My friend Jim Mulholland grew up in Greenville, Illinois, where his father taught philosophy at Greenville College. And his father before him. So Jim was steeped in the deep waters of academia, which I realized when I first met him in seminary. A group of us were discussing the Iran-Contra scandal involving Oliver North and John Poindexter, two men who betrayed their oath of office. One of our fellow students was talking about how we convince ourselves we are acting nobly when we are part of a larger movement. We do things as a member of a group we would never do as individuals. Then Jim said, “This is why Soren Kierkegaard said we must live as single individuals. Our morality must take into account the importance of personal choice and commitment.”
I have to tell you, I was really impressed by Jim’s citation of Soren Kierkegaard, and a bit embarrassed, because while he was quoting Kierkegaard, I was thinking of Snuffy Smith, with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, whispering in his ears. Remember that? Of course, I wasn’t about ready to say that, not after Jim quoted Kierkegaard, but I will say it now, that Snuffy Smith might be one of the finest moral theologians of the past 50 years.
Doesn’t that capture our dilemma perfectly? We walk through life with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, each one vying for our attention. Even if you don’t believe in angels and devils, and I’m not inclined to, we all experience the tension between our desire to do good and our temptation to be less, to love less, to care less. Our moral life is a life of conflict and struggle, with good and evil whispering in our ears, contending for dominance.
Morality might be a personal choice, but it is also a collective one. The health and well-being of our world is dependent not only upon our personal conduct, but also upon the conduct of nations, of corporations, of governments, of churches, of all our collective enterprises.
In the weeks ahead, I invite us to think about the Dos and Don’ts In Times of Change. Of course, change is always happening. But there are moments when change is magnified and multiplied by cultural events, and we are certainly living in such a moment now. The droughts and floods of climate change in Central and South America have displaced subsistence farmers, driving them north; wars and violence are creating refugees around the globe; others hoping to escape grinding poverty are seeking economic opportunities elsewhere, and so we are experiencing the escalating migration of people and cultures. Events like these not only challenge us, our response to them defines us.
We are now having to assimilate people who do not look like us, speak like us, worship like us, and think like us. But I believe with all my heart they feel like us. I believe with all my heart they love their children and grandchildren like us. I believe with all my heart they want their children to attend school, to learn and grow, to have opportunities they did not have. And I believe with all my heart that at the end of the day they, like us, want a safe place to lie their heads.
I also believe, with all my heart, that this is a wonderful opportunity, not just for them, but for us. Being with people who aren’t like us has the potential of expanding our lives in marvelous directions—new friendships, new foods, new customs, new insights, new opportunities, new markets, new infusions of thought, all of which save us from cultural and economic stagnation. The great preacher William Sloane Coffin said, “Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.” If you have been paying attention, and I know you have, you also know that many people and many institutions, including the Church, abhor change. They resent having to accommodate the customs of others. Accustomed to privilege, they are reluctant to share power, so react to change not only with fear, but also with violence. It seems like just yesterday that young men, themselves the descendants of immigrants, carried Tiki torches while marching in Charlottesville, Virginia chanting, “You will not replace us. Jews will not replace us. Seig heil! One people, one nation, end immigration.”
In our list of do’s and don’ts, this is a don’t. Nevertheless, too many American Christians echo that sentiment. The Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, way back in 2002, “The modern religious conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior justification for selfishness.”
But there is no justification for selfishness. There is no Biblical tradition, no Christian practice, which can be interpreted to support self-interest, bigotry, and hatred. There is certainly no aspect of Quakerism that can permit such meanness of spirit. Weaponizing our faith against others is to heed the devil on one shoulder, and not the angel on the other. It is to reject the example of Jesus Christ utterly and thoroughly, who welcomed into his life the native born and the immigrant, who gathered around him the Jew and the Gentile, the Pharisee and Samaritan, the powerful and the poor. Never once seeking a superior justification for selfishness.
I was speaking with someone this week who confessed to being worried by the challenges we face in our nation. I’ve been thinking about that all week. I don’t feel that same worry. I feel these days the way I felt about Christmas as a child. I believe something wonderful is approaching, that nobility and grace will carry the day, that our cultural differences and the changes underway will prove to be a radiant gift, that light will prevail and good will win. This I believe, with all my heart.