed: Catholic.
I've only seen de Sade and Hitler raised as negative models. E.g., Kirby likes to challenge folks like GM and me, who claim a universal notion of neighbor and our obligation to love, about whether or not that obligation extends to Hitler, etc. This is a difficult point, but for me the answer must be yes. Hitler may have been a power-mad, genocidal dictator, but he was also God's child. That said, he certainly alienated himself from God, and it is not plausible that he would have responded appropriately to any admonition.
I don't even know who Aleister Crowley is, and my search on LS identified only a single hit, in what seemed to be a toss-away line by "j l," a commentator I don't recognize, in comments to a thread that appeared in January, 2008.
It is hard for me to understand the windmills you seem to be tilting at. And again, I really don't understand why you're at all concerned with who had Jewish ancestors, or is sympathetic to the Jews.
Alright Dr Stu, I have modified my views on Olsonberg, slightly. He's not Evil per se, but ...Stupid. Jadl and Emmy, however, still fall in the class of Evil (and still sound thoroughly AIPACish)
stu
this was all right neighborly of you
and not lacking in anythng important
in catholic practice we have recourse to st jude
he's pretty special
jh
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