In my Coppola Comment post "The Twelfth Commandment" I observed that government attempts to make us "happy" are bound to fail if they do not translate into real actions to improve well-being.
Someone who is unemployed doesn't need therapy, they need a job. Someone who isn't earning enough to pay their bills doesn't need advice on how to stop worrying about money, they need more money. If you don't have enough money, or you don't have a secure job, worrying about money and security is rational. Trying to change people's rational feelings about their circumstances is insulting. It is the circumstances themselves that need to be changed.
There is nothing new about the tendency to offer well-meaning advice and emotional "support" rather than addressing people's real needs. Here is St. James having a go at people who offered prayer instead of practical help to the needy in the early Christian community:
"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
James 2:14-17
We have a terrible tendency to "spiritualise" the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, so that Jesus's harsh words about storing up material wealth, for example, don't have to hurt our wallets. Much is said by the well-meaning about the power of prayer. And yes, as a Christian I too believe in the power of prayer. But for prayer to succeed, there must also be action. The marvellously down-to-earth Teresa of Avila wrote the following poem:
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
Christ's compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
Christ's compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.
When people pray instead of doing, prayer is impotent. When governments try to "make people happy" while doing nothing to relieve unemployment and poverty, they waste money. When those with money tell those without money to stop worrying about money, their advice is ignored. But these mealy-mouthed interventions can be certain to have one effect - and that is to cause anger among the needy.
Jesus is critical of those who do nothing practical to help those in need:
“Then [the King] will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Matthew 25:41-46
Where in this list do praying for people, giving them advice and providing them with therapy feature? I can just imagine what Jesus would have to say about the well-off who preach to the needy while doing nothing practical to meet their needs. Such hypocrisy.
Related reading:
The Twelfth Commandment - Coppola Comment
The problem of debt - Still Life With Paradox
How to worry less about money - Brain Pickings (book review)
Very interesting post; I'm struck by the parallel between offering prayer and offering CBT!
ReplyDeleteCalvinists don't like it, but for me the parable of the sheep and goats is always timely. The idea of religion as a collective human undertaking, captured in the image of the Church as Christ's body, so often seems to get lost. The individual experience of the divine needs to be grounded both in the texts and in a collective relationship with the wider social world (I'm thinking of something like the argument Rowan Williams advanced here, although I wouldn't claim to have understood it fully). And, needless to say, this would not be a relationship of withdrawal or condemnation.