Honoring the dignity of each person
Humans all desire dignity, and respond in the same way when our dignity is violated.
Dear Reader,
Throughout my ministry I have run into men (and some women) who do not believe women should be ordained as pastors. Sometimes a man will accost me with selective scripture passages calling for women to be silent in the (1st century) church or make superior-sounding statements that dishonor and violate God’s call on my life. My reaction to such an indignity: I’m flooded with anger, even rage. I will slap back with sharp words and then storm away, muttering obscenities under my breath, telling myself this person, this dignity-violator, is not worth my time and energy.
Yet, as Donna Hicks reminds me, this infuriating man’s life holds inherent value and dignity.
As an international conflict-resolution specialist, Donna Hicks found herself working in Cambodia with the United Nations in 1993. She worked with the Khmer women who suffered heartbreaking violations of their human rights under the Pol Pot regime. Witnessing the Khmer women’s joy as they learned their rights and helping them recover their sense of worth after suffering violent indignities led Hicks on a career-long path of developing the Dignity Model: a model of conflict resolution based on evolutionary biology, psychology, and neuroscience. We are born with dignity. Every human life has value and worth, and is worthy of respect, no matter what we do or how we live.
Hicks distinguishes between a person who deserves respect, and a person’s actions, which may or may not deserve respect. A smug, anti-woman-pastor attack does not deserve my respect. The speaker’s dignity, the inherent value of his human life, does.
Recently republished for its Tenth Anniversary, I discovered Hicks book Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict at a workshop on restorative justice. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. Hicks’ emphasis on dignity (or violations of our dignity) as a common denominator in human conflict makes so much sense:
Dignity is a human phenomenon…a profoundly emotional human issue unique to our species. It transcends race, gender, ethnicity, and all the other social distinctions…We all want it, seek it, and respond in the same way when others violate it. We have powerful self-preservation reactions to violations [of our dignity.]
People will risk their lives to protect or defend their dignity and that of their social group. Wars are fought over threats to people’s dignity—threats so primal for humans that researchers have discovered they trigger our survival instincts of flee or fight.
When we perceive that we are being offended or hurt by others—when someone violates our dignity—our instinctive, self-protective hardwiring tells us that what matters most is our own well-being and survival, not the survival of the relationship… We are pulled to [end the relationship, to walk out the door, or] denigrate the other person and perhaps seek revenge…
We probably all know about our survival response of “fight, flee, freeze.” Hicks introduced me to another instinctive response of the limbic system in our brain: tend and befriend. Hicks writes:
Just as our limbic system can quickly signal us to disconnect from a person who harms or threatens us, it can quickly flood us with feelings of love, empathy, and compassion, compelling us to connect with another person, to find comfort in that person, to feel safer and less vulnerable, more worthy.
Human beings are hardwired to connect because we are safer and less vulnerable together; there is strength in numbers and in community. Dignity violations break down or disrupt these natural instincts to connect, befriend, and build relationships.
Hicks developed her model to help resolve global violations of human dignity and resolve international conflict. She was surprised when her book was adopted by business leaders, educators, and counselors—but dignity violations occur everywhere, in every context of our lives.
The language of dignity, awareness of how we are hardwired to respond to violations of our dignity, and courageously acknowledging when we have violated the dignity of others, has the power to heal long-neglected inner wounds and foster peace amidst human conflict. I feel empowered and encouraged by this new knowledge of human dignity, and I hope you do, too.
Recent writing:
This lectionary reflection on Acts 7:55-60 shares the connection I noticed between the stoning of Stephen and the expulsion of Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the Tennessee legislature.
My May editorial for the Presbyterian Outlook encourages the church to pay attention to innovators who are doing ministry differently.
In this lectionary reflection for Pentecost Sunday, I wonder what we might do if we actually trusted the Holy Spirt to fill us and use us.
I was honored to recently receive a James Solheim Award for editorial courage from the Associated Church Press, for my September 2022 editorial “Listening and learning” about LGBTQIA+ rights.
Books I’m loving:
My fascination continues with Octavia Butler’s work as one of the first African American and female Science Fiction writers and the first SF writer to receive a prestigious MacArthur “genius” award. A friend recently introduced me to the podcast “Octavia’s Parables” where adrienne maree brown and Toshi Reagon discuss Parable of the Sower chapter by chapter, as well as the other books in Butler’s “Parable” series. I’m setting aside time this summer to reread this amazing book along with the podcast.
adrienne maree brown’s own writing is inspired by Butler’s explorations of our human relationship to change. An activist, brown developed “emergent strategy,” which she describes as “radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help.” Equal parts science and science-fiction, her book, emergent strategy: shaping change, changing worlds, presents a strategy for living and creating change that follows natural patterns, not hierarchal.
I’m halfway through N.K. Jemisin’s How Long ‘Til Black Future Month. The title of this short story collection comes from Jemisin’s essay about her conflicted relationship with the genres of science fiction and fantasy, and how terrifying it’s been to read science fiction that envisions a future devoid of Black people. In her essay, Jemisin describes re-watching The Jetsons, a show she loved as a child:
“There’s nobody even slightly brown in the Jetsons’ world. Even the family android sounds white. This is supposed to be the real world’s future, right? Albeit in silly, humorous form. Thing is, not-white-people make up most of the world’s population, now as well as back in the Sixties when the show was created. So what happened to all those people, in the minds of this show’s creators? Are they down beneath the clouds, where the Jetsons never go? Was there an apocalypse, or maybe a pogrom? Was there a memo?”
Jemison’s Afrofuturism stories are clearly multicultural, with a common theme of accepting differences and change.
Upcoming speaking:
Saturday, August 12: Workshop Leader for Montreat Conference Center’s Women’s Connection Conference.(registration is closed)
Encouraging Courage will explore what feminist theologian Susan Nelson Dunfee says is the primary sin of woman: the sin of hiding. We will explore ways to develop our gifts, overcome our fears, and embrace our God-given potential.
Saturday, September 9: Preacher and workshop leader, Shenandoah Presbytery’s Big Event “Faithful Decisions in Difficult Times,” at Massanetta Springs Camp and Conference Center.
January 2-5, 2024, Keynote speaker for College Conference at Montreat Conference Center, Montreat, NC. The theme for this conference is “Necessary Risks.”
Is your book club or church reading Necessary Risks? Are you planning an educational event for your church, presbytery or synod that aligns with the theme of Necessary Risks: Challenges Privileged People Need to Face? I’d love to get you and your group on my speaking schedule.
Let’s connect!
Does Donna Hick’s words about human dignity resonate with you? How have you witnessed your dignity or another’s violated? How have you witnessed or experienced dignity being honored?
Tell me in the comments, or at www.terimcdowellott.com.