{"id":32258,"date":"2016-05-16T13:38:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T17:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=32258"},"modified":"2016-05-16T13:38:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T17:38:45","slug":"love-tolerance-but-love-tolerance-subsidiarity-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2016\/05\/16\/love-tolerance-but-love-tolerance-subsidiarity-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Love > tolerance; but (love – tolerance – subsidiarity) < love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\n

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, \u201cHave a seat here, please,\u201d while to the one who is poor you say, \u201cStand there,\u201d or, \u201cSit at my feet,\u201d have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?<\/p>\n

You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, \u201cYou shall love your neighbor as yourself.\u201d But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.\u00a0\u2026 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.<\/p>\n

\u2014 James 2<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I get what Adam Kotsko is shooting at in this post \u2014 \u201cStop saying \u2018love\u2019 when you really mean \u2018liberal tolerance<\/a>\u2018\u201d \u2014 and that general point is worth remembering. Vague appeals to \u201cChristian love\u201d in support of some vague liberal idea are unlikely to be persuasive and shouldn\u2019t be treated as a rhetorical trump card. They fail to respect the nature of the disagreements they are intended to resolve \u2014 which is that conservative\/liberal or intolerant\/tolerant Christians often are not disagreeing over whether or not one should be \u201cloving,\u201d but about what love demands or entails when such Christians encounter various sinners, unsaved outsiders, benighted heathens, witches, etc.<\/p>\n

Or, in other words, when I invoke \u201clove\u201d to mean that I think\u00a0the outcome of Obergefell v. Hodges<\/em> was desirable, some other Christian might hear that word \u201clove\u201d and take it to mean they should \u201clove the sinner, but hate the sin,\u201d and thus display \u201ctough love\u201d by sending their gay son off to reparative therapy boot-camp.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t assume that everyone hearing our appeals to \u201clove\u201d will understand that concept the same way we do. And when we implicitly argue that love requires \u201cliberal tolerance,\u201d we should be careful not to thereby imply that such tolerance is all that we mean by \u201clove.\u201d<\/p>\n

In arguing that, Kotsko emphasizes this point: Love \u2260\u00a0\u201cliberal tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not wrong, but it\u2019s misleading. A more accurate form of the equation might be this: Love > \u201cliberal tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Love and \u201cliberal tolerance\u201d\u00a0are not the same. The former is greater than<\/em> the latter. But the latter is a necessary prerequisite for the former. What Kotsko here describes as \u201cliberal tolerance\u201d refers to basic structural and procedural equality \u2014 what the second chapter of James describes as impartiality. It\u2019s a bare-bones, bare-minimum expression of basic fairness. Without such basic fairness as a starting point, love becomes irrelevant and impossible.<\/p>\n

Put another way, \u201cliberal tolerance\u201d is not a sufficient<\/em> condition for love. But it is a necessary<\/em> condition.<\/p>\n

Such basic fairness or impartiality is not the only<\/em> necessary condition, but take it away and love ceases to be a possibility. As James argues, partiality precludes love. It makes us \u201cjudges with evil thoughts,\u201d rather than loving neighbors.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a relatively minor quibble with Kotsko\u2019s argument. Here is a relatively major disagreement:\u00a0The mangled Hobbesian perversion he misrepresents as something like subsidiarity.<\/p>\n

Further, does \u201clove\u201d mean supporting government policies to impersonally help someone? If my sister became homeless, I don\u2019t think my go-to solution would be to write my Congressman and demand greater funding for shelters. And if you are trying to goad people into taking radically self-sacrificing actions on behalf of the homeless, or illegal immigrants, or whoever, I would remind you that love has degrees, and you may well learn that the person has enough on their love-plate with their day-to-day obligations to their own family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Subsidiarity \u2014 what the scripture calls \u201can\u00a0inescapable network of mutuality \u2026 a single garment of destiny\u201d \u2014 is the form and expression of universal responsibility<\/em> and universal relationship<\/em>. Kotsko seems to have just invoked some garbled form of it in order to deny<\/em> responsibility and circumscribe relationship.<\/p>\n

This, too, is a way of precluding the possibility of love.<\/p>\n

Now, to be clear, I gather that what he\u2019s presenting\u00a0here is not his own argument, but rather an illustration of the warped way that someone \u2014 some Randian Trumpvangelical, perhaps \u2014 might reinterpret a liberal Christian\u2019s vague appeal to \u201clove.\u201d But since he provides such a compelling illustration of that, and then just leaves it hanging there uncorrected, we\u2019re going to need to address why this anti-subsidiarity abomination is also expressly anti-love.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s take that atrocious paragraph one sentence at a time:<\/p>\n

Further, does \u201clove\u201d mean supporting government policies to impersonally help someone?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is a question. It\u2019s a question asked and answered by 2,000 years of Christian teaching. And the answer is \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, \u201csupporting government policies to impersonally help\u201d others is not the only thing that love means. It is not the whole of love or a wholly sufficient expression of love. But\u00a0it is a necessary element demanded by love. In the absence of that, love is absent.<\/p>\n

