Hi Albert, a small point of disagreement. You argue that the Sermon on the Mount is a social (meaning here a group whether as small as perhaps even a family or as large as the "global village.") instruction. It may have that effect, especially in our age of totalitarian impulse, whether on the left in the form of wokeism or on the right and it's rejection of all thing even faintly colored in woke. This is not the totalitarianism of the Bolsheviks with their gulags and bullets to the head in the basement of Lubyanka nor is it the totalitarianism of the Nazis with their concentration camps and gas chambers. Rather it is totalitarianism in a velvet glove and an I-phone. But it is totalitarianism none the less. Neither side will brook dissent or difference, even the modern trend toward expressive individualism is totalitarian, you can only express the "acceptable" range of individualism, acceptable to the woke or anti-woke.
But I would argue that the Sermon on the Mount, like the Christian faith in broader terms is primarily an individual call to action, granted individuals united, by the shared faith, in human institutions, but none-the-less an individual call to action. Modern Christianity in its many forms is however not really Christianity, it is for the most part Moral Therapeutic Deism, for that the Sermon on the Mount is most assuredly appropriate as a social injunction. But God did not create "society" nor did Christ come to save "society" -- we are created as individuals and saved as individuals, I would argue that our salvation is based firmly and solely in Christ, but that our salvation is worked out as individuals through the gift of the Church and the Mysteries (Sacraments). The MTD error is the error of Jewish theology and culture, under MTD we are to make the world a better place first and foremost. But Christianity is about Albert and Doc, your wife and mine as individuals. This is why the Church in its infinite wisdom has determined that even a sinful priest can deliver the Mysteries with their full beneficial effect on behalf of Christ to us, if we are faithful in our bearing of our individual crosses, the state of the clergy while important is not critical. Christianity is not about saving the world it is about, first fixing ourselves, then our families and so on up the ladder. The Sermon on the Mount is useful for those steps up the ladder, but it is a personal injunction to fix ourselves, without that the Sermon on the Mount becomes nothing more than fuel for political action, twisting the meaning to suit the emotions and politics of the day.
We need to focus in this time of tumult and chaos, of liquid modernity, on fixing ourselves, of living out the Sermon on the Mount in our daily personal lives. The world like the poor will always, at least until the Day of the Lord, be with us. And even John the Forerunner's admonitions speak to that. If you have two (count 'em two) cloaks give one to your neighbor if he needs it, he doesn't tell us to strip ourselves naked to clothe our neighbor. He doesn't tell the soldiers to beat their swords into plowshares and to stop fighting and by implication killing our neighbor, no John the Forerunner was if nothing else a realist --he knew "fixing the world" was above his and our paygrade -- he instructed those who came to him, just as Christ did in the Sermon on the Mount, to fix themselves with God's grace.
If enough of us quit worrying about fixing the world and focus instead on fixing ourselves and in doing so draw more people to Christ, we working with God in syngery can begin to restore the world. For once I agree with the social historians in our field -- bottom up. But then as someone who was raised Irish Catholic, I struggled with my Irishness and Francis. I was always taught to love the Pope, but then never to listen to a word he said. It's easier to do both when what the Pope says at least makes sense. I think the folk over at Lutheran Satire got it right with their satirical take on a radio call in show with Hippy Pope Frank -- "what his holiness meant to say is...."
Fair enough, especially as the individual must first have a relationship with the divine before they can be rightly ordered to participate in society. That relation with Christ is one of person-to-savior; it is bilateral, not multilateral. So yes, individual makes sense. I think the conclusion becomes social in the tradition because the Christian is explicitly called both to form a community and to preach membership in the community to the non-Christians. It appears to me that injunctions to be peacemakers and to be the light of the world must be directed toward others rather than only individually within the Christian because the individual can only make peace with other individuals as it is not the Christian who makes peace with God; they are incapable of it, rather it God who elects to make peace with the Christian. So both. Thanks for commenting, sorry for the delay in responding. It is Finals season.
