A Loving Contempt from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Can you love someone that you hold in contempt?
This is a video of Bart Campolo. He lives in Cincinatti, Ohio, which sounds a lot like Detroit as far as I can tell. Although I don't think he finished so strong, he begins with a great question, "Is it possible to love somebody and have contempt for them at the same time?" What do you think?
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hmmm... off the top of my head (and not having listened to the video yet as it's 3am and I just don't think now is the time...), I think it depends on what sense of "love" you mean. If it's in the sense of "love thy neighbour", i.e. behaving in a loving way - well, yes, of course it's possible. with God's help, obviously, but then the whole "love thy neighbour" thing depends on that - I mean, if we are to love our enemies then loving someone we hold in contempt is also part of the deal, isn't it?
ReplyDeletenot sure if I'm making sense or not. time I got off this machine and went sleepies.
you're making sense, meirav. you're reply fits in with one of the comments on the video -- "Is wanting the best for someone Love? Is there a difference between love and affection?"
ReplyDeleteI think that even when we have contempt for people, as Christians we're still called to want the best for them. It's incredibly hard, but it embodies the gospel.
Christene says "yes".
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean that you say "no".
ReplyDeletecontempt for them, or contempt for what they do or say?
ReplyDeleteI think Christians can sift...
I respect Bart Campolo [and his dad] - will try to watch later [still waking up]
No. Just that she keeps looking at me and saying, "Yes, it's VERY possible".
ReplyDeletebwa ha ha!
ReplyDeletegood points. I think wanting the best for someone is one sense of what it means "to love". affection is not necessary for that kind of love - though it certainly makes it a lot easier.
ReplyDeleteto paraphrase a great well-known rabbi whom I greatly respect... if you want the best for those you feel affection for, if you behave in a loving way towards those whom you naturally like, what's the big deal? everyone does that. but you - go out there and be loving towards those who absolutely drive you up the wall, be loving towards those who you think are talking utter rubbish and don't know their hindquarters from their elbows, be loving towards those who don't inspire in you any affection or respect or any positive emotions whatsoever. c'mon, can you do that?
(and of course my human answer is: without your help, Lord - no, I can't, not for a minute.)
nice paraphrase. did you do that yourself or is it from The Message or something like that?
ReplyDeletethanks. did it myself. and now it would be interesting to compare with The Message...
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to pin point what's what in The Message, but I think this is it:
ReplyDelete"If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you." (emphasis kept)
Have you watched the video yet? The mom and daughter that he talks about remind me a lot of the Precious movie.
ReplyDeletelooks like The Message has - amazingly - stayed closer to the original words.
ReplyDeleteI like the "You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it."
(haven't watched the video yet. been out at home group this evening)
it took me a week before i got around to watching it after seeing it on a FB page. so no worries. i had it open as a tab that whole time so i wouldn't forget to watch.
ReplyDeleteoh, you do that too? :)
ReplyDeleteAccording to wikipedia:
ReplyDelete"Contempt is an intense feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless—it is similar to scorn. ..."
Probably we all do this sometimes, but it doesn't seem to be a very productive attitude towards someone even if you don't love them.
did you watch the video (or have you seen the movie Precious)? it seems weird as he talks about it that he could admit that he regards this woman with contempt, but then you think about what he hears from her daughter, who appears to be the avenue for him to have a relationship with this woman in the first place.
ReplyDeletei think what he's trying to express is that he knows he should be showing love to her, and he would even be willing to try to show love to her, but she is so disgusting a creature that his natural reaction is to recoil. whether productive or not, it's something he's trying to deal with.
i think movies about kids in urban environments are often about someone swooping in and making everything better and all the kids in the classroom end up going off to college and living happily ever after. so you end up with this weird perception of what's possible in terms of rehabilitation or restoration. but then you go and live in the reality and you find the problems are systemic, generational, and so entrenched that even saving the life of one kid seems an insurmountable task.
all of this also got me to thinking about how we reach out to people like this. it strikes me that campolo is on the fronts lines. having been on the front lines myself i know that what i really needed was a support system. people that i could in turn go to to talk out stuff exactly like this. they wouldn't necessarily have to be in the same urban environment as me.
and then i wonder if there are people who are better suited to this sort of thing, and people better suited to doing the support. (this comes up in conjunction with my reading about introverts in the church.) just because there's a need doesn't mean that we're all suppose to go and be the front line person on that need. we need to find who's best suited to that specific need and then figure out who's best suited as back up or support on that.
i think the church needs to deal that way more often. there's a sign up sheet that our pastor just sent around to sign up to be an usher or greeter. i didn't add myself to the list because i'm horrible at that. i wonder how many people haven't returned to our church because i was the only person they talked to and i'm awkward and uncomfortable and i'm sure it shows. i don't WANT to be that way. in fact, the very fact that i'm talking to them shows that i'm trying to do the right thing despite my own predilections. but as i think the introverts book would point out, we need to locate the people who are skilled at meeting new folks or even warmly welcoming the old ones and use them as ushers. and leave people like me to dart out of the service immediately to go count money because i don't know what to say to people after the service.
/ramble
amen, amen, amen... I think there is a huge danger in churches of signing up to the wrong type of thing. some of this I've learned the hard way, by volunteering for stuff and then learning that I'm not really the right person for this job. I've been in a church where there was huge pressure to take part in a whole load of activities, and saying no was really tough. I've been in a situation where I'd volunteered for something and then God told me to pull out of it, and when I told the person who was in charge her reaction was: But why would God tell you that? to which I replied: Well, that's his business. I think some leaders are wiser in this area than others. I have a friend back home who leads the drama group in our fellowship and she does not accept anyone without praying about it first - she won't take people on unless she's sure God wants them to be part of that team.
ReplyDeleteAnd I really value your comment about how people might be put off coming to your church if you do the job you're not suited to - that is one aspect of this issue that I hadn't thought of, but it's true, if you're greeted by an awkward introvert (speaking as an Awkward Introvert myself...) then you won't feel as welcomed as when greeted by one of those people who are so good at being nice to a zillion people for two seconds per person one after the other... (cringe cringe)
I just posted a section from the Introverted book to the INTJ group. http://intj.multiply.com/journal/item/47/Dopamine_vs._Acetylcholine_and_Blood_Flow If you're interested in the introverted vs. extroverted part of this discussion, you might find this interesting. Sure explains a lot for me.
ReplyDeleteas i think the introverts book would point out, we need to locate the people who are skilled at meeting new folks or even warmly welcoming the old ones and use them as ushers. and leave people like me to dart out of the service immediately to go count money because i don't know what to say to people after the service.
ReplyDeleteI'm borderline E/I, normally coming down slighty on the E side, but I have similar problems to you in these sorts of situations. At the moment I'm facing it from the other side of the fence as a relative newcomer. After the service all I want to do is run for the door, although I think yesterday it had a lot to do with feeling too tired to talk to anyone coherently.
Just as not everyone wants to talk, not everyone wants to be talked to. As a friend of mine says, before you can "belong" you have to be able to "be". It takes some of us quite a while to get to that point.