Indifference and Indifference

Last updated on: October 10, 2019 at 5:23 pm by Brad Roth

Indifference and Indifference 2019-10-04T15:00:59-05:00 Brad Roth

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ages ago, my wife and I drove up along snaking, low mountain highways in New Hampshire to see the Old Man of the Mountain. The Old Man was a rocky outcrop that, when viewed from the correct angle, gave the impression of a stern face, jutting forehead and hardset jaw. Some saw the Old Man of the Mountain as emblematic of the rugged, live-free-or-die spirit of the Granite State. In fact, New Hampshirites liked him so much that they featured the Old Man on their 2000 state quarter.

Perhaps what attracted people to the Old Man of the Mountain was his rocky indifference to the elemental hardships. We imagined him as us (or us as him), looking placidly out over the vistas of history, unblinking and unafraid, strong spine of granite holding his head aloft.

You see the virtue of indifference carved across the Scriptures. It’s Joshua calling the people to “be strong and courageous”–indifferent to giants and high enemy walls (Joshua 1:6). It’s Christ calling the churches in Revelation to “hold fast”–indifferent to fear (Revelation 2:25, 3:11). It’s the apostle Paul saying over and over again “endure”–indifferent to persecution and testing and suffering and just everything (1 Corinthians 4:12, 10:13; 2 Corinthians 1:6; Colossians 1:11). This is an indifference that comes from a deep, granite core of faith in God. Sometimes, it looks like stubbornness (which is not all bad), but indifference as a Christian virtue means accepting God’s will, come what may. This indifference is about acting without needing to experience the immediate fruits of our labors. It’s an indifference that flows from loving God above all things.

When we love God above all things, we start to experience a holy indifference to the fears and trials of life. It’s not that we don’t care–especially not that we don’t care about other people. To love God deeply is to love others deeply as well. But there’s a kind of focus on the will and ways of God that allows us to “consider the ravens” and the lilies in their abundance of food and raiment and paucity of worry (Luke 12:24-27). This is a worthy and good indifference.

But so too there is a shabby and miserly indifference that is unworthy of our humanity. This indifference flows from inordinate love of self. Everything else is seen in the light of that self-love, measured by the yardstick of our wants and wishes. Its cousin is callousness, and Jesus has strong words against such indifference. In Luke 16, poor man Lazarus languishes outside the rich man’s gates, bespeckled by sores, with only dogs for companions and nurses. He dies and is whisked by angels to the “bosom of Abraham” (Luke 16:22). Meanwhile, the rich man dies and descends into Hades, the place of the evil dead, where he is tormented in flames (Luke 16:23). He was a big man with a big table in life. But now it’s all come to dust and ashes. We don’t even know his name.

Jesus’ dramatic parable is loaded with meaning, not least that our possessions do not belong to us alone, but to God, that the poor have a claim on us, and that we can never be wholly at ease with our stuff. But the story is not about sheer wealth or abjectivity. It’s a parable of indifference. That was the rich man’s sin. And that indifference is a sin precision-milled for our age.

Faced with the internet’s fearsome capacity to show us the lives of distant people and distant tragedies, we wall ourselves off, draw back. We can’t care about all of it, so sometimes we choose to care about none of it. Out of psychological self-defense we become indifferent. Yet indifference doesn’t merely play out in the stark and striking terms of Jesus’ parable: rich/poor, far/near, insiders and marginalized. Indifference can also be our failure to notice the other, welcome the stranger, reach out to the lonely. The consequences can be steep, especially in our most rural communities.

A recent NPR report documented the struggles with loneliness and isolation that people sometimes face in rural areas. The report concluded that “2.5 million rural residents…say they have no friends or family nearby to rely on. An additional 14 million (about 39%) say they have only a few people.” Reading numbers like these can jar us from indifference and add a sense of urgency to the feeling that we ought to walk over to meet the neighbors.

The Old Man of the Mountain, face braced against wind, rain, frost, and temblors, turned out to not be so indifferent after all. In 2003, he cracked ten-million ways, and though the people of New Hampshire tried to shore up their rocky landmark with iron stakes and many-stranded cables, the Old Man made one last stony grimace and sloughed off the mountainside into memory.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51065

Uncategorized

indifference

Previous Post

September 12, 2019

Faithful Pessimists, Aware Optimists

Next Post

November 7, 2019 Two Ways to Cultivate an Old Soul Faith

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month January 2023 November 2022 May 2022 April 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the ecumenical council where Roman Catholicism addressed modernization in the 1960s?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Vatican II Council of Nicaea Trent Ephesus

Books by This Author Books by Brad Roth

See All Titles »