I use the phrases "personal piety" and "social justice" not because I personally use them often but because I hear them used often by theologians, ministers, students, and other people interested in religious/spiritual conversations.
I've noticed that people who are primarily passionate about personal piety (reading the bible, devotionals, keeping a journal and other daily rituals) do not always place nice with those who are strong advocates for the poor, homeless and invisible among us. And the same is true of the latter regarding the former. Anne Lamott once wrote, "You know you've created God in your own image when he hates all the same people as you."
I'm perplexed about this.
There are two examples within Torah/Pentateuch (first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures) that seriously challenge the separation of personal piety and social awareness.
First, the entire book of Leviticus. Many OT scholars now read Lev. 19 (specifically, love your neighbor as yourself) as the center or crux of the entire work. Anyone who's read Leviticus knows that the decrees are nuanced, detailed, and seemingly overbearing. OT scholars now suggest that Leviticus is an argument that to care for social issues, means one will take personal piety seriously. Therefore, the only way you can love your neighbor as much as you love yourself (and how many people do not truly love themselves) is if you keep the daily requirements. If that does not convince you, perhaps you should remember that Jesus himself said that loving God and loving neighbor was the heart of true religion.
Second example comes from the Sabbath. The Sabbath (shabbot) is God's commandment to humanity to rest just as he rested after creating the earth. In Torah, Sabbath is a part of a cycle of life leading up to Jubilee (something Jesus again picks up on in Luke 4 as he is preaching to his hometown congregation concerning the essence of his ministry). Jubilee was the time in which land, slaves, and debts were forgiven. It was God's radical act of justice in a world that was primarily concerned with profit, exploitation, and economic gain (like our world today). Therefore, if you wanted to end injustice, the way to do so, was to keep Sabbath. You rested on the seventh day. Sabbath created the space for humans to remember God's role as Creator. And to remember that there will be a day when all peoples of the world will rest, what some call "heaven."
You can't separate personal piety from social awareness. At least, not if you want to be a person who is formed by the Torah, and the teachings of Jesus.
The two largest groups of Christians in the United States (evangelical and mainline) seem to be interested in opposite sides of the same coin. Most evangelicals are interested in bible study, prayer, journals, book clubs, bible classes while many mainline churches are interested in slavery in Uganda, wars in the Sudan, poverty in India.
Of course, this has radically changed in the last twenty years. But it's still the overwhelming legacy of the twentieth century.
Mainline churches went wrong because they equated the Gospel primarily with social issues. Evangelicals went wrong because they privatized faith. Both are equally offensive. The product of personal piety and devotion is engagement with the world and neighbor. The sustaining force for those passionate about social issues is personal piety. If one is missing, it's like dancing with one leg. It can't be done.
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15 comments:
Well put Josh...and I love that quote by Anne Lamott.
Josh,
Love the conversation! As I was reading it the second time through, I began to think what side of the coin I lean towards more (obviously, as you have adeptly explained, we should be balanced) but I could not help but wonder if my Christianity was focused on one more so that the other.
I think if I were to be honest, I lean more towards personal piety (probably has a lot to do with how I was raised) but I definitely see myself having a heart more for the community around me as I grow. Another thing I thought about was how I yearn for the other if one has been neglected. If I have not had a Sabbath or adequate time in prayer or meditation, I feel a yearning to go be with Dad! And if I have not served in my community for awhile, I feel like I have left our Savior thirsty.
Great thoughts Josh, by the way when is the due date?
You want to come teach this at Tulsa with me? :)
barecycles...the quote from Lamott is great. Nails me for sure.
Phil,
Of course, I'm painting in broad strokes in this post. However, I think there's something to this.
I do think we tend to lean one way. I lean towards personal piety. Seriously. My ideal spiritual day with God is a blank screen/sheet, and a really good book. But I know those moments propel me to engage God's world.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Boss,
Ha. You got it. Just give a little Jesus Feast shout out and it's all good. Seriously. You'll do great. It's a hungry audience. They love to hear what God is doing in the world. You'll knock it out of the park. At least, you'll hit a double in the gap.
JG
Phil,
Due date for Baby G is May Ist. Thanks for asking!
Wonderful post Josh!
I also loved the quote that you used in this post.
I want you to know brother that your blog has been such a source of encoruagement for me. I want you to know that I look forward to reading. You do a fantastic job. My prayer is that you, your family and ministry have an outstanding 2009! God has great plans in store for you brother.
Hey Josh,
I check your blog from time to time. I came across a link on the New Wineskins page. I tend to like what you write, and I like where you are going with this, but I think your logic is a bit faulty.
"Therefore, if you wanted to end injustice, the way to do so, was to keep Sabbath."
This just isn't true. In the example you gave the way to begin to end injustice was to keep Jubilee, not Sabbath. The nation of Israel did a good job (as far as I can tell) keeping Sabbath and it didn't do what it was supposed to to end injustice. Isaiah 58 is a good place to start with this.
"The product of personal piety and devotion is engagement with the world and neighbor."
How I wish this was true. But my experience just doesn't bear this out. I know too many people who practice what I am assuming you mean by "personal piety" that are not socially engaged. I know for me when my faith revolved around quiet times with God and Bible studies I missed the call to engage. However, when I was challenged to get beyond what easily becomes a selfish faith (all focused on oneself) I began to see the necessity of social justice in the life of discipleship.
"Most evangelicals are interested in bible study, prayer, journals, book clubs, bible classes..."
