by Charlie Jenkins

by Christopher Zehnder

  One might well complain that calling a mid-19th century pope an environmentalist is anachronistic, at best. After all, Pope Gregory XVI died in 1846, well over a century before the environmentalist movement was born. The objection is a fair one, but only if we take the root term, environment (as referring to the natural environment) in the narrowest sense. If, however, we understand environment more broadly – as those conditions that surround us and influence us – and environmental to indicate a care for that environment, then, I think, calling Pope Gregory XVI an “environmentalist” is not too far off the mark.

  Indeed, Gregory took the “environment” of his day very seriously; some might say, too seriously. One might think, in fact, that he fit well the stereotype of the modern environmentalist – that he lacked balance and perspective, confusing the essential with what is merely external and contingent. Many, indeed, would call Gregory a reactionary; for, he vehemently opposed republican government and would accept no lay participation in the government of his Papal States. His 1832 encyclical, Mirari Vos, condemned liberty of conscience and the freedom to publish any and all opinions. He stood resolutely against every revolution in his time – even the rebellion of the Catholic Poles against their persecutor, the Orthodox tsar of Russia. Why, Gregory XVI was so “reactionary” that he even forbade the building of a railroad and the installing of gas lights in the the Papal States! He despised railroads. He called them chemins d’enfer (“roads to hell”) – a pun on the French chemin de fer, “iron road.” (This, of course, suggests that Gregory had a sense of humor, which he did. Those close to him knew him to be jovial, friendly, and a lover of good conversation – thus demonstrating that even reactionaries can be fun.)

  It is in his opposition to the modern technology of his day that Gregory XVI most closely approximates the caricature of the modern environmentalist, who, at the very least, would call for a severe curtailment in the use and development of certain forms of technology (such as air conditioning or the automobile) because they harm the natural environment and human health. The more subtle among them may even point to the effects of such technology on human culture. Certainly, Pope Gregory XVI was not thinking of air pollution or climate change when he excoriated trains. What he objected to, and what he thought inexorably bound up with the expansion of the technology of his day, were habits of mind and morality that most modern environmentalists take as self-evident truths. In a word, what Gregory objected to was Liberalism.

  This Liberalism was not simply the “liberalism” of the U.S. Democratic Party; indeed, it encompasses the fundamental ideals that lie behind the American political order itself, as well as the ideals of most nations on earth today. At the basis of this Liberalism is the premise that man’s most natural state is one of radical freedom and autonomy; that human community is a construct to preserve individual freedom, and thus not proper to man as man. Forms of community, including political community, are thus artificial and have the character of an imposition, even if a necessary imposition. But if they are necessary, they are only so because they protect and preserve individual freedom. The limit of human aspiration remains absolute autonomy – even if it can never be fully attained.
    
  Individual liberty is the only absolute for Liberalism. Its limitation can only be justified by liberty. Public order, not the common good, thus becomes the only excuse for law and government; for, the expressions of liberty (freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, freedom of choice) imply that it is the individual who determines the content of the good. Law and government delineate a space wherein each individual can exercise maximum autonomy, nothing more.
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  In opposing Liberalism, Gregory was not condemning human liberty as such. It was this pope, for instance, who in his 1839 apostolic letter, In Supremo Apostolatus, sternly condemned enslavement and the slave trade. Gregory understood that freedom is proper to man; what he condemned was the principle of fundamental human autonomy. Gregory operated out of the Catholic social and political tradition that saw organized communal life as a given for man, as an expression of human nature – man as a social and political animal. Based as it is in human nature, the organized communal life has a goal or purpose, which is none other than the good of man as man: the inculcation of virtue, understood not simply as moral rectitude but the perfection of all human faculties – physical, moral, intellectual, and, ultimately, spiritual. It was in defense of this tradition that Gregory exercised all the powers of his mind and heart.

  To appreciate this, one need not agree with everything Gregory XVI did and said. One need not share his disdain for railroads and gas lights. (His successor, Blessed Pius IX, in his reign established both these technologies in the Papal States, as well as a lay advisory senate for his government – for which he was mistakenly dubbed the “Liberal pope.”) But, I think, we might be indulging in a bit of disdain ourselves if we simply laugh off Greogry’s pun, chemins d’enfer. It may be, in his rejection of the “modern” technology of his day, that Gregory was on to something. He may have understood implicitly what one of his successors on Peter’s Throne has stated explicitly:

    We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about the kind of society we want to build.

  Thus, Pope Francis (Laudato Si’ 107) – arguably a pope of a very different stamp than Gregory XVI. But though Gregory would very likely find some of Francis’ comments and actions appalling (and might think they justify his detestation of railroads), he might discover kindred sentiments in Laudato Si’.
  
  Gregory forbade the building of railroads because he saw them as avenues by which Liberalism might infiltrate the Papal States. The technology of the period was an expression of a conviction that rose with Francis Bacon’s ipsa scientia est potestas (“knowledge is power.”) It was the notion that knowledge is ordered, not to contemplation, but to craft – to subduing the world for the utility of human freedom. In other words, the function of knowledge, and therefore technology, is to set us free from the limitations of nature, just as politics is to set us free from the limitations imposed by all tradition, custom, and authority. Such technology “create[s] a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups.” The powerful groups of Pope Gregory XVI’s day were those that sought the overthrow, not only of the Church, but of the human culture that Church had protected and fostered. And their boast was the power their technology gave them over the powers of nature.
  
