Think Different

The Readings for Monday in the 25th Week of Ordinary Time (B2)

America has a problem with rebels. We started with the violent overthrow of our lawful king. We used advanced wordplay to justify what only a couple of generations before would have been a sin. Indeed our whole Anglophone culture is based on the same sort of thing, really. For what was the English schism if not the overthrow of a lawful authority?

We like rebels. But we fail to recognize that all rebels are the same: the essential argument is always, “I will do what I will. This shall be the whole of my law.” This non-argument is used to justify even contradictory ideas: like belief in evolution and also in non-reproductive sex. We rebel against any form of authority including our own. And we envy the folks who do it best: we want to emulate them.

Why can’t I inherit, we ask, all of my money from my parents, ruin every business I touch, cheat on several of my spouses, be emotionally abusive, lie, cheat, gamble, and still be President and a hero to millions?

America has a problem with rebels. All of our movies (even the good ones) are about rebels: what is It’s A Wonderful Life about if not fiscal rebellion? Gone With The Wind is not just about “The Rebel South” but also about a woman rebelling against social norms and running her own life. The Korean war was about a Rebel General. MASH is commentary about rebels in the Vietnam War disguised as a story about rebels in the Korean War. We think the Rebellion in Star Wars is the Good Guys. In our mythology, Jesus was a rebel. We pay no attention to the fact that he adhered to rather traditional Jewish teachings on many front and that even some of his more “rebellious” lines are from one or another Jewish rabbinical tradition. Jesus is not a rebel, but he does have peculiar opinions.

We see this play out in the Church as well: as the entire America Church is filled with Rebels of one sort or another. Yes, there are the liberal sorts who toss off moral strictures, but there are the conservative sorts who align themselves with Steve Bannon and stick up for political leaders who abuse women. These are all our Rebels against the Pope. There are in Orthodoxy white supremacists who won’t even let their women dress in traditional, Orthodox ways because it looks “too Muslim.”

We like rebels – even the ones we say we don’t like.

The problem is that this leads us to some awkward places in our moral life. If we elevate these folks so high on our cultural ranking, where does that leave us, faithful Catholics, who try to adhere to the moral order propounded by our Church exactly because it is the moral order propounded by our Church? Yeah, sure, there’s an element of “rebel” in it because in today’s world looking like Davey and Goliath, or Ward and June Cleaver (or even the Brady Bunch) is a rebellion of a sort. But it is an acquiescence to an authority as well. There is no such thing as a Christian Anarchist.

Unless you’re a rebel.