On
February 21-23, 2024, Rowan Williams, a former archbishop of Canterbury,
delivered a series of lectures on the topic of solidarity in moral theology. In
my own research, I relate that field to ethics and historical economic thought.
Williams’ theory of solidarity goes beyond what he calls “the vague
feeling of empathy” that is emphasized in the moral writings of David Hume and
Adam Smith. Williams has solidarity, unlike mere "fellow-feeling," reach a person’s identity and even one’s soul through a shared experience of existential fragility. Solidary pertains
to interpersonal relations and is thus relevant to neighbor-love, which includes
being willing to attend to the human needs even of one’s detractors and
enemies, as well as just plain rude people. I contend that the upper echelon at Yale Divinity School is at
two-degrees of separation from this sort of solidarity, especially as it is
wholistic rather than partisan in nature. It is no accident, by the way, that
the self-love that characterizes the school's culture has manifested in
some courses being almost entirely oriented to advocating very narrow ideological partisan positions, politically, economically, and on social issues at the
expense of sheer fairness to students, wholeness, theology, and academic
standards. At the time, the school was accepting 50% of studen applicants. I leave these ideological and academic matters to the side here so I can focus on the astonishing
distance between the school's dean and the sort of solidarity that he heard of in the lectures and that could lead to Christian
leadership for Yale's Christian divinity school, which includes two seminaries.
Decades after having studied at Yale in its divinity school and
Yale College, I returned to do research because I could finally intellectually
integrate two very different areas of my formal studies at Yale and elsewhere.
I was stunned upon my return to find so much meanness by employees, who
insisted that alumni in residence are not “members of the Yale community,” by a
security guard who profiled me with intimidation, by faculty who rudely
dismissed Yale’s policy that alumni can audit courses, and by faculty
administrators whose skill in passive aggression surpasses all understanding. In
such an organizational culture, a Christian divinity school may seem like an
oxymoron. A Christian school within a university that is known “inside the
beltway” for having a nasty organizational culture is likely to display
hypocrisy.
Christian hypocrisy (and downright meanness) applies to even
the highest level of Yale’s divinity school. For example, I walked up to the
former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at the reception just after
his final lecture at Yale's divinity school. The dean didn't want me talking
with him. In fact, the dean had refused to speak to me since I had returned on
the preceding Labor Day. I had introduced myself, but he just walked away. At
the reception, the dean of a "Christian" divinity school was perpetually
stationed near the archbishop, watching him like a hawk. As soon as the dean,
Greg Sterling, saw me beginning to talk to Rowan Williams, I knew it was only a
matter of time—that I would not be talking long to the archbishop, who, by the
way, was very interested in my biological relation to a previous archbishop of
Canterbury. Unfortunately, the paranoid, controlling dean who does not tolerate
criticism of Yale quickly turned the archbishop around as I was midway through
my second sentence in order to prevent me from talking further with the
archbishop. Nice, huh? Very Christian.
Ironically, Williams had just given the last of three
lectures on solidarity with one's neighbors. In even deeper irony, the dean had
publicly praised the lecture and the topic during the Q&A session, which
the dean, rather than the archbishop controlled (although the latter tried
twice). Just a FYI to the "Christian" upper echelon at Yale's de
facto seminary: Holding a grudge is antipodal to empathy, solidarity, and
helping even one's detractors. To be sure, as I had been marginalized at that
divinity school even while I was a student (for raising theological questions),
and again during the 2023-2024 academic year, when I was back to do research, even
by the school’s director of Alumni Engagement, I had written short essays
critical of the sheer meanness at Yale (https://lnkd.in/gpRptb6A and https://lnkd.in/enej8PEa). Even so, to intentionally prevent
me from talking with another scholar of moral theology and philosophy at a
reception really says something about vengeance and abject hypocrisy.
In The Godfather III, a cardinal in the Vatican tells
Michael Corleone that even though Christianity had been in Europe for
centuries, little of the religion has seeped in. The cardinal takes and cracks
open a small rock from a fountain in a beautiful courtyard, and likens the dry
inside as akin to Europe immersed in Christianity, yet little has penetrated.
Caring for one’s detractors, and even enemies, is not something in the
Godfather’s playbook. Neither, I submit, is it in that of Greg Sterling, dean
of Yale’s “Christian” divinity school and even a pastor in the United Church of
Christ denomination, or sect, of Christianity. Perhaps, as he appeared during
my stay to be desiccated inside in spite of the baptismal waters of
Christianity, he might benefit from my booklet on Christianized leadership. Although the booklet is geared to business leaders,
presumably Christian leadership can also be applied at Yale’s divinity school.
