[Okay, I am having a slow afternoon. I went ahaead and drafted the second post. The first will appear shortly...as soon as I can get home and post it.]
This is the second of what might be several posts on this mess.
CPE Speak Warning: "communities of interpretation" is a term I have picked up. For the purposes of this post, and the thousands following, the term signifies traditions or denominations or congregations etc where interprtetation of scripture and its influence on day to day life is shared and discerned. I will use it in lieu of writing "denominations/traditions/churches." You get the point, I hope.
Here is a good essay on some differences between Baptists and Episcopalians. It is with this overarching hope, a quote from the essay, that I procede:
I believe that Christians everywhere have more in common than they have differences. It is impressive, but not surprising, that the human genome project discovered that all human beings are nearly identical, genetically. That what appear to be huge differences in personality, race, or gender are explained by less than 1% difference in our genetics -- that the two most different people in the world are more than 99% identical. So it is with the Christian Churches. The two most different churches in the world have far more in common than in difference. - Rick LaribeeI am hammering out a particularity and not the whole.
There is a tendancy in some blogging that I have noticed. That is the tendancy to proclaim stongly that individualism has no place in the Faith. It is a product of western philosophy and theology, a Cartesian falsehood. It is consumerist. It is capitalist. It may very well be anathema. On the flip side there is this building up the notion of communities of interpretation that have been standing firm for decades or millenia and how we are subsumed into it, gently cradled into our conversion, changed by a community. I think that this polemic is problematic and misguided. I am not convinced that it is an intentional polemic by those of us with Opinions to Share. But it seems to come up from time to time. I feel it is my duty (A deontological change? Ah, the baptist priesthood!) to point it out.
One of the things that Thomas said in his post, the individualist paradox (1, 2, 3), has me thinking. Actually several of them do, but one thing in particular has me musing and wondering. He suggests that it is a sign of our cultural individualism that there are converts to Catholicism or Orthodoxy at all. These are often not communities that convert (though some have) but individuals...individuals that are sometimes from free church traditions where individualism is espoused and admired. So, when converts land in Orthodoxy or Catholicism or find themselves "emerging" somewhere, there may be a knee jerk reaction against individualism....because individualism is not held as an optimal expression of faith. Conversion can sometimes be accompanied by a wholesale rejection of the tradition that led to the conversion...including individualism. This makes sense, certainly. So, not to make too little out of it or diminish what is often a profound conversion for people, the very individualism that becomes despised is often what gets people to leave their communities of origin to find another. Their individualism, their autonomy is what "saved" them. Who knew?
I have never had the cajones to say that before. Thomas' saying it first helped. He will probably not go as far as I will, but that's okay. I don't expect him to agree with me. He just got the ball rolling. So don't blame him for my insanity.
Nothing is more individualist than conversion...even conversion into a communal understanding, into a body. This has certainly been my own experience. I have to extricate myself from one community of interpretation, individuate myself, in order to land in another. My own autonomy plays into the dialogue between communities of interpretation and the individual decision I made to allign myself with one, my individual choice I made to respond to the revelation of the Spirit proclaimed by a specific community. I must value my individual self in order to desire one community over another...to even bother to seek another community of interpretation. The individual response is one of seeking a beneficial relationship in community where the individual may be nurtured. This is individualism. It is inescapable, even within a body.
Now, recall that the title of this post is "individualism is good." I am not about to slap around these people or their conversions or their reliance upon individualism to get them to a communal understanding of faith. I would be slapping myself around (Maybe not a bad idea after all). Individualism is good. So too is "communalism" for that matter. One cannot exist without the other...I think...heh. Maybe this is a false dialectic, but I think it is worth playing with. I say this again because we have consigned individualism to the flames, striking a polemic that may be untenable. If there is one pole, there must be another. The poles are most likely individualism and communalism.
The dialectic is essential here. To be a body, to have requisite parts completeing a whole means that there must be self-aware parts! Function, gift, participation...all are individual. As a Christian, I understand this as part and parcel of Paul's understanding of the Body of Christ, the spiritual gifts (We don't get 'em all, folks!), working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, Christ's individual call to the apotles and the prophet John's challenging of his community of interpretation. There are more.
The individual persons, saints, prophets and martyrs are what guide the community of interpretation. They are individual models of what the community seeks...person by person. One cannot be an individual unless one is in community. One cannot be in community unless one is an individual.
Maybe I should change my tone and play with the terms a bit. This may be several posts. So, I will shy away from the comment section except to clarify. I want to post this stuff more than comment on it. Y'all should feel free to comment! I know you will.