  Space does not permit me to expound on just how technology does condition human society and culture; but I think a little reflection on history and, in particular, on the technological changes that have occurred in the lives, especially, of us middle-aged folk, will exemplify the truth of Pope Francis’ words and Pope Gregory XVI’s intuitions. What is called for, of course, cannot be a simple rejection of technology, “a return to the Stone Age,” in Pope Francis’ words; but what is demanded is a re-evaluation of technology, of its power to influence human life and culture and a reining in of its pretensions. As Laudato Si’ (114) puts it, we “need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and great goals swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur.”
    
Both Francis and Gregory XVI call us to walk the narrow way to true human fulfillment, not simply to hitch the next ride on the chemins d’enfer.


Christopher Zehnder holds a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts from Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California, and a Master's in Dogmatic Theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut. He is the general editor for the Catholic Textbook Project and the author of a novel, A Song for Else, about the period of the German Reformation.

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Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

I.     Introduction

What do you think of when you hear the word “Solidarity?”

I’ve asked a few people this question over the past couple of weeks, and I’ve received some different answers. Some think of labor unions—you know, workers standing in solidarity with each other, refusing to cross picket lines. “Solidarity Forever,” is the title of a common union song, sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Some took that labor union theme in a different direction, remembering the anti-communist labor union in Poland called Solidarity. It grew so quickly that in the early ‘80s, the Polish government imposed martial law, and in 1982, made the union illegal. Both Pope John Paul II and the U.S. government helped keep it going through the rest of the ‘80s, and when the Iron Curtain was rolled back in 1989, Solidarity helped lead the government.

Others took a different approach, talking about “standing together.” To them, solidarity described how people “stand together” with other people—for example after the terrorist bombing in France, many people stood together with France, even if standing together just meant putting a French flag in the background of their picture on Facebook. Others spoke of standing together with persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
Finally, some took that idea of “standing together” a little further. They spoke of the Christian concept of solidarity, whether that means Christ’s solidarity with us by taking on human flesh and dying in our place, or human solidarity—the idea that as image bearers of God, we humans are all a part of the same family. That Christian concept of solidarity is clearly visible in our text this morning—in fact I think it is intertwined throughout Scripture. And so it is that Christian concept of solidarity that I want to focus on today.

I became especially interested in the Christian concept of solidarity, because I have been spending some of my time reading up on the parallels between Calvinist social theories and Catholic social teaching. It’s amazing—Calvinists and Catholics may differ on some important theological issues, but we really have a lot in common when it comes to political and social theory. We often use completely different terminology, which sometimes leads us to walk down slightly different paths. But on social issues, anyway, those paths don’t really deviate very far.

Pope John Paul II, who worked with the U.S. government to secretly keep the Solidarity movement going in Poland, once declared that the foundation of Christian social thought—Catholic or otherwise, rests on three cornerstones. One of those cornerstones is solidarity. So today, let’s focus on the Christian concept of solidarity. To do that, we’ll first look briefly at our solidarity with Adam and then Christ’s solidarity with us. Then, we’ll focus on our solidarity with each other as humans beings, made in God’s image.

II.    Our Solidarity with Adam

First, and very briefly, I want to touch on a very important part of the Christian idea of solidarity—our solidarity with Adam. Some people call this “corporate solidarity.” To understand the real meaning of what Christ did for us, we have to understand corporate solidarity.

Corporate solidarity means that a group of people is so identified with a single person that what is said of the individual can also be said of the group as a whole. This idea of corporate solidarity is made plain in Romans 5. In verse 12, Paul writes that “just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin… in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.”

R. C. Sproul explains this well. He says that “Adam was chosen to represent his descendants; so, when he fell, all people fell.” The old New England primer put even more simply: “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.”

Because of the sin of the first Adam, all of humanity fell into sin. Because all humans are identified with Adam, we corporately share in that fall into sin. True, we all sin as individuals, but the core of our fallenness as sinful human beings comes about because of our solidarity with Adam.

III.  Christ’s Solidarity with Us

Thankfully, there is much more to the story of solidarity than our solidarity with Adam. Jesus, as the second Adam, also represents His people. As Christians, we bear the name of Christ, and we are so identified with Him that what is said of Him can also be said of Christians as a whole. This means that Christ’s perfect obedience to God allows Christians to be counted as having also kept the Law.

If can’t imagine any more perfect picture of solidarity than Christ’s incarnation—his taking on human flesh and living among us and living a perfect life on our behalf.

Ed Knudson is a former pastor who now leads the Center for Public Theology. Knudson points out that the incarnation wasn’t about Jesus becoming “a human being in order to demonstrate how capable God is.” After all, God didn't have to prove anything to anybody. Instead, Jesus became a human being because “God wanted to create solidarity with us as human beings. God in Jesus entered into our lives. God did not just stand over and above us and away from us, but entered into the reality of human life so that God could be with us, close to us, part of us, so that God could know directly what it means to be one of us. … This is solidarity.”

