On Public Work
On Public Theology
Western liberalism and capitalism have privatized faith, seeing it as concerning only one’s personal fate and interests. Public theologians reject any clear distinction between the private and the public. Any particular faith—whether “religious” or not—has a responsibility to promote and enrich the common good. Public theologians do not simply talk to the public, much less try to tell public officials or institutions what to do. Nor do they address public concerns in an effort to convert others to their own faith tradition.
Rather, they set the historical resources of their faith into a conversation with broader social issues—be they political, economic, or cultural. This critical dialogue is intended not only to enhance public life, but also to question and reinterpret the resources of a particular faith tradition so that it remains a living, dynamic, and just faith. The horizon of public theology is to create a society of radical care, one which cherishes the unique and infinite value of every individual and community.
Because of all this, public theologians are not only schooled in the texts and practices of their own faith traditions, but are also knowledgeable in the disciplines of public discourse, such as critical race theories, cultural criticism, political philosophy, economic theory, gender and queer studies, decoloniality, literature, history, the arts, sociology, and the sciences of human and environmental health, among others.
“Rogers-Vaughn provides a ground-breaking, in-depth theoretical analysis of neoliberal economic theory and the ravages of its effects on individuals, relationships, and public life.
At once theoretically rich, pastorally wise, and accessible, this is a resource that
seminarians and those in religious leadership can use effectively.”
–Nancy J. Ramsay, Professor of Pastoral Theology
and Pastoral Care Emeritus, Brite Divinity School
On Radical Care
“Our task instead is to learn how to hear what is impossible. Such an impossible hearing is only possible if we respond to a pain that we cannot claim as our own.”
–Sara Ahmed, in The Cultural Politics of Emotion
The extreme individualism of late capitalism turns “individual freedom” into an idolatry. This “freedom” isn’t even freedom. Making the entire world turn on individuals making “rational choices,” based only on their own self-interest, does not make us free. It just isolates us and leaves us lonely and afraid. And when we are afraid, we become suspicious of others, especially those who somehow seem different. “They” become the problem. As I see it, we are living today in a paranoia pandemic. It is no fun living in this place, and the longer we live in this anxiety, the more depressed and addicted we become.
Unlike the current plague of COVID-19, this pandemic is not natural. It is intentionally propagated by the powers of late capitalism, referred to by its critics as “neoliberalism.” This is an anti-gospel that actively dismantles the institutions responsible for social well-being, that impugns and/or co-opts the “grand narratives” that give our lives meaning and guide us in the search for truth, and that rips apart the connective tissue—the soul—that binds us to ourselves, to others, to creation, and the Eternal. The ironic outcome is that the very individuals capitalism claims to liberate are, instead, falling apart. Most of us know something is wrong, but we are not aware of what is ultimately oppressing us. Our enemy is invisible to us. We are like zombies, falling apart but not awake. The horror of the present age is that we are not horrified.
It is past time to wake up from our slumber. What is needed as an antidote to this pandemic of fear and loneliness is a genuine solidarity that binds us together in a way that not only preserves, but treasures the preciousness and uniqueness of every individual. What I have in mind here is something like what is expressed in the pan-African term ubuntu, often translated as “I am because we are.”
But how do we establish such a solidarity in the actual everyday world? I do not believe this can simply be planned. No one can “build” this type of community. It must grow organically, like a forest. But if we cannot plan or build it, we can at least intend it. How do we do this? By giving our attention to, by listening to, being present to one another, through an activity I have come to think of as radical care. What this kind of care attends to is the suffering of the other person, and of people who are not like ourselves. The poet Kahlil Gibran once wrote: “We may forget those with whom we have laughed, but never those with whom we have wept.” Please understand. I do not mean to romanticize or glorify pain. I am a parent who once buried his young child. And as a psychotherapist I have borne witness to the sufferings of hundreds of people over the years. Pain is ugly and tragic, and often is overwhelming. To sentimentalize it is the opposite of hearing it. This care is radical partly because it refuses to minimize, avoid, or water down with cheerful or pious or philosophical bromides. It refuses to look away. Nothing is as bonding as the sharing of suffering, a pain that is neither chosen or embraced, but simply comes upon us uninvited, like a thief in the night.
Oh, one more thing. This sort of attention to the other is not just sympathy. It does not assume to know how the other feels, much less to presume “I feel just like you do.” This is the other thing that makes it radical—it is a paradox. In Sara Ahmed’s words, such an attending is “impossible,” and yet “is only possible if we respond to a pain that we cannot claim as our own.” We do not fully appreciate any suffering until we understand that every individual’s pain is unique. We cannot make it “our own.” And yet, as one of my favorite psychoanalytic writers has stated: “We cannot do our work unless we can find the other within ourselves.” In the Christian New Testament, there is a notion called “kenosis,” or “self-emptying.” This does not mean we debase or erase ourselves. It means that we open a space within ourselves to welcome the other, who is accepted in their very otherness. In the solidarity I am imagining, this is a shared space, something like a womb. If into this space we bring our unique pain, in all its unacceptable terribleness, we become pregnant with possibility, with a genuine future. From this gestation a common pain is born, a shared sorrow that paradoxically holds all our individual sufferings. Now that, my friend, is radical.
