Fear is the enemy of Christian discipleship, a Franciscan theology professor asserted during Oblate School of Theology’s 2019 Summer Institute, whose theme was “Fear and Faith.”
Father Daniel P. Horan, OFM, assistant professor of systematic theology and spirituality at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, gave three lectures June 10-12 at OST’s Whitley Theological Center before an audience of 180.
“We are reminded with regularity not to be afraid, to have courage and to be strong, because we are particularly vulnerable to fear,” Fr. Horan said. “Fear has always been and continues to be a challenging dimension of our human experience. Its centrality in Scripture and the important consequences that fear elicits make it an important subject for people of faith – particularly those interested in mature Christian spirituality.” Fear is a singular and unique threat to our ability to form right relationships with ourselves, with one another, with the rest of creation and with our Creator, he added.
In the Christian and other traditions, the antidote to fear is hope, although hope is often viewed as naive, romantic, pie-in-the-sky, or worse, the priest explained. “Misunderstanding of what hope really means leaves it vulnerable to impressions of irrationality – especially because we take ourselves so seriously; however, it’s authentic hope that Christians cling to, and authentic hope – the hope of Christ – is actually quite rational and absolutely essential,” he observed.
“The hope we profess to believe is not an irrational or naive hope; like the peace that Christ gives us, it is a hope that the world cannot give. It is a hope against hope. It is, in Prof. Martha Nussbaum’s words, the opposite of fear,” he said.
Neurobiologist Joseph LeDoux indicates that some fears are legitimate and natural; others are not. Legitimate fears may include fear of violence, food scarcity, a lack or return of love or a threat to safety. But Fr. Horan noted, “It’s intellectually and morally dishonest to say that when Jesus tells his followers, ‘Do not be afraid,’ it should apply to migrants and refugee families fleeing politically unstable conditions to look for a better life or a modicum of security. Likewise, it’s wrong to tell those suffering from abject poverty not to be afraid of food insecurity, inadequate housing or a lack of housing; and Jesus’ exhortation is not helpful to LGBTQ women and men who have been scapegoated, dehumanized, and rejected by family or church,” the priest observed.
He pointed out that Jesus’ words have been misused and abused against victims for whom fear is a matter of life or death, adding that God doesn’t will that such suffering and pain persist. “At every turn, God cries out in lament against this unnecessary fear and the real risk of consequence to which such fear is tied,” Fr. Horan observed.
Fr. Horan said that as an evolutionary mechanism aimed at self-preservation in immediate and dire circumstances, it’s understandable that fear would narrow our focus and concern to our own proximate realities; but when there is no real emergency and fear persists as our mode of being, serious damage to others and to us ironically follows. “It’s not preservational anymore. It’s a proverbial circling of the wagons, a propensity to ‘other’ those different from ourselves, a desire for erecting walls and borders and a near-exclusive focus on oneself,” he observed.
The priest noted that in such cases, “we live in a state of fear that affects the way we see the world, creating anxiety that is not in proportion to actual danger. However valuable and essential fear is, in a genuinely dangerous world it is itself one of life’s greatest dangers,” he said.
While people in the developed world today are in many ways safer than ever before, anxiety still rears its head, Fr. Horan observed; life now is much more complex and multi-layered; potential objects of fear are more vague than in earlier times and seemingly everywhere. In all societies, the process of shading fear is pervasively influenced by culture, politics and rhetoric; it’s no accident that different communities in different parts of the world identify different threats that they perceive,” the priest asserted.
Noting that human beings must make decisions in a world for which evolution has given them only a very basic preparation, Fr. Horan warned, “This leaves us especially vulnerable to co-option, something that ancient philosophers recognized in the dangerous shadow side of persuasive rhetoric,” he said. Political, social and religious leaders can instill fear by harvesting the need to manipulate anxiety or concern that women and men might already have.” For example, they may feel anxious or concerned about legitimate things like their health or future, whether the harvest is going to be enough or whether their retirement savings will get them by, he said, adding, “If political, social or religious leaders can harvest such anxieties for self-serving reasons and turn them into an impending threat, this is a problem.”
He quoted sociologist Barry Glassner as saying that Americans harbor many misbegotten fears “because immense power and money await those who tap into our moral insecurity.” The priest cited manipulation of concerns about crime and blaming illegal immigrants and mentally unstable individuals while ignoring legal loopholes for gun ownership. He said stigmatizing already-vulnerable people is emblematic of today’s culture of fear.
Blaming society’s problems on the “other” obscures legitimate issues of injustice, Fr. Horan said. Peace and justice issues for which Christians are called to advocate become further removed by fear, the enemy of discipleship, and. legitimate concerns are trivialized while questionable ones are aggrandized.
The priest said Christians are called to develop a spirituality grounded in a love that prioritizes relationship and follows the reminder in the First Letter of John that “there is no fear in love” and that “perfect love drives out fear.” Continuing, he asserted that “the fear that is the enemy of Christian discipleship is that which inhibits our ability to love in the manner of Christ Jesus – that agape love that demands something of us, challenges us, awakens us from our complacency, risks vulnerability and moves us closer to one another and to God,” he explained, commenting,
“Jesus’ lesson on fear is a lesson in how to be vigilant in the face of individuals and systems that might co-opt this otherwise natural process of fear and do this for division and selfish gain.”
Watch the all keynote presentations from Summer Institute 2019: Fear and Faith here.
J. Michael Parker