In Luke 6:20-21, Jesus looking inspired at his disciples says: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
But even if apocalypticism tries to push forward to an ideal future any idea of social justice, the idea of being poor has been cherished as the outcome of a life of rightness.
Science tells the opposite, prolonged exposure to stresses such as social discrimination or poverty has great physiological costs. Public health researcher Sherman James investigating racial health disparities between blacks and others in North Carolina devised a scale (John Henryism) that was used to measure the pretense of anyone to control their environment through hard work and determination. By James’ hypothesis, “people who scored low on education and high on John Henryism had significantly higher levels of diastolic blood pressure than those who scored above the median on both measures.“
But who was John Henry? Everybody knows the story: a black man against a machine.
According to the story, Henry was a young blacksmith that hammered his way out in life ready for explosives. One day, he was involved in a competition against a machine, that threatened his very job.
But against the odds, Henry first beat the machine and later died from the stress.
John Henryism is the scientific answer to the Sermon on the Mount: the stressful, damaging health impact of thriving against inequality, financial hardship, and racial discrimination.
Ronald F. Inglehart and Pippa Norris a few decades later analyzed data on religious trends in 49 countries when the collapse of both communism had left an ideological vacuum that everybody thought would be filled by religion.
In the first period selected, in 33 out of 49 countries, an increase in religiosity was recorded, especially in the post-communist and in the developing world, and, to a lesser extent, in some advanced countries. The results seemed to converge towards a counter-current explanation: “industrialization and the spread of scientific knowledge do not cause the disappearance of religion.“
But from 2007 to today, 43 out of 49 countries have been overwhelmed by an inverse trend (at fast speed) to the previous one, namely the loss of religiosity. Secularization and atheism are affecting developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries in equal measure, for a major reason: sexual emancipation. The theory of gender and liquid sexual models have broken the major world religions’ dogmas.
But other factors come into play: development involves well-being and security, therefore the believers who do not belong to a confession for real faith, but to take advantage of the possible benefits deriving from being part of a community, distance themselves from it, finding in other social institutions what they seek, free from the obligations and moral constraints of religions.
It would not, therefore, be the spread of scientific progress, and the mentality related to it, the primary cause of the loss of faith, but the spread of well-being. In fact, religion has never played a purely metaphysical role, that is, to provide human beings with the tools to face existential questions for which science has no answers, but it has also provided material wealth and comfort as much as moral help.
Poverty blows the wind that profits nobody.
I think you somewhat misconstrue the passage in Luke. Jesus is not glorifying poverty. He knows how bad it is. He is offering consolation. Jesus is saying that in the Kingdom values will be reversed and the people who suffer now will be privileged then.
In Jesus’ day the belief among his people was that wealth was a sign of God’s favor, a sign of implied righteousness. Not that spirituality was associated with poverty – just the opposite. This explains the disciples’ puzzled reactions when Jesus said how hard it was for a rich man to enter the kingdom. To them poverty was a sign of God’s judgement. The apocalyptic Jesus is turning this all on its head.
Stephen said
I think you somewhat misconstrue the passage in Luke. Jesus is not glorifying poverty. He knows how bad it is. He is offering consolation. Jesus is saying that in the Kingdom values will be reversed and the people who suffer now will be privileged then.
Maybe you didn’t read what I said: “But even if apocalypticism tries to push forward to an ideal future any idea of social justice, the idea of being poor has been cherished as the outcome of a life of rightness.” (See Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu or Saint Francis of Assisi.)
But what the passage means, or is meant to significate is beyond my point. I’m not arguing against one thing or the other, I’m looking at it from the edge. Any meta-rational approach somehow denies any internal reality of the text and observes it from the outside.
Now, what I did was a comparison between two blocks of text (as usual, you can read the other posts.)
The first is the Sermon on the Mount and John Henry, the other the article of the analyzed data on religious trends.
The main game in Bart’s blog and the Member’s forum is about the use of rationality to defeat meaningness. But, overall, it’s the denial that information is ambiguous and liquid and the medicine proposed is the pill of fixating patterns.
Your answer is vivid in this sense. You give an interpretation of Luke when you know that there’s no way to know what he meant (and the fringe or main consensus harmonization about it don’t count.)
All attempts at understanding a text are hopeless and any philosophy that aspires to understand it is doomed to failure. The only honest thing to do is to use meta-rationality to highlight both patterns and chaotic aspects of reality.
Once the two blocks of texts are compared then the final sentence represents the “solution” of a Bongard’s like problem.
P.S.
In real Bongard’s problems, the solution is thought to be unique since the problem itself is constructed by humans, but as we shift into humanistic sciences than a much-relaxed approach can be taken.
Stephen said
In Jesus’ day the belief among his people was that wealth was a sign of God’s favor, a sign of implied righteousness. Not that spirituality was associated with poverty – just the opposite.
I suppose the impression we get from both OT and NT is that God favours (excuse English spelling!) the righteous, but not necessarily by conferring wealth on them. Bad things happen to good people all the way through. But because in the OT this life is all there is, God’s favour – if it’s going to come at all – has to come in this life. If it didn’t, you weren’t favoured. I can’t imagine how the Essenes were meant to be recipients of God’s favour in that case.
Maybe you didn’t read what I said: “But even if apocalypticism tries to push forward to an ideal future any idea of social justice, the idea of being poor has been cherished as the outcome of a life of rightness.” (See Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu or Saint Francis of Assisi.)
I read it but I couldn’t understand it because all attempts at understanding a text are hopeless and any philosophy that aspires to understand it is doomed to failure. This also explains the evanescence of our conversation.
I suppose the impression we get from both OT and NT is that God favours (excuse English spelling!) the righteous, but not necessarily by conferring wealth on them. Bad things happen to good people all the way through. But because in the OT this life is all there is, God’s favour – if it’s going to come at all – has to come in this life. If it didn’t, you weren’t favoured. I can’t imagine how the Essenes were meant to be recipients of God’s favour in that case.
The Essenes, being the good apocalypticists that they were, believed in that same reversal of position in the kingdom as did Jesus.
It’s interesting how contemporary is the association between “favor” and wealth. Let’s face it, the only reason Donald Trump is President is because his wealth gives him a certain holy glow. (It’s certainly not his level of personal righteousness.) I’ve often thought his reluctance to release his tax returns is less about possible malfeasance than that it might reveal he is much less wealthy than he pretends.
Stephen said
I read it but I couldn’t understand it because all attempts at understanding a text are hopeless and any philosophy that aspires to understand it is doomed to failure. This also explains the evanescence of our conversation.
Camus cites a Greek philosopher when he points out that the absurdity of life necessarily should lead anyone to commit suicide. If life has no meaning, there’s no other option then to take our own life.
When asked why he didn’t commit suicide, the Greek philosopher said: my life has meaning, I have to warn others about its meaninglessness!!!
Camus, on the other hand, accepts to live in a world without purpose and facing it, to live life to its fullest.
It’s significant how the discussion has shifted on Donald Trump and his richness. The focus of the post was poverty and its meaning, not the alleged opposite: wealth.
Of course, money is sexy and anybody wants to talk about it but the conclusion that poverty blows the wind that profits nobody has nothing to do with it.
So just to say, the paradox should be embraced in a full way, not in a foolish way.
Stephen said
his reluctance to release his tax returns is less about possible malfeasance than that it might reveal he is much less wealthy than he pretends.
Ha! Will the Democrats get on the case with that? Probably too scared to descend to Trump’s level. Bare-knuckle fist-fighting isn’t a game they’re used to playing.
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