The last of the presentations

The first thing to say is that everyone should cut Carla’s sentence about the course—the one that reads “I am incredibly glad I took this class” —and paste it into their IDEA forms. Mostly because I’m sure you all feel that way.

Although it has been tedious for you, I do appreciate the work all of you have done on these presentations, and I hope that you learned some things about the common drive within mainline Christianity (and beyond, I think) to address social needs and improve the lives of all, both near and far. Kudos to Liz for going solo; I was prepared to back her up, but she didn’t need my help.
Joking aside, I was pleased to read from Carla (and to get a growing sense from others) that the world needs Christians who can live with their essential similarities and get on with the jobs of feeding, clothing, and providing shelter to those in need. In the words of a Rabbi Irwin Kula, whose words I sometimes use in other classes: “it is about love; it really is no more complicated than that.” Of course, Kula knows how complicated that can be. Nevertheless, the statement offers the essential corrective to all who act as though “church” authority rests someplace other than with love.

I did have the strong sense at times (in these and other posts) that you all believe we can find common ground between Christian traditions. But I also have noticed that many of you value what Ed calls “sticking to your guns.” It would be very interesting for me to know if you think this desire for more confidence and certainty is a defining characteristic of our age. I tend to think that people never develop such clarity, that instead we simply renegotiate the contradictions by which we live our lives. In this case, the contradiction would be between a quest for certainly and the recognition that love is essential; after all, from my experience, love is anything but certain.

An interesting term introduced by the Bishop’s statement (and mentioned by Joe) is “participation.” I suppose this term lies somewhere between “sticking to your guns” and “love.” If you keep inviting people into the conversation and revising your ideas based on what they say, maybe you discover both love and the guns worth sticking to. I think that the recent crop of bishops believes they have found that territory in their willingness to place abortion at the center of all such conversations. As Meghan (and others) suggest, however, they may be missing the mark in that limiting or preventing abortions are acts that need to happen within the context of providing for children who are born.

See you all tonight. jw

Presbyterianism and a smaller class

The discussion keeps getting smaller as people drop away due to conflicts or illness. We’re like some study in evolutionary science, with only the hearty surviving.

Joe said in response to Liz’s post that he was waiting for the term “Puritan” to crop up, and it did. I remember Nancy Bickel from First Congregational (UCC) coming into one of my classes and beginning her explanation of Congregationalism with a reference to these early Americans who established some of the finest schools we have, including Harvard. I suppose we tend to forget that faiths like UCC Congregationalism and Presbyterianism make a big deal out of their heritage related to this land. Even though they too were immigrants, they have been around long enough to claim attachments to “the founders” and assert connections that really shape their identity as “American” faiths. Perhaps this helps to justify their beliefs that, as Crystal said, they have earned a special “access to power.”

Both Crystal and Kelli alluded to the organizational issues associated with Presbyterianism, and I was really glad to learn from our readings and from Joe and Ed about the emphasis the tradition places upon matters of “order” and “organization. I’ve grown accustomed to it in Catholicism, and I’ve always thought that Lutherans really want to be more organized, but I suppose I tended to think of the Presbyterians in the same light as the UCC crowd, and now I don’t think that’s a good connection at all. Congregationalists are, as their name suggests, much more focused on the “local” church.

Finally, not much more to say about the “faith” and “works” debate other than you all seem to understand it pretty well—even if that means it exasperates you, as it does for Carla. For what it’s worth, I don’t read much about it in contemporary theology, perhaps because the theologians are weary of it too. By contrast, the distinction between “personal” and “institutional” encounters with God seems very much at the forefront of the way we discuss Christianity today. In that discussion, what’s fascinating (to me) is how the perspectives of traditional denominations is changing. “Evangelical” interests in a personal encounter with God now seems to apply to people from all Christian denominations, including Catholics. And if people understand God primarily in terms of their personal encounter, then I suppose that does lead them to think about the relationship between faith and works in certain ways. jw

Politics, Practicality, Piety

You know, when you have a catchy title like this one, these blog entries practically write themselves.

OK, so I had to reach to find three words that begin with the same letter, but the words serve to describe three ideas I saw in posts this week. I admit that I was happy to see these ideas, because the combination suggests that the class is working in some of the ways I had hoped it would when I made the syllabus.

For example, politics: No reflection on “religion” should happen without reference to political realities. Whether you define “politics” broadly as the expression of power relationships or more narrowly in terms of specific social issues, religion is a prime example of both. Many of you wrote about the UCC (along with ELCA and Catholicism) and the stance they take on matters like war, abortion, prison sentencing, etc. Obviously, these are all issues that sit at the intersection of relgioon and poitics; in fact, when most people talk about them they really don’t bother to separate the two, because they don’t experience them separately. Some people object to the political terms “liberal” and “conservative” because they introduce too many other positions, but sometimes I think “that’s the point.” As we grow more aware of how politics connects issues, we cannot simply make decisions based on single issues. I think it’s good for all of us to examine these faith traditions and to see that, when they get involved in the world (politics), things get complicated and kind of messy.

It’s no different in more immediate or “practical” matters. The issue of “violence” came up in some posts, and I certainly understood when Liz, for example, wrote that “I always pictured religious orders being sort of fearless in the determination to help those less fortunate than (sic) them. It saddens me in some ways that even now these religious groups are afraid to step in and help because of a few instances of violence.” Although Liz raises a good point, I also know that she would never advise anyone to venture into areas where they might get hurt. If a congregation like Immanuel is scared, can it even survive, let alone find the time and space it needs to pray and think? If there is violence in a neighborhood, what can we reasonably expect (religious) people to do in response?

“Piety”: I like the UCC slogan that God is still speaking, because it raises questions about what we are doing to listen. That seems like a good question to put to all of these faiths: how do you hear God’s voice when it comes to social issues? It’s also a good question to ask ourselves and to write about when we’re comfortable doing it. A few of you have been willing to do that, and I think those efforts help to make the course more meaningful and complete. Each of us should be challenged by what we are seeing to understand the positions by other faiths; I think we also should be wondering whether or not we should alter own own faith as well. jw

Lutheran Social Teaching

As everyone who posted stressed, the presentation by Kelli and Crystal was very good. If they created an impression that Lutheranism is “laid back” (Crystal’s term), that’s in part because of all the people involved in the discussion. Most of us are learning about this tradition for the first time, and Pastor Jay was, I’m sure, a bit nervous about having to talk about these issues to a couple of bright honors students from a Catholic college. When I met him, he struck me as honest, open, and down-to-earth and, by his own admission, not too comfortable talking about doctrine.

This sense of discomfort in the face of doctrine or “official” teaching does bother Lutheran theology (please understand, I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing). Our resident Lutheran even confirmed it when he said that, after “taking 8 years of Sunday School an 2 years of Confermation Classes and I do not recall ever learning about LST.” He too had to “look on the website” to discover “what my church believed.” It’s interesting that Steve wondered whether the Lutheran awareness of LST might change with all the focus on ordination of active homosexuals. It might, but I remember Kelli and Crystal pointing out that Lutheranism also had an opportunity to promote its social teachings when it decided to ordain women and evidently it still did not get the word out.

Clearly many of you (Liz wrote about it quite a bit) found the topic of ordination to be a “social issue,” which it is. As I tried to suggest in class, it is also a theological issue, and that is the real stumbling block in Catholicism. The refusal to ordain women cannot be defended by Catholic social teaching, even in its mildest forms (Leo XIII). It also cannot be defended by scripture, no matter what your local parish priest tells you (they too are usually uninformed, just less likely to admit it). It can only be defended and preserved for theological reasons. Ironically, much of what I think we all admire about the Catholic tradition, namely, its emphasis on God’s sacramental presence in the physical world, depends upon the same theology that defends male ordination. We can’t say that physical realty matters and is valuable because God became fully human and then dismiss the physical form he took. However, neither can we say that he only “ordained” men; he never ordained anybody. Moreover, as the Church continues to discover the horrors perpetrated by a (theological) system that does ordain and protect pedophiles, we do have good reason to recoil and, like Meghan, insist that we at least question how much gender matters when we are looking for true “mediators for God.”

Finally, I was glad that Carla spoke (and Crystal responded) about the topic of open communion as a social issue. Carla wrote that she admired the way Lutherans thought of “their participation in Communion” as an “’amen’ to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the acceptance of his love for them.” Her admiration for the Lutheran practice, as well as her reticence to adopt it for Catholicism, calls attention to how this can be a social issue. I think Lutheran theologians would say that Carla really found the heart of their position, but I also think they would change the last word of her statement from “them” to “all.” As I understand it, Lutheran social teaching emphasizes that human solidarity begins in shared experiences—from the cross to the communion rail. In this way of thinking, Christians don’t agree first so that they can then experience God’s grace through the shared meal, they share the meal in hopes that it provides an experience of grace (two or three gathered in God’s name) that becomes the foundation for subsequent agreements.

Nice work everyone, and I look forward to hearing from the UCC duo tomorrow. We’ll also plan the Saturday excursion to weather-proof some homes. jw

Catholic Social Teaching and Vatican II

Posts this week:

Carla, Liz, and Joe start us off because they both examine the foundation of Catholic social teachings, namely, their authoritative basis. As Carla says, “the church sees itself as having the authority to make . . . claims to all humanity, whether or not specific economic or political structures disagree, and regardless of the fact that the whole world is not Catholic.” Liz echoes that point when she says that documents related to Catholic social teaching assert “some sort of religious justification” for a wide range of social approaches, from the capitalist value of “private initiative” to the social programs associated with the state. Joe has some problems with all of these assumptions, pointing out that any organization or body that claims such authority “undermines” the very basis for “human dignity.” “The Church’s agenda,” he writes, “seems to be more to protect its own authority in relation to human dignity than to fight for human dignity itself, which I feel must be at the very heart of any spiritual, moral, or ethical argument.”

The problem of how to express authority without being authoritarian is huge in our world, so big that, I would insist, a peaceful future depends on solving it. The Catholic Church offers itself as a source of hope in that it represents an alternative to the status quo. It can call people to what Meghan describes as a “larger sense of community,” the belief that human life possesses an “essential sociality” (Ed). More specifically, Catholic social teaching can lead people to place a premium on the more “holistic” approaches to life that Kelli describes when she writes about “healing of the mind, healing of the body and healing of the spirit.” It also can prompt the kind of social awareness that Steve writes about with respect to his moral decision to avoid businesses that conduct themselves like Wal-Mart.

But in the end, the problem of authority does not go away. Where do we go to find common ground and thereby establish a basis for the kind of solidarity that does not automatically place one institution or figure higher than another?

The promise of the documents you read this week—Gaudium et spes and Mater et Magistra—comes in part from their historical context. Both of these works are expressions of a period that has come to be known for Catholics as “Vatican II.” The dramatic changes in the Church connected with this event cannot be overstated. One of the most telling for me is the fact that, prior to Vatican II, no Church council had written documents that were so pastoral. Vatican I, for example, issued several documents, all in the form that previous councils had used for generations; that is, they gave the Church “canons,” specific rules to be followed and explicit consequences for those who chose not to follow them. The format of the canon was fixed: “If a person does such and such, let him be anathema” (considered an abomination). Before Vatican II, this was the guiding principle and dominant form of Church “teaching.”

I would like to think (though increasingly I fear I am wrong) that the context for social teachings in documents like Gaudium et spes and Mater et Magistra provides a clue for how the Church can lead Catholics and others through the troubled issue of “authority.” The wider pastoral approach of Vatican II suggests that the “authority” of the Church is pastoral concern, even love, for what Gaudium et spes calls the “whole of humanity.” If we ground our interactions in love, specifically the kind of love advanced in the Gospels, does it change the nature of authority between us? It seems to me that Jesus thought it did and that the dominant voices of the Council agreed.

