Hospitality to vulnerable strangers: The challenge of geographical distancing and a Christian response

This dissertation extends the ancient Hebrew and Christian ethic of hospitality to vulnerable strangers. The dissertation develops a mutually critical correlation between the fact of the Christian ethical centrality of hospitality and the contemporary situation of geographical and affective distancing between classes. Neither of two dominant contemporary interpretations of hospitality engages the problem of the sociological dynamics of entrenched poverty and violence currently ripping the social fabric of many urban areas in the United States. The dissertation interconnects sociological treatments of the dynamics of routinization and “de-ethicalization” of strangers with William Julius Wilson's detailed empirical and ethnographic study of North American urban poverty. The constructive argument integrates creatively Roman Catholic liberationist and communitarian resources to extend an ethic of hospitality in terms of moral vision, power, and geographical distancing between classes. The dissertation demonstrates that where Christians locate themselves is decisive for shaping basic moral vision, practicing hospitality, and learning how structural violence isolates jobless urban neighborhoods. One example of an ongoing relocation project illustrates practically how some nonpoor Christians and others can relocate into vulnerable neighborhoods to share affectively in a liberative struggle for justice and equality. Finally, the dissertation gears this liberative struggle toward a communitarian goal of “relative equality” described in Roman Catholic social thought. Relative equality helps advance an ethic of hospitality through public policies that “make room” for all Americans to participate actively in economic life and find nourishment and rest in affordable housing. The dissertation advocates two strategic policies for reinvesting in the poorest neighborhoods: (1) promoting mixed-income housing and (2) as Wilson has recommended, a national jobs program. This constructive policy proposal does not constitute a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy. Rather, it suggests one creative action and set of policies that integrate individual, institutional, and structural spheres in a dynamic collaborative approach that truly “make room” for all persons as equal members of society.