I work and move within church circles and find that most of the people I meet there are honest, committed, and for the most part radiate their faith positively. Most church-goers aren’t hypocrites. What I do find disturbing within church circles though is that too many of us can be bitter, angry, mean-spirited, and judgmental, especially in terms of the very values that we hold most dear. It was Henri Nouwen who first highlighted this, commenting with sadness that many of the really angry, bitter, and ideologically-driven people he knew he had met inside of church circles and places of ministry. Within church circles, it sometimes seems, everyone is angry about something. Moreover, within church circles, it is all too easy to rationalize our anger in the name of prophecy, as a healthy passion for truth and morals. The logic works this way: Because I am sincerely concerned about an important moral, ecclesial, or justice issue, I can excuse a certain amount of neurosis, anger, elitism, and negative judgment, because I can rationalize that my cause, dogmatic or moral, is so important that it justifies my mean spirit: I need to be this angry and harsh because this is such an important truth! Don’t get me wrong: Truth is not relative, moral issues are important, and right truth and proper morals, like kingdoms under perpetual siege, need to be defended. Not all moral judgments are created equal, neither are all churches. But the truth of that doesn’t trump everything else or give us an excuse to rationalize our anger. We must defend truth, defend those who cannot defend themselves, and be solid in the traditions of our own churches. But right truth and right morals don’t necessarily make us disciples of Jesus. What does? What makes us genuine disciples of Jesus is living inside his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and this is not something abstract and vague. We live inside of the Holy Spirit when our lives are characterized by charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, longsuffering, constancy, faith, gentleness, and chastity. If these do not characterize our lives, we should not nurse the illusion that we are inside of God’s Spirit, irrespective of our passion for truth, dogma, or justice. As T.S. Eliot once said: The last temptation that’s the greatest treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason.[1]
[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Following Jesus According to the Letter or Spirit?” February 2011.