The Death of Optimism

The first of Douglas John Hall's books that I read was Lighten Our Darkness. It began with a very sobering paragraph.

The Subject of this book is the failure of a people and the courage that can come to those who contemplate this failure in the perspective of the cross. The people are the North Americans. (page 15)

Hall, as anyone who has read or heard him knows, is a steadfast critic of the official optimism of both his native Canada and the United States, an optimism which has infected the churches of those two countries as well. In the nearly forty years since Lighten Our Darkness was published it has become harder and harder to hang on to this official optimism. Too many things are going wrong, sometimes with deadly results, as in Ferguson, Missouri this past few weeks. Too many of those who were only recently optimistic about the future have become discouraged even cynical. Even leaders and members of the once optimistic mainstream (or oldstream) Christian denominations are having a hard time remaining optimistic about their denominations' futures.

 

Like the death of Christendom, the death of optimism can be a good thing for the disciples of the Crucified One, as well, perhaps, for all of those who live in North America. There is great wisdom in knowing that our best efforts at achieving something good will, in some measure, fail. There will be unintended consequences, and for the Christian there will always be what T.S. Eliot called the last treason, doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Especially in crafting political solutions to society's problems, Christians need to follow the advice of Jacques Ellul and be ready to part company with a movement or a party when it move in the wrong direction. Christian realism and humility can lead us to two important conclusions. First, humility leads us to admit that our convictions and opinions might be wrong and that those with whom we disagree might be right. Second, realism leads us to an awareness of our fallibility, of how our best laid plans will fall way short of perfection.

 

Our awareness of our fallibility should not lead us to inaction. We are called to discipleship by One who knows our frailty, who asks us, not for perfection, but for faithful following. Discerning where God is at work in the world and how we can share in that work is no easy matter, but in the world where optimism has died, we are called to hope, not in our own efforts, but in God's love and providential care of creation. 

 

Uncivil Disobedience

One evening when I was an undergraduate some friends teased me when I chose not to take a shortcut by driving in the exit to a dorm driveway. After all I was willing and publicly disobeying the law in protest of the war in Viet Nam. Why would I go out of my by choosing not to disobey the Do Not Enter sign? The reason was obvious, at least to me. That minor act of disobedience would not have been at all civil, but simply selfish, showing disrespect for a law that inconvenienced me.

 

I thought of that night today as I watched a man jaywalking with his young son. We live in a town with many downtown crosswalks paved with bricks, so jaywalking seems to me to be a fairly insignificant act performed for one's own convenience. When I see an adult doing it with his or her children I wonder what lesson is being learned by the children. Are rules meant to be obeyed only when it is convenient? I once mailed to a man a piece of litter he had thrown from his car. After calling mu office a few times when I wasn't there he left a simple message: he would refrain from littering when I was around.

 

When I was struggling with my commitment to pacifism I recall someone observing that we learn nonviolence not by refusing to kill someone but by refusing to respond violently to the small aggressions we experience on an almost daily basis. As Jesus said faithfulness in small things prepares us to be faithful in greater matters. (Luke 16:10)

 

It seems that uncivil disobedience is becoming more common in this country. When I ignore posed speed limits or fail to stop at stop signs, I am participating in uncivil disobedience. Unlike the civil disobedience in which I have participated, these actions are not done in obedience to a higher law or in protest of injustice, but simply for my convenience. Unlike the acts for which I was arrested more than forty years ago, these acts are preformed with the hope that I won't be arrested.

 

I'm not sure that these fairly minor crimes are eroding a commitment to the laws that keep order in our country. There have always been those who disobey laws that they find inconvenient and there are those, as in the case of Cliven Bundy, who are seen as heroes for their acts of disobedience. I might have been more amenable to seeing Bundy's actions as civil disobedience if he hadn't been protected from the consequences by armed supporters. When I refused an improper order from my draft board I was protected from the consequences only by a determined attorney and a wide circle of friends.

 

 

Peter on the Water

I struggled a bit with the Gospel story for yesterday (Matthew 14:22-33). My problem wasn't with walking on water but with how Peter seemed to have ordered Jesus to order him to walk on water: "Lord. if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." It struck me that Peter had decided what he wanted to do and was looking for Jesus to bless that. How often in my own life have I decided what I wanted to do and asked God to bless that decision? I can't even begin to count the times I have done that and how often I ignored the ways in which God was telling me not to go ahead.

 

I do remember vividly one time in my late teens when I was sure that I should do something a bit risky to protest the war in Viet Nam. My mother, speaking I think for God, told me that burning my draft card was not a very good idea. I didn't burn it and found other, less risky and more effective, ways to protest.

 

My other problem with Peter was that his desire to walk on water meant that he would have to get out of the boat, leaving the community of the disciples behind. Peter clearly wanted to be with Jesus, but was not willing to wait until Jesus was in the boat with all the disciples. Over the past twenty of thirty years I have come to a deep appreciation for and dependence on the communities of friends that God has given me. Even though I have often been tempted to walk away from some of those communities, I have discovered that when I honored a commitment to stability in community God has been able to work in wonderful ways in my life. It has been in those communities that I have heard most clearly God's voice and have been given the strength to obey. It has been in those communities that God has worked to convert me, to transform me more fully into the person God created me to become, the person who is a beloved disciple of Jesus.