We can talk about the success or failure of this vision when we are together Wednesday night. I’ll be at the library turn-around at 6:40 to see if anyone needs a ride. After that, we’ll meet at River Lights and then at Salsa’s. Thanks. jw

Mainline Churches and Social Change

I’ll be using your posts in class tonight, so my comments here are just a way to preface that time together (they’re also short because I spent about two hours in emails and phone conversations with your sites last week—didn’t realize how much I needed that time). Anyway, I sorted your writings for this week into three categories that I’ve simply labeled “community,” “government,” and “today.” For the first one, community, three statements emerged that I thought spoke to the tensions described in both the Fisher and Thuesen articles. Carla wrote that Catholics tend to hold community as an ideal and, as a result, to focus less on “the individual’s personal improvement.” I did not get the sense that anyone would disagree with that, though Crystal raised one important question: “who’s in the community?” As someone who is not Catholic, she has been led to question how serious and meaningful the Catholic commitment to community can be if she can’t be accepted into it. And Joe went a step further, questioning whether we can continue to value community in the same ways we always have if, in fact, those groups are more interested in preserving their identity than they are in real social change.

The second category was easy: government. There were traces throughout the postings of the tensions that we see daily on CNN and elsewhere, tensions about the proper role of government in the social sphere. Joe and Kelli seemed more inclined to question the value of national government and politics in areas of life better left to smaller, more local entities. Ed noted (with surprise) that, despite all the assumptions to the contrary, Dorothy Day would agree with some of the points Joe and Kelli were making. Good evidence that Catholic Social teaching is both a) different than we assume and b) a genuine alternative to some existing ideologies.

Finally, the last category involved issues you raised that seemed particularly important “today.” It is good to have a long tradition of social teaching in Catholicism and elsewhere but, as Liz points out, this world is not the same as it was just 10 years ago. Poverty and neglect in Dubuque is not the same as poverty and neglect in Darfur; it never has been, the difference is that now we know it to be true. And finally Meghan takes us back to the question of community when she writes about all the “fractures” that exist in organized religion. But she calls attention to the fact that, even when a faith like Catholicism has a strong center in a place like Rome and a figure like the Pope, it still cannot claim to be unified. That speaks to the age in which we live; it also suggests that we need to start presenting and promoting unity in new ways.

Class Thoughts on Local History

First off: nice job on the posts everyone. From what you said to how you said it—the tone, style, and creativity you showed—I had the strong sense that you all enjoyed writing this one. Maybe I’m wrong and you bluff well but, if so, don’t tell me: leave me to my illusions.

Because you each had very distinctive ideas and topics, it’s difficult to generalize about your responses. I suppose I could say that I noticed two basic options in your approaches. On the one hand, some felt pulled toward broader topics like the history of a “hometown” or an entire graduating class, and in each case you described how important it would be to gather a range of objective information (demographic, statistical, surveys, etc.). You also wisely pointed out how difficult it is to interpret and present that information objectively. On the other hand, some of you focused on specific features of an otherwise larger topic, for example, a single building (the field house), or one aspect of a family (its ability to make music but choose lousy names for bands) or, as Meghan kind of discovered as she wrote, the role of illness and health within a community. No less information is needed to address these topics, but they seem to be more “forgiving” when it comes to issues of pure objectivity.

Not surprising, of course, is the conclusion that good history—local or otherwise—needs both approaches to be informed, convincing, and interesting. I confess that my work with the class last fall got me interested in these kinds of local studies. What I discovered as we worked out the Washington Neighborhood display was how important it became to provide a context for what we planned to present. Creating a display about the Bee Branch waterway, for instance, only seemed interesting and important when we showed images of how often the neighborhood had flooded. And then, when we thought we had the connection down, we were really surprised to talk with former residents who said that they really didn’t mind the flooding that much—that everyone came out of their houses and watched the kids play in the water (it was just rainwater, not sewage). Suddenly, the flooding became evidence of community building. We had to decide how to incorporate those local reflections into what we presented.

From what all of you wrote, I think that class tomorrow will go very well. We will meet in the Center for Dubuque History (library basement) and will hear from the Director, Mike Gibson. I plan to get there early and pull all of the information I can find on your churches—I don’t know how much there will be. But during the course of the evening we’ll hear about resources in the Center that can help us establish that “context” for what we hope to say about each parish or congregation. Old photos, maps, microfilm of the Telegraph Herald—all can provide information about what’s happening locally, statewide, or even nationally when we want to highlight a certain event in the history of a neighborhood church.