Williams’ three lectures over three evenings were on
solidarity, which in turn can lead to communion. Although this includes with
the non-human world, the archbishop’s focus was on going beyond a “vague
feeling” of empathy to share in one another’s fragile and dependent nature as
living creatures. To recognize another person’s dignity and depravity, and thus
one’s need to be recognized in discourse and caring is the essence of William’s
theory of solidarity. Communion goes on to a greater unity and in explicit
relation of all as finite creatures to God. Solidarity takes work; as it
extends to a person’s detractors and enemies, that work is not always easy, but
it is mandatory. I would add that religious experience, whether in prayer or
meditation, or inner, concentrated yearning for communion with that which
transcends the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion (sorry,
Augustine), can heighten a person’s sensitivity to other people once one is back
in the world. By analogy, it is like walking outside of a theatre during the
day after watching a movie for several hours in the dark. Existential
sensitivity is on a physiological, emotional, and spiritual level, and is
inherently oriented to William’s conception of solidarity. Put another way,
regular religious or spiritual experience can heighten a person’s instinctual
urge to connect with the dignity and radical dependence of other people as well
as oneself. Being more aware of another’s inner pain or existential hardship is
another way of putting this. The sharing of this condition, which naturally
occasions fear that can be detected outwardly, is the foundation of solidarity,
and from this foundation the actual work in caring even for one’s enemies can
begin. It is in valuing such work that a person is religious; it transcends
creed and even cognition or belief, as if religion were mostly cognitive rather
than of the human heart.
It is from that perspective that I want to shed translucent
light on the shadows and proffer my advice even to a detractor on Christian
leadership, for it is self-less rather than vengeful, caring rather than mean,
and thus of a power distinct from that of the world. In talking truth to power
in the upper echelons of the Danish Church, Kierkegaard emphasized subjectivity
over empty shells in Christianity. Unlike Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre in the
decadent twentieth century, I think it is foolish and unnecessary to base
everything on subjectivity. Although Nietzsche’s dictum that God is dead was
meant to address a logical contradiction in a conception of the deity by
humans, and the philosopher proffered good insight on the will of the priests
(and pastors) to power as controlling others, he missed the power that lies in
helping even one’s detractors, or at least not acting on a vengeful instinctual
urge. Such an urge Nietzsche claims runs wild in the weak, even and especially
in a Christian priest (and dean) from whom hypocrisy condenses and drips from a
dry core. False humility as a means to invisibly extract vengeance is the
hallmark of self-love and is antipodal to neighbor-love seu benevolentia
universalis rather than just as amicitia.
Judging from how self-identifying Christians typically treat
their respective detractors, and even people who are simply downright rude, I
submit that the kingdom of which Jesus speaks in the New Testament is still
woefully not of this world even though it could be. All it takes is some hard
work in being caring rather than retaliatory where it is least convenient. I
know I have work to do, but I’ve also made the difficult choices to help my
detractors and the spiritual dynamic between the two people when that takes
place can indeed by said to turn the world on its head in a spirit of
wonder—even expanding human nature. It is very difficult, but possible, and it
has been done.
For example, at the reception for Rowan Williams, I put a retired
chaplain of Battel Chapel, which is on Yale’s main campus, in touch with Jerry
Street, who had been Yale’s main chaplain and was still working in some
capacity at the divinity school at the time of the reception. When I had been a
student, I interviewed him for my radio show on WYBC at Yale; he had been
furious after the interview, declaring, “I will not be edited!” The station’s
chief explained to him that it was dreadfully unfair to demand no editing. In
spite of Street’s anger and unfairness to me, I greeted him warmly at the fall
convocation in 2023, and I gave him and the retired chaplain of Battel a gift,
as she put it later, in reuniting the two of them at the reception. I wish I
was not so distracted that I could have felt the joy of giving to a former
detractor; I really wanted to speak on research with Williams. Had the dean fallen
or dropped something at the reception, I would have helped him up or picked
something up for him. It gets easier if you have put in work in establishing a
habit even if it falters from time to time when the emotions are too strong.
The spiritual dynamic of peace that is felt between former detractors as one
helps the other on a human level is that which Jesus describes in the New
Testament as the peace in God’s kingdom. Such peace is possible in this
world. Maybe the dean will become a Christian leader as a result of reading my
booklet.