And Christ’s solidarity went even farther than simply his taking on flesh. It extended to his blood as well—his blood shed for us. No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. Christ’s solidarity with us—his standing together with us—led to his crucifixion, a terrible death, but a death we share in because he stood with us and for us. And as a result, our sins are forgiven.


We are reconciled with God—no longer far off from him. And we are set free to live lives of service to God and solidarity with out neighbors.

IV.   Our Solidarity with Each Other

And that brings us to the key point of our text from Ephesians this morning—our solidarity with each other. In verses 13 and 14 we read that “now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…”

Paul is referring here to the split between Jews and Gentiles. Christ, by standing in as the second Adam, didn’t just establish solidarity with the Jews, but with all of his people, Jew and Gentle alike.

Healing the split between Jews and Gentiles was an important part of the ministry of the early church. Jewish Christians had a tendency to look down at Gentile Christians, believing that they were somehow better because they came from the line of Abraham.

While the division between Jew and Gentile is not a big part of the Christian church today, there have come to be many other divisions among Christians—differences over style, differences between rich and poor, differences over politics, differences over race.

Thirty years ago, I heard a sermon by Rev. John Perkins, an African-American pastor and civil rights leader who grew up in an impoverished family of sharecroppers in Mississippi. Perkins noted that the most segregated hour of the week comes on Sunday, when Christians get together to worship. His statement is probably still correct today. There are still divisions among Christians, and our text should encourage us to work to end those divisions.


But there is a level of solidarity that goes beyond simply healing divisions between Christians, as important as that is. After all, God created ALL humans in his own image and likeness. Despite our different appearance, our different abilities, our different cultures—even our different beliefs—we are all reflections of God’s image. Put another way, we are one human family, whatever our differences. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be.

Our text teaches us that Christ’s purpose in atonement is to create in himself one humanity. He came and preached peace to all—those who were far away and those who are near. And as a result, we are no longer foreigners and strangers. Instead we stand together as fellow citizens with all of God’s people. We stand in solidarity with all humanity as we seek to be built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

But how do we do that? How can we live in solidarity and peace with each other?

Note that word peace in verse 17: “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.”

The Greek word we translate as peace here comes up 92 different times in the New Testament. Jesus taught that the peacemakers will be blessed. When Jesus healed, he often told people to go in peace and be healed. In John, Jesus comforted his disciples by telling them “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” And throughout the epistles we read of the peace of Christ, and the command to pursue peace with all humans.

The very core of solidarity—of standing together with our fellow human beings, is pursuit of justice and peace. The Gospel calls us to be peacemakers. Our love for all our sisters and brothers demands that we promote peace in a world surrounded by violence and conflict. And like the old bumper sticker says, “if you want peace, work for justice.”

But how do we do that? How do we work for justice? After all, the problems of the world are so big, so seemingly unsolveable. How do we make peace in a world where blustering despots and politicians with their fingers on nuclear arsenals ratchet up hatred and spew threats? How do we make peace in a world where racists march with torches through a town that still bears the scars of Jim Crow? How do we make peace in a world where more than 90% of the wealth is held by less than 10% of the people—and by the way we are in that 10%.

Well, first, note that solidarity doesn’t mean that we need find immediate solutions to all the world’s problems. As Jesus himself notes, we will always have the poor with us. Instead solidarity means standing together with the widow and the orphan, with the poor and the marginalized.

And standing together actually means “together.” Solidarity is more than a feeling of vague compassion for the misfortune of people. It is more than just a feeling of sadness or distress about the bad things our fellow humans often bear. And it is even more than just posting a picture to our Facebook accounts or writing letters or signing petitions

Rather, it is what Pope John Paul called “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good…for the good of all and each individual.” Paul Bailie, a pastor who serves a church in a desperately poor part of Texas, puts it another way. He says that “solidarity isn’t just to agree with somebody. Solidarity isn’t just to help somebody. Rather, solidarity is the process of laying aside your own opportunity and privilege in order to live in equality and mutuality with others.”

“Laying aside your own opportunity and privilege in order to live in equality and mutuality with others.” Kind of sounds like “Sell all you own, give it to the poor, and follow me.”

R.C. Sproul was once asked if this instruction from Jesus to the rich young ruler was true for all? Sproul’s answer was yes—it is true.

He pointed out that we often comfort ourselves by thinking that Jesus’s words were just some kind of test. We argue that Jesus was simply calling out the young ruler for not really obeying all the commandments. After all, he put money ahead of God.

But when we do this we deceive ourselves. Sproul puts it this way: “When we sign on with Jesus we give up our wealth.” In fact “we give up every gift that He had already given us, and every gift He will give us from that moment forward. When we become a part of the bride of Christ our pre-nuptial agreement reads, ‘All that I am and all that I have is yours O Lord, from this day forth and evermore.’”

And so, while the Master may still allow us to continue to steward the money and reputation and gifts we have, we must give it up and give it to those who need it.

How might we do that?

Well, first, note that while Jesus said that the poor will always be with us, the context shows us that he was urging us on to generosity and action, not encouraging apathy. Craig Greenfield, a former missionary who now writes on poverty issues points out that Jesus is using a catch-phrase from a larger context.

You know how some catch-phrases are just so well known, that everyone knows the ending—you don’t even really need to say it? “Sticks and stones.”

Everyone already knows the ending, “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Just saying “sticks and stones” is enough for you to catch my drift.

