On
February 21-23, 2024, Rowan Williams, a former archbishop of Canterbury,
delivered a series of lectures on the topic of solidarity in moral theology. In
my own research, I relate that field to ethics and historical economic thought.
Williams’ theory of solidarity goes beyond what he calls “the vague feeling of
empathy” that is emphasized in the moral writings of David Hume and Adam Smith.
Williams has solidarity, unlike mere "fellow-feeling," reach a
person’s identity and even one’s soul through a shared experience of
existential fragility. Solidary pertains to interpersonal relations and is thus
relevant to neighbor-love, which includes being willing to attend to
the human needs even of one’s detractors and enemies, as well as just plain rude people. I contend that the upper
echelon at Yale Divinity School is at two-degrees of separation from this sort
of solidarity, especially as it is wholistic rather than partisan in nature. It
is no accident, by the way, that the self-love that characterizes the school's
culture has manifested in some courses being almost entirely oriented to
advocating very narrow ideological partisan positions, politically, economically,
and on social issues at the expense of sheer fairness to students, wholeness,
theology, and academic standards. At the time, the school was accepting 50% of
studen applicants. I leave these ideological and academic matters to the side
here so I can focus on the astonishing distance between the school's dean and
the sort of solidarity that he heard of in the lectures and that could lead to
Christian leadership for Yale's Christian divinity school, which includes two
seminaries.
The full essay is at "Yale Divinity School."
