Wartime Spirituality, Meaningful Words, and Control vs. Resonance
Plus, an alternative to colorblindness and antiracism.
We have exciting news to share: You can now read Three Things in the new Substack app for iPhone.
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for 3T and any other newsletters you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never be cut off by your email app. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.
Now, on to the issue.
The Spiritual Life in War-Time
Evelyn Underhill and C.S. Lewis on being a Christian in times of war
As the spectre of war emerges again after a too-short absence, we have the privilege of receiving wisdom from Christians in the past who addressed the fears we now experience. Here are two for your consideration.
Writing in the 1940s, the Anglican mystic Evelyn Underhill pointed out three difficulties that beset the spiritual life in times of war:
The sense that time spent in prayer is selfish given the world’s condition.
A temptation to ignore the material realities of the world and retreat into the so-called spiritual.
“[T]he peace and joy of God are entirely lost in contemplation of the misery of man.”
Afflicted by these difficulties, we lose sight of what is most important:
A life centred on God, self-offered without condition for his purposes, and ruled by the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity, transcends in importance all outward activity; for it opens a channel for the action of the Spirit, and this is the greatest thing that we can do for our fellow-men. Such a life can only be maintained by steadfast, disciplined and self-oblivious prayer—a constant turning from the chaotic surface of life which so easily bewilders us to its unchanging deeps, and a faithful adherence to God.
But what about the nuclear threat? For that, we turn to C.S. Lewis’ essay ‘On Living in an Atomic Age’. The Oxford don is blunt, but helpful:
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors — anaesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
Click the links above to read the complete essays. And if you’re having trouble praying about the war in Ukraine, check out Justin Whitmel Earley’s Five Short Prayers for Ukraine.
The Paradox of Control
Michael Sacasas on The Uncontrollability of the World
Here’s a helpful paradigm for understanding our world: the very force that drives us is also the force that makes us most unhappy. That force is control. Listen to Michael Sacasas summarise the findings of German sociologist Hartmut Rosa:
“The driving cultural force of that form of life we call ‘modern,’” Rosa writes, “is the idea, the hope and the desire, that we can make the modern world controllable.” “Yet,” he quickly adds, “it is only in encountering the uncontrollable that we really experience the world. Only then do we feel touched, moved, alive. A world that is fully known, in which everything has been planned and mastered, would be a dead world.”
In other words, the more we seek to control the world, the more it will fail to speak to us, and, consequently the more alienated and dissatisfied we will feel. I might even put it this way: Rosa aims to show that how we set about to find meaning, purpose, or happiness more or less guarantees that we will never find any of them.
The modern project of control over the world is yielding disappointment, but Sacasas goes on to describe Rosa’s alternative. Not a posture of control over, but resonance with. What does this look like?
Consider, by way of example, something as prosaic as an encounter with another person. Such an encounter will be resonant only when we offer ourselves to the encounter in such a way that we can be affected or moved by the other person and when we, in turn, can respond in kind to this call. As [Ivan] Illich might say, it is a willingness to be surprised by the encounter and to receive ourselves back as a gift of the other. Indeed, Rosa even draws our attention, as Illich does so often, to the gaze. “Our eyes,” Rosa writes, “are windows of resonance. To look into someone’s eyes and to feel them looking back is to resonate with them.”
As a result, such encounters transform both of the people involved. One key to such encounters, however, is a measure of uncontrollability.
Read The Paradox of Control at The Convivial Society, or check out Hartmut Rosa’s small, invigorating book The Uncontrollability of the World.
Watch Your Language
James Harris on language and war
If you’ve been on social media since the Russian invasion of Ukraine (or even simply in the last few years), you’ve likely seen plenty of high-voltage flying around. At the moment, words like fascist, murderer, and genocide are common coin, not only to describe acts of war, but to describe things or people with which a poster disagrees.
James Harris has thoughts:
This is the language of children jacked up on sugar at the sweet shop, throwing the gravest terms of history around for shocks and giggles … The language of terrible things has become detached from the concepts it refers to and is now just a means of eliciting a reaction, and not much of a reaction, from a jaded crowd. This is the language of people who are so complacent about real threats that they feel it is necessary to fabricate their own.
We all have the freedom to exaggerate, Harris says. But now is the time to think very cautiously about our language and even to curtail our tendencies toward hyperbole We risk running out of truly meaningful words.
Read We need to save some words for a crisis at Stiff Upper Quip.
American race relations are stuck. And according to George Yancey, neither colorblindness nor antiracism are getting us anywhere.
Folks in the ‘colorblind’ camp argue that the problem of racism was basically solved by civil rights legislation. Moving towards a fairer society requires ignoring people's race and treating everyone the same. The problem with colorblindness, as Yancey points out, is that it disregards a huge body of evidence on the persistence and impact of racial discrimination in America. Colorblindness can't offer any meaningful solutions to the problem of racial discrimination if it denies that the problem exists.
