Here’s the thing: There’s this biblical platitude to the effect, “Bad company corrupts good morals.” This is based on the belief that goodness is weak, that people can be easily classified as “good” or “bad,” and that there is something contagious or infectious about “bad people.” If nothing else, it certainly suggests a God who is pretty darned puny.

Butler writes of today’s saint, Bishop Liborius:

He loved retirement and prayer, never conversed with seculars but on spiritual accounts, and linked himself only with those among the clergy whose actions and words were such as might inspire him more and more with the spirit of his taste.

Read that again: never conversed with seculars….linked himself only…with the spirit of his taste.

Some years back, my friend Kathy gathered with a group of women who would get together semi-regularly for a night of fun and friendship and bonding. Kathy, using her deck of “Inner Child Tarot Cards” (based on familiar fairy tales), offered to do readings for any who wanted one. Another woman named Cassie thereupon announced to one and all that, because of her faith, she could not remain in the host’s home a moment longer if such an activity (a card reading) were to take place.

Let’s deconstruct this just a bit: Cassie carried within her a Strong Conviction, clearly. But what was the nature of her conviction? Now, no one required or expected Cassie to participate in any card readings. (As a side note, the readings were designed to help friends work on things that were concerning them–and Kathy helped people use these cards more like a Rorschach Test to unlock interior knowing than in any other way.) And no anti-Christian sentiment was even present. Cassie was not being singled out by anyone for her views. Cassie did clearly feel that card readings were “evil and bad” and that, on principle, she could not allow herself to be in physical proximity to such influences. Kathy, being polite, put away the cards, and the other women ended up without help that Kathy was uniquely gifted to offer them.

What was Cassie’s fear? Her response definitely was rooted in great anxiety that Something Bad could or would happen–so much so that she would have to gather her stuff and leave immediately unless this activity was shut down, not just for her but for everyone else! Did she believe that her God was not capable of protecting her soul? Was she afraid of the part of herself that perhaps wanted a card reading and found the internal conflict unbearable? Did she, instead, just feel like she was sick and tired of Kathy’s being popular and well-loved and comfortable within herself, and lashed out in the only way she could come up that had the veneer of being morally defensible rather than personally offensive?

I’m drawn to the more contemporary platitude, “What Would Jesus Do?” It’s hard for me to believe that Jesus would have broken up their party, frankly. One doesn’t get the reputation of being a drunkard and a glutton and of hanging with all the wrong people if you act like Cassie did. I have to believe that Jesus recognized that others who were being themselves and doing what they did could never ever threaten–let alone rob–him of whatever was true and solid within himself. And I don’t think it was because “it’s easier if you’re the Son of God” but because he knew that it was great for him to learn from others, that others could benefit from his contributions, and that nothing could wrest the truth from his soul–no one and no force has such power!!

So back to Liborius. He was made a bishop, largely on the strength of his sanctity-filled life. He became a shepherd for a lot of people under his care. Yet what wisdom could he impart to his people? Fear of others who weren’t like them? Advice to listen only to other Christians with “correct” beliefs? Counsel to live only within Christian ghettos, reinforcing religious (and likely cultural, ethnic, and national) xenophobia?

Bah. This isn’t faith. This isn’t good news. This isn’t trusting in (and reveling in!) the gift of diversity that a Creator God has for millennia flung across the face of this globe. This is fear and isolationism, stoked by a …

Oh, wait. This is about a leader from centuries past, right?