One of the first interventions of God into human history, at least according to the Book of Genesis, relates to privacy. After God forbids Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the “tree of knowledge,” the first couple do so anyway. As a result, they become aware that they are naked, clothe themselves with fig leaves and hide. When God asks why they are hiding, Adam responds, “I was afraid because I was naked.”
Bible verses always admit of a variety of interpretations, but most Old Testament scholars say that there is no little irony intended by the author (or, more likely, authors) of Genesis: Adam and Eve wanted knowledge and they got it: They now know they’re naked and vulnerable. But another interpretation of the story might highlight how the two are expelled from a paradisiacal Eden, where they feel comfortable strolling around nude, into a world in which they feel compelled to hide.
In other words, part of their punishment, part of being cast out of Eden, is a painful awareness of their desire for privacy.
Privacy is not addressed frequently in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; when it is, the advice or commands offered are sometimes contradictory. Besides, in the ancient Near East, our contemporary understanding of privacy might have seemed nonsensical. People lived in tight quarters, with family members sleeping and snoring alongside one another in dwellings a few feet away from their neighbors’ tents or houses.
Recently I visited Capernaum, the fishing village by the Sea of Galilee where Jesus lived for upward of three years. The first-century ruins of the rough basalt houses, packed next to one another, showed tiny rooms that opened onto courtyards linking the individual dwellings. Someone who wanted privacy would most likely have had to “withdraw” to the countryside, as Jesus is frequently described doing in the Gospels.
Nonetheless, privacy was considered important for the spiritual life by many, including Jesus. He recommends a private relationship with God over and against more “public displays” of piety. This is not to say that he eschewed communal worship: Jesus was a devout Jew who regularly attended synagogue and visited the Temple in Jerusalem. Rather, in the Gospel of Matthew, he says, “Whenever you pray, go into your room and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who is in secret will reward you.”
At the same time, Jesus makes an apparently bold claim against privacy: “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.” And St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians advances the common biblical argument that privacy may abet sin. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but instead expose them,” it says. “For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible." Here, privacy is equated with darkness, the primary metaphor that St. Paul uses for evil.
So the Bible offers at least two faces of privacy — one as necessary for a healthy spiritual life but also a place where sin can be committed. That double-edged view of privacy is not a bad way to consider at its place in the life of the modern-day believer. And questions of privacy increasingly impinge on people’s spiritual lives, primarily because of the influence of technology.
More time online, and more time checking your phone for text messages, means not only less time for private prayer, but also a diminished sense of the importance of solitude. If you feel guilty for not being “reachable,” you may feel guilty about privacy itself. These days, even when people spend time at retreat houses for the explicit purpose of prayer, not checking texts and emails seems almost anathema to them.
Indeed, beyond the spiritual considerations, for any sort of moral formation, some privacy is necessary. To develop human relationships and a sense of the social self, we need privacy. Imagine not being able to keep things confidential within a family or between friends. Imagine a parent not being able to counsel a child in private. The very notion of family and friendship would break down without some degree of secrecy. Intimacy is essential for human beings to flourish.
In the spiritual life as well, some degree of privacy is essential. In my work as a spiritual director — someone who helps people with their prayer and finding God in their daily life — I’ve found that my appreciation for privacy has only increased over the years. What is discussed within the context of spiritual direction (as well as during retreats and in other pastoral counseling settings) is almost always confidential. Why? To grow in the spiritual life, people need to be able to try, to fail and then to learn from these failings and sins.
This is one of many reasons for the “seal of the confessional,” a practice with which even non-Catholics are familiar (usually from cheesy movies): the absolute prohibition on a priest revealing anything shared in the confessional. In Catholic theology, the person confessing is revealing his or her sins not simply to the priest, but to God, and so this sacred trust cannot be, in Catholic belief, compromised. On a more practical level, if “penitents” (as they are called) even remotely suspected that their sins would be revealed, it would prevent them from being open about their “worst” sins and thus close themselves off from the longed-for word of forgiveness where they need to hear it most.
[As technology advances, will it continue to blur the lines between public and private? Sign up for Charlie Warzel’s limited-run newsletter to explore what’s at stake and what you can do about it.]
But in religious spheres, the need for privacy cannot be absolute. As we have seen during the sex abuse crisis, some of the worst offenses occurred when bishops, priests and others in power tried to keep the abuse secret. Today, transparency, in many ways the opposite of privacy, is the byword — as it should be. I’ve lost track of the number of times that Jesus’ words “Nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed” have come into my mind during the abuse crisis. Those words are usually interpreted as Jesus’ injunction that his teachings are not mean to be esoteric or confined to an elite group. But I heard them as a reminder that the truth will eventually be revealed.
So what is the ultimate place of privacy in the spiritual life? Is it, to borrow the words of Deuteronomy, a blessing or a curse? A helpful tool in coming to an answer rests on discernment, a concept beloved by Jesuits, and, more recently, Pope Francis (himself a Jesuit). Discernment means that we not only try to follow the promptings of God in our daily lives, but that we consider each situation separately. So while privacy may be called for in one case, in another transparency may be required.
After Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden, they become the parents of Cain and Abel, who end up at odds, with one brother murdering the other. After that comes the whole rest of the story, what theologians call “salvation history,” leading for Christians to the New Testament, which tells the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as the story of the early church.
In those times, and since that time, believers have had to navigate the difficult demands of privacy and transparency, with an eye to their own spiritual lives, with an eye to the common good, but also with an eye to what the Creator might want us to do.
James Martin, a Jesuit priest, is the editor at large for America magazine and consultor to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication. His most recent book is “Building a Bridge.”
