Dear colleagues,
While I am supposed to write a forum contribution for this esteemed and established network, I’m writing you a new year’s letter instead. The main reason being that for the first time in quite some time, I’m facing a writer’s block. From the moment I was reminded that it was my turn to write a contribution, I got stressed, procrastinated to now face the fact that while there are hundreds of issues which need our attention as theological ethicists, I do not seem to be able to wrap my mind around just one and write on it. I started to think about subjects, going from our CTEWC roundtable project on right-wing populism and emotions, to how we can use land owned by our ecclesial communities to contribute to the fair food transition, to the wars at our European borders, and the increasing tensions within an international organization which is located in our backyard here – as Brussels hosts the headquarters of NATO – a fact that I actually completely forgot about until this morning, wondering how funny and/or weird it is that our media do not draw any attention to that fact.
As I felt a call, and responsibility to then write about the latter – considering my ‘privileged location’, I started to read about it. I was thereby inspired also by the text messages of one of our colleagues, to me an overseas one, sent to me on the joint statement of the American bishops Cupich, McElroy and Tobin[1], as well as on archbishop Brolio’s courageous statement[2] on the right for civil disobedience of the military – if they were to have to invade Greenland, for instance – all being inspired by Leo XIV’s strong address to the diplomats on the 9th of January, recalling that crucial principle in our ethical tradition.
Alas, I have to disappoint you: while I’m very grateful that Christian leaders are speaking up, from those American bishops to the Lutheran World Federation[3] and the Lutheran bishops of Greenland, Denmark and Canada,[4] I am much less confident about what my contribution can be. I feel too overwhelmed, both by what daily life requires of us, at a personal and academic level, and by how fast the world is evolving. Yesterday, a journalist said, ‘Within every eye blink, something new is happening over Greenland’. And while we focus on that, so many other crises, visible or invisible and forgotten, remain – as we all know. I am just stating the obvious, I know. And I cannot but help to wonder how you all are doing, in your respective countries and regions, facing some common and shared challenges, but having to deal with very different ones as well. I am very much aware of my privileged position of being a theological ethicist on this side of the world, in this particular country – which is actually probably not falling apart because of those international organizations such as NATO and the European Commission being hosted in our capital. Belgium is a context where I have the luxury to think and worry about these crises while not one of them is actually affecting my daily life – besides occupying my mind. So far, it remains at the level of ‘what if’, at the level of anticipated fear. And how different that is for so many of you. Consequently, I sit with that feeling of unfairness, com-passion, and powerlessness.
Or maybe we do have more power than we think. But for me, that does not appear when I have to write on my own, feeling pressured to write a brilliant or at least sharp analysis of what is going on – which is not the expectation of the CTEWC’s forum, but one that I put on myself. And I couldn’t do it. Not today. Not this week. So I’m sorry.
What does work, is staying close to myself and my intuition. Ending the pressure I was putting on myself to write this contribution, to turn it into a letter with room for my vulnerability, as a scholar. Feeling that this might work, I was able to connect with myself again and I could write. Trusting that our network is strong enough to carry each other in that vulnerability, that we do not have to ‘shine’ and be smart all the time, but also can express these issues of being theological ethicists as well. Or at least that would be my hope and wish for this network as we are slowly but steadily moving towards its 25th anniversary.
What also works, is sharing what I heard and read that energized me. So back to the Greenland-conflict indeed. The first thing I found out is that NATO has only recently moved to a brand-new building in Brussels designed in such a way that it ‘evokes fingers interlaced in a symbolic clasp of unity — an apt symbol given NATO’s changing mission from opposition and prevention to unification and integration’[5] as the designers write on their website. (As theologians, we can also recognize how fingers in this position express a prayerful attitude.) While the move happened less than a year ago, the mission – so nicely expressed by the architecture – faces its greatest threat since its origin in 1949.
