I want to share an excerpt from La Vida Sacra, by James Empereur and Eduardo Fernámdez:
Sociologist Robert Bellah, a Protestant layman, contend that the
reason Americans find it difficult to understand the idea of the
common good is due to what he calls the “Protestant imagination.”
The stress on the sacredness of the individual conscience has been a
Protestatn concern from the beginning of this country. An unintended
inheritance from the Reformation has been an understanding of the
self as autonomous. Evangelical Protestantism has heightened this
autonomy in its focus on the relation of the individual believer to
Christ. (p. 30)
The Puritan work ethic, the Protestant emphasis on individualism, the cultural denial of death, have all contributed to this unique moment in the pandemic. What happens when we are all enculturated to hyper individualism and freedom? What happened when our culture removes us from death to the point where we see it as, "a problem that should be avoidable?" (p. 259) How can we marinate in toxic capitalism to the point of saturation and still wonder why we will kill others for a profit margin?
I recall giving a workshop many years ago, when I was a Peaceful Parenting Advocate, and trying to persuade parents that there were alternatives to corporal punishment. A phrase we used quite a bit was, "children behave as well as they are treated." It is no different in the national arena. We live in a nation where nearly 70% of people in the US report that they are struggling financially. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/70-americans-are-struggling-financially/) Neoliberalism has eroded both trust in political institutions, devastated the social safety nets, and turned everyone into a competitor for scarce resources. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
It has me pondering, How do I contribute to bringing back the idea of the common good? The answer: community. However, I have had to rethink even my notion of community. Why? Because my thinking, my concepts, my models-- they are all built within the same frameworks of oppression. I live in a country build on genocide, slavery, and domination. To get back to the notion of common good, I need to shift outside those frameworks. Just look at how many times I have already used "I" statements...
Actually, that is for a good reason. It is because I acknowledge that these are changes I need to make based on my social location of a cis, white woman. There are already many, many communities doing the transformative work of which I speak. They are the very communities that have been most marginalized. You want to see the magic of community as antidote, you don't have to look far:
This course on Latinx Theology and Ethics has been an amazing source of inspiration, and reminds me of all the women, in New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, and Colorado who are already doing the work to which I aspire.
“I cannot think of a more significant contribution Latinas...make to North American society and to the church universal than to articulate and model a spirituality that enables those who are different to live together in a context of mutual respect and concern.” (p. 301)
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