Petty Coercion -3 Faith

This is the third and last trip to Marilynne Robinson's essay, "The Tyranny of Petty Coercion." (See the hyperlink to the full chapter in Petty Coercion 1) In 1 I followed her argument that "private courage" (my term) is so much more expensive than "public courage" because public courage is socially defined and valued. Private courage has to be defined and applied by the individual himself and each situation is different. In 2 I went back to look at politics and the courage demanded by a commitment to truth.

This time she wants to look at religious faith as an offense against comme il faut. I'm using the French expression both because she used it and because I had to look it up and also because it seems more nebulous and upsetting in French. Comme il faut can mean either "it is not necessary" or "it is not proper." In the present context, it means "People like us really don't do that."
"...do things like that" refers to Robinson's being a Christian. I'm going to take a little time with what that means because I like very much the way she puts it.

I have an attachment to the Scriptures, and to the theology, music, and art Christianity has inspired. My most inward thoughts and ponderings are formed by the narratives and traditions of Christianity. I expect them to engage me on my deathbed.

For me, there is a lot to like in that way of saying what "Christian" means for her. I like the three parts: "attached to the Scriptures,"formed by the narratives and traditions," and "engage me on my deathbed."
Robinson is a liberal, mainline Protestant. She does not "wear my religion on my sleeve." (Note that there are many Christians who think that "wearing my religion on my sleeve" is what courage requires of Christians.)

In any case, being a Christian in the way Robinson is turns out to be an offense against comme il faut. She does things she ought not do and neglects to do things she should do and the guarantors of "what one does" get on her about it.

Over the years many a good soul has let me know by one means or another that this living out of the religious/ethical/aesthetic/intellectual tradition that is so essentially compelling to me is not, shall we say, "cool." There are little jokes about being born again. There are little lectures about religion as a cheap cure for existential anxiety.

These little nudges wear on her. They are petty, rather than radical. But they happen over and over and nothing she says seems to slow them down. And they are so particularly irksome because they levy against her charges that her friends know do not belong to her; and also because the positions her friends are attacking are so much more vulnerable than the positions she actually holds.

That brings us to the question of what courage would require of any of us who are in roughly the situation Marilynne Robinson is occupying. Is it best simply to put up with the nudging and smile? Is it best to correct the parts that are just wrong and smile about the others? Would it be smart to join her friends in beating on the fundamentalists and then strenuously object when they turn to the kind of faith stance that means a lot to her personally?

It's not so hard to know what would be hard to do, but it is hard to know what it would be good to do. "Turning the other cheek" sounds like a good idea in some circumstances, but here you are "the religious person" and turning the other cheek is also turning the cheeks of everyone else in that category. It's hard to know just how Jesus would have felt about turning someone else's cheek.