It just so happens that in saying “The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus was quoting another well-known Biblical phrase—from Deuteronomy 15. Everyone hearing him back then would have caught his drift.

Here’s the full original quote from Deuteronomy 15:

“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be … For the poor you will always have with you in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’”

So, reading Jesus’ words in their original context you can see that His words were meant to encourage generosity towards the poor. “Open wide your hand!” The command to be open-handed towards the poor comes directly from God himself.

But standing in solidarity goes beyond simply issues of wealth and poverty. A Reformed Presbyterian seminary professor, Michael Lefebvre, has been on the forefront of racial reconciliation issues. He encourages white Christians to spend more time humbly listening to the voices of minority communities. And that includes not picking at some of the areas where we may find some disagreement or concern.

He agrees that there may occasionally be reasons to be concerned about things that a few members of organizations such as Black Live Matter say. But he notes that it is more important to listen to what he calls “the genuine voices of appeal.” “Have the charity to look past what is theologically troubling and turn your ear to hear the cry of the oppressed,” he says.

He also points out that cross-cultural friendships are important, but not enough. Racism in our society goes far beyond interpersonal issues, but pervades the structures of our society.

When white folks like most of us think about racism, we’re usually thinking about the interpersonal issues, and not about this systemic racism. There is a reason for that.

Michael Emerson and Christian Smith wrote an excellent book a few years back called “Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America.” Several of my friends and I are reading through and discussing this book together.

Emerson and Smith point out that the racial practices that cause and create racial division today in the United States are more and more hidden, they are embedded in the everyday operations of institutions, they avoid direct racial terminology, and they are invisible to most Whites. We can’t see them” But they are still there.

Cecil Murray, senior pastor at First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, has a solution to the fact that white folks too often fail to recognize systemic racism. He says “white evangelicals need an at-risk gospel… Calling sinners to repentance means also calling societies and structures to repentance—economic, social, educational, corporate, political, religious structures… The gospel at once works with [the] individual and the individual’s society: to change one, we of necessity must change the other.” An at-risk gospel means we may be giving up our easy lives or our reputations or our wealth, but we are called to these risks in order to root out the effects of sin on the very structures of our society.

But still, it may seem difficult and impractical for us as individuals to take on institutions, corporations, and political structures.


Paul Bailie, that pastor from Texas, gives a few ideas for living in solidarity with the poor and taking on the structures of our society, ideas that have come out of his experience in ministry with the poor. He encourages Christians to work together in food cooperatives and community gardens, rather than just creating food banks. He suggests that Christians who have particular skills—crafts and sewing, for example, to put together workshops teaching these skills rather than just giving away old clothes. He encourages Christians to go on different kinds of mission trips—instead of just going and painting and fixing things, he encourages us to get immersed in the culture, and learn and worship together in the communities we visit.

And perhaps most importantly, we can stand in solidarity with our neighbors by making sure that our homes and congregations are places of hospitality for all—places where the poor and marginalized in society feel comfortable and cared for, even when some of their problems seem to us to be preventable or self-inflicted or the result of sin. Solidarity is about standing with people, recognizing their humanity and worth, regardless of the situation.


Over the years we’ve begun to understand that standing in solidarity with the unborn means more than just marching around abortion clinics yelling “murder.” Instead, it means welcoming unwed mothers with open arms, caring for them and their children in love and compassion rather than judgment.

You see, while solidarity is never about attacking or denouncing our fellow human, solidarity also doesn’t have to mean tolerance, or even acceptance, of things we can’t condone. But solidarity does mean standing with people where they are, loving them, supporting them. After all God demonstrated his own love for and solidarity with us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And so we Christians should stand in solidarity with all sorts of people, even when those people don’t match up our personal description of the ideal Christian.

V.    Conclusion


Solidarity forever. If we’re talking about real solidarity—Christian solidarity—we are talking about much more than just some old union ditty. We’re talking about God’s command to us to love our neighbors as ourselves—to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before our God—to be instruments of peace.

In solidarity with the people he loved, Christ took on flesh and lived a life focused solely on our good. And now we are also called to solidarity with all of God’s people. We are called to stand together in solidarity with our fellow humans in self-sacrificial love—a love modeled on Christ’s love for us.

Amen

​This sermon was originally preached by Chuck Adams. Chuck is the elected city attorney for Sheboygan and a member of the American Solidarity Party. For more of his writings please visit https://chuckadams.blogspot.com/

by Kyle Herrington

 Though considered the developed world, we seem to have stopped developing new ideas to our problems, relying instead on old tropes to solve the problems our world faces. Case in point: children in the age of climate change. In my endless hours of scrolling through Facebook (trying to change this nasty habit), I have found many stories concerning children and global warming. As this NPR headline proclaims Want To Slow Global Warming? Researchers Look To Family Planning. According to the Lund University study the NPR story covers, children are a huge producer of CO2; thus, having less children would reduce future CO2 emissions.

It turns out children are not just potential CO2 emitters, but cause poverty as well. In recent controversial comments, President Emmanuel Macron of France appeared to cite “seven or eight children per woman” population growth as a challenge in stabilizing the African continent. Now, I do not speak French. The President could argue his comments were taken out of context, but the optics of a former colonial power giving such an answer cannot be avoided. Additionally, Macron is not the only one seeing African children as a problem. Watch this stunning interview between Nigerian-born pro-life activist Obianuju Ekeocha and a BBC reporter for another example of how post-colonial powers still manifest imperialist attitudes.