This is where Christian social teaching talks about solidarity \u2014 the refusal to regard \u201cothers\u201d as \u201cimpersonal\u201d or unrelated\/unconnected to ourselves. And more importantly, it is where Christian thought talks about subsidiarity \u2014 the shape and structure of our differentiated responsibility all-for-all.<\/p>\n

The sleazy move here is\u00a0the way Kotsko (i.e., his impression of the Randian Trumpvangelical) deploys the words \u201cgo-to solution\u201d to imply a kind of zero-sum situation. It\u2019s an either\/or \u2014 do this or do that, one or the other. And that makes a complete mess of the idea of subsidiarity.<\/p>\n

If my sister became homeless, I don\u2019t think my go-to solution would be to write my Congressman and demand greater funding for shelters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u00a0either\/or implication is\u00a0disastrous. It tells us that responsibility is never complementary, and thus that our exclusive responsibilities are in competition with one another. That means you don\u2019t have to help a homeless person unless it\u2019s your own sister. And it means that no one else has to\u00a0help your sister, or to help you help your sister. So you\u2019re all on your own, and we\u2019re all screwed.<\/p>\n

A person becomes homeless. Do you bear some responsibility for that? Yes. Always and absolutely, yes, whoever \u201cyou\u201d may be and whoever they may be. We all do, all for all. Our shared, complementary responsibility is determined by the particular nature of our particular situations in relation to that particular person. \u201cWhatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.\u201d This differentiated responsibility \u2014 its directness or indirectness \u2014 varies for each of us based on proximity, role, and relationship.<\/p>\n

I am a sibling, a son, a parent, a spouse, a congregant, a writer, a reader, an employee, a neighbor, a U.S. citizen, a Pennsylvanian, an Extonian, a passing motorist, an Earthling. My relationship with the homeless person in question may be shaped, directly or indirectly, by any one or several of those roles and identities. Each bears a different form and priority of responsibility, but those overlapping responsibilities do not preclude one another.<\/p>\n

Kotsko\u2019s libertarian character correctly\u00a0suggests that he would bear a brother\u2019s responsibility for his newly homeless sister, but it\u2019s not correct to imagine that exempts him from also bearing a citizen\u2019s<\/em> responsibility \u2014 for her and for everyone else in a similar predicament. By arguing that his obligations as a brother exempt him from his obligations to anyone else \u2014 as a neighbor, a citizen, a professor \u2014 he\u2019s actually making things much worse and much harder, both for himself and for his sister.<\/p>\n

In other words, by saying that his responsibility as a brother precludes his responsibility as a citizen, he fails to meet his responsibility as a brother<\/em>. Why? Because he\u2019s attempting to remove himself and his sister from the inescapable network of mutuality that both he and his sister require to bear their weight. He wants to help his sister without the help of anyone else, and that\u2019s impossible. That will fail.<\/p>\n

The next sentence again references subsidiarity in a way that further distorts and deforms it:<\/p>\n

\u2026\u00a0love has degrees, and you may well learn that the person has enough on their love-plate with their day-to-day obligations to their own family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Welcome to the jungle.<\/p>\n

That person over there \u201chas enough on their love-plate with their day-to-day obligations to their own family\u201d and thus cannot be asked or expected to bear even an indirect responsibility for anything more or to anyone else. And, therefore, no one else should be asked or expected to bear even an indirect responsibility for them or their family. Their employers, for example, cannot be expected to pay those folks a decent living wage or to maintain safe working conditions, because those employers, you know, already have enough on their love-plates with their own<\/em>\u00a0direct nuclear family obligations. Their neighbors cannot be expected to sustain quality schools. Their governments cannot be expected to maintain public safety, or public health, or the basic safety of food, water and air. Etc.<\/p>\n

In such a world, no one bears any responsibility for writing their members of Congress about anything because either: A) the matter involves a direct kin, and so the \u201cgo-to solution\u201d involves doing something other than seeking better laws and governance; or B) the matter does not involve direct kin, and so they have \u201cenough on their love-plate\u201d already without being obliged to do something about that too.<\/p>\n

The same would be true, in such a world, for members of Congress themselves. Should they support policies that might help homeless families? Only if the families in question include their own sisters. And perhaps not even then.<\/p>\n

Take away all indirect responsibility \u2014 mock\u00a0and dismiss it\u00a0as \u201cwriting my Congressman to demand greater funding for shelters\u201d \u2014 and all of our more direct, more proximate responsibilities become enormously more challenging. If we begin to treat those direct responsibilities as exclusive \u2014 as precluding all of the indirect responsibilities \u2014 then we\u2019re soon going to find that it\u2019s impossible to manage them. Without the network of mutuality, we\u2019re on our own for everything \u2014 which is to say, we\u2019re screwed.<\/p>\n

Screwing over ourselves, our neighbors, and our homeless sisters is not an expression of love. It is not compatible with any expression of love.<\/p>\n

Again, that doesn\u2019t mean subsidiarity is the same thing<\/em> as love any more than \u201cliberal tolerance\u201d is the same thing as love. But the denial and rejection of either produces a Hobbesian nightmare in which love becomes an impossibility.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Love > tolerance; but (love - tolerance - subsidiarity) < love","description":"Take away all indirect responsibility and all of our more direct, more proximate responsibilities become enormously more challenging. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}