Jesus Man Knocking at the Bathroom Door: Christian Hospitality for the Mentally Ill
MIchelle Bach, M.D./PhD Student, Saint Louis University
Drawing from experiences in a Catholic Worker “house of hospitality,” I recount the story of "Thomas", a severely mentally ill homeless man who tested the boundaries of our community's hospitality by introducing both disruption and danger. Thomas is but one of a multitude of mentally ill persons who seemingly fall in the gap between the territories staked out by the medical institution and the Christian church. It is therefore pressing to explore how the church ought to approach hospitality for the severely mentally ill while acknowledging the barriers that tend to inhibit the extension of such hospitality.
As a Christian virtue, hospitality finds its paradigm in the triune God. Hospitality as exemplified by the Trinity is a relational act with a peculiar economy: there is a reverberating reciprocity internal to hospitality that transcends a simple exchange of goods. However, the understanding and practice of hospitality exists in a fragmented state in the church today. In the context of caring for mentally ill persons, the rise of modern, rationalized medicine has erected unique barriers that further stymie the church’s will to cultivate an irrational hospitality. The rationalization of society and elevation of efficacy, predictability, calculability, and liberal individualism have muted the possibility of the radical economy of hospitality in the church’s imagination.
In an effort to claim a re-enchanted practice of hospitality for the mentally ill, I turn to feminist disability theory, which suggests that social and biological factors are interactive in creating disability, including mental illness. While it may seem inappropriate to attempt to reclaim a Christian virtue by appeal to a secular philosophy, Christian thinkers have often found rich fodder for theological thought in non-Christian theory. Feminist disability theory can be used to push the church to recognize that she is always already in relationship with the mentally ill, who bear the effects the church’s (in)action in their bodies. The inability of a guest like Thomas to receive hospitality without disrupting the community is an effect of a preexisting derangement of the community. Just as hospitality has a reverberating reciprocity, we find that inhospitality has a shadowed reciprocity. To reclaim the conceptual framework of our fragmented practice of hospitality we must move towards the transcendent economy of hospitality in which gift and receipt are indivisible, relationality is omnidirectional, and the stranger is never actually that strange.
Drawing from experiences in a Catholic Worker “house of hospitality,” I recount the story of "Thomas", a severely mentally ill homeless man who tested the boundaries of our community's hospitality by introducing both disruption and danger. Thomas is but one of a multitude of mentally ill persons who seemingly fall in the gap between the territories staked out by the medical institution and the Christian church. It is therefore pressing to explore how the church ought to approach hospitality for the severely mentally ill while acknowledging the barriers that tend to inhibit the extension of such hospitality.
As a Christian virtue, hospitality finds its paradigm in the triune God. Hospitality as exemplified by the Trinity is a relational act with a peculiar economy: there is a reverberating reciprocity internal to hospitality that transcends a simple exchange of goods. However, the understanding and practice of hospitality exists in a fragmented state in the church today. In the context of caring for mentally ill persons, the rise of modern, rationalized medicine has erected unique barriers that further stymie the church’s will to cultivate an irrational hospitality. The rationalization of society and elevation of efficacy, predictability, calculability, and liberal individualism have muted the possibility of the radical economy of hospitality in the church’s imagination.
In an effort to claim a re-enchanted practice of hospitality for the mentally ill, I turn to feminist disability theory, which suggests that social and biological factors are interactive in creating disability, including mental illness. While it may seem inappropriate to attempt to reclaim a Christian virtue by appeal to a secular philosophy, Christian thinkers have often found rich fodder for theological thought in non-Christian theory. Feminist disability theory can be used to push the church to recognize that she is always already in relationship with the mentally ill, who bear the effects the church’s (in)action in their bodies. The inability of a guest like Thomas to receive hospitality without disrupting the community is an effect of a preexisting derangement of the community. Just as hospitality has a reverberating reciprocity, we find that inhospitality has a shadowed reciprocity. To reclaim the conceptual framework of our fragmented practice of hospitality we must move towards the transcendent economy of hospitality in which gift and receipt are indivisible, relationality is omnidirectional, and the stranger is never actually that strange.