Follow @privacyproject on Twitter and The New York Times Opinion Section on Facebook and Instagram.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | What the Bible Says About Secrets
Opinion | What the Bible Says About Secrets
One of the first interventions of God into human history, at least according to the Book of Genesis, relates to privacy. After God forbids Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the “tree of knowledge,” the first couple do so anyway. As a result, they become aware that they are naked, clothe themselves with fig leaves and hide. When God asks why they are hiding, Adam responds, “I was afraid because I was naked.”
Bible verses always admit of a variety of interpretations, but most Old Testament scholars say that there is no little irony intended by the author (or, more likely, authors) of Genesis: Adam and Eve wanted knowledge and they got it: They now know they’re naked and vulnerable. But another interpretation of the story might highlight how the two are expelled from a paradisiacal Eden, where they feel comfortable strolling around nude, into a world in which they feel compelled to hide.
In other words, part of their punishment, part of being cast out of Eden, is a painful awareness of their desire for privacy.
Privacy is not addressed frequently in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; when it is, the advice or commands offered are sometimes contradictory. Besides, in the ancient Near East, our contemporary understanding of privacy might have seemed nonsensical. People lived in tight quarters, with family members sleeping and snoring alongside one another in dwellings a few feet away from their neighbors’ tents or houses.
Recently I visited Capernaum, the fishing village by the Sea of Galilee where Jesus lived for upward of three years. The first-century ruins of the rough basalt houses, packed next to one another, showed tiny rooms that opened onto courtyards linking the individual dwellings. Someone who wanted privacy would most likely have had to “withdraw” to the countryside, as Jesus is frequently described doing in the Gospels.
Nonetheless, privacy was considered important for the spiritual life by many, including Jesus. He recommends a private relationship with God over and against more “public displays” of piety. This is not to say that he eschewed communal worship: Jesus was a devout Jew who regularly attended synagogue and visited the Temple in Jerusalem. Rather, in the Gospel of Matthew, he says, “Whenever you pray, go into your room and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who is in secret will reward you.”
At the same time, Jesus makes an apparently bold claim against privacy: “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.” And St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians advances the common biblical argument that privacy may abet sin. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but instead expose them,” it says. “For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible." Here, privacy is equated with darkness, the primary metaphor that St. Paul uses for evil.
So the Bible offers at least two faces of privacy — one as necessary for a healthy spiritual life but also a place where sin can be committed. That double-edged view of privacy is not a bad way to consider at its place in the life of the modern-day believer. And questions of privacy increasingly impinge on people’s spiritual lives, primarily because of the influence of technology.
More time online, and more time checking your phone for text messages, means not only less time for private prayer, but also a diminished sense of the importance of solitude. If you feel guilty for not being “reachable,” you may feel guilty about privacy itself. These days, even when people spend time at retreat houses for the explicit purpose of prayer, not checking texts and emails seems almost anathema to them.
Indeed, beyond the spiritual considerations, for any sort of moral formation, some privacy is necessary. To develop human relationships and a sense of the social self, we need privacy. Imagine not being able to keep things confidential within a family or between friends. Imagine a parent not being able to counsel a child in private. The very notion of family and friendship would break down without some degree of secrecy. Intimacy is essential for human beings to flourish.
In the spiritual life as well, some degree of privacy is essential. In my work as a spiritual director — someone who helps people with their prayer and finding God in their daily life — I’ve found that my appreciation for privacy has only increased over the years. What is discussed within the context of spiritual direction (as well as during retreats and in other pastoral counseling settings) is almost always confidential. Why? To grow in the spiritual life, people need to be able to try, to fail and then to learn from these failings and sins.
This is one of many reasons for the “seal of the confessional,” a practice with which even non-Catholics are familiar (usually from cheesy movies): the absolute prohibition on a priest revealing anything shared in the confessional. In Catholic theology, the person confessing is revealing his or her sins not simply to the priest, but to God, and so this sacred trust cannot be, in Catholic belief, compromised. On a more practical level, if “penitents” (as they are called) even remotely suspected that their sins would be revealed, it would prevent them from being open about their “worst” sins and thus close themselves off from the longed-for word of forgiveness where they need to hear it most.
[As technology advances, will it continue to blur the lines between public and private? Sign up for Charlie Warzel’s limited-run newsletter to explore what’s at stake and what you can do about it.]
But in religious spheres, the need for privacy cannot be absolute. As we have seen during the sex abuse crisis, some of the worst offenses occurred when bishops, priests and others in power tried to keep the abuse secret. Today, transparency, in many ways the opposite of privacy, is the byword — as it should be. I’ve lost track of the number of times that Jesus’ words “Nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed” have come into my mind during the abuse crisis. Those words are usually interpreted as Jesus’ injunction that his teachings are not mean to be esoteric or confined to an elite group. But I heard them as a reminder that the truth will eventually be revealed.
So what is the ultimate place of privacy in the spiritual life? Is it, to borrow the words of Deuteronomy, a blessing or a curse? A helpful tool in coming to an answer rests on discernment, a concept beloved by Jesuits, and, more recently, Pope Francis (himself a Jesuit). Discernment means that we not only try to follow the promptings of God in our daily lives, but that we consider each situation separately. So while privacy may be called for in one case, in another transparency may be required.
After Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden, they become the parents of Cain and Abel, who end up at odds, with one brother murdering the other. After that comes the whole rest of the story, what theologians call “salvation history,” leading for Christians to the New Testament, which tells the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as the story of the early church.
In those times, and since that time, believers have had to navigate the difficult demands of privacy and transparency, with an eye to their own spiritual lives, with an eye to the common good, but also with an eye to what the Creator might want us to do.
James Martin, a Jesuit priest, is the editor at large for America magazine and consultor to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication. His most recent book is “Building a Bridge.”
Follow @privacyproject on Twitter and The New York Times Opinion Section on Facebook and Instagram.
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Source: Read Full Article