The unexpected monks

Some evangelicals turn to monasticism, suggesting unease with megachurch religion - and the stirrings of rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church.

By Molly Worthen | February 3, 2008

S.G. PRESTON IS a Knight of Prayer. Each morning at his Vancouver, Wash., home, he wakes up and prays one of the 50-odd psalms he has committed to memory, sometimes donning a Kelly green monk's habit. In Durham, N.C., Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and fellow members of Rutba House gather for common meals as well as morning and evening prayer based on the Benedictine divine office. Zach Roberts, founder of the Dogwood Abbey in Winston-Salem, meets regularly with a Trappist monk to talk about how to contemplate God. Roman Catholic monastic traditions loom large in their daily routines - yet all three men are evangelical Protestants.

The image of the Catholic monk - devoted to a cloistered life of fasting and prayer, his tonsured scalp hidden by a woolen cowl - has long provoked the disdain of Protestants. Their theological forefathers denounced the monastic life: True Christians, the 16th-century Reformers said, lived wholly in the world, spent their time reading the Bible rather than chanting in Latin, and accepted that God saved them by his grace alone, not as reward for prayers, fasting, or good works. Martin Luther called monks and wandering friars "lice placed by the devil on God Almighty's fur coat." Of all Protestants, American evangelicals in particular - activist, family-oriented, and far more concerned with evangelism than solitary study or meditative prayer - have historically viewed monks as an alien species, and a vaguely demonic one at that.

Yet some evangelicals are starting to wonder if Luther's judgment was too hasty. There is now a growing movement to revive evangelicalism by reclaiming parts of Roman Catholic tradition - including monasticism. Some 100 groups that describe themselves as both evangelical and monastic have sprung up in North America, according to Rutba House's Wilson-Hartgrove. Many have appeared within the past five years. Increasing numbers of evangelical congregations have struck up friendships with Catholic monasteries, sending church members to join the monks for spiritual retreats. St. John's Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Minnesota, now makes a point of including interested evangelicals in its summer Monastic Institute.

"I grew up in a tradition that believes Catholics are pagans," said Roberts, who was raised Southern Baptist and serves as a pastor in a Baptist church. "I never really understood that. Now I'd argue against that wholeheartedly."

In an era in which televangelists and megachurches dominate the face of American evangelicalism, offering a version of Christianity inflected by populist aesthetics and the gospel of prosperity, the rise of the New Monastics suggests that mainstream worship is leaving some people cold. Already, they are transforming evangelical religious life in surprising ways. They are post-Protestants, breaking old liturgical and theological taboos by borrowing liberally from Catholic traditions of monastic prayer, looking to St. Francis instead of Jerry Falwell for their social values, and stocking their bookshelves with the writings of medieval mystics rather than the latest from televangelist Joel Osteen.

The New Monastics come from a variety of religious backgrounds, from Presbyterian to Pentecostal. All share a common frustration with what they see as the overcommercialized and socially apathetic culture of mainstream evangelicalism. They perceive a "spiritual flabbiness in the broader church and a tendency to assimilate into a corrupt, power-hungry world," writes New Monastic author Scott Bessenecker in his recent book "The New Friars."

New Monasticism is part of a broader movement stirring at the margins of American evangelicalism: Evangelicals disillusioned with a church they view as captive to consumerism, sectarian theological debates, and social conservatism. Calling themselves the "emerging church" or "post-evangelicals," these Christians represent only a small proportion of the approximate 60 million evangelical Americans. Yet their criticisms may resonate with more mainstream believers. A recent study by Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois - one of the most influential megachurches in the nation - discovered that many churchgoers felt stalled in their faith, alienated by slick, program-driven pastors who focus more on niche marketing than cultivating contemplation. The study suggested that megachurch members know how to belt out jazzy pop hymns from their stadium seats, but they don't always know how to talk to God alone.

Many New Monastics live and worship together, and their practices sometimes resemble the communes and house churches associated with the Jesus Movement of the 1970s. Like the hippies who were "high on Jesus," New Monastics tend to favor simple living, left-leaning politics, and social activism. However, they are quick to cite the intellectual seriousness and monastic forms of prayer and study that set them apart. "I doubt most of the Jesus Movement people were reading the philosophers of their day in the way I have friends reading Zizek and Derrida," said Mark Van Steenwyk, founder of Missio Dei, a New Monastic community in Minneapolis. Van Steenwyk's group has also compiled its own breviary, a book of scriptural texts that guides the group's abbreviated version of the divine office sung in monasteries.