What about ‘antiracism’? This approach has become more popular in recent years with the publication of books like Ibram Kendi's How To Be An Antiracist. Antiracism, in Yancey's view, can be summarized by three beliefs: 1) racism is pervasive, 2) racism demands active effort to dismantle, 3) white people should take a passive role, supporting the ideas and demands of people of color. Yancey shares these first two beliefs, but takes issue with the third. His concern is that the methods of antiracism undermine its aims. More specifically, the use of power rather than persuasion, and the silencing of dissent. “Do we find true allies or those who are afraid to speak their minds?” Yancey asks.
Yancey argues that tactics like mandatory diversity training programs do not achieve the aim of advancing racial justice. Instead, they can generate a backlash of resentment in white participants, a fear of voicing questions or concerns about racial issues, or a sense of complacency (ie “I’ve fulfilled my racial justice responsibilities by sitting through this training”). Yancey worries that any gains antiracist activism appears to be making are superficial and likely to be short-lived because “the methodology of antiracism does not lead to real change but to compliance out of fear of being labeled a racist”.
So if neither colorblindness nor antiracism are getting us anywhere, what are we to do? Yancey offers us a third approach: mutual accountability. This approach brings white people and people of color together to define the racial problem, identify areas of agreement and disagreement, and work together to find solutions to the racial problem at hand.
Central to this methodology is the practice of active listening - listening to each other for the purpose of genuine understanding, rather than merely for information or for argument. "Efforts to cut off voices, whether by whites or nonwhites, are not allowed”. The mutual accountability model assumes that “we cannot know the answers to our racialized problems until we have engaged in collaborative conversations with each other." The methodology focuses on moral suasion (building rapport and community) rather than coercion. It assumes that all parties are willing to compromise rather than fight in a zero-sum game.
As an African American social scientist and committed Christian, George Yancey brings decades of research and personal experience to bear on this subject. Theologically, he draws our attention to the realities of human depravity and forgiveness. The doctrine of depravity reminds us that all of us - whether we are white or black, antiracist or colorblind - are biased towards self-interest. We push for what we think is best for our own group, then insist that our solution is best for everyone. Whether we are in the majority or minority, we tend to abuse power when we get it. In the mutual accountability model, white people and people of color are equal partners. All participants have the responsibility to listen, to challenge, to find solutions, and to sacrifice. The doctrine of forgiveness empowers us with a spirit of humility and grace that enables us to move forward together rather than remain locked in a power struggle.
Beyond Racial Division: A Unifying Alternative to Colorblindness and Antiracism brings much-needed nuance and practical insight to a polarized debate, and a distinctively Christian perspective. His tone is gentle, accessible, and respectful of people across the political spectrum. While the book focuses on the issue of race, the mutual accountability model could usefully be applied to a number of other areas of division in American society, including immigration policy or environmental issues. There is wisdom in his call to listen, find common ground, and use moral suasion rather than power to bring meaningful change.
Jessamin Birdsall, co-author of Healing the Divides
After gale force winds led to power outages across southeast England, Phillip gave a lecture at L’Abri on the beatitudes and the Good life by candlelight! It felt like walking into Barry Lyndon — until the lights flicked on forty minutes in and the spell was broken.
Reading: In preparation for an inaugural “post-Covid” (can we even say that?) return to the theatre this week, Phillip is listening to Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. At his wife’s suggestion, he’s also started Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing, Pete Davis’ call for a “counterculture of commitment”.
Watching: To prepare for a friend’s stimulating lecture on the subject, Phillip returned to Kurosawa for the first time in years and watched Ran. What a film! Real battles with real people on real horses — none of this CGI stuff. Keeping on the Shakespeare theme, Joel Coen’s moody and monochrome Tragedy of Macbeth did not disappoint either (although, sadly, Denzel felt like a weak link).
Andy is happy to have come into the fold (the hutch?) of The Rabbit Room, a Christian arts community and publishing house in Nashville. It feels like a privilege to have joined the staff of this inspiring, creative, and fruitful organization.
Reading: Andy has been going back and re-reading a fascinating, unsettling genre: Post-Apocalyptic literature. Though Frost was unsure if the world would end in “fire or ice,” but these other authors have decidedly more specific and harrowing ideas. Here are some favorites that have been stealing Andy’s sleep recently: The Stand (Stephen King’s global plague), One Second After (about an EMP that knocks out America’s electricity), Robopocalypse (pretty much what it sounds like), World War Z (zombies). Good luck out there.
Listening: Andy has been listening to the haunting, profound lyrics of Typhoon all month. If you’re new to the band, he recommends CPR, Remember, and The Honest Truth. If you are up for a whole album, try to listen to Sympathetic Magic in one sitting. Wow.
Darkling Psalter: (Andy’s Psalm commentary, translation, and poetry project) Psalm 29 “My God, My Whisper of Flame,” and How to Read the Story of Jesus in Every Part of the Bible (lecture).