The most recent iteration of the "zero-growth" trope has also touched the English Royal Family. An organization called Having Kids sent a letter to the Royal Family after Duchess Kate made a comment about possibly wanting more children. The letter urged the family to be models of a sustainable family: “All of us – especially public figures – should plan our families with the future environment in mind, producing a smaller and more resilient populace capable of thriving in that environment.” The letter also pointed out the Royal Family’s children would be raised with many opportunities and excellent care, while other children are deprived of those things (their lives thus being worthless? Or the Royal's thus obliged to make sure there are less children who have received excellent care? The letter-writers seem confused )The organization believes Prince William and Duchess Kate would be better role models simply by having less children to model for.

Do I dispute the research about children and emissions? No, not necessarily. Do I think Prince William and Duchess Kate should be role models? No. What I dispute is the overriding attitude about children and life that are baked into the above instances. I think we have a problem with Western thinkers, policy makers, and citizens getting “stuck ‘n the rut” of status quo thinking. We dredge out lazy proposals to solve problems that our lifestyles have created. Besides being elitist, this attitude demonstrates a troubling mindset of the West and its governance: people are pawns to be manipulated to serve policy objectives instead of people to be respected and cherished.
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Take for example the story about the Royal Family and their family size. The webpage included not only the story about the letter but also a short snippet about Duchess Kate’s dress and fashion (see the screenshots). The callout box gushed over the looks of the tour wardrobe of the Duchess. It was an interesting juxtaposition. The contemporary fashion industry relies upon constant turn-over in trends. Many want cheap imitations, which is where industries like Forever XXI thrive: they provide a constantly steady stream of throwaway garments. In addition, these clothes are usually made in factories with awful working conditions, and often contractors are used as a defense for the brand to hide behind when the inevitable charges of employee maltreatment arise. At the same time, online shopping has exploded. Shopping that requires massive amount of product being made at cheap prices to be shipped to customers. Just think about how much emissions, money, time, etc. that costs. But instead of talking about what it is we are doing in our daily lives that affects the climate, less children is considered the polite solution. Well, maybe it is actually our lifestyles that are the problem.

    A focus on living locally, living simply, not having to have the latest technological innovation might solve many problems and could even make us happier and more fulfilled. After all, a slow, home-made home-grown meal is infinitely more satisfying than fast food. Yet, these ideas often don’t even enter our minds because we are too comfortable in our present lifestyle to think “outside the box”. Easy solutions that inevitable position individuals as pawns in a global market are more "convenient" and have the added benefit of not requiring much sacrifice on anyone's part.

Pope Francis’s warning about the technological paradigm gives a name to this disease. In his encyclical Laudato Si’, the Holy Father wrote that the technological paradigm “exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object.” He points out how this paradigm is dominant in all areas of life, whether political, cultural, economic, ecological, etc. Yet, the Holy Father points out we should not become despondent. Instead, we can rise to the opportunity and challenge the over-arching paradigm, challenging it locally and on a global level. In a key passage he says:

"Yet we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral. Liberation from the dominant technocratic paradigm does in fact happen sometimes, for example, when cooperatives of small producers adopt less polluting means of production, and opt for a non-consumerist model of life, recreation and community. Or when technology is directed primarily to resolving people’s concrete problems, truly helping them live with more dignity and less suffering. Or indeed when the desire to create and contemplate beauty manages to overcome reductionism through a kind of salvation which occurs in beauty and in those who behold it. An authentic humanity, calling for a new synthesis, seems to dwell in the midst of our technological culture, almost unnoticed, like a mist seeping gently beneath a closed door. Will the promise last, in spite of everything, with all that is authentic rising up in stubborn resistance?" (112)

This challenge is why I have joined and encourage you to join the Dorothy Day Caucus of the American Solidarity Party. This caucus will advocate for this radical re-evaluation of our current problems, proposing ideas and policies that take into account our human nature and articulating solutions that respect our nature and the natural world. Dorothy Day, the inspiration for this group, once said “We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.” This caucus will talk about poverty, the role of the family, just distribution of economic goods, the place of government, etc. because we have become too comfortable. Our current political discourse has blinded us to human life and our place in this world while compounding the world’s problem. We can make this an opportunity to articulate a holistic view of life. Will you join us?

by Tara Ann Thieke

Note: Today The Kitchen Table publishes the second half of a two-part essay regarding history and slavery. The first half, published on Friday August 18, can be found here. 

by Tara Ann Thieke

​Note: This is part one of a two-part essay. The first focuses on whether history can be "rewritten." Part two focuses on what history asks of us today, and will be published on 8/21/2017.

