Thanks for the clarification. (And thanks for not gloating at my ludicrous typo.)

“…his motives appear to be inscrutable to believers, of many stripes.”

I’d love to know more about how Christians see Farmer. By the way, it’s also true that Farmer’s public health views are controversial, specifically his insistence that there should be only one standard of health care (the one that the well-off members of the developed world receive). Others view that given limited resources avaiable for medical care in the underdeveloped world, health care dollars should be spent on only the most cost-effective interventions. Then much developed-world health care is priced out of the market. Farmer’s rejoinder is to contest the premise that resources are limited, because it is only a moral and political limit.

So Shane gets more attention because he’s not mainstream. So what? The approval of men is far from a good indicator of God’s approval. Maybe there’s some mainstream lawyer out there who’s quietly doing the work of God, and maybe no one here notices, but God does (Harry knows that’s what I hope to be someday, so your example made me smile). Only God knows if Shane is genuine. So it doesn’t really matter what you or I or anyone else thinks about him. Like Harry, I think his message is important, and he is only important in so far as his own actions align with his message. But even a message given by a hypocrite can be used by God to get Christians moving. Like it says in the book of Philippians:
“It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” (ch 1: 15-18)

I agree that espousing what are for most people impossibly demanding standards of behaviour can be dangerous for the reasons you give. Interestingly, he does not say that all are called to the new monasticism, and proclaims a pluralism about how to live, with some fairly concrete suggestions about how to live more connected to the mainstream without abandoning the values he commits himself to. Of course, that’s not what everyone will take away from it.

It’s pretty clear throughout the Bible that believers are supposed to live their faith. So if an outsider judges the character of a Christian by their actions, and not just by their professed belief in God, then they are really judging the outward manifestation of that person’s faith. I don’t think it’s condescending to approve of a Christian’s actions and not of their beliefs, I just think it’s mistaken because the actions are (imo) a part of their beliefs. But you have to be careful too because someone can seem really good on the outside, and maybe they have always just been inclined to be the nice sort of person, and perhaps they aren’t really doing anything out of faith but rather out of natural tendency or something. God knows when a person is truly putting their faith into practice, and even if a person seems horrible from the outside and someone else seems perfect, they could be the exact opposite in God’s eyes. So I’m more inclined to think that judging anyone, period, is the condescending part because you presume some sort of authority or knowledge about their situation that you couldn’t possibly know.

So where it looks like there is condescension I’m inclined to think there’s just misunderstanding. If I approve of your actions (Harry) and don’t understand your specific morality (or foundation for it), that doesn’t entail that I think myself superior. It just means I don’t/can’t understand a certain part of you, but that’s bound to happen anyway. Thinking that a person’s belief is false doesn’t mean that you think you are better or somehow above that person, but it also doesn’t mean that you aren’t doing that. The point is, it doesn’t have to.

The belief in an impossibly high standard of behavior goes along with an appalling standard of actual behavior. The key is that it’s impossibly high, so why bother? But meanwhile it makes good propaganda to dwell on those few people who find that acting out a fantasy is personally rewarding. If Shane wasn’t a conspicuously non-consuming radical Christian, what would he be? A lawyer? But then no one would be admiring him and his book.

In short, belief in a saintly Christian ideal is like belief in American exceptionalism. (And the two often go together.) IF some exceptionally honorable-appearing American military officer wrote a book about his experiences in Iraq, and scolded the other officers for Abu Ghraib as if it was their personal and subcultural failing, the end result of people admiring this example would be to perpetuate the system that makes the next Abu Ghraib.

there is no imagined commenality between Christian radicalism and socialism on the basis of practise, as if ideology is just unimportant. Saying that there is seems more condescending than anything I’ve said—it’s saying that the most important value that these people hold, their belief in Jesus, really isn’t of any importance compared to their actions

Well, where I come from it is very difficult to separate out socialism and Protestant Christianity, since the emergence of the first is completely intertwined with the values, practice, and development of the second. Ideology counts, but since socialist ideology takes so much from Protestant Christianity it seems natural to think of them in the same breath.

On condescention: yes, that’s interesting and I don’t know what to think. Maybe I am being condescending. (Lindsey?) I don’t judge people merely by their actions, but I certainly don’t judge them entirely on their own self-understanding. Suppose someone says that the only reason they have done something is because it accords with their understanding of what God’s will is. Suppose that what they have done is very good. Well, I’m strongly inclined to give them credit, regardless of the belief system. If they persistently do good, all the time appealing to God’s will, I’m inclined to judge them to be of good character. The reverse is also true—they persistently do bad, all the time appealing to God’s will, I’m inclined to judge them to be of bad character, and to be blameworthy for the ill they do. Is this condescending? Maybe it is—I am certainly discounting an important part of their own understanding of their motives and the structure of their moral agency. (There must be a literature about this….). Behind all this is the fact that I believe that some of the beliefs they hold which they take to be vitally important, are false; but beyond believing them to be false, I do not disrespect them for holding them. This is in part because I believe that in order to make sense of the moral universe it is necessary to accept some beliefs which we cannot publicly demonstrate to be true (eg, in my case, the basic equality of moral standing of all human beings). That’s not to say that I do not disrespect anyone for holding false beliefs; people who believe in the inferiority of other races, for example, forfeit respect. But maybe, still, all that is condescending: I don’t know what to think.

