From Fruit to Root - A Genealogy of "Radical" Hospitality
Chapter Two, Part 1.
[Continued from Chapter One, Pt.2]
A Genealogy of “Radical Hospitality”
Butterfield’s statement that her “radically ordinary hospitality” is a lot like the social-gospel practices of liberal churches is true, and by its seeming forthrightness, I think, gives the reader the mistaken impression that this is where the similarities end. But that is not the case. As I demonstrated in my initial review of TGH,1 Butterfield’s notion of “radically ordinary hospitality” as a “bridge” between the world and the church is a concept that is found in many feminist theologians influenced by secular and religious postmodern formulations of the concept of “radical hospitality.”
As we’ve also seen, there is an identity of ethical content between Butterfield’s “radically ordinary hospitality” and the social justice ethic of the Roman Church (and her liberal catholic and protestant offspring), content that could very well be linked to her upbringing and education “in liberal Roman Catholic settings.” We also see the similarity between TGH, liberal catholic and protestant churches, and the Roman Church when we consider the phrase “radical hospitality.”
So the question is — If Butterfield’s notion of “radically ordinary hospitality” has roots in feminist theology and postmodern philosophy, as I have argued elsewhere, what accounts for the fact that it also has so much in common with Roman Catholic social theory? Looking past the contemporary era and the decades just prior to it, namely the 1990s to early 2000s, to which I will return later, we see that the mid to early-late 1900s witnessed an explosion of published interest in the very kind of social-gospel practices that Butterfield calls “radically ordinary hospitality,” but were originally called “radical hospitality.”
In 1983, P&R Publishing published the book Radical Hospitality, written by Presybterian pastor David Rupprecht and his wife Ruth. The book is an account of some acts of hospitality taken by the authors and the frustrations they encountered while trying to help their guests, which also offers strategies for practicing hospitality in the home. The authors published their book several years after the publication of Karen Mains’ influential book Open Heart, Open Home:The Hospitable Way to Make Others to Feel Welcome & Wanted,2 a text which Butterfield recommends in TGH’s list of recommended books.
While there are some similarities between TGH and Radical Hospitality, beyond the key phrase, the theological argumentation is somewhat different. The authors argue that the Israelite priestly family was to bring non-Israelites to know God by showing treating them as family members,3 and thus, as a type of the Christian family, show us how God wants our families to function. They also argue that Israel’s time as aliens in a foreign land, as it was the basis of showing hospitality to the stranger, corresponds to the Christian’s experience in the world as a stranger and sojourner which, in turn, shows us that Christians are required to show hospitality to seemingly any outsider.4
Like Butterfield, moreover, they misinterpret Christ’s prophecy of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46 to mean that professing Christians who fail to provide for the needs of any person in need could possibly be goats, i.e. false converts in danger of eternal destruction. While their typological interpretation of the Old Testament passages is questionable, it at least has some plausibility in light of the redemptive-historical hermeneutic5 used by many Reformed theologians and preachers, unlike Butterfield’s Imago Dei argumentation in TGH.
Butterfield argues that we are to see Christ in every person in need (a social gospel, “Christian” social justice interpretation of the Imago Dei and of Matt 25:31-46),6 but the Rupprechts make a clear distinction between the Imago Dei and the Imago Christi. The former referring to the image all humans bear by virtue of existing,7 and the latter to that to which Christians alone are being conformed.8
The difference here is interesting in light of the writing of their common influence, Karen Mains. Three years prior to the publication of Radical Hospitality, Mains published a short book titled Open Heart, Open Home: The Hospitable Way to Make Others Feel Welcome & Wanted which deals with hospitality in a very similar way to what is found in both books. In it she identifies Mother Teresa’s actions in India as an example of the kind of “radical hospitality” which the church during this time (the late 1970s—1980s) was neglecting. For Mains, as for Butterfield and Pope Francis, “radical hospitality” entails social justice.
Mains writes —
The life of [Mother Teresa] who is revered in India as the Saint of the Sidewalks illustrates the type of radical hospitality the church is guilty of neglecting. We have turned our backs on the poor and powerless of the world, allowing them to die in their sufferings, abdicating our responsibility to institutions.
[…]
The Lord began his ministry by proclaiming a standard I believe is suitable for us all: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”9
Elsewhere, in a manner similar to that of Radical Hospitality and TGH, Mains misinterprets some portions of Scripture specifically dealing with Christians, i.e. Christ’s “little ones,” as dealing with those who are underprivileged or literal children,10 which renders her misuse of Luke 4:18-19 in the above quote unsurprising. It is an interpretation that is common among social-gospel preachers, liberation theologians, and “Christian” social justice advocates for whom “radical hospitality” extends to the whole of society. And like TGH, Open Heart, Open Home touches on the subject of “radical hospitality” as it relates to the privileges of white Westerners, a subject she would more clearly articulate in 2014 when speaking about her time in the inner city of Chicago where she learned about “systemic racism” and “hidden racism.”11
While it may seem like a mere passing remark in Mains’ work, her reference to Mother Teresa is significant because it contextualizes Mains’ thinking on “radical hospitality.” Indeed, Mother Teresa’s influence on many evangelicals prior to, through, and beyond the 1980s cannot be over stressed.
[Continued in Chapter Two, Pt. 2]
See Appendix A., The Gospel Comes With a House Key — A Critical Review: Unveiling Its Postmodern Philosophy and Feminist Theology.
Radical Hospitality (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1983), 12.
ibid., 22-23.
ibid., 18-20.
For more on this, see Dennison, William D. “The Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutic and Preaching”, in Kerux, 21/1 (May 2006), https://www.kerux.com/doc/2101a2.asp.
In Appendix A, I touch upon this subject. However, for another treatment of the text and its proper interpretation — against that of liberal theologians and social justice advocates — see DeYoung, Kevin. “Seven Passages on Social Justice (4)”, The Gospel Coalition, April 13, 2010, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/seven-passages-on-social-justice-4/; and “Who Are ‘The Least of These’?”, The Gospel Coalition, Mar 21, 2017, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/who-are-the-least-of-these/. [N.B. Sadly, although DeYoung clearly knew how to properly interpret this passage eight years prior to, and a year up to, the publication of TGH, he nevertheless supported and promoted TGH upon its publication.]
Rupprecht, Radical Hospitality, 12. cf. 51-52, 95-96, & 111-112.
ibid., cf. 100.
Open Heart, Open Home (New York: David Court Publishing, 1980), 127. (emphasis added)
ibid., 64-65ff.
See Mains, Karen. “Three African Boys”, July 31, 2014, http://blog.karenmains.com/blog/kickstarter-campaign/three-african-boys/. See also, Mains, Karen. “Hospice - Part 5”, Mar 18, 2011, http://blog.karenmains.com/blog/thoughts-by-karen-mains/hospice-part-5/ wherein Mains associates “radical hospitality” with proving for the homeless, white people “sharing their lives” with black people, and providing a safe place for refugees.