This is the first in what might become a series of blog entries that my participation in a reading group called “The Rise of Bonhoeffer” has inspired.
Over the past few years, our culture has turned its attention back to an intriguing cultural figure from the 1960s all the way up until the dawn of the twenty-first century – Mr. Rogers. A couple of films, including the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018) and the feature film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), starring no less than Tom Hanks as the unique television host, have introduced this figure to a new generation of viewers.
One question that emerges, either looking back at old episodes or viewing the documentary or the 2019 film, is how Mr. Rogers’ program could have been so popular. There is little in the way of intrigue or plot twist. The outcomes are as predictable as what one finds in such black-and-white sitcoms as Leave it to Beaver, in which the audience was expected to absorb and adopt a moral lesson from the show.
A quick scroll through the available programs on television at any one time shows that Mr. Rogers’ sort of program has vanished from our list of options. True crime, dystopian movies, police dramas, reality shows, and sports (mostly pre-recorded right now, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic that has the vast majority of pro sports shut down) abound. You can watch Amy Schumer learn to cook, if you really want to. You can watch Mark Cuban and his fellow Sharks debate the latest investment proposal that has come before them. If you look at children’s programming, animation is king, which makes a live-action show like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood even more of an anachronism.
It is likely that the popularity of this show has little to do with the format, though, and much to do with the message. In an interview on his podcast Otherppl with author Ottessa Moshfegh, Brad Listi spends some time discussing this phenomenon. What they come up with is intriguing – the essential difference between Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and the rest of the media that we consume is that this children’s show has a message that has failed to resonate with far too many enough of as adults: that we are perfectly acceptable just as we are. We do not need to change the way we look, the way we talk, the way we think. There is nothing we need to buy, nothing we need to sell, nothing we need to commodify, in order to have worth.
That is a revolutionary message, and it is one that we need to hear.
However, for the generation that grew up watching Mr. Rogers take us to the Land of Make-Believe, this message did not resonate, did not last, with nearly as many of us as it could have, or perhaps should have. That one voice, of course, ran into the chorus of voices that greet us in the later years of elementary school and beyond, shouting, whispering, insisting that of course we are not enough, that of course we need to do more, be more, change more, to suit what the world would have of us.
Another question that Mr. Listi and Ms. Moshfegh discussed in their conversation was what it would take for human behavior to undertake a fundamental shift so that our species could get off the crash course that we apparently have with environmental catastrophe, with the next war, or so that our species could finally learn to coexist together. It has never been easy, not since Cain decided to take his brother Abel’s life because Cain thought his sacrifice should have been pleasing enough for God, but it wasn’t – but Abel’s was.
We’ve never been enough at ease with ourselves to interact peaceably with others long enough for social harmony to take root. Why is this?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers one response to this question. In his book The Cost of Discipleship, he differentiates between what he calls “cheap grace” and “costly grace,” and it is in the difference between these two ideas that one can find the start to an answer to this question. He uses the word “sin” quite a bit in the opening chapter to his book, and it is a word that has largely disappeared from our collective consciousness, whether one is part of the Church or not. It has taken on a dusty sort of character, as distant from most modernity as the King James Version of the Bible.
When we hear the word “sin,” we worry that other people are going to judge us. Perhaps, though, it is an awareness of our own imperfections that sits at the base of this worry. And so because of this fundamental unease in our own personas, many of us follow one of two paths: we turn our awareness of sin outward, so that we identify it easily in others, and upbraid them for their shortcomings, or we conclude that everyone else is also imperfect, and so we end up justifying ourselves by deciding that, since imperfection is common to humanity, there is no higher aspiration that is worth pursuing.
If we turn back to Bonhoeffer’s dichotomy between cheap and costly grace, we come across this from his writing: “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow upon ourselves.” Costly grace, though, is “the gift that must be asked for, the door at which one must knock.”
Both of the paths I mentioned above are different forms of “cheap” grace. When I focus on what others are failing to do, I declare myself better than them, holier than them. In other words, I justify myself. If I decide that imperfection is perfectly fine, then I’m also justifying myself, deciding for myself that what I have done is enough, since no one else is bothering to do any better.
So how does one knock? For Bonhoeffer, the answer is following the call of Jesus Christ into obedience. He talks about the fact that people who struggle with moral dilemmas simply lack clarity of focus in his book, and how often the rationales that we use to keep ourselves from obeying Christ have to do with our own self-involvement.
Some elements of the Church in the United States constantly complain that they are under attack, that they suffer from oppression, but often that feeling comes not from control of their own religious practices but the tolerance, in a society designed to welcome practitioners of any religion – even no religion, of practices with which they do not agree. Perhaps a first step toward bringing a message of “costly grace” would be a realization, and an affirmation, that everyone in the world is equal in terms of worth. All are God’s creatures; all are called to be disciples. In other words, there is no one on the planet who is unworthy of God’s love.
There is no greater shock to the system than the realization of self-worth. Authentic self-worth does not mean that it is acceptable to be mediocre; instead, it is a calling to live up to standards that are not only possible but are demanded. That focus on one’s calling makes it impossible to notice the shortcomings of others in a way that is anything but encouraging.
One word that resonates from both Mr. Rogers and the Bible is the concept of the neighbor. Bonhoeffer wrote that “Neighborliness is not a quality in other people; it is simply their claim on ourselves.” Acknowledging our own worth while embracing the challenge it presents, and allowing others room to realize their worth and pursue their own challenges, would lead to a chorus of knocking on the door of costly grace, the sort of chorus that brings transformation.