of love, communion, or solidarity with God or others, including the
marginalized.
We recognized hierarchical or vertical accountability but almost no lateral
accountability to one another—as Jesus hoped for the world when he prayed
that we “all might be one” (John 17:21). A corporate reading of the Gospel gives
hope and justice to history, but less control over individuals, which is probably
why clergy who do the preaching don’t like it too much and thus don’t preach it
too much.
I saw this in my own experience of pre–Vatican II Catholicism and seminary.
In those days, I’m afraid, the only admired and promoted virtues were
obedience and loyalty to the church. No one taught us how to love very well, or
to be loyal to humanity as a whole—at least from the pulpit. Nor were most of
my professors very loving men, if I would be honest. They were often ordained
because they could pass academic tests, not because they were pastors or
prophets or people people. They were trained to be joiners, believers, and
loyalists more than servants of the mystery of God. Churchmen more than
Gospel men. Conformity is not the same as love; joining does not imply an
actual change of heart and mind. Few taught us how to be the Sympathy of God
or Compassion for the World, and this experience has seemed true in varying
degrees in every denomination I have worked with.
Unless we find the communal meaning and significance of the suffering of all
life and ecosystems on our planet, we will continue to retreat into our
individual, small worlds in our quest for personal safety and sanity. Privatized
salvation never accumulates into corporate change because it attracts and
legitimates individualists to begin with. Think about that.