Looking forward to seeing you soon. Thanks. Jw

Starting new Fall 2009

This is my second time teaching a one-semester course in the Loras Honors Program dedicated to service learning. Again, te course is for seniors who are finishing their work in the program—a “capstone” to three and a half years worth of work.

Unlike the last class, which topped twenty students, this one is small with only eight. We are back in the Washington neighborhood in Dubuque, this time working directly with churches in that area. Four have agreed to be service sites for the students: St. Mary’s Roman Catholic, Immanuel Congregational, First Presbyterian, and St. John’s Lutheran. At each site, students (who at present are working in pairs) must do three things: participate in existing service opportunities that the church sponsors, help the congregation develop new ties to the neighborhood, and research the history of neighborhood involvement in the Washington area. Our final project will again be an exhibit dedicated to the historical and current relationships between the churches and the neighborhood.

Each student in the class must maintain a blog that describes their service activities and connects their experiences with materials we are reading together for the course. Student blog addresses are as follows:
http://steveislateagain.blogspot.com
crystalstrauch.blogspot.com/
http://lizodonnell.blogspot.com/
http://servethat.blogspot.com/
http://carlasueservice.blogspot.com
http://meghanservicelearning.blogspot.com/
http://kellitheisen.blogspot.com/

The first blog assignment required students to describe their initial encounter with the neighborhood and with their service site. They also had to respond to a chapter from Martha Nussbaums’ book Cultivating Humanity, a piece titled “Socratic Self-Examination.” In my postings, I will be answering what the students write, trying to spend a bit more time on certain responses each week. I’m starting here with my thoughts on what everyone had to say about Nussbaum and the liberal arts.

First off, I was glad to see that (almost) everyone got back into the game and submitted their posts on time. There are exceptions.

Even more impressive, of course, was what people had to say. I didn’t find anyone missing Nussbaum’s thesis that the liberal arts are grounded in critical thinking, especially Socratic questioning, and designed to keep us skeptical of any claims that insulate us from the world. The liberal arts, in other words, teach us methods for keeping “free.” They are “liberal” in that they “liberate us” from any set of assumptions that prevent us from using all of our intellectual resources to solve problems.

Those problems can be big. Kelli notes that Nussbaum thinks that the liberal arts should address social goals, especially “civic freedom.” Of course, once a topic like that is on the table, disagreements follow quickly. Many people are not too sure that society should be liberated from certain beliefs or practices. As Joe wrote, the kind of critical thinking championed by the liberal arts “can seem a bit dangerous to those who fear what . . . reason and questioning can do to the traditional sources of authority.” More traditional or “conservative” critics would tend to raise this issue. For them, when people start to question basic assumptions held by their social or cultural groups, order begins to unravel. Ironically, the person who has given us a fullest biographical glimpse into Socrates’ life, Plato, was one such critic, banning from his ideal republic, for example, all poetry that did not serve the means of the state.

But more open or “liberal” critics also have their gripes with Nussbaum’s vision of the liberal arts. Her dependence upon the traditional method of Socratic reasoning, including its use of logical categories, appears to be a big concession to the status quo. They claim that western society has been dominated by people who have thought this way, and they want us to realize where it has taken us. No group, for example, was more logically precise and consistent in their beliefs and practices than Nazi Germany.

Whatever position you tend to find more persuasive, one fact, according to Meghan, remains, and that is we “don’t always have a clear moral ground.” We push ahead as best we can, oftentimes. It will be interesting to see us all doing that at service sites throughout the semester, trying to put the values Nussbaum describes into action. Sometimes, our efforts will require us, as Carla writes, to look at ourselves “more critically” so that we can “learn from” the people we’re serving. I’m sure that we also will be frustrated by our efforts to get our service sites to do the same. Crystal wrote about the opportunities that she thinks exist at St. John’s, especially as they attempt to build a new kitchen and offer free meals to the neighborhood needy. The first thing that came to my mind was how several Dubuque churches are doing that successfully and could offer some good advice to St. John’s. It will be interesting to see how willing the congregation (just like any group) is willing to listen to the experiences of others and learn from them, especially if those outside views are held by people who have different beliefs and practices.