Guilt and Gratitude (Gil Dueck)

On the drive in to work today, the radio airwaves were abuzz with conversation about “Occupy Wall Street”—a series of demonstrations in New York City against the economic inequities created/sustained by the global financial system.  Too many resources in the hands of too few, too much greed and corruption, too much abuse of power, etc, etc.  The voices on the radio were full of passion, moral outrage, and conviction that this movement was the beginning of “something big.”

As I listened, I began to wonder why I wasn’t more outraged about the realities these people were decrying.  And then, predictably, I felt a few twinges of guilt.  Guilt that I wasn’t protesting, guilt that I was somehow complicit in “global capitalism,” guilt that I didn’t understand the issues as deeply as I ought to, guilt that I wasn’t doing more to generate theological reflection upon these issues, guilt that I was feeling guilty about something that I didn’t need to feel guilty about… Sigh.

A few years ago, Gil Dueck wrote the following piece on the role guilt can and does play in 21st century life.  I repost it here as something of a humorous diagnosis of our condition—as Westerners, consumers, global citizens, and Christians—during these uncertain times where there seems to more than enough blame and guilt to go around.  I conclude by offering a few reflections of my own.

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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.

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This Sunday is Thanksgiving here in the Great White North, and on one level it is easy to say that one of the ways to live responsibly and hopefully in a guilt-based culture is to practice gratitude.  But perhaps this is too easy.  To acknowledge and understand one’s position of power and privilege in the face of enormous global inequity and resolve in a cheerfully determined sort of way to be more thankful for it seems a hollow response indeed.

And yet…  There are other ways to be grateful.  Other ways where gratitude is not a flippant response to the pleasures of excess, but a truly grateful response for provision and a deep understanding that true thankfulness is linked to a disciplining of desire and a determination to walk rightly under the providence of God.  One of the Lectionary readings for this week is Psalm 23—probably the most famous one in the Psalter.  There are so many good and important words for our times—or any times—in these few verses:

• “I shall not want…”
• “He restores my soul…”
• “He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake…”
• “I fear no evil…”
• “You prepare a table for me…”
• “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me…”
• “You are with me…”

Good words for giving thanks, and good words for thinking about guilt, hope, and responsibility.