Sunday, May 18, 2014

Part of a whole

In our culture (the one I was raised in; e.g. Midwest USA), we have this uncanny tendency to view the world in hyper-individualistic terms. When compared to our historical predecessors and numerous less-developed (if you could call that an accurate description) countries, our advanced technology and social structures have effectively allowed this worldview to thrive. We see it in advertising and marketing, we see it in the recent concern about the next generation losing basic social skills in favor of staring at their smartphones.


My purpose here is not to bag on technology or to complain that the Western mindset is all wrong. Instead, I want to paint a picture in your head that we are generally raised to see ourselves as the "center of the story", if you will. By way of contrast, we see many ancient cultures and some modern ones who have well-developed shame/honor systems in which the individuals see themselves as intrinsically part of a larger picture.



What I'm Getting At...

The reason that I wanted to get you to think in terms of how individualistic versus how communal our mindset as a people has become is because I want to make a statement that will either strike you as intrinsically correct or incorrect and I feel that whatever your worldview, in terms of seeing yourself as part of a larger whole or seeing yourself as the main character in your life-story, is going to be the deciding factor.

Your relationship with God is not a private thing

Let that one simmer for a minute....

On the one hand...

I could definitely see the argument that comes from the individualistic worldview: "Hey, wait a second, my life is my life and my prayers are private and the Bible says to not let your prayers be seen in a public place but to pray in private and do good works in anonymity. And furthermore, the Bible says that only God can judge me and so if I got God on my side, who can say what about my relationship with him? It's none of anyone's business".

Just then, I tried to come up with a couple of the most common arguments; here's why they're unfounded...

While it's true that we have private lives and that maintaining a healthy internal spiritual life is vital to the human experience, the Bible in no way promotes or supports the kind of individualism we have wedged into the Christian tradition. When it speaks of not letting your prayers be seen and of doing good works secretly, the Spirit-inspired authors were talking about our pride: don't let pride be the reason you pray passionately or do things for others. Addressing the last little argument above, the Bible says that Christians are to allow God to be the judge of those who wrong us instead of trying to exact vengeance ourselves. This, however, is not equivocal to saying "only God can judge me"; no, everyone can judge you - most people will - but it is specifically because everyone has the capacity to judge that the command to not judge is important to the Christian life. Don't judge, it's God's job - not "only God can judge me".

On the other hand...

Christians believe that the Bible is perfect for describing how humans are to live with God and each other. If we believe this, then the first bit of my argument above ("my life is my life...) is total smoke; it doesn't hold. This is because the type of community and life that Christians are to live is to be one where Christ is the center of the picture, the main character of the story and the head of our community. So, the individualistic worldview that we've received from our culture is to be completely forsaken in favor of the communal and Christocentric worldview of Jesus. This is why our relationships with God are not private: our lives are not private.

How does this work with maintaining an internal spiritual life?

I will attempt to reconcile these two important facets of the Christian life - private spiritual life and communal faith - by way of an analogy. Let's think of this in terms of a sports team. I train Crossfit in which all work out routines are timed or scored in some way. This naturally evolved into competitions in which there are some partner events, individual events and team events. In some competitions there are teams of four or five in which they compete against other teams to accomplish the exercises set before them. 
As a member of a competitive team, everything I do in training as an individual is going to affect the whole, so there is a large portion of my training regimen that must keep in mind that there is a bigger picture at stake here and more going on than what I do as an individual.  However, this needs to be balanced with the fact that I am an individual and have personal strengths and weaknesses to contend with and, in training, these are things to focus on not to the end of becoming a greater me, but to make the team a greater contender for victory.

So...

A Christian faces this kind of tension; we are to be mindful of the fact that we are bringing the Kingdom of God to earth and that everything we do affects this overall goal and big picture. We are part of a larger community: the Church throughout history and the world. We are, however, individuals who have personal baggage and spiritual lives that need cleaned up, improved and maintained. We should not, however, let ourselves ever be deceived into thinking that we can focus solely on one of these two modes of spiritual living. We are both a community and individuals. Hold this tension because our individual relationships with God are public, communal and not private; they are part of a whole.

peace,
C.M.


 

2 comments:

  1. Just today I was reflecting on this very issue (only in relation to Christian hope)! Thinking back over my own journey, there was a kind of perverted individualism at work in me that was, at it's core, a form of escapism. Escapism from the risks of interaction; escapism from the responsibility of taking God's calling seriously; escapism from really thinking about the hard questions that face the Christian. And in hindsight, I really think that the root of this was my understanding (or misunderstanding) of Christian hope. It was all about having my soul saved so that I could know that I'll go to heaven when I die, so that I can now get on with the rest of my life and do whatever it is I want to do. Hah! After all, if it's all about me then surely God will sort everything out for me; I don't need to do any of the heavy lifting. Good post, Church Mystic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! Yes, I wrote this because I feel like your and my experience with individualism is a pretty common experience in America.

    ReplyDelete