Chapter 5 - The Rev. Kathryn Campbell

Chapter 5

Teaching the Public Life (1):  Scarcity and Abundance

Ironic that I begin writing about our relationship with the public realm by apologizing to the readers of these blogs for writing this piece so late.  I was supposed to submit it by Feb. 27 and it's now March 15.  I'm plenty distressed and embarrassed, and highly apologetic but who else, I wonder, noticed or was distressed?  Who are the readers? 

As Lydia noticed, the electronic public is even more mysterious than the people we meet on the street.  Palmer's delicious critique of the false intimacy with which the media bombard us is accurate, even though he made it in the 80s.  Why should we care or even want to know personal details about entertainers, sports stars, and miscellaneous “celebrities?”  Yet we can hardly escape them.  This is a different world, all right, so how are Christians to respond?

Thinking of the church as a training ground for the public world might be another way of speaking about mission.  Even tiny congregations are not necessarily hotbeds of intimacy, while larger ones clearly are part if their members' public lives.  By extension, the primary public our members meet in our communities could become a training ground for our electronic meetings.  In our communities, our public is present and physical.  If we insult someone we know it immediately because of the look on their face.  Likewise, if we lie, especially in small towns, our face usually betrays us and they probably know the truth anyway.  Or they think they do, which is even tastier.  We don't get away with much

But on line?  New rules may mean that people can get acquainted by lying and knowing that the other person is lying, too.  But when they meet, they sometimes end up marrying well.  Compatibility will out?  Perhaps the truth of the mystery person's nature comes out even in whatever fiction they put on line.  Perhaps their training in their face-to-face public lives carry over.  And that can be shaped by the Church.

For Palmer, our notions of scarcity and abundance are artificial.  Fear of scarcity in one part of the globe leads to hoarding of various kinds by the wealthy which increases the poverty of those who live within scarcity.  The entertainment industry saps individual creativity by manipulating audiences to buy more of their products.  Power and money manipulate and lure us.  “In the midst of material abundance, our lives have become cramped and pinched.”  Everyone loses.

Doubtless Palmer writes with the hope that changing minds and hearts is the way out of the constriction of our lives.  Certainly, overcoming our smallness and fears is a major motive for seeking religious growth.  Call it cramped and pinched life?  Call it weakening of human values?  Call it sin?

But our Lord can and does redeem it all and that is what we are called to live and proclaim.  If we take God's rich gifts to heart, our private and public lives will grow richer and deeper.  Even the social media.