"The real radicals aren't quoting Che Guevara or listening to Rage Against the Machine on their iPods," writes Wilson-Hartgrove in a forthcoming book, "New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today's Church." "The true revolutionaries are learning to pray."

I their countercultural orientation, the New Monastics are true to the oldest monastic precedent. The founding father of monasticism, fourth-century Egyptian St. Anthony, gave away his worldly possessions and fled the temptations of the Roman Empire for desert solitude. Monasticism's subsequent history is a complicated story of both extreme asceticism and descent into decadence, of the Vatican's alternate promotion and suppression of charismatic holy men and women who criticized and compromised with the church hierarchy. Though by the 16th century there was much truth in the Reformers' charges of monastic depravity and corruption, the religious orders made up a diverse culture still home to rebels and critics: Martin Luther himself was an Augustinian friar.

Though New Monasticism is not entirely a product of the evangelical left - the Knights of Prayer, for example, are not interested in liberalizing movements within the church - most New Monastics are trying to create an alternative to conservative mainstream evangelicalism. They embrace ecumenism over doctrinal debate, encourage female leadership, and care far more about social justice and the environment than about the culture wars. Shane Claiborne, founder of one of the best-known New Monastic communities, the Simple Way of Philadelphia, asks that churches that invite him to speak offset the carbon emissions produced by his visit by "fasting" from fuel.

More fundamentally, New Monastics consider themselves "monks in the world." They are not interested in extreme isolation or asceticism (though there are stories about the occasional Protestant "hermit" living in the Mountain West). Nearly all have regular jobs and social lives. From the traditionalist perspective, many break the most essential monastic rule: they are married. Most groups support those who choose a celibate lifestyle, and a few have a member or two who do so, but it happens rarely.

Five centuries of Protestant heritage have alienated most New Monastics from the notion of religiously motivated celibacy. More importantly, these groups do not aim to separate themselves from society - on the contrary, they see New Monasticism as a means to better integrate core Christian values into their lives as average citizens. This is the fundamental difference between old monks and the new. New Monastics often quote one of their heroes, Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who captured the ambitions - and the ecumenical limits - of the movement when he wrote in 1935, "the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new kind of monasticism which will have nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ."

Missio Dei is one of many groups that have deliberately made their homes in struggling urban neighborhoods. In addition to their routine of prayer and worship, they serve vegan meals to people on the street and offer hospitality to those who need it. Van Steenwyk sees hypocrisy in churches that preach social justice from the pulpit, but ignore their struggling neighbors for the rest of the week. "You can be involved with your church, but never really experience brokenness in another human being. Jesus lived with other people," he said. "So we ask, what are the resources throughout church history that can equip us to live life that way?"

Serving the poor is not a new impulse among evangelicals, but serious contemplation is. American culture has never placed a high priority on solitude, and historically, self-denial has gone hand in hand with bustling capitalist productivity, not contemplation (though the Puritans did balance their active lives with a heavy dose of journaling and soul-searching). America has produced a few geniuses of contemplative life - Henry Thoreau and Emily Dickinson come to mind - but we have no indigenous contemplative tradition comparable to that of Catholic Europe or Buddhist Japan. Yet contemplation is the heart of what it means to be a monk: the root of the word, monos, means "alone" in Greek.

Evangelicals have been tentatively exploring that side of Christian tradition since at least the 1978 publication of "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster, a Quaker theologian who recast fasting and meditative prayer for an evangelical audience. His book sold nearly 2.5 million copies and launched a cottage industry of evangelical contemplative literature - a phrase that, 30 years ago, was a contradiction in terms. Some evangelicals made pilgrimages to the handful of older ecumenical monastic communities abroad, such as the Taizé Community (founded in Burgundy, France, in 1940), and the Iona Community, founded in 1938 at St. Columba's landing place in the Inner Hebrides. They brought back what they learned, and have tried to make it their own.