Hi Albert, a small point of disagreement. You argue that the Sermon on the Mount is a social (meaning here a group whether as small as perhaps even a family or as large as the "global village.") instruction. It may have that effect, especially in our age of totalitarian impulse, whether on the left in the form of wokeism or on the right and it's rejection of all thing even faintly colored in woke. This is not the totalitarianism of the Bolsheviks with their gulags and bullets to the head in the basement of Lubyanka nor is it the totalitarianism of the Nazis with their concentration camps and gas chambers. Rather it is totalitarianism in a velvet glove and an I-phone. But it is totalitarianism none the less. Neither side will brook dissent or difference, even the modern trend toward expressive individualism is totalitarian, you can only express the "acceptable" range of individualism, acceptable to the woke or anti-woke.
But I would argue that the Sermon on the Mount, like the Christian faith in broader terms is primarily an individual call to action, granted individuals united, by the shared faith, in human institutions, but none-the-less an individual call to action. Modern Christianity in its many forms is however not really Christianity, it is for the most part Moral Therapeutic Deism, for that the Sermon on the Mount is most assuredly appropriate as a social injunction. But God did not create "society" nor did Christ come to save "society" -- we are created as individuals and saved as individuals, I would argue that our salvation is based firmly and solely in Christ, but that our salvation is worked out as individuals through the gift of the Church and the Mysteries (Sacraments). The MTD error is the error of Jewish theology and culture, under MTD we are to make the world a better place first and foremost. But Christianity is about Albert and Doc, your wife and mine as individuals. This is why the Church in its infinite wisdom has determined that even a sinful priest can deliver the Mysteries with their full beneficial effect on behalf of Christ to us, if we are faithful in our bearing of our individual crosses, the state of the clergy while important is not critical. Christianity is not about saving the world it is about, first fixing ourselves, then our families and so on up the ladder. The Sermon on the Mount is useful for those steps up the ladder, but it is a personal injunction to fix ourselves, without that the Sermon on the Mount becomes nothing more than fuel for political action, twisting the meaning to suit the emotions and politics of the day.
We need to focus in this time of tumult and chaos, of liquid modernity, on fixing ourselves, of living out the Sermon on the Mount in our daily personal lives. The world like the poor will always, at least until the Day of the Lord, be with us. And even John the Forerunner's admonitions speak to that. If you have two (count 'em two) cloaks give one to your neighbor if he needs it, he doesn't tell us to strip ourselves naked to clothe our neighbor. He doesn't tell the soldiers to beat their swords into plowshares and to stop fighting and by implication killing our neighbor, no John the Forerunner was if nothing else a realist --he knew "fixing the world" was above his and our paygrade -- he instructed those who came to him, just as Christ did in the Sermon on the Mount, to fix themselves with God's grace.
If enough of us quit worrying about fixing the world and focus instead on fixing ourselves and in doing so draw more people to Christ, we working with God in syngery can begin to restore the world. For once I agree with the social historians in our field -- bottom up. But then as someone who was raised Irish Catholic, I struggled with my Irishness and Francis. I was always taught to love the Pope, but then never to listen to a word he said. It's easier to do both when what the Pope says at least makes sense. I think the folk over at Lutheran Satire got it right with their satirical take on a radio call in show with Hippy Pope Frank -- "what his holiness meant to say is...."
Fair enough, especially as the individual must first have a relationship with the divine before they can be rightly ordered to participate in society. That relation with Christ is one of person-to-savior; it is bilateral, not multilateral. So yes, individual makes sense. I think the conclusion becomes social in the tradition because the Christian is explicitly called both to form a community and to preach membership in the community to the non-Christians. It appears to me that injunctions to be peacemakers and to be the light of the world must be directed toward others rather than only individually within the Christian because the individual can only make peace with other individuals as it is not the Christian who makes peace with God; they are incapable of it, rather it God who elects to make peace with the Christian. So both. Thanks for commenting, sorry for the delay in responding. It is Finals season.