{"id":68412,"date":"2024-10-07T15:52:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T19:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=68412"},"modified":"2024-10-07T15:52:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T19:52:43","slug":"where-the-moral-obligation-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2024\/10\/07\/where-the-moral-obligation-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"Where the moral obligation ends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Daily Wire<\/em> influencer and abuse-victim doxxer Megan Basham begrudgingly allows that Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, but then says, \u201cAh, but who is my neighbor?<\/a>\u201d Surely there are limits to our obligation to love others, right? Limits that oblige us to love some people more than others, or love some people but not others?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the context of spreading lies about FEMA\u2019s response to Hurricane Helene, Basham writes:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of Matthew 15:24 when Christ tells the Canaanite woman \u2014 \u201cIt is not right to take the children\u2019s bread and throw it to the dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

We see how Jesus ministered to his people first. As the woman humbly sought the \u201ccrumbs\u201d of mercy that fell from Israel\u2019s table, Jesus praised and rewarded her faith.<\/p>\n

But he did so while indicating that his first priority was to the \u201chouse of Israel.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This story from Matthew\u2019s Gospel is a Jesus story and, as we\u2019ve noted here before, in a Jesus story, you never<\/em> want to be the person asking \u201cWho is my neighbor?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 repeated insistence on love without limits and love without boundaries is so outrageously impossible that we find the question irresistible: Love our neighbors, yes fine, but \u2026 ahem \u2026\u00a0who is our neighbor?<\/em><\/p>\n

The question, as always, is an attempt to find a loophole or an escape clause. Whenever we ask \u201cWho is my neighbor?\u201d what we really mean is \u201cWho is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0my neighbor?\u201d or, less tactfully, \u201cCan\u2019t you please just tell us that there\u2019s\u00a0somebody<\/em>\u00a0we\u2019re allowed not to love?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Basham is so desperate to find such loopholes and boundaries that she turns that story from Matthew 15<\/a> upside down and inside out, perverting and inverting it into the opposite of what its conclusion makes clear: No such loopholes or boundaries exist.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I am reminded again of Dave Gushee\u2019s term, \u201cboundaries of moral obligation.\u201d That\u2019s a central concept in his study of The Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust<\/em><\/a>, a fearfully challenging book that examines those exceptional people who passed the greatest, and clearest, moral test of their time by risking their own lives and safety to rescue those marked for death by the Nazis.<\/p>\n

What did these righteous Gentiles have in common? What traits can we identify as predictors of who would or would not, in the moment of truth, actually love their neighbors? Depressingly, nothing stands out. Not religious devotion. Not education. Not social standing.<\/p>\n

The one thing Gushee found that separated the righteous from the compliant majority was their refusal to seek \u201cboundaries of moral obligation.\u201d Those who were certain that such boundaries existed \u2014 those who imagined the world, as Basham does, to consist of concentric circles of diminishing obligation \u2014 exempted themselves from the obligation to rescue the outsiders and outcasts.<\/p>\n

Basham\u2019s perversion of that Gospel story is also a perversion of centuries of Christian teaching about the meaning and nature of the unbounded, universal moral obligation at the heart of our faith. Whether we speak of this in terms of \u201csubsidiarity\u201d or \u201csphere sovereignty\u201d or \u201cmutuality,\u201d the idea is always the same: Our roles and particular responsibilities may be differentiated and shaped by location and relationship, but our obligation is universal<\/em>. As the scripture says<\/a>, \u201cInjustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inescapable.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded, again, of this Gallup poll of American citizens from January, 1939 \u2014 two months after Kristallnacht<\/em> had made the genocidal intention of the Nazi regime evident to the entire world:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The question reads: \u201cIt has been proposed to bring to this country 10,000 refugee children from Germany \u2014 most of them Jewish \u2014 to be taken care of in American homes. Should the government permit these children to come in?\u201d<\/p>\n

Only 30% of Americans said yes. 61% said no and 9% had \u201cno opinion.\u201d There was no taxpayer expense here to transport the children or to house or feed them. It was simply a question of whether or not the government should \u201cpermit\u201d these children to find refuge from the Nazis trying to kill them.<\/p>\n

And two-thirds of Americans said \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what comes of seeking and inventing \u201cboundaries of moral obligation.\u201d That\u2019s what comes of asking, \u201cYes, but who is my neighbor?\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Someone is, again, asking, “Yes, but who is my neighbor?” Meaning, as always, “Who am I allowed NOT to love?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":68415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhere the moral obligation ends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Someone is, again, asking, "Yes, but who is my neighbor?" 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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. 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