This reflection is now available in Daniel P. Horan, OFM’s book Franciscan Spirituality for the 21st Century: Selected Reflections from the Dating God Blog and Other Essays, Volume One (Koinonia Press, 2013).
Archive for patriotism
An Independence Day Prayer for the 4th of July
Posted in Franciscan Spirituality with tags 4th of July Prayer, Fourth of July, Independence Day, Independence Day Prayer, patriotism, politics, prayer, religion on July 4, 2012 by Daniel P. Horan, OFMThe Complicated Relationship Between Discipleship and Patriotism
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Christian Discipleship, First Things, Modern Theology, Nationalism, patriotism, R. R. Reno, religion, stanley hauerwas on April 10, 2012 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM
Ok, you can tell what I nerd I am: last night I was reading my copy of the latest issue of the journal Modern Theology in which a review symposium was published on Stanley Hauerwas’s “theological memoir,” Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir (2010), and I was struck by the contribution of R. R. Reno, of First Things fame. Those familiar with Hauerwas’s history and background know that he was once on the editorial board of First Things, but resigned in the early 2000s over a disagreement in the publication’s editorial policy to support and defend the U.S. government’s handling of Afghanistan and Iraq. Hauerwas, a leading proponent of the centrality of nonviolence in Christian ethics, could not in good conscience continue to be so closely associated with a board that stood for something about which he so significantly disagreed. This, I believe, has a lot to do with shaping Reno’s decision to end his piece in Modern Theology.
Concluding with some musings about his own intellectual development and worldview, ostensibly inspired to introspection by Hauerwas’s memoir, Reno writes:
In fact one could say that he [Hauerwas] has been the great theorist of our need to be formed by a real community of faith. But as a consequence I have been less and less engaged by the rhetoric of separation and critique that runs through so much of Hauerwas’s commentary on the moral challenges facing contemporary Christians in America, a rhetoric moreover that far more than theological doctrines of denominational loyalties make his followers identifiable as Hauerwasians. I see myself as a sinner, not an outsider. I am an American Christian whose natural love for his country can certainly become perverted. But I need not push away my patriotic emotions, for that same love can be a fitting way to serve my neighbor, and the transcendence of self encouraged by patriotism can prepare my heart for the higher love of God. Bourgeois upper-middle-class life? Capitalism? Again, these features of modern life are occasions for many dangerous temptations but they are also fully capable of Christian habitation (326).
I disagree, so call me a Hauerwasian. What Reno seemingly desires is to have his proverbial cake and eat it too. He wants to bear the name Christian for apparently genuine and faithful reasons, but he also wants to rally to support his “patriotic emotions” in ways that he feels exist in symbiotic relationship with, if not even in positively formative ways to, his Christian faith.
What Hauerwas does so well in his writing is call to mind precisely why such a relationship is not tenable. Reno claims that Hauerwas’s position forces like-minded adherents to the margins of Christianity. But in fact, what Hauerwas and others keenly note is that to be Christian is to necessarily stand at the margins of popular culture and society.
This is why it is absurd to claim that a Christian can support war, violence, unbridled capitalism, and the like. Jesus was executed precisely because he was scarily at the margins of his culture — religious and civil. A threat to both the religious establishment of his first-century Palestinian Judaism and eventually viewed by the Roman government as an insurrectionist, Christ could not walk the line for which Reno advocates, because it is simply not what the Good News (Gospel) is about.
Forgiveness for the unforgivable, love for the unlovable, freedom for captives, sight to the blind, relief for the poor, healing for the broken and broken hearted — these are the indicators of God’s Reign. They are, when we are most honest, precisely the opposite of the “Bourgeois upper-middle-class life” and “capitalism” and violence for which Reno claims the possibility of “Christian habitation.”
Reno claims that, although he appreciates Hauerwas’s friendship over the years, “for the most part Hauerwas has not shaped [Reno's] moral judgments.” This much is very, very clear. But even without Stanley Hauerwas’s unique and provocative efforts to awaken the truth of Christian discipleship in the hearts of so many, Reno would be wise to revisit the Scripture to see what it is that Jesus demands of those who wish to follow him. It’s certainly not capitulating with self-righteous justification to the prescripts of popular American culture. It has a lot more to do with denying one’s self, taking up crosses and following in the footprints of the one who not only laid down his life for a friend, but surrendered his will for all.
Photo: Stock
Seeing the World in Christ with St. Francis
Posted in Uncategorized with tags jesus christ, patriotism, peace, politics, st. francis, violence, worldview, xenophobia on January 25, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM
Much of the conversation in recent days centering on the self-expressed ‘prism’ selected by a certain American bishop to view the President and contemporary political events is reliant on the admittance of a plurality of paradigms with which people today view the world. Some assert that one’s outlook is conditioned by unchosen characteristics that shade experience and reality in the hue of our rearing, personality or some other factor. While others suggest that we have much more to say about how we opt to look at the world.
I believe there are ways in which our predispositions and personality influence our worldviews, that there are factors outside of our immediate control, but that we also have significant control over what we allow to guide our outlook. Because of this, it is up to us to take some (if not most) of the responsibility for what we permit to shape the way we see the world.
St. Francis offers us one particular model for seeing the world. His paradigm was that of Christ. Franciscan scholar Bill Short, OFM, explains Francis’s approach this way:
It is through ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ that Francis understands Mary, the Church, the Scriptures, priesthood, the poor, his brothers and sisters, and all creatures. It is ultimately through and in Jesus that Francis even understands himself. Though he seldom used the title ‘Christ’ by itself to refer to Jesus, his spirituality, and that of the Franciscan tradition after him, has been characterized as ‘Christocentric.’
What do we allow to shape and inform our outlook? Is it Jesus Christ and the Gospels? Or is it something else, say a singular political, social or moral issue? Is it a singular personal attribute like ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender? Is it a patriotism or nationalism that borders on xenophobia and jingoism?
Certainly we are influenced by a number of factors, but of those over which we have some control St. Francis shows us that it is Christ that should be the greatest characteristic factor in our worldview and outlook. Following in Christ’s footprints, as Francis did, requires a lot of dedication and courage.
It requires risking one’s life, not just for the sake of one’s friends and family, but for the enemy too. It means love takes priority over power and peace over violence. It means embracing the untouchable and forgiving the transgressor. It means providing for the daily bread of another because we have been given our daily bread.