Part One: History Will Not Be Silenced
Language is not a dead thing and neither is the past. We carry their weight from moment to moment. The memories, lives, and deaths of people unknown and unrelated to you breathe through you when you say "egg" (a Norse word carried over the cold North Sea to England by Cnut's conquest), or "pajamas" (a Persian word which made its way into English). In a moment where the legacy of the wickedness of America's great sin rises to our minds, it is worthy to recall perhaps the most potent words spoken by Southern Gothic author William Faulkner: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

No, the past is not dead, and neither is history. It suits us to pretend otherwise, though. A dead past is a past we can control, and thus it is that history is not just written by the winners, but is constantly edited by the living who desire eternal victory for their own interpretation. Nor is our impulse for cryogenics a new thing under the sun. Children who have lost parents, mothers who have lost sons, wives who have lost husbands, friends their comrades: all these people are moved by the same impulse to preserve their loved ones, to soothe the cries of grief by seeking an earthly sort of immortality. Since mummification and the pyramid-tombs (and surely it's not uninteresting to note those pyramids were largely built by slaves, recent contrarian histories set aside), the human race has longed for assurance that their memories matter.

As is so often the case this assurance came, but not in the expected form. Humans were given the Word. And the Word was followed by the Holy Spirit. This is what we have received. There is something comforting in this, and a mystery as well: the past is not gone. The dead are out of sight, but what death itself means when Christ has conquered death is unclear. Tolkien wrote that death is a gift, and it is only our corruption that blinds us to its true nature. We think we wage a battle against death. The true battle we are called to is with the hardness of our own hearts.

Since history, language, and the past are never over, then surely it is incumbent upon us to look at the meaning of the statues. What do they tell us today, and what does their preservation speak to? The impulse to throw them up was human enough, but the sentiment of grief and the desire to remember are not immune from less noble motives. Woven into the erection of these monuments was the same impulse to control and defy the living nature of history. The very monuments of the pharoahs were a testimony to their tyranny over their slaves. They sought to freeze their own history with no regard for the weight of those stones.

Our rocks today loom largely in our mind; or at least, their significance does. They are a symbol, and a symbol is not designed to die but to live. It is there to speak for all who cannot speak. History lives, and it lives in those monuments. The monuments occupy a space, speaking to a human need to memorialize, but also speaking to the human need to control. The monuments are the manifestation of our need to control the past; if the past is never dead, what does that mean for the present?

It means a story of torture, murder, rape, abduction (all-too-easily summed up under the clinical term “oppression”) lives on in the space around statues and monuments. That space indicts the statues with its silence. The statue of a general is there because there was a war, and there was a war because those generals and soldiers defended slavery.

The history of the world is marked by slavery. All around us is the testimony of man's brutality to man, though whether or not we know what we look upon is a different issue. Chattel slavery in the United States ended in 1865, and was finally eliminated from the Western Hemisphere in 1888. But history and oppression did not come to an "ever after." The favelas of Brazil are full of the descendants of slaves. The cities of the United States are crowded as well, and a few zoning regulations withstanding, their plight and poverty are similar. Unlike pharoah’s slaves, they were not led through the Red Sea to the Promised Land. They were shuttled out of sight, occasionally thrown a pittance for their troubles. To be coolly ignored was nearly a blessing, as worse always lurked around the corner.

For the hatred and greed of the slave-owners lived on. As they built monuments to their dead they found ways to persecute their former slaves. It is perhaps one of the more telling things about us that we most hate those whom we abuse. They were hated as they were driven into the cities by forces often described in impersonal, technical language, but were a collective mask for a million acts of persecution and ruthlessness.

It is not a war against history or memory to tear those monuments down; on the contrary, it is hearing the living word of history. To take down these monuments is to free the past from its artificial, frozen, cryogenic chamber and allow it to breathe again. It is to acknowledge the sins and evil which still shape the landscape of our time. And when it comes to history, it is no mere truism to recall that forgetfulness of the past is the first step to repetition.

There is truth in the idea that virtue is a golden mean, though. The path is straight and narrow and evil waits on both sides. One day we wrestle with forgetfulness and apathy; the next we are called to wrestle with self-righteous fundamentalism, with mob rule of a different sort. A better world would be one in which we wrestled with our own hearts, but too often we prefer to cast ourselves as heroes in a children's story.

Thus it is not accidental that one symptom of our current comic-book morality is a refusal to address the concerns of those with whom we find ourselves in disagreement. To do so is to give them "legitimacy" and we don't legitimize hate. Fair enough, it seems, but one day, sooner than we may imagine, it will be Christianity that is labeled "hate" and the churches which are set upon by crowds. It is not paranoia or fantasy. There are wolves at the gate, and blank-slatist utopians have hands dripping with blood. And if they, too, refuse to recognize their own sins, the day will come when they will turn upon one another as has so often been the case. Worship of power and the assurance of one's moral purity intoxicate and then devour. 

No, it is better to not be the Zealot, convinced of his righteousness, but to take the path of that inimitable gentle ox, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Following in his footsteps, let us put (some) of the complaints of those in favor of the statues in their best light.

To remove the statues is to condemn the South to live stripped of its history, similar to post-WWII Japan. Some may shrug at this, but let us not be light about grave matters. Japan's fertility is plummeting. Families and caregiving have collapsed. Millennia-worth of traditions and cultures were neglected as they fled their own memories in shame. There was wisdom in this, but also grave folly. For what did they embrace as they sought a new framework? The drug of global capitalism, and with its pernicious kernel of community liquidization in favor of individual consumerism, Japan now suffers the phenomena of "hikikomori" and "kodokushi" ("shut-ins" and "lonely death" respectively) on the most crowded island on earth.

