Guest post: Our Pursuit Of Class, Comfort And Convenience Limits Our Compassion

Fleeing Myanmar for an uncertain future in Bangladesh. 

Peter Reimer, a retired teacher from Manitoba, Canada, recently wrote the following response to something I wrote, which I post here with his permission:

As Christian Anabaptist Mennonites we like to perceive ourselves as being a compassionate people, however we have a complicated relationship with compassion. 

Joan Swart (South African psychologist) indicates that compassion includes the ability to see clearly the nature of suffering, and that we aspire to transform that suffering by engaging in activities to alleviate the pain of others. It seems like when we suffer personally, then we are able to see and respond to the suffering of others with compassion. When we live in relative ease and comfort, then we have more difficulty empathizing and responding to others' dilemma. 

This seems to be evident in a new book forthcoming by Mary S. Sprunger (EMU) titled, "From Communalism to Capitalism: Mennonites and Money in the Early Dutch Republic." The Anabaptist communalism of the Schleitheim Confession era (1527) was relatively short-lived as Mennonites in the Netherlands became enamored with the rise of the Dutch mercantilism which ultimately resulted in the full-fledged capitalism we know today. By 1661 Thieleman von Bracht was rewriting the Martyrs Mirror as an indictment of the evils of the Mennonite pursuit of wealth and empire. The compassion of communalism dissipated with the lure of capitalism. 

Aside from the lure of wealth and material comfort, our ability to be compassionate may be hindered by religion itself. In "My Brother's Keeper," Saslow, Willers, & Fernberg of the University of California at Berkeley cite findings which indicate that "religiosity moderated (weakened) the relationship between compassion and prosocial behavior" (generosity), and that less religious persons were more likely to be and act compassionately towards others than more religious persons. 

This seems counterintuitive at first, however perhaps our religiosity produces a certain contented lethargy of inaction which inhibits us from acting on initial feelings of compassion. Perhaps religion does inhibit compassionate action, however perhaps too, religion could address both the capitalistic inclinations of Anabaptist Mennonites as well as the zealousness of our religiosity by our following the injunction of someone we claim to know well who said "sell all you have and give it

Note: Here are links to two contradictory studies regarding the claim that religious people are less compassionate:

https://www.alternet.org/2013/02/busting-myth-christians-are-more-generous-non-believers/

https://patriotpost.us/articles/66595-conservatives-are-happier-more-generous-than-liberals-2019-11-06