The Common Good and the Individual

A few weeks ago, we gestured at the three munera of Christ – as priest, prophet, and king – considering the significance of the Christian office of governance amid the questions of leadership the presidential election has been raising.

These three offices Christians are called to occupy are a big topic, though, particularly in light of the unique demands of our apostolic age. The matter of governance, alone, introduces a number of key terms that have been usurped and reconfigured by modern progressive culture, and when we’re thinking about the coming election or about our place in social life as Christians more generally, we tend to get tripped up if we don’t clarify precisely what we mean by them.

One of these terms is the notion of the common good. It’s a concept essential for thinking rightly about Christian governance, but we tend to speak about it in the sense of individual self-sacrifice: I give up my way for the sake of other people’s way; my preferences give way to yours.

But this isn’t actually a Christian understanding of the common good. Rather, the Christian position is that when the common life runs well, everyone lives better, oneself included. When one contributes to and build up the common, then, it’s not the case that he or she should expect to be diminished or effaced; a good comes available for everybody. There’s a good analogy for this idea in the human body: when the whole body is healthy, a given organ – the kidney, for instance – maintains its functioning more easily, and when the kidney is healthy, the whole body maintains its functioning more easily, too; the kidney’s flourishing is good for the kidney and for the body, and the whole body’s flourishing is good for the kidney and for the body. It would be bad, actually, for the kidney to “sacrifice” itself for the sake of the body.

This is significant because a self-sacrificial view of the common good leaves the Christian position a bit flimsy when confronted with the impoverished but potent understanding of institutional life prevalent in modern culture, which views common life as the means simply for negotiating power dynamics. In such a narrative, Christians become merely those who are willing to give up power, willing to suffer a kind of diminishment, for the sake of others. And this is an unhelpful position for reframing this dominant, ideologically driven institutional vision, which is inspiring more and more people to cast a gimlet eye on any common project or clustering of human relationships, deeming talk of love, loyalty, and friendship as hegemonic rhetoric hiding power moves. People don’t really have friends, the modern progressive’s story goes, whatever Christians or anybody may be trying to tell themselves; they have regulatory relationships for keeping power differentials in check.

But this is, of course, a miserable way for people to live. It’s the source of deep unhappiness because it means that people can’t entrust themselves to anything. Love, loyalty, and friendships are in truth the means by which we’re plugged into realities much larger than ourselves, granting our lives meaning we won’t find otherwise. But today, when the default stance is, at minimum, a low-grade distrust of any form of common life and at least a hint of resistance to getting pulled too far into relationships that could become self-effacing, human individuals assume they’re better off maintaining their islands of self-generating, self-contained “meaning.”

There are a few institutions God founded for us, though – the family, the Church – and we can look to them for assurance in understanding God’s great investment in this Christian munus of governance. Indeed, it’s a Christian responsibility to do so. For us, institutions are meant to be places where we come into our true humanity, by way of a self-gift that incorporates us into the pursuit of a common good that also supports and provides for us. One might think of the way a medieval village functions, in this respect. The farmer is counting on the smith to come to work in the morning so that his horses can get shoed, so that he can complete his day’s work, so that he and his family can get the food they need. If someone in that chain doesn’t show for their share of the work, the system breaks down, to everybody’s detriment. The mutual dependence shared between different members of the society, then, is not a form of oppression or impingement; it’s the claiming of a role that grants great dignity to a person as a member of a social world of mutual care, provision, and trust.

Christianity is unique for the way it insists on that dignity, exalting the individual more than any other religious system ever has: we believe even the hairs on our head are counted, and by an infinite God of the universe. But Christians insist as well that that individual need be in right relation to others to find the fullness of who he or she is. To pursue the common good together, to arrange the way we lead and participate in institutional life toward that end, is one way of holding these two realities together. And, it’s one way we can provide vibrant Christian witness in the midst of our apostolic age. So let’s ask for that grace – to know and nurture the common good with clarity, joy, and true charity.

Word on Fire offers three articles this week that touch on a broad range of Christian experience. First, Bishop Barron reflects on the consecration of a new chapel, exploring its architectural and liturgical significance. Then, Dr. Christopher Kaczor argues that the philosophy of materialism and a commitment to the hard sciences actually contradict. Finally, Dr. Holly Ordway offers insights from St. Philip Neri, the "Saint of Joy," to enliven any disciple's Faith.

The eastern Nigerian state of Benue has seen an uptick in violent persecution over the past month, with over 70 Christians killed by local herdsmen and bandits and a priest and parish workers beaten by a military detachment.