St. Chrysostom and Peaceful Protest

“BLM protest against St. Paul Police brutality” – Fibonacci Blue – CC BY 2.0

Earlier in the week I presented a passage from St. John Chrysostom concerned with the importance of diversity in the gospels. I don’t do a *great* job of connecting what I blog about here to the daily headlines. I think there are predominantly two reasons for that. One is that I’m a neophyte, and so a lot of my engagement with religious thought, prayer, exploration, growth, etc is incredibly foundational. Another reason is that I write about the news professionally, and to be honest I get a bit burned out on it. Maybe not an excuse, but an explanation, and I hope to be better about it in the future.

All that said, I came across another quote from Chrysostom that has some practical bearing on the political and social moment that we’re sharing together:

For when we are pestered we often become harder; but when we see those who need help standing by in complete silence, uttering no sound, not complaining though never satisfied, but merely appearing to us in silence, even if we are more insensible than the very stones, we become ashamed at the excess of politeness and are moved to pity.

The “complete silence” bit strikes me as slightly hyperbolic (maybe?), but there’s some socially valuable practical advice that Chrysostom is giving here. I suspect that it isn’t applicable in every situation (a million barbaric moments in human history can serve as counterpoints to the silent suffering of our fellow human beings causing their interlocutors to be “moved to pity” ), but is probably more useful than not, especially if the word “pester” is replaced with something more immediate and violent.