Christianity is often criticized as a ‘guilt-based’ religion. It is argued that believing that people are all sinners in need of forgiveness is psychologically damaging and leads to unhealthy views of an angry God who is interested in little more than venting his cosmic rage at human targets who refuse to repent. The problem is guilt is not exclusively a Christian phenomenon, at least if I’m to take the pronouncements of media, activists and government seriously. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no shortage of things that I should feel guilty about as a 21st century citizen of a Western nation.
Most obviously, I am a wealthy person (a white man to boot) living in a world of staggering and depressing economic inequality and injustice. Watching or reading the news brings me almost daily reminders that the majority of the world’s population lives with far less than I do. What’s worse there are some suggestions that it is my wealth that is contributing to this injustice.
I am also a Christian and this means that I am vicariously responsible for all kinds of historical and contemporary atrocities committed in the name of Jesus. I am guilty of discrimination and hatred because I think that on some fundamental issues I’m right and other people are, to varying degrees, wrong. I know that the fact that I call myself a Christian means that I will be lumped in with those whose beliefs make me shudder and whose way of presenting them makes me cringe.
I drive a car (OK… sigh… I drive a van) and I heat my home and these are activities that contribute CO2 into an overheating atmosphere. I’d like to drive a smaller car but I have children and my government tells me that they have to be properly restrained when I take them places (read: strapped to the back of my van by something that, to most people, would seem like a strait jacket). This means that if I want to have more than two children I need to drive something that seems better suited for extended camping trips with 10 of my closest friends than the daily needs of a family of (soon to be) five.
And this is only the beginning. I sometimes eat bananas on my cereal in the morning and they are apparently not grown in Saskatchewan. This choice affects farmers in faraway places and makes it more difficult for them to earn a living wage. I also drink coffee of uncertain origin, I wear clothing made in parts of the world where labour laws are suspect, I enjoy watching some professional sports (surely one of the most horrific examples of economic insanity in human history) and I generally engage in a level of consumption that is not sustainable (though I’m really trying to cut back). All I could conceivably do to increase my level of guilt is buy a Lincoln Navigator and take up cigarette smoking.
So what to do with all this guilt? Is any of it misplaced? How do we live responsibly and hopefully in a guilt-based culture? It seems to me that one of the ‘blessings’ of the information age is that we’re all aware that we’re all guilty - not for our private moral failings but for massive problems that are global in scale and impossible to solve on our own. It’s relatively easy to work with my own private morality. It’s much more difficult when the problems are ‘out there’ and obscured by thousands of complex interrelationships and moral question marks. So how should we live hopefully in this kind of a world? An impossible question for a lazy summer afternoon.
i think the only plausible answer is to have some sort of worldwide concert to raise awareness. it should take place over a lengthy bit of time, perhaps 24 hours and include artists from many different countries performing in many different countries. every artist should get on stage and yell similar calls to action as thousands scream in approval in person, millions watching tv in their air conditioned houses. oh and we should probably support it all by purchasing the inevitable CD that arises from the vast array of performances….yup i think that should cover it.