McCabe on the Importance of Causing Trouble
There is a depressing tendency on the part of both conservative and liberal christians to assume that discussions of christian morality are going to be mostly about sex. Sex is obviously a profoundly important mode of human communication, but to treat of it in isolation from the other social, political, and economic relationships between people is asking for trouble -asking for intellectual trouble I mean; in the practical field it is asking for a quiet life. So long as christian morality is thought to be mainly about whether and when people should go to bed, no bishops are going to be crucified. And this, as I say, is depressing. If the christian moralist is doing his job properly he has been promised that he will encounter the hostility of the world, of the established power structure.
Herbert McCabe, Law, Love, Language (London: Sheed and Ward, 1968) 163-164.
You are causing your fair share of trouble, and I am thankful for the trouble you cause me. It hurts so good.
roger flyer
March 20, 2008 at 9:46 am