Slavery was almost entirely eliminated in the medieval world. With the onrush of capitalism and dismantling of Christendom, an age of dislocation and liquidization emerged. We have not seen its final triumph and its legacy is yet veiled. What we do know is chattel slavery was a part of that process. As we acknowledge its poison, we must carry in our minds the dangers of related poisons, though they may not seem to be part of the same family. My second post will address this issue more specifically, but for now I shall leave this point with this: history abhors a vacuum. The absence of the monuments will be filled, and what will fill it poses its own risks. If confidence in our own self-righteousness and disdain for the concerns of others takes the pedestal, an opportunity for true metanoia will have been lost.

There is the concern about where this stops. Alongside those who correctly see the brutalization of their ancestors (and its living legacy) and the silence on their history in the statues, are there iconoclasts with a broader agenda? Likely, yes. Those in the crowd willing to crush capitalism seem a little too willing to crush heads as well. Speech is equated to violence very quickly. Dehumanizing language is employed regularly. All dissenters are Nazis. This is troubling indeed, and to have concerns reduced to "whataboutism" (if not accusations of being an outright Nazi) magnifies those concerns. Those of us willing to proceed with tearing down the statues must wrestle with these dangers. 

Finally there is another concern, one that may sound trivial in the telling but is deeply related to these other objections. The art world is callous in its disregard for public feeling. They have foisted dehumanizing works of art upon the people for decades and they have been proud and cruel in the process. I, for one, would happily see every Brutalist building in this world torn down, and would rejoice to witness the monstrosities of mega-malls and McMansions replaced by architecture which cared for more than profit. There is almost no chance the monuments will be replaced by anything beautiful, anything which acknowledges human complexity, anything which looks with love at the overwhelming beauty of the South. Those who will be commissioned will accept their righteousness as objective while conveniently defining beauty as subjective. They will laugh off concerns and mock the commoners who avert their eyes in grief. Overly-sensitive! the art lords and their supporters will cry with barely disguised glee as they revel in their moral superiority. What, you can tolerate a monument to a man who owned human beings but recoil from a metal shard slashing at the sky?

Well, yes. Human beings are imperfect, and the modern art world is deeply, deeply imperfect. The language spoken by them for decades has repeatedly been one of sneering contempt for the people, and all too often a co-option of the stories of marginalization for the purposes of furthering a liquidized view of humanity. That their language is highly comfortable with the fluidity of global capitalism should trouble those who claim their art is liberating. It is an art that has failed to stand by the disabled or the unborn, which has too often looked upon the human body with hate. It cherry-picks groups according to an ideology which uses Christ's love of the poor, and the Christian legacy of loving the suffering, as an excuse to remake the world as they desire.

Permanence is not a right.We cannot and should not remake the world according to the wishes of the few, of the rich, of the powerful, of the "I-know-betters." But it does not follow that changing anything is bad. There is a golden mean between preserving the past as a mausoleum where no fresh air may enter, and erasing the past to build what resembles an impersonal dystopia suited for machines rather than people. We need the golden mean, which in this case is, once more, to serve the Imago Dei. Communities should be consulted while taking these monuments down, and these communities should play a part of deciding what goes up. African-Americans had no say in the erection of these monuments which were pivotal, not incidental to their history and their ongoing oppression. The entire community should have a voice in what replaces these monuments. The faces and voices of the people, neither the slave-owners nor denizens of industrial lofts most profiting from the fruits of global capitalism, should determine what replaces these monuments.

Our perpetual inclination is to strangle the living nature of the Word, to capture breath and spirit and remold it to suit ourselves. We limit our thinking to "this or that." It's the monuments or modern art. It's history or brave new world. We enable the evil of the past, or we encourage a fundamentalist zeal in the present. But it doesn't have to be this way. There is the narrow path. Let us start with the Imago Dei. Let us start with our neighbor. There are other people to commemorate, all complex, all who have wrestled with their angels and demons, rather than merely projecting them onto others. A statue of novelist Walker Percy will soon be up in Louisiana. Let Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston, John Kennedy O'Toole, Sterling Allen Brown, and Thomas Wolfe be commemorated. This is one possibility. There are others.

Yes, the monuments are history, but it is one perspective, one frozen history, and one in which the distortion and abuse of the Imago Dei is not peripheral but fundamental. All efforts to capture the ongoing story of imperfect mortals in one moment, in one stone, are doomed to failure. Efforts to stamp out the past and create a blank slate pose their own significant dangers, and prone to co-option by the global capitalist narrative, ending as attacks on any human values which cannot be turned into consumer products.

None of this means we should not acknowledge certain moments, or recognize certain artifacts as worthy of preservation. But they should not be made idols over and above people, or over and above the living nature of our history. It is our task to extract the truth and the duty from a history which keeps knocking at our door, and this may be the noble task we accept as these monuments are removed from the public square. This may be their final cause, a cause better than any their builders could conceive: to illuminate our own understanding. To remove them is not to end history, but continue on its path. We have been frozen in one moment. Despite the clamor of the crowds, we can yet hear the living voice, the still small voice which calls to us. Let the monuments come down. What we allow our conscience to hear about ourselves as we do this marks the true test of our character. 

