The old codger had the opportunity just the other evening of attending a wonderful interfaith forum on Courage and Faith at Washington University in St. Louis with the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious affairs, Rabbi Noam Marans; the St. Louis Archdiocese’s Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski; and St. Louis University Vice President Dr. David Suwalsky.
While the overall focus was on the sea change in relations between the Catholic Church and other faiths — and particularly the Jewish faith — since Vatican Two, the final question of the question- and-answer period at the end of the forum, and the participants’ responses, stuck with me as I made the long drive home in the darkness.
The two-pronged question: their take on the cause of the seeming tidal wave of “othering” we’re seeing in recent years, and how do they think it’s affecting all of us?
The term “othering” had come up earlier in their conversations, referring particularly to the “othering” of Jews over the centuries — i.e., portraying Jews as less than human, evil, to be feared and hated, etc.
But the responses, particularly by Rabbi Marans and Archbishop Rozanski, resonated with the old codger, punctuating the purpose and meaning of the evening as a whole.
I can’t hope to fully capture the texture and depth of their responses, but I’ll take a stab at it.
Carefully not naming names, they noted that “the powerful” repeatedly making use of othering in recent years can’t help but make it more acceptable and thus more and more troublingly prevalent — and then more vitriolic — until it begins to finally damage, diminish, and potentially destroy our very social fabric, and most troublingly, diminish and potentially injure our very souls, however moral or accepting we portray ourselves, or even struggle to be.
The old codger couldn’t help but take those words home with him.
And then the next morning, he was hit with the news that our president had posted on his website caricatures of Barack and Michelle Obama as dancing apes.
With that in mind, the core of the message from the other night was encapsulated in this question and potential answer. And maybe that is the imperative question and potential answer for us all in this nation right now.
Can our mutual bonds of comity and citizenship hold at a moment when “othering” is going through the roof and our willingness to work together is being tested to the breaking point? Our faith leadership suggests — and the old codger concurs — that showing up for one another is pretty much exactly what we need and what we outta pray like heck for right now.
… Whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me.
If you want, next time I can also flag headline alternates that stay true to Jim’s tone — but this one works nicely and fits the series cleanly.
