“Particularly difficult in our own context, is the commitment to a generous hospitality – a difficult-to-achieve lifestyle that leaves space for others to interfere and that contains the boldness to interfere in the lives of others. These sorts of encounters are artificially replaced in our era by work relationships, social media, and so on. But these cannot truly achieve the dimensions in intra-human relation that are achieved in the free response to persons in unchosen proximity to oneself.” -Joseph Minich1
The above quote is from Minich’s book, “Bulwarks of Unbelief,” in which Minich explores the features of modern society that help support unbelief. Five hundred years ago and beyond, unbelief in the Divine was virtually unthinkable (at least in its most basic sense), yet in modern times even staunch belief is held in active tension with unbelief. That is to say, we may believe in God, but unbelief still seems like a feasible option, one we may even take great pains to avoid (only proving how feasible it appears to be). Towards the end of the book, Minich starts to consider how Christians can respond to unbelief effectively within this modern context, and the quote above is one of the points he makes – generous hospitality.
One of the challenges with the modern condition is that people are alienated and isolated both from each other and from a transcendent story of humanity (a condition mediated in part by modern labor structures and technology). Since that transcendent narrative is directly connected to both God’s historical and present activity, to the degree we feel that we are not a part of such a story we will also feel that God is absent in our lives. Put another way, the more we feel we are merely being carried along by human forces outside our sphere of influence and with whom we have no meaningful relations, the more we will feel disconnected from a sense of the Divine. If we lack a meaningful community to which we are connected historically, and which we are presently helping shape towards the future in meaningful ways, that isolation from others will in turn cause us to feel isolated from God.
Minich’s point in the quote above is that, in this context, generous hospitality is a powerful tool for reorienting the world. How so? Minich’s further explanation is helpful in answering this question:
“…most lives are dominated by the clock and by disembodied or tailored relationships that suffocate our mental and psychological bandwidth for anything deeper. […] to the extent that we smash into and are smashed into other humans, one’s sense of ‘what reality is like’ will inevitably and progressively change. Overlapping thick networks of trust belong to a cosmos quite different from scripted and chosen (rather than given) non-overlapping sites of limited common interest.”
Two points Minich makes here help us understand how generous hospitality can reorient the world to a sense of the Divine Presence.
First, generous hospitality creates space to mentally and psychologically breathe. Most people in modern society are incredibly busy. This is true anywhere, but especially in urban environments (and exceptionally so where I am in the Tokyo Metro). Generous hospitality makes slow, intentional reflection both possible and emotionally permissible. It creates space for thought that goes beyond the superficial. Second, generous hospitality creates space for “overlapping thick networks of trust” to develop and flourish. That is to say, through the act of generous hospitality, we can build relationships that are less compartmentalized. This then allows us to see the world as interconnected, which in turns helps us begin to see a broader story of humanity and our part in it.
I have personally seen the impact of this in my family’s ministry in Japan. The engagement that has most opened the doors for people to consider the Christian worldview and its claims has never been rational arguments for God. I’m not saying those aren’t important, but I am saying the primary step has always been connected to various forms of generous hospitality (something I see especially through my wife). The reason is not that this hospitality merely gets people interested in church activities, as if we’re using hospitality as a kind of spiritual bait. No, this generous hospitality does exactly what Minich says – it creates space and frames the world in a radically different way than most people are used to. It not only shares the love of Christ but reveals an entirely different kind of space in which humanity exists.
Of course, generous hospitality is only one section of a much larger image which Minich is painting in this book. But it is an important one, and one in which virtually any Christian can participate. Generous hospitality does not belong to a single class or type of person. As Minich says, it simply requires a willingness to be inconvenienced and the boldness to risk inconveniencing others for their own blessing.
I would emphasize that Minich calls this a means of reorientation. In other words, we are not seeking to paint a different picture than how the world really is. Rather, we are recognizing that the world has become disoriented by a myriad of forces which lead to it seeming like something that it is not. Generous hospitality is therefore not generating something new (though it may appear new to those not used to it), but rather revealing something as old as time itself; it helps us see the way the world really is. And in that, it is a blessing to the giver as much as to the one receiving.
[1] Quotes from Joseph Minich, Bulwarks of Unbelief; pp.209-210
*Image: Painting by Jules Alexandre Grun, “Study For A Group Of Artists” [Source]
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