Proximity: Psychological, Theological, and Practical with Barth, Jennings, and Stevenson
An Essay by Tim Hartman
About the author: Tim Hartman is Associate Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is the author of two books: Theology after Colonization: Kwame Bediako, Karl Barth, and the Future of Theological Reflection, and Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). His scholarly interests include contemporary Christian theologies worldwide, Christology, Lived Theology, Election/Predestination, antiracist theologies, ecclesiology, postcolonial mission, and the work of Karl Barth, Kwame Bediako, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and James Cone.
In social psychology, the proximity principle teaches that individuals physically near one another have a higher chance of forming a relationship than those farther apart. When I first learned about this principle as an undergraduate, I remember reflecting on how obvious I thought it was that people who live near one another are more likely to get married—because they first need to meet one another. (This was before the prevalence of online dating apps.) Years later, I have a much deeper appreciation for the proximity principle theologically, both with God and with others.
For a thought experiment, if we stop thinking about the proximity principle in terms of romantic partners and instead think about humanity’s relationship with God, what might it mean to claim that those physically near one another have a higher chance of forming a relationship? This is the essence of the Incarnation. God draws near to us so that humans might have a higher chance of forming a relationship with God. In becoming human, God reveals Godself in ways that were not possible otherwise.
Because of Barth’s recurring emphases on God as “Wholly Other” and the “infinite qualitative distinction” between God and humanity, the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ profoundly brought God proximate to humanity. The Incarnation was an act of both divine revelation and solidarity. In Barth’s words, “In being neighbour to man,”1 God “does not hold aloof… [God] does not shrink from [humanity]…[God] makes [humanity’s] situation His own.”2 Through God’s intentional moving to be physically nearer to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, God experienced firsthand the constraints of finitude, the pain of human life, and even death. Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of John 1:14 in The Message captures this engagement: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” All encounters between gospel and culture must occur in a place. The residents of a place develop their understanding of their culture and identity within that place. The questions and theological responses are inextricably linked to the site of each encounter between gospel and culture. The interaction between place, culture, politics, language, identity, faith, and theology is full of possibility (and, some would say, peril). These acts of linking are the work of contextual theologies.
In the Incarnation, God draws near to humanity. As Barth notes, within God, there is neither proximity nor remoteness. Rather, creation establishes a distance between the Creator and God’s creatures. Barth writes in Church Dogmatics II/1, “in God Himself remoteness and proximity are one. And so in His creation, although there can be remoteness without proximity and proximity without remoteness for His creatures, no remoteness or proximity can exist apart from the divine remoteness and proximity.”3 God becomes human through God’s act of self-emptying to take the form of a servant (who we call by the name of Jesus Christ).4
Barth’s articulation of a theological “proximity principle,” has two corollaries in the work of Willie James Jennings and Bryan Stevenson. In his provocative and insightful lecture, “Can White People be Saved?” Jennings explores how the social imaginary of Whiteness “constructs bordered life, life lived in separate endeavors of wish fulfillment.”5 Ideas of whiteness have informed notions that white people and black people should ‘keep to their own’ and live separate lives. To counter such divisions, Jennings is “advocating compelling people to live together across all the lines of formation that divide us and have habituated us to be comfortable with those divides.”6 Jennings hopes that real change can occur by encouraging people, especially Christians, to be proximate to one another. Through proximity, structural and systemic societal changes are possible:
Segregated spaces must be turned toward living places where people construct together an everyday that turns life in health-giving directions. Overcoming whiteness begins by reconfiguring life geographically so that all the flows work differently; the flows of money, education, support, and attention move across people who have been separated by the processes that have formed us racially, economically, and nationally.7
Jennings’ call for proximity echoes Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:13: “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” Salt does not exist for itself. As Christians, we do not exist for ourselves. Salt does not try to be salty. Light does not try to shine. These characteristics are inherent to their identity. Salt that is a centimeter away from food is of no use. Salt needs to be mixed in so that it might season or preserve food. Jennings calls people to mix up typical, systemic housing, schooling, and socializing patterns to re-locate our bodies across dividing lines.
Bryan Stevenson, the Harvard-educated lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative (eji.org), has intentionally chosen to be proximate to the marginalized in our society: the incarcerated, the poor, and disenfranchised African Americans. As he wrote in his book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (later adapted into a major motion picture of the same name (2019) where Michael B. Jordan portrayed Stevenson), “Proximity to the condemned and incarcerated made the question of each person’s humanity more urgent and meaningful, including my own.”8 Stevenson found meaning by putting himself in direct contact with the lives and stories of the incarcerated on the edges of society. Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, which is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the U.S., challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. Stevenson believes that all of us must get “proximate” to suffering and understand the nuanced experiences of those who suffer from inequality.9 Without meeting and listening to those suffering from and experiencing inequality, any attempts at “helping” will likely be self-serving and fall short. For Stevenson, “If you are willing to get closer to people who are suffering, you will find the power to change the world.”10 His insight is that there is power in proximity. Stevenson's decision to be close to prisoners changed their lives when he advocated on behalf of the innocent and changed his life. Stevenson writes, “Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”11 Indeed, this is the gospel's message: God came near in Jesus Christ, so we humans might be more than the worst thing we have ever done. In addition to learning to see others for who they are rather than what they have done, Stevenson connected with his humanity to not see himself or others as a collection of deeds. For Stevenson, “Proximity to the condemned, to people unfairly judged; that was what guided me back to something that felt like home.”12 We belong to God, in body and spirit. By physically stepping out of whatever societal bubble we find ourselves in, we have a higher chance of forming a relationship with someone different from us, including the outcast and most vulnerable. God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ so that we might be near others.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, 159.
Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, 158–159.
Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1, 461.
See Philippians 2, which Barth explores in Church Dogmatics IV/1, 180.
Willie James Jennings, “Can ‘White’ People Be Saved?: Reflections on the Relationship between Missions and Whiteness,” in Can "White" People Be Saved?: Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission, eds. Love L. Sechrest, Johnny Ramírez-Johnson, and Amos Yong (IVP Academic, 2018), 43. For the original lecture, see:
Jennings, “Can ‘White’ People Be Saved?,” 43.
Jennings, “Can ‘White’ People Be Saved?,” 43.
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (Spiegel & Grau, 2014), 14.
Bryan Stevenson, “The Power of Proximity | CEO Initiative 2018,” Fortune Magazine, especially 5:57–7:06:
Stevenson, “The Power of Proximity.”
Stevenson, Just Mercy, 17, italics original.
Stevenson, Just Mercy, 14.
Thank you - an uplifting read. And, as it happens (your reference to Barth) helpfully apposite and quotable in an essay I am currently writing (about Creation ex Nihilo). WJJ (who I know a little) is indeed a wonderful member of the academy. Kind regards from Oxford, Paddy W.