I am assuming this is your measure of personal piety. If so, I think you're mistaken. I think Matthew 6 is a good place to start when determining "personal piety." That list, given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, is almsgiving, prayer and fasting. I think study can be an expression as well, but your list doesn't seem to match the biblical call that well. To describe personal piety without the sacrifice of fasting or almsgiving seems to be an incomplete understanding of piety.
Again, I agree with the general ethos of what you have written, but I'm afraid you perpetuate the dilemma you wish to address. To even speak of the two as somehow separate, "personal piety" versus "social justice", seems to be an exercise in missing the point. You do need both, but in my experience they are one and the same thing. Prayer is an act of social justice and serving the least of these an act of "personal piety" where one comes in contact with God.
Jimmy:
Thanks for your note. Couple of comments. I was using phrases (personal piety and social justice) as they are used in mainstream Christian culture. I agree, the two cannot be separated.
Per the Sabbath/Jubilee ... check out Brueggemann's commentary on Genesis and Lauren Winner's stuff on Sabbath in Mudhouse Sabbath. Both are bringing out the "cyclical connection" of Sabbath and Jubilee. Pretty fascinating stuff. It has to do with the relationship of "seven." I think they make a convincing argument.
In a book I'm about to publish I make this note: People often misunderstand regarding Judaism as “salvation by works”. However, this fundamentally misinterprets the covenant relationship between Israel and YHWH. Because of their relationship, God expected them to behave in certain ways. Lev. 19:18 (“Love your neighbor as yourself”) for instance is one of the most powerful texts in all of Torah even though it is embedded in an entire section of rules, commandments, and decrees. If one reads Leviticus 19:18 as the center/heart of this particular pericope, the advocacy becomes clear. While some make the conservative contestation that religion remain private (i.e. "Let's keep religion within the cult and private. Our duty is to simply keep the commandments of God.") others make the liberal contestation that "the rules are passé, leftover relics from the faith of our grandparents. The public element (public justice) is what is the heart of true Israelite religion.” Leviticus 19 offers a third way for it is concerned with obedience to the obligations set forth and the relationship of caring for the neighbor. That is, live in these particular ways (obeying relatively minute decrees) and once you find yourself in that cadence of spiritual habit, loving your neighbor will be the natural extension. If you will keep the strict dietary laws, etc. you will be able to have an open posture towards the "other" . . . it will be impossible to have any invisible persons in your midst because you will be so attune to God's presence.
Brueggemann ("Finally Comes the Poet") Sabbath is a “discipline” which prepares people to do justice. You cannot truly love the poor and pray for liberation if you are not willing to practice Sabbath. Sabbath is practiced every seven days. The Year of Jubilee happens seven years times seven (49). Social justice, according to Brueggemann, is connected to personal piety devotion. The two cannot be separated. Evidentially, the liberal and fundamentalist need one another! “Sabbath is the end of grasping and therefore the end of exploitation. Sabbath is a day of revolutionary equality in society. On that day all rest equally, regardless of wealth or power or need (Exod. 20: 8-11). Of course, the world is not now ordered according to the well-being and equality of Sabbath rest. But the keeping of Sabbath, in heaven and on earth, is a foretaste and anticipation of how the creation will be when God’s way is fully established,” (Interpretation: Genesis, 35-6).
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Sorry for the long response. I have to disagree with you on this one. Thanks for the dialog. Without disagreement, nothing can be learned.
Also, the reason I use the dance metaphor (dance with both legs) is precisely because the two cannot be separated. The idea is that personal piety fuels social engagement (in theory) and that social engagement is sustained by personal piety. That's what we are intended to experience anyway.
THoughts???
Thanks for your response.
I briefly mentioned it in my first note, but I'll elaborate a little here. I like what you have to say theoretically. Even theologically to some extent, but I'm just not convinced it's true based on my experience. I've known too many very "pious" people that aren't concerned about their neighbor, and too many people that have given their lives to serving the poor and forgotten without any semblance of piety in their private lives.
You seem to be saying there is a causal relationship between the two. I think that is stating the case too strongly. There probably SHOULD be the connection you are making, but it just isn't there for a lot of people. I think that discredits the causal relationhip.
Jimmy,
Thanks for further clarification. Perhaps I'm off base but I think we agree. I am trying to describe what the "vision" is offered by Torah and Jesus per what the life of being obedient to God looks like.
I'm not suggesting this is what is actually taking place. I'm simply saying this is how it can be. I'm not describing what I see, I'm describing what I'd like to see more of.
Also, you were right, personal piety has more nuanced than my quick list offers (the product of being busy more than anything, thus typing fast).
Isn't Jimmy describing personal piety w/o love?
That is the genius of Lev 19.
What we are calling personal piety will never (on its own) generate love of neighbor, whether they are a neighbor we like or a stranger among us.
The downfall of the mainline movement is that they fully grasped Lev 19, but marginalized the Shema.
To attempt to love one's neighbor without being rightly oriented by love for YHWH creates the quagmires where proponents of social justice deeply undermine their movements with issues of sexual immorality and the like.
A life oriented by the Two Great Commands will flourish in a dynamic relationship between the two main expressions of love -- holiness and justice.
Josh,
Thanks for the clarification. We do agree more than we disagree. I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your original post. (I'm fully aware of the difficulty of being thorough on a blog.)
I'm always nervous when I hear people accuse "social justice" oriented Christians of not being "pious" enough because I've seen people's faith put down because they stopped going to small group but started serving the homeless once a week (as an example) as if small group was a greater expression of faith (which I disagree with). Anyways, I enjoy checking out your blog.
Good luck with the book!
Interesting question . . . I'll let Jimmy speak for himself :)
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