Today, I would like to reflect on the first of two weeks of the summer that I spent away from Charlotte. This first week was spent at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia for Unidiversity youth camp. The other week, which I am in the middle of right now, is spent at Camp Mundo Vista outside of Asheboro, North Cackalacky.
Unidiversity Youth Camp is a camp that is run by youth ministers from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which is code for lib-rul Baptists for all you non-Baptist folk. Despite overtones of unity and diversity, Unidiversity consists of almost all white, middle class kids from places like Greenville/Spartanburg, G-boro, Charlotte and the like. Then there are our kids: black, lower-income Tuckaseegeeans. The week went pretty well as far as our kids were concerned. They seemed to have a good time. I, however, was in mad-at-the-world mode most of the time, angry at the rich white kids in attendance, very similar to the ones I grew up around. There appear to be at least two reasons for my state of mind.
One, the week was too much fun. Yes, there was worship every night and a bible study and a seminar everyday, but most of the kids' time seemed to be spent either playing sports or socializing or engaging in fun activities (water games, karaoke, etc.). Fun is all fine and good, but its a discipleship camp for Christ's sake! My camp roommate and Hyaets housemate Greg described camp as hedonistic in the way typical of American teenagers, but I don't think this is quite right. The problem with all the fun being had was that it meant room wasn't being made for more serious pursuits; notably contemplation and action. If I sat through a week of preaching and teaching on topics as diverse as God qua God, forgiveness, the problem of evil, celebration, happiness, renewal, water, and sex, I am sure I would want a significant amount of time to reflect on these things and/or cultivate actions that would put thought and teaching into practice. This did not happen though. I hope that at the very least seeds were planted that might produce moments of contemplation and action at later points in campers' lives.
A second reason I was a funky Biscuit that week is provided by the attitudes and actions of campers with economic and social positions similar to mine. All week, the air was heavy with their mentalities of complacency and entitlement. In a nutshell what was running through my head were questions like this one: "How the HELL do you call yourself a Christian without wrestling with moral questions so difficult that you cannot bear to continue donning that Polo Ralph Lauren tunic on your back?" In retrospect, my anger was rational in one way and irrational in another way. Rational, one, for the same reason that I fear that I am morphing into a Kantian, and hence a miserable person (that is, holding myself and others to the impossibly high standard of the categorical imperative). And, two, irrational because I envy the simplicity of faith that allows people such as the White Campers of Unidiversity to avoid the tribulations associated with the moral questions of Christianity.
Two weeks later, I am no longer mad about my Unidiversity experience, but I remain a tad bit bothered. I keep reminding myself that one of the central paradoxes of Christian moral theology is the duality of the primary goods of human flourishing on the one hand and renunciation on the other hand. I have to mind the fact that neither myself, nor the White Campers, nor Hyaets, nor two millenia worth of Christian thinkers have found an adequate and certain solution. I also have to mind the fact that people who think they are right about their solution of choice often forget that they have to contend with the many who disagree with them. It is these two facts that create within me the desire to find a solution to the paradox.
That's all for now, tomorrow will bring a reflection on the week at Mundo Vista.
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