How is 'bullshit' the 'perfect' response?

I didn't see last night's Q&A, but it didn't take long scrolling through Facebook and Twitter this morning to know what had generated the most conversation. Professor Margaret Somerville, an anti-Euthanasia advocate, was engaged with an 81-year old proponent of euthanasia. Somerville  argued that how an individual dies is a matter for society. The 81 year-old dismissed that with the assertion that choosing how and when to die is nothing whatsoever to do with society (although it does have something to do with family) and to suggest otherwise is 'bullshit'.

Now, I reckon you could make a pretty strong argument that the fact that proponents of voluntary euthanasia are making public arguments for a change in the law is a pretty good indication that the question of how people die is a matter for society. If you want to change the law of the land, it is a matter for society because the law is a social matter. This is true regardless of whatever position you take on the legalising of euthanasia.

But what was most alarming was the celebration of the dismissive 'bullshit' comment. BuzzFeedOzPolitics headlined it as the 'perfect' response. Even Tony Jones suggested it was 'refreshing' - the word that found it's way into the headline of the The Australian's review of the programme. One Tweeter celebrated it as evidence that old people aren't stupid!! Surely, it was, instead, a classic case of refusing to engage with someone who holds a view different from your own. And that's worth celebrating?

Then as I kept watching, I discovered that later in the program there was an excellent segment about whether we were becoming less tolerant of views we disagree with. (Check it out at the 45:37 mark.) There were really sensible comments from Billy Bragg and Penny Wong about the importance of exposing ourselves to contrary views. That's the bit of last night's programme that really is worth watching and celebrating - no bullshit. 

Cornell West and 'institutional' Christianity

American superstar academic (as he was billed by the Sydney Morning Herald), Cornell West recently appeared on the ABC's Q&A.  Responding to a question about Gay Marriage and the Catholic church, West staked out his own credentials. His reply was prefaced as follows.

"I am a revolutionary Christian, which means I have a deep suspicion of institutional Christianity."

This comment drew one of the largest cheers of the evening. The cheering was both surprising and unsurprising. Surprising - because it was a reminder that Christianity still has enough cultural purchase for the distinction even to register in what could be assumed to be a relatively randomly constructed audience. Unsurprising - because once such a distinction is made, no one is going to stand up and cheer for institutional Christianity. The very phrase, 'institutional Christianity', presents to many, both within and beyond the church, as some kind of oxymoronic mutual contradiction, the error of which will be self-evident to anyone whose eyes are only half open to the manifest failings of Christian institutions. So the argument goes.

What exactly, however, is wrong with Christianity being 'institutional', or least with having institutional aspects? Are the manifest recent failings of the churches due to their institutional character? Are there substantial theological reasons for treating 'institutional Christianity' as an oxymoron. Is there something about the Christian gospel which is inherently anti-institutional?

It is possible to lament the recent failures of the churches, to share in their necessary repentance and be committed to their institutional reform without rejecting the role of institutions as somehow non-Christian.

Indeed, what is it that actually drives this wedge between 'institution' and 'Christianity'? What is it that leads many to argue that Christianity is a 'movement' and not an 'institution'? Certainly, Jesus never laid out a constitution or a set of regulations for running an organisation. Yet the very impulse of his preaching, and of the later preaching about him, was to call together a new people, a new community. And a 'community' is different from a 'movement' - at least the two words suggest different kinds of allusions and resonances. 'Movement' seems to suggest freedom, spontaneity and heroism. 'Community' suggests accountability, mutuality and a degree of order. So defined, I think 'community' is much closer than 'movement' to the forms of life to which the gospel calls us.

More generally, beyond the church, 'community' has been pitted against 'institution' - and with some serious costs. Indeed, there is a certain romance about 'community' and its alleged capacity to save us from the ills of institutions. The American sociologist, Richard Sennett, puts his finger on this romance quite brilliantly in his The Culture of the New Capitalism.

The insurgents of [the 1960s] believed that by dismantling institutions they could produce communities: face to face relations of trust and solidarity, relations constantly negotiated and renewed, a communal realm in which people became sensitive to one another's' needs. This has certainly not happened. The fragmenting of big institutions has left many people's lives in a fragmented state: the places they work more resembling train stations rather than villages.... Taking institutions apart has not produced more community. (1)

Sennett goes on: "Only a certain kind of human being can prosper in unstable, fragmentary social conditions." (2)

I think this is salutary for our thinking about the extent to which Christianity is, isn't, should be or shouldn't be 'institutional'. There is certainly an argument for developing more nuanced rhetoric than Cornell West employed on Q&A - much as I loved just about everything else he said. Christians, of all people, need to remember (as if they needed reminding) that 'movements' and 'communities' can sin as much as individuals and institutions. The challenge for the church is not to find a way of being a movement at the expense of being a community or institution. Rather, our challenge is to find ways of being flexibly institutional without becoming institutionalised.

(1) Richard Sennett, The Culture of the New Capitalism  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), p.2.
(2) Sennett, The Culture of the New Capitalism, p.3.

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Some of these ideas were worked out at greater length in relation to the Uniting Church in some reflections I offered at the 2014 meeting of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania which can be read here.

A Christian Heritage?

I actually think that, you know, the ethos of our community, the guiding principles of our law, are based and built around Christianity. Now, you don't have to be a Christian to recognise there are inherent benefits to that. I support the Federal Government's chaplaincy program. ...  

Yeah, it's not about proselytising, but it’s about informing students and providing pastoral care within, I think, a moral framework, that is consistent with our laws and expectations.  (Cory Bernardi, Q&A, June 2, 2014)

To my mind it's a rather tedious debate, but it reared its head again on this week's Q&A. Senator Cory Bernardi defended government funding of chaplains on the basis of Australia having a Christian heritage. There were several layers of confusion between the question asked of Bernardi and his answer, but that's not my concern.

I personally have no investment in claiming, defending, or even disputing Australia's Christian heritage. It would seem pointless to deny that Christianity has exercised various influences on this nation's history and identity. But it would be just as pointless - perhaps even more so - to deny the irreducible and unavoidable ambiguity of that influence. The treatment of Australia's First Peoples, the White Australia policy, the present refugee policy of detaining children - all these sit uneasily with a Christian 'ethos' that Bernardi claims.

More troubling for me is that there are those who want to argue from their understanding of a Christian heritage towards proposals for minimising the diversity of contemporary Australia. This is coupled to a further argument about giving Christianity and its representatives a privileged role in defining the nation's present and in shaping its future. What I find most unsettling about this claim is that it involves proposing a role somehow earned by the past and not by the validity or authenticity of the contemporary Christian presence.

It is perfectly proper to have a serious discussion of the Christian influence on this nation's history. It is an appropriate issue of scholarly debate and cultural analysis. In such debates contemporary Christians might be both inspired and disappointed by what our forebears have done in and for this country. Equally, some non-Christians might be confirmed but also challenged in their assessments of the Christian influence.

I believe that as Christians we need to sit very loosely to the issue of this nation's 'Christian heritage' and not just because of its ambiguous character. It's also because attempts by Christians to claim it simply fall on deaf or rightly-suspicious ears in our pluralist, multi-faith context. Neither the heritage nor the contemporary realities of the Christian presence in Australia warrant Christianity being given a privileged place.

Yet none of this is to say that as Christians we should not seek with, as much energy as we can, to influence our nation - but it will need to be an influence exercised through love and service. Nor it is to suggest that Christians should be coy about projecting their voice into debates about Australia's institutions, politics and future - but our voice needs to be as self-critical, even repentant, as it is confident. The shape of any influence of such contributions is likely to be very different from what was familiar to the mainline churches of late Christendom.

One striking element in much of this debate is the typical absence of references to living Christian communities. The 'Christian heritage' so vigorously defended is often very abstract - a phenomenon which, it is said, provides principles and frameworks. But the cultivation of any ethos requires a people to practice it. Perhaps the future and present shape of Christianity's influence won't be measured by its scale. It might, instead, be measured by its capacity to form people and communities who practice the way of Jesus as a loving if disturbing presence in a society that is supported by many frameworks.

In fact the best examples of how to participate in this unfamiliar context might come from the Churches in those countries where there is no 'Christian heritage'. I'm sure we have much to learn from the witness of churches in, for example, India, Pakistan and China, who against all odds and from numerically, religiously and culturally marginal positions bear witness to Christ. We might need to let go of the modern theories of Church and State, sit loosely to debates about the nation's Christian heritage, and discover something entirely new. And something authentically Christian.