So, um, next I want to talk about indivdiualism and autonomy. They ain't the same. I oft try to conflate them. This is bad. Maybe I am not the only one who does.
Posted by tripp at January 18, 2005 04:50 PMTripp, bro. Sit down before you read further. Comfy?
I agree.
When you say: "One cannot be an individual unless one is in community. One cannot be in community unless one is an individual."--which I take to be your overall thesis--I agree.
From my own philosophical and theological vantage point, I would argue that the community is both temporally and ontologically prior, and thus foundational, to the individual, it is true that we are only individuals so much as we are in community, and in community so much as we are individuals. There are many members but one Body. The Body is prior, but it has members.
I don't really get what all the rant is on the other stuff you and Thomas are hepped up about, but so far on your main point (if I have it right) I'm with you.
Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at January 18, 2005 07:55 PMSt Basil says that one does not receive a gift of the Spirit for one's self but for the benefit of the body
Posted by: C T at January 18, 2005 09:16 PMOne of the issues here is that "individualism" means different things to different people. I haven't read Thomas' posts (sorry, I'm being lazy), and your Part I isn't posted yet. Maybe this ambiguity is addressed there.
It seems to me that the individualism that is being railed against is the belief that the individual is of primary importance. As I heard in a sermon recently, "it's not about us, it's about God."
It clearly takes individualism to believe, or to separate one's self from one community of interpretation and enter into another. For me it was the move from the secular realm into a religious realm. I continue to struggle as an individual within a communal belief system.
Posted by: Wes at January 18, 2005 11:12 PMWes:
I think Tripp is deliberately exploiting the difference between the individualism you rightly criticize and the individualism he is trying to capture in his post.
Tripp may not know this, but he is dangerously close to His Eminence, JOHN's "being as Communion" and a thoroughly Orthodox account of personhood.
But then again, Tripp is always the accidental catholic, poor guy!
Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at January 19, 2005 07:03 AMTripp,
Why the "ism" why not speak of the person and personhood? I do think "individualism" (meaning the lifting up of the individual as an autonomous agent uninfluenced by other (communal) factors) does result from the dualism inherent in the cogito and Cartesian philosophy.
Personhood in my understanding is the name for the dialectic without being caught in polarization of indvidual vs. community.
The problem I have with the language of the individual is that it rarely if ever speaks the reality of relationship. Person though seems more open to (if it doesn't in fact push one to speak) relationship and the language of relation.
Hmmm.
Good question, Larry. I think I am avoiding them for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I am not entirely sure I know what they mean. Secondly, because I want to rescue the ism from a false polemic. Thirdly, autonomy is important in how I understand salvation. It relates to free will. Too strong an influence on the communal and free will goes out the window.
John Calvin (His Name Be Praised) would not like what I am gonna say.
Posted by: AngloBaptist at January 19, 2005 12:03 PMIt seems it is one thing to affrim individuality another to talk about "ism". I don't see why one needs to rescue any "ism" let alone "individualism". "Isms" in my opinion cloud our thinking, you can rescue individuality I think without appeal to "individualism".
lastly Autonomy and freedom of will are not necesarily the same.
Larry:
"Autonomy and freedom of will are not necesarily the same."
True, truer and truly true.
Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at January 19, 2005 01:39 PMLarry: ecumenism
Cliff: you use that word too much. ;-)
Posted by: AngloBaptist at January 19, 2005 06:12 PMTripp,
Touche.
However, my issue is not so much that individualism should be scraped but that I don't get your sudden need to defend it. Ecumenism is problematic when isolated. "isms" seem to me to force one to accept them ignoring other possible ways of speaking. I would defend ecumenical work (and I am involved in such work obviously) I would not seek to defend ecumenism or rescue it. Also Ecumenism will be something that should cease, the point is that WCC would at some point come to an end as an institution as well as a movement. Ecumenism is only good as long as it truely serves the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ. If Ecumenism leaves that for other efforts (which is possible) or to further its own ideology and theology I would claim to continue to be ecumenical but without ecumenism.
Per individualism, if I question what you are trying to do her it is not as one who finds individuality un-Christian nor one who would place the communal as primary and over against individuality. To do so would for obvious reasons be the highth of hypocrisy. However, I would want to situate individuality within Christotlogical and Trinitarian language rather than attempt to articualte an individualism per se.
I do after all still believe that although faith is passed on and recieved communaly one must recieve it individualy. Or more to the point faith is to be appropriated personaly, ie. as an individual within a community.