Appropriation is not a word that existed within the vocabulary of the evangelical church as I knew it. It is, however, a word that is currently garnering a lot of press and a good amount of debate. As I read a consideration of the term recently I was moved to consider what it means that Christian theology says that Jesus Christ has taken into himself the sin of the world.
These days if you come across the word appropriation, it is likely within the context of an accusation. Some artist or writer or designer or professor has taken the art or experience or marginalization of a particular culture or person or group and claimed it as their own. Even if they did this with good intention, this is called appropriation.
One of the things that evangelicalism majored on was the identification of sin. In the evangelical church sin was readily identified and often leaders within the church took upon themselves the duty and obligation to tell others exactly what was sinful. I always thought that this manner of religion had little to do with actual Christian faith. It was a fundamentalism of division. It was a sin and purity/impurity worldview that took a moral grid and imposed it upon the world.
Though I was the pastor of an evangelical church I was often accused of being left of centre on religious and social issues. Given that I spent much of my life within evangelical circles I did feel that I was more likely to help those around me, and to help the world in general, by noticing the excesses and negative tendencies within the church. I was aware that this was not the path of many ministers. It made more sense to me to help people in the church to see where we were falling short of the call of the gospel than it did to buttress our feelings of goodness and acceptability by hollering about how bad the world is. If you grew up within religious fundamentalism, though, you can sometimes spot similar forms of fundamentalism outside of the religion with which you were familiar.
I have been asking myself, “Do some of the practices and language of the left different a different form of fundamentalism?” Evangelicals could be quick to holler “sin!” and “sinner!” Sometimes they could be quick to condemn. Is a similar haste evident in some of the new, self-appointed guardians of moral acceptability today? Sometimes I feel like the ways of condemnation and judgment exercised by the far left today look eerily similar to what I rejected in evangelicalism. I have no interest in walking away from one form of moral fundamentalism simply to walk into another form of the same. Appropriation is one concept that leads me to ask some of these questions.
Robert Boyer’s book, “The Tyranny of Virtue” helped some of my thinking.
Does the experience of a marginalized group belong only to that group? Might people who are not part of that group seek to understand the human condition by writing about that suffering, by trying to understand it, and help others do the same?
Is all appropriation wrong? Is there a moral distinction between aiming for financial gain by telling someone else’s story as opposed to aiming to get that story heard for the benefit of that person and others facing similar struggle? As Boyers puts it, can’t most people tell the difference between “predation and homage”?
Is it not, after all, a good thing for me to try to understand the pain and struggle that other people have faced though I myself may not have experienced the same struggle? Isn’t this a key part of compassion?
Might it be the case that the concept of appropriation has helped us to see inequity, but that it can be an unhelpful concept when too quickly or inaccurately applied?
Remember when the rich young ruler walked away from Jesus after Jesus suggested that if the man wanted to really know what it meant to be alive he should sell all he had and give the money to the poor? The gospel writer Mark tells us that just before Jesus spoke the suggestion he “looked at the man and loved him”. The language here can be translated that Jesus had “compassion” towards the man. We hear of a similar emotion from Jesus before he heals a blind man and before he miraculously feeds a large group of people. His heart broke for them. Theologically, we are told that Jesus took on all the sin that ever was in the world. “He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God.”
Then there is the theological hymn in Philippians chapter 2.
Though He was in very nature God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He took on the nature of humanity and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore He was exalted.
Maybe the concept of appropriation helps me to see that we could not find salvation and healing from a God who remained far off.
Where is the line between compassion and appropriation? Jesus became what he was not. He became human out of a love for all humanity. This identification is arguably the heart of the gospel.
Were we to ascribe the best intentions to the current day sin-spotters we would say that they would point out that appropriation is negative while identification or the desire to understand is positive. Accepting that we cannot fully understand the suffering of a marginalized group of which we are not part does not mean that we cannot aim to understand in part.
So the appropriation discussion sends me back to a prayerful consideration of what it means that Jesus fully identified with humanity.
A prayer full of questions:
Dear Jesus:
What does it mean that though you were in nature God, you took on the nature of humanity?
How does your example of compassion draw me past arguments about appropriation?
What does it mean that your heart broke for that rich young ruler or for the blind person or for those crowds of people?
Is it wrong of me to consider that incarnation might be a kind of hopeful appropriation?
Dear Jesus, help me to know the difference between predation and homage. I have felt a suspicion that sin-spotters, whether they be religious types on the evangelical right or liberal types on the cultural left, don’t seem to actually like people all that much. Thank you that you loved the blind and the suffering and that you loved the rich young ruler. Fundamentalists reject the kind of love that you have for all people. It’s simply too extravagant for them, entirely irresponsible. Your love has always offended sin-spotters.
You are the hope of the world.