Dear Indifferent Individuals:

We continue today with the third in a series of musings regarding Christianly responses to the needs of others. I started in the middle of my five-stage schema with empathy, and I’m working my way down the scale with pity and today indifference. Before I defend the category of Christian Indifference, I need to explain what scale we are descending.

On a graph, the X-axis would be proximity to need with low proximity on the left and high proximity on the right. (I will address the scale of the Y-axis in my next installment.) If one considers the impact of mass and social media, it is easy to see the world shrinking. Our ability to connect has made the distance between communities and individuals much smaller. When my brother is in Rwanda working with Carnegie Mellon University Africa, I can compose an email which may be read within seconds after sending. When I was a child, letters to missionaries waited months to be opened, with return post taking the same. 

Decades ago, media theorist Marshall McLuhan called the impact of increasing communication speed and frequency the formation of the global village. It is now possible that your international Facebook friends know more about the inside of your refrigerator, your cats or your grandchildren than your next-door neighbor does. There is a mindboggling set of connections now possible that far exceed McLuhan’s imagination, but suggesting these interconnected relationships form a village was his basis for deep concern. McLuhan’s use of the word village was neither quaint nor romantic. His purpose was to convey how the limiting factors of village life stifled creativity, imagination and independence. In a simpler time, what you wore to work could be criticized by only your immediate circle of acquaintances. Now, with the posting of a single photo of yourself in contrasting plaid, you are open to being style-shamed by people on the other side of the globe. Our weddings and birthday parties are now openly applauded or critiqued by people we haven’t seen since grade school. Busybodies abound, regardless of geographic or emotional distance. Success has become ‘like’ affirmations from electronic neighbors with whom we cannot share coffee. Which brings me to the category of Christianly Indifference.

One would have to be living in a cave to not experience the clamor generated by newsfeeds and social media begging us to take a strong stand on issues and personalities we will never personally touch. I am asked to shed tears over the latest Kardashian drama and the civil unrest in Myanmar even though I would be hard pressed to quickly find Naypyidaw (the capital of Myanmar) on an unmarked globe, and I have never been invited to any of the countless Kardashian weddings. And yet I am being implored to show empathy, sympathy, even compassion to the reality of the unfolding drama. Even pity will not do.

I suggest we are losing the crucial capacity to comfortably carry indifference. Like a gaggle of village gossips, influencers and journalists are begging for our energy to express opinion on occasions and issues of little relevance to our lives. The phenomenon known as compassion fatigue, being drained of our ability to care, is the direct result of being asked to care in places where we are impotent to make any difference. Our helplessness is usually manipulated into an appeal for our money either through product purchase or direct contribution. Carrying this inconsolable anxiety, we vibrate our hearts into a debilitating arrhythmia; we are unable to sync our limited capacity to their boundless neediness. The result is exhaustion. No longer able to tell the difference, we become unable to address the things we can change.

While in graduate school, I volunteered as night manager for a women’s shelter in Woodlawn. It was founded and directed by Sister Connie Driscoll, a retired army colonel who, due to a stroke, wore a patch over her left eye. She was a dynamic character who chain smoked narrow cigars and used, shall I say, colorful language. When invited to give a talk, her personality and delivery made her a much sought-after public speaker; she made herself very clear. “I will only talk about the homeless and in particular homeless women and children. Do not ask me to talk about the mayor, or social unrest, or international hunger. God has given me one thing to care about and that’s homeless women and children. As for the other %^#@!, I’m @*$(~%! indifferent.”

Indifference is not the absence of caring; it is the conclusion that we do not have enough proximity or experience to form a meaningful opinion, let alone an action plan. It is the confession that we cannot discern what should or should not be done and so we will not invest emotions or resources in the outcome. Christianly indifference is the result of having something important to do, something else on our calendar that may actually benefit from our resources, our time, our attention. 

Indifference does not mean we will remain resistant to future learning or opportunity; it simply means we will not succumb to the peer pressure of the village people. (It was, after all, the 1980s.)

Seeking the wisdom to know the difference, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor