Here’s a quote from Thomas Merton, speaking of a chaplain from his school days. I suspect there is a cautionary tale here:
His greatest sermon was on the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians – and a wonderful chapter indeed. But his exegesis was a bit strange … “Buggy’s” interpretation of the word “charity” in the passage (and in the whole Bible) was that it simply stood for “all that we mean when we call a chap a ‘gentleman.'” In other words, charity means good-sportsmanship, cricket, the decent thing, wearing the right kind of clothes, using the proper spoon, not being a cad or a bounder.
There he stood, in the plain pulpit, and raised his chin above the heads of all the rows of boys in black coats, and said: “One might go through the chapter of St. Paul and simply substitute the word ‘gentleman’ for ‘charity’ wherever it occurs. ‘If I talk with the tongues of men and of angels, and be not a gentleman, I am become as sounding brass, pr a tinkling cymbal … A gentleman is patient, is kind; a gentleman envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up … A gentleman never falleth away.’ …”
And so it went. I will not accuse him of finishing the chapter with, “Now remain faith, hope and gentlemanliness …” although it was the logical term of his reasoning.
The boys listened tolerantly to these thoughts. But I think St. Paul and the twelve Apostles would have been rather surprised at the concept that Christ had been scourged and beaten by soldiers, cursed and crowned with thorns and subjected to unutterable contempt ad finally nailed to the Cross an left to bleed to death in order that we might all become gentleman.
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
robrsparks 
And yet, from the writings in the Bible, Jesus was- and acted in the manner of a gentlemen, even as they tortured his flesh. He went so far as to excuse their ignorance and pray for their forgiveness.
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I suspect Merton would agree with what you’ve said. I do. But, I think he cautions against the reduction of following Jesus to something like being gentlemanly – or any of the other things we will sometimes reduce them to. It isn’t less, but it is always more. That’s how I’m taking his point.
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Perhaps, but I think any concern he might have had was due to the class consciousness of his day. “Gentleman” did, after all, have some very specific, class-based connotations to it. Also, depending upon Merton’s specific economic views, he may just have been against the word “charity” not being used despite it being subsumed into “Gentleman.” Or some combination of two things.
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Generally, I agree. Much of his specific critique would depend on what “gentleman” meant in his context.
My primary interest here is asking how we might make similar moves in our context as what he saw his chaplain doing. That is the cautionary part of the tale when I shared the quote.
Thanks for discussing, by the way.
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