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by Charlie Jenkins

If I told you someone was using century-old hand-crafted artisanal methods to adapt traditional folk tales into a quaintly obsolete art form from the American Golden Age that would sound like the most twee, precious, non-normie thing ever... yet I just described Disney animation. Disney’s pretty weird that way. Take the parks. They’re combinations of Coney Island and the World Fairs with this undisguised mid-century earnestness. These are places that get seriously psyched about the potential of novel transit modalities. And there's the theming: “Let’s look forward to the wonderful future of space exploration, celebrate our roots in farm towns and the frontier west, AND enjoy the exotic charm of the South Pacific and Old Dixie!” THERE IS A PAGEANT WHERE ROBOTS PAY TRIBUTE TO EXECUTIVE-DRIVEN WHIG HISTORY. 

Oh. Oh. And. “The rides aren’t very thrilling, but your kids will love the chance to explore the worlds of all their favorite authors - A.A. Milne, J.M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, Mark Twain, AND Lewis Carroll - while you’ll marvel at the exquisite background design.” (Sun-dappled Edwardian neoteny and obsessive set decoration. Wes Anderson makes movies like Walt Disney made parks.) And we’d recognize this all as a weird thing to exist in 2017 if we weren’t just used to it as the background noise of America.

I don’t really watch TV so I don’t see many commercials these days. They’re a trip in their own right if you’ve stopped taking them for granted. "Oh hey, for the next 30 seconds some of our best artists are going to use all their techniques and leverage all your emotions and desires and every social value in a masterful, unapologetic, and unforgettable bid for you to give us money, and then everyone will move on and no one will acknowledge this even happened.” But the Disney World commercials in particular! Notice they don’t really make a case for going to Disney World, or even really explain what Disney World is. Because they’re not pitching Disney World, they’re reminding you of Disney World. It’s not “hey, Disney World is a thing you could go to”, it’s “hey, maybe it’s time for this generation’s pilgrimage”. 

Disney’s weird. It’s kind of a company, but also custodian of some of the cultic functions of American culture, something like the priestly colleges of ancient Rome. They actually and truly maintain sites of pilgrimage. I’m not saying this as a joke. Back of the envelope calculation (I did awhile back in an essay that I think I somehow deleted and will have redo), Americans go to Disney parks at a rate 7 times higher than Muslims go to Mecca. (The line between “tourist trap” and “religious site” has always been thin.) 

Disney is the custodian of the national narrative. They pitch “continuity with mid-century small town and earlier frontier culture” as a fundamental, almost taken-for-granted aspect of Americanness with a confidence and charm you don’t often see these days. And I mean, hell, the Disney animated canon itself basically is to America what Grimm’s was to Germany. 

And as custodians they curate that narrative. We joke about “you know your identity group’s made it in America when you get your own Disney princess”, and laugh at the people re-editing Disney character designs to look like their specific subgroup, but that only works because it’s really true, your identity group has made it in America when you get your own Disney princess. I know a guy who worked with Disney Channel casting, and they mix ethnicities with the same care, precision, and scale that Pfizer mixes drugs. And that robot pageant, the Hall of Presidents? Look at this history. It started out in the ‘70s as a celebration of consensus history and popular triumph, with character actors playing great men and Civil War tensions understood as a challenge to national unity. In 1993 it was reworked by Eric Foner to be narrated by Maya Angelou, use “regular people” unknowns to portray more vulnerable takes on historic figures and re-frame the Civil War in terms of slavery as a moral challenge. In 2009 they redid it again, mostly keeping the changes but bringing back some of the old Hollywood charm and putting Morgan Freeman as the voice of civic authority. And like, as a representation of how America understands itself and its history, that is correct. That is absolutely, in every way, 100% correct. 

In the other direction, Walt Disney originally wanted to call it “One Nation Under God”, which...uh, interesting take, but you see what I mean about the power of Disney. The Knights of Columbus played their role as well. They say American copyright terms keep getting extended under pressure from Disney, who wants to keep hold of all their founding properties. I almost wonder if it wouldn’t be less of a corruption of the civic system to just carve out special protections for Disney in recognition of their distinct role in America. But… at the end of the day, it’s all just a strategy to maximize profits.

One of the tribal boogiemen of libertarians is the idea of a “Ministry of Culture” - a government that sees the national culture as its domain, to shape as it will, “as it will” meaning as it always does with governments “through the instrument of bureaucracy” - and that still rankles me, after all these years, its true. But what’s the alternative, though? You think about it and you realize it’s this - the national mythos rests in the hands of a publicly traded corporation. Recall the CIA going around giving grants to the avant-garde with a certain sense of “ah, that’s what they were doing”. Then you may start to appreciate WHY having your king as the head of your church once made sense as a symbol of liberty and self-determination. The American mythos has drifted far enough from the Anglo-Saxon Protestant one to make it hard to understand.

The long and short of this all is that we live in capitalpunk AU. The history of EPCOT deserves a mention, especially when you realize Walt’s entire motive to building it was to create a literal utopian society. In fact the purpose of the entire Florida branch of the park was because of this harebrained and downright disturbed ‘while only’ end-world scenario that he was rather obsessed with. Its all gotten discombobulated of late. Takes itself seriously less, more naked profiteering. But that also fits with the new mythology.

by Jacob Archambault