Although I haven't done the research that Illich would put into his arguments, I can see how the idea of home may have functioned in a similar way as those ideas that Illich discussed. Part of the reason why the early Christians met in private homes, obviously, was that they were being persecuted, and so private homes were the only places where they could meet. But could there have also been a more positive reason for meeting in each other's homes? The later construction of churches gave Christians homes for their worship, but it also created property which the Church would have to protect and preserve. In other words, it settled the Church in society. When you have property to protect, you can't really live the kind of radical life that the early Christians lived, because such a life will only ensure your martyrdom and loss of property. When you become settled in society, you lose the sense that "here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come" (Hebrews 13:14); instead, you commit yourself to trying to build a lasting city.
For these reasons, I cannot entirely get behind Haughton's emphasis on home. I do think there is a valuable role for hospitality houses and similar ventures, but I think that it needs to be complemented with a theology of itinerancy. I say "itinerancy" rather than "homelessness" because I think that you can create a sense of home even in itinerancy. I think that Haughton tries to interpret the Gospel as a call to build a lasting city, and it seems to me that the Gospel is just the opposite. Haughton sees the Gospel as a means to build up society, but I see the Gospel more as a guide for how to lose life and property. Itinerancy was, I think, essential to the ministry of Christ and the Apostles.
One of the things that seems to be lacking in Haughton's "Song in a Strange Land" is a sense of each person as a moral subject. Haughton has some valuable insights into sociostructural and institutional traps, but she tends to reduce people to products of these structures and institutions. Her philosophy of hospitality is rooted in the idea that you can change individuals through radical changes in social structures and institutions. This is true to a certain extent, but I feel like she does not put much emphasis on the mystery of iniquity at work in each person. I get really annoyed when Christ is depicted as a sort of philosopher/social prophet who gave Christians a blueprint for a just society. There is nothing uniquely Christian about building a just society, and if that is what Christ came to teach us, then what has he really taught us that we could not learn from pagan philosophers? When I read the New Testament, I see a radically personal message rather than a social message. I see Christ challenging people to confront the mystery of iniquity at work in their own hearts. The community that Christ brings together is an eschatological community (the Church), not a civic community.
Haughton's theology is stagnant in some ways, because she is so rooted to the idea of home. One question I have is: if we model ourselves after something like Wellspring house, then what becomes of the "Go, therefore..." (Matthew 28:19) of the Great Commission?
In my opinion, Haughton's feminist theology illustrates an important reason why Christ chose only men as Apostles, and why the Church has never ordained women. The Church is inherently hierarchical. But once the hierarchy begins to settle into a "home," once the Church begins to settle into an institution, then the hierarchy functions through some of the manipulative power structures that Haughton dissects. The leaders of the Church are supposed to be proto-witnesses to Christ, they are supposed to exemplify the "Go, therefore..." of the Great Commission. This drive to generate is uniquely masculine. I do not see that active dimension in Haughton's theology, and part of that seems to be because she is a woman. Just as the drive to generate is uniquely masculine, so the nurturing of home is uniquely feminine. We sometimes see this contrast in habits of Church attendance. The modern Church has been criticized for not appealing to men. The "church lady" role allows some women to turn the parish into a sort of home. Men need something more active, they need to be leading and working toward something; the model of "parish-as-home" is too confining, too domestic. That is one of the reasons, I think, why Christ chose only men to lead the Church, because the primary image of the Church is not a home, but a Body (the Body of Christ). A body implies living movement, and the male leaders of the Church are supposed to keep that living movement going, so that the Church does not settle down and try to build a lasting city (which is not the Church's mission). When the Church does become a stagnant institution, then it becomes like the Wife of Bath: the Church's authority ceases to be about radical witness to Christ and instead it becomes about maintaining control over the home, like the Wife of Bath wanting to rule her roost. For women to lead the Church would compromise the essential "Go, therefore..." of the Church's mission, and it seems to me that the institutionalization of the Church is a sort of effeminazation, because it turns the Church into a home-model and deadens the hierarchy's sense of "Go, therefore..."
In some ways, the Wellspring model is too confining and too domestic for me. I feel a need to be with people in the streets. I feel a need to confront the violent and the sinful, because it is the mystery of iniquity at work in them that is also at work in me. As I said before, I am not against the idea of hospitality houses, and I think that they can do much good. But I would note that the Samaritan brings the injured Jew to an inn, and then the Samaritan goes on his way. An inn is not a home. There is a sense of "...to be continued" in the Samaritan story. In other words, after their encounter, each character has to step back out into that "Go, therefore..." in order to repeat that Samaritan-Jew encounter again and again, because the context for that Samaritan-Jew encounter is on a dangerous road to Jericho, not in a safe house in Gloucester. Haughton has valuable insight into how to address broken social structures and institutions, how to build society as a "home." But no matter how you build society, the mystery of iniquity will still be at work in each person's heart. I thought Haughton's philosophy lacked a necessary emphasis on a moral witness which actively goes out and confronts the evil that is at work in our hearts. Mother Teresa once wrote:
If I ever become a saint—I will surely be one of "darkness." I will continually be absent from heaven—to light the light of those in darkness on earth.
A theology of itinerancy, or perhaps we could call it a theology of the gutters, draws me more than a theology of home, because a theology of itinerancy has a strong emphasis on moral witness. Haughton tends to victimize those whom she works with. Granted, she does have valuable insight into social victimization, but I think that she lacks a necessary emphasis on the mystery of iniquity that is at work in each person; she tends to reduce people to victims of social structures. When Mother Teresa speaks of being a saint of darkness, she seems to be recognizing the mystery of iniquity in herself, and thus her going out into the darkness is a form of solidarity with all men, because every person labors under the mystery of iniquity. An emphatic recognition of the mystery of iniquity opens up a radically free, radically equal, and radically universal relationship between me and "the Other," because we both recognize the same problem at work in each other. That problem is primarily within our hearts rather than in social structures which we may or may not be able to change.
It seems to me that Gandhi had a stronger sense than Haughton of the moral witness involved in serving others. Gandhi understood that the conversion of society could only happen after the conversion of individual hearts (this included the hearts of the oppressed as much as the hearts of the oppressors). I don't see much of a theology of martyrdom in Haughton, and martyrdom was essential to the lives of the early Christians. Martyrdom requires a deep sense of "Go, therefore..." and a deep sense of "here we have no lasting city" (Hebrews 13:14).
In reading about people like Haughton and Jean Vanier, I think about what form my own service to "the Other" would take. I can imagine blending the ideas of "home" and "itinerancy" while sharing in the lives of those in the streets and gutters. Perhaps I could sleep in a tent as a symbolic "home" amidst itinerancy. But whatever I do has to be rooted in witness to the person of Christ; I am not given to trying to build a lasting city. Haughton, as I understand her, is trying to create a new society. This is admirable in some ways, but the Gospel as I understand it is about something deeper than building a temporal society:
For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)
I feel like martyrdom is at the core of what Christians should be doing. If our service is not putting us at risk for martyrdom (or at least at risk for persecution), then we need to reconsider what we are doing. But, perhaps my own understanding of the Gospel is as biased as Haughton's. Am I justified in making so sharp a distinction between the Gospel and temporal society? Perhaps I am projecting myself onto the Gospel (a possibility which bothers me greatly, because the Gospel is not ours to manipulate). I will have to think more on this.
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