Revisiting my Reply to Kevin Kijewski
Did I come on too strong?
“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”
~Leviticus 19:33-34
My most recent reflection in response to Kevin Kijewski’s article in Crisis Magazine was one of the most viewed and well received things I have ever posted to Integrated Prayer. Over a dozen people reached out to thank me in person or through private message for what I wrote. It was generously shared by multiple accounts and even republished by the blog Where Peter Is.
This exposure helped bring in a new crop of subscribers and followers, some of whom likely hold very different theological and political views from mine. If you recently signed up, I want to extend a warm welcome to you. To all of my subscribers and followers, I am humbled by your readership and I look forward to journeying with you as we explore spirituality together.
As effusive as the vast majority of responses were, the feedback was not universally positive. More than one reader playfully ribbed me for a conspicuous grammatical error that somehow made it through what I thought had been a meticulous proofreading process. It seems that God didn’t want my head to get too big and so he did not bail me out of my imperfections as a writer.
Kijewski responds
Beyond playful ribbing, the article was panned by others. Predictably, Kijewski did not like what I had to say:
In his reply to me, Kijewski continues to display his unfortunate tendency to impugn the motives and character of the people he’s responding to rather than engage the substance of their arguments. Just as he ignored and misrepresented the actual content of the Bishops’ letter, so he has chosen to play mind-reader and make insinuations about me instead of disputing any of the points I made. These he dismisses as anger and misdirection, but we are left to take his word for it as to why he thinks this is.
Twitter psychological evaluations notwithstanding, I wasn’t and am not sorry for the harsh wording of my reflection. Just as Kijewski felt justified in dishing out a polemical denunciation of the Michigan bishops, so I did not feel compelled to mince my words in responding to his article. While I can now see why my conciliatory conclusion might have come across as insincere to Kijewski, it really was an attempt by me to be gracious. It’s disappointing that this of all things was what he latched onto in order to dismiss what I had to say.
Is it ok to be angry?
Whatever one wants to make of my conclusion, I also wasn’t trying to hide or disguise that I was angry. While it has become common in our day for people to denigrate anger as a sign of weakness and superficiality (ironically, most especially among the flamboyantly provocative right), this view is simply out of touch with the Christian prophetic tradition. Crack open your Bible and you will find numerous examples of Jesus, the prophets, and apostles taking no prisoners with their rhetoric - denouncing, insulting, and even using colorful, NSFW language.1
Of course that’s not the norm, and we Christians are called to serenity, meekness, and charity. But that doesn’t mean that we are called to become stoic Jedi knights who are unfazed by injustice and who will only respond by calmly restating the facts.
Having said all of this, I get that I’m not perfect. I’m convinced that I wouldn’t get the better of Kijewski in a side by side evaluation of overall character. Perhaps one day I’ll look back and realize that in this case my anger and tone was the result of a gap in my human formation. I’d sincerely welcome any constructive feedback in this regard from friend and “foe” alike. I have and will continue to pray for Kijewski in the meantime.
Render unto Caesar?
My post also ruffled the feathers of a libertarian on X, who called my piece comical, and accused me of intentionally misreading the Gospel passage where Jesus is asked about paying taxes (what is it with these people and mind reading?). To his credit, he actually backed up his claim by linking to an article explaining his position.
I admit that I unintentionally oversimplified things here. Jesus did not explicitly instruct his disciples to pay taxes. It is difficult to decipher what he precisely meant by “render unto Caesar,” and in the Church’s understanding Jesus’ words leave room for civil disobedience.
But the straightforward reading of this episode, and also the consensus of scripture scholars and the Church fathers is that we generally have a civic duty to pay taxes except possibly in specific, targeted acts of civil disobedience. While it is not possible to definitively prove from the scriptures that Jesus wasn’t secretly a 2000 years ahead of his time Austrian-school libertarian, that view strikes me as wishful ideological thinking. It certainly isn’t an open avenue for Catholics given that the Church has authoritatively taught that taxes are morally obligatory.
Going forward
Let’s all continue praying for our country, for the migrants living in this country, and for each other. None of us are perfect. But as St. Paul writes, “…our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.” (Ephesians 6:12). If we continue to sincerely seek God, we will come to the truth, and the truth will set us free.