Vinciman Ponders

Each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I return to one of his most stirring sermons: The Drum Major Instinct . In it, King weaves together scripture, history, and current affairs to explore a deeply human tendency—the desire to be first, to stand out, to lead the parade. He calls this the “drum major instinct,” and warns that if left unchecked, it can lead to selfishness, materialism, and even war. King’s biblical reference is the story of two disciples who asked to sit at Jesus’s right and left hand in his kingdom. Jesus responded that whoever wants to be first must become a servant. King expands this lesson to argue that the instinct to be out front—to be admired and exalted—is the root of many personal and national problems. It’s a message that feels especially urgent today. Western governments often frame the international refugee and migration crises—whether in the Mediterranean Sea or at the U.S.-Mexico border—as matters of national security. But these are, at their core, h...

Abolish the Priesthood was the provocative title of James Carroll’s article in the June 2019 issue of The Atlantic . My response to that piece emerges from recent musings on the nature of religious rituals and institutional power. Over the past eight months, I’ve attended a Catholic church in my neighborhood about twice a month. The predictability of the rituals, combined with the church’s historical and global reach, carries a weighty spiritual resonance that appeals to me. This stands in stark contrast to the lighter, personality-driven style of Pentecostal churches I’ve attended over the past four decades. I’ve been willing to suspend disbelief, recognizing that religious performance—especially in its front-stage form—is designed to evoke awe and sanctify the worship experience. Yet such performance may not reflect the lived realities of those who enact it. In the case of Catholic priests, the global sex abuse scandal has repeatedly pulled back the curtain to reveal a diabolical ...