Religious correctness

More suffering comes into the world by people taking offense

than by people intending to give offence.

                                                                                                                       Ken Keyes

We don’t want to willingly hurt anybody’s feelings. We don’t want to be insensitive. Offensive remarks, language, behaviour and prejudices are uncalled for, need to be avoided and discouraged. So, on a certain level we are supporters of political correctness. After all, it promotes our very objectives.

However, to a large extent the term acquired negative connotations over time. It became too excessive in its vigour. The result being terms and vocabulary often bordering on the absurd. It created a context for politically incorrect humour and jokes to flourish. The latter poking fun at people who are easily offended if they don't have a sense of humour, or an eye for irony, or take themselves too seriously.

That type of humour ironically also led to politically correct jokes which, if you think about it, may be regarded as being politically incorrect because its laughs are at the expense of political correctness as concept and people and institutions that promote it vigorously. Some examples:

-       He does not get lost all the time; he investigates alternative destinations.

-       He is not balding; he is in follicle regression.

-       He is not short; he is anatomically compact.

-       She is not overweight; she suffers from a length deficit in proportion to body tissue.

Although political correctness is regarded as the collective noun that covers all possible areas of sensitivity, I want to focus specifically on a field within that broader term – religious correctness. What has been said about political correctness applies here as well. According to the religiously correct certain topics, people, groups, places, words and behaviour are to be avoided. Too often that has led to an image of religion and believers as being moralistic, loveless, harsh and humourless.

Matt 9:10 -13 is a beautiful example in that regard. It also shows Jesus’ reaction to that.

Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew's house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them.  When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus' followers. "What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riff-raff?" Jesus, overhearing, shot back, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders." (The Message)

Jesus’ words cut to the heart of my problem with most of religious correctness – too much religion, too little mercy. Too many do’s and don’ts, too little compassion and kindness. This type of correctness stifles conversation because it declares certain topics as being off-limits and it regulates vocabulary. While our lives are the enactments of Leonard Cohen’s “And we struggle/ and we stagger/ down the snakes/ and up the ladder”, our religion and spirituality are expected to be examples of neatness and control. Most of the time it isn’t. It leaves us with feelings of guilt and unworthiness, apparent outsiders left out in the cold, unable to air our deepest doubts and struggles.

In her book Cloister Walk Kathleen Norris writes about an incident that is religiously incorrect on almost all levels. But I love it because it is Gospel to its core.

On a trip to New York, in need of a haircut, she was looking for an inexpensive beauty salon. Finally she found one and entered.

Within minutes, the receptionist had handed me over to a middle-aged man – hyper, gay, extremely extroverted – who lost no time in sweeping me into a chair and fluffing my hair with his fingers. Immediately he scowled and grumbled, ‘Whoever did your last haircut?’ I shrugged and said, ‘Ah, the price was right. It was given to me for nothing by a delightful young nun. I suspect she’s a much better nun than she is a hair stylist.’

‘A nun?’ he said, and paused. Then he smiled, as if he suddenly thought much better of me and my unkempt hair. ‘Some of my best customers are nuns and former nuns. I just love them. They’re good people.’ Then he asked, ‘Do you know the Trappists?’ Bemused, I said cautiously, ‘Yes, I know some Trappists.’ ‘Well, have you ever been to Spencer, Massachusetts? The monastery there?’ ‘No’ I said. ‘I’ve heard of the place, but I’ve never been there.’

The man then began to praise the monks of Spencer, his tongue seeming to move as fast as his scissors. He’d been isolated, ostracized in his small hometown in the South, and made to feel unwelcome in the church he was raised in. So, years ago, he’d come to New York City. He’d written off religion, he told me. Then he met a Catholic priest who’d engaged him in a small group studying the Bible and one year they went to Spencer for Holy Week. ‘Boy, did I love that,’ he said, ‘just sitting in that church, the way they let you come to church with them. They don’t preach at you, they let you experience it for yourself.’ He stilled the scissors for a moment and said, ‘You know, I’ve never felt so close to God before or since. It blew me the fuck away.’

I caught his eye in the mirror and nodded, ‘Yes’ I said, ‘I know what you mean.’

It may be necessary for us to grow thicker skins in order for our hearts to expand.

George