I’m sorry you feel that way Rich. But I hope you really aren’t so quick to judge the intentions of Christians who do read this book. It really is a powerful wake-up call, and failing at it’s realization doesn’t mean we aren’t trying. We know we won’t be perfect, but the point is we are aware and mindful of what we need to be doing. Even if we aren’t doing a great job yet, that doesn’t mean we aren’t trying and it certainly doesn’t mean we are putting it off for another day. You must realize that truly putting the values of Christ first (love of neighbor, over thyself) is extremely difficult, and failing at it doesn’t mean that one isn’t trying to do one’s best. And I’m of the mind that God will empower those who have the hearts to serve. But I hope you won’t conclude that failure thus far is equivalent to a lack of effort or heart for God. We aren’t as horrible as you might think. In fact, we may even be on the same side as you if you give us a chance.

In Shane I see a fairly typical young activist, ambitious, charismatic, who has an unfortunate tendency to write in thinly veiled business cliche. There’s nothing unusual or particularly blameworthy about his publicity-seeking on his own behalf or his religion’s. It’s the reactions to it here that I find problematic. Christians in the U.S. really are not being persecuted, either by atheists or by less radical Christians. A small group of about four well-educated, slumming communitarians is not like the early Christian church in any significant sense. And, most important for your own (Harry’s) comments, there is no imagined commenality between Christian radicalism and socialism on the basis of practise, as if ideology is just unimportant. Saying that there is seems more condescending than anything I’ve said—it’s saying that the most important value that these people hold, their belief in Jesus, really isn’t of any importance compared to their actions.

And I don’t think that this book / example will have any good effect on other Christians either. Look at how it functions in this thread—as yet another saintly example that people know they are sort of supposed to be emulating and that maybe they’ll get to someday. All of actual Christianity lives in that space, the space in which their ideals are ever-so-high and their actions are not. The few people who become celebrities by doing something like it just reinforce the system.

“Did you mean to imply that Paul Farmer has “[put] himself up for social beatification?” I don’t know him personal, but I’m very familiar with his writings, and I don’t see it.”

You are completely right. I apologize. In my defense I observe that his motives appear to be inscrutable to believers, of many stripes.

Russell

“We believe that people are created in the image of God. We believe people are created to love and to be loved. We also believe that humanity is fallen, and Jesus died and rose in order to save humanity. Humans are incapable of holiness and perfect love without the sacrifice of Jesus.”

I don’t see this denying your humanity at all. It does not even claim that you have to share his belief in Jesus in order to be capable of holiness and perfect love (though they may well believe that, they don’t say it here). The quote acknowledges you as human and asserts that in one respect you are absolutely equal with every other (you are “fallen”) and makes a strong implicature that you are equal in another respect, that is, capable of holiness and perfect love.

Now, there’s no question that he, and his group, are evangelical, and that they want you to believe as they do. But the book (which is whatr my post was abouot) isn’t evangelical in that sense; its spoken to already-Christians, frequently holds up non-Christians as particular examples of good-doers. As for evangelism; well, the evangelicals precisely affirm our common humanity. Of course, you don’t have to accept their propaganda, whethe rof word or deed, and I didn’t imply that you should—that would be a very odd interpretation of the post, in which I state quite clearly that I, at least, don’t accept it. Still, I find much of the message, and the description of the life, admirable and worth learning from.

On “ecaping confrontation with the actual history of” socialism/Christianity: there is no sense in the book at all of trying to escape confrontation with the actual history. The actual history of any movement is complex, and riddled with problems. What he does is parallel with what a putative socialist might do, which is develop their practice within an understanding of what is (or what they regard as) right and admirable in the actual history of their movements, while acknowledging, and in many cases developing and extending, a critique of what is not.

“Attempts at personal celebrity”? He’s got a story to tell, and a message to deliver, and does both well; it would be wierd not to grab opportunities to spread a message in which one has conviction. He certainly is attaining some sort of celebrity in a certain part of the culture, though he doesn’t appear hungy for it (but, of course, that’s the point of the Bob Monkhouse quote!). Is everyone who succeeds in this respect suspect to you? Should I stop blogging? (maybe you shouldn’t answer that last question).

Also, it’s difficult to see how a community with a de facto vow of poverty could support itself without engaging in activities that can be defined as “social activism”—for example they can only afford to live in a place with lots of local homeless, and feeding the local homeless is an obvious strategy for maintaining good relations.

So I don’t think it’s fair to emphasize any theoretical tensions over the role of social activism in the Christian life being played out here. They could easily erupt and they probably will eventually, but they don’t seem to have done so yet.

Rich writes:

His appeal to Christianity is not separable from the rest of what he’s doing, Harry. Here’s a quote … “We believe that … Humans are incapable of holiness and perfect love without the sacrifice of Jesus.”

Yeah, well, whatever. Like Rich, I think that doctrine is frankly nonsense. However, if Claiborne doesn’t acknowledge it in that form, all the local churches will call his group a cult. His hands are tied. Finally, he’s not a theologian: he is a community organizer.

I have no information on the community other than the article above and the linked interview transcript, but I believe it would be foolish for anyone to dismiss the possibilities of this group out of hand.

Finally, some of the other comments above remind me of Soren Kierkegaard’s last book, “The Attack on Christendom”, whose ironic thesis was that SK didn’t want the Church of Denmark to change a single one of the wonderful things they were doing, he just wanted them to admit that none of it was Christianity. (If nothing else this should demonstrate that the recurrent idea of primitive Christianity is not simply a vernacular delusion. For all his quirks, I think SK counts as a theological heavyweight.)

And again in 2 Corinthians:
“Out of the most severe trial, their [the Macedonian church] overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own… Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: ‘He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.’” (2 Cor 8:3 &13-15 with reference to Exodus 16:18)

That’s, as far as I can tell, closer to what early Christianity was really supposed to have been about than your view of what you’d like it to have been about.

The church was revolutionary in social terms. They may not have been politically rebellious, but they didn’t wait for the government to take care of their neighbors. They did it themselves, and that’s what Shane is getting at.