N

ot all of their co-religionists, however, are pleased with these new spiritual ventures. Van Steenwyk received e-mails from friends concerned about his "fringe activities," including accusations that he'd "gotten into bed with the apostate Catholic Church." Deborah Dombrowski, along with her husband, David, founded Lighthouse Trails Publishing and Research Project in 2002 to counteract the "infiltration" of evangelicalism by "mystical spirituality." She fears that New Monastics' contemplative prayer is no different from Eastern meditation, and their openness to Roman Catholicism is only the beginning: "where it's going is an interspiritual, interfaith, one-world religion, where it all blends together."

Though many Roman Catholics have mixed feelings about evangelicals who adopt a hodgepodge of watered-down monastic practices and call themselves "monks," some are supportive of New Monasticism. They view the movement as part of a wider rapprochement between Protestant evangelicals and Rome. A half-century of theological shifts on both sides of the divide - Vatican II's liberalizing impact on the Catholic Church, and the waning of Protestant fundamentalism - as well as the decline of traditional ethnic resentments and an emerging pattern of political cooperation have all prepared the way. Father Jay Scott Newman, a priest in South Carolina, said that the New Monastic movement suggests a profound shift in evangelical identity.

"Until very recently, an evangelical of whatever stripe included in his self-definition not just opposition to, but violent rejection of everything Catholic," he said. "That's no longer true{hellip}that's dramatic, revolutionary, and, I think, lasting."

To some Catholic observers, it is no shock that evangelicals have begun to feel the lack of organized contemplative life and yearn for a bond with religious tradition - they're only surprised that it took them so long. "Monasticism has been such a powerful thing in the West and the East for so long that it would be very peculiar if it didn't, at one point or another, erupt in evangelical circles," said William Shea, director of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross.

"It's just too long, too deep, too creative a tradition{hellip}You could call this movement ersatz monasticism, but I would hold back and ask, where might this lead?"

Molly Worthen, a New Haven-based writer, is working on a book about evangelical intellectual life.

Stanley Hauerwas on Bonhoeffer, Truth, and Politics

H/T: inhabitatiodei

58 MINUTES, YOUTUBE

LTJohnson on Sobrino, CDF, Christology...

Great post From dotCommonweal

Posted by Robert P. Imbelli


In the current Commonweal, Luke Timothy Johnson revisits the notification of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on aspects of the Christology of Jon Sobrino, S.J.

Johnson’s article, “Human and Divine: Did Jesus Have Faith?”, is a typical example of Johnson’s informed scholarship and openness to dialogue. In many ways his tone and the principles he enunciates remind me of those espoused by the Catholic Common Ground Initiative. He seeks to understand the legitimate concerns that animate different positions.

Such sympathetic reading does not prevent Johnson from taking a stand where he things the positions he discusses are inadequate. Thus, with regard the CDF, he doesn’t hesitate to state:

The CDF places itself in self-conscious continuity with the theological heritage of earlier centuries. It thinks of “faith” primarily in terms of “belief”-that is, as a cognitive more than a volitional response. It privileges ontological categories for expressing Christian confession. It favors traditional formulas that can be treated as axioms from which one can argue deductively. Its understanding of truth tends toward the propositional, and it is suspicious of theological wording that does not replicate the accepted propositions precisely. And although it pays lip service to the critical study of Scripture, its use of the Gospels is resolutely precritical. It reads the New Testament exclusively through the lens of developed doctrine, and uses the New Testament exclusively as a repository of support for doctrinal propositions. In a word, it continues as if nothing in the theological world had changed.

And, with regard Sobrino’s view, he writes:

the CDF can find a legitimate (if minor) complaint at Sobrino’s description of Jesus as “a believer like ourselves,” for Paul makes clear that it is through Jesus’ “yes” that we are empowered to say “yes” in obedient faith to God: “therefore, the Amen from us goes through him to God for glory” (2 Cor 1:20). For Paul and for Hebrews, it is not that Jesus “has faith just like ours,” but rather that, through the power of his spirit, we can “have faith like that of Jesus” (Rom 3:26). Jesus is the model of faith, but more than that, he is the “pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Heb 12:2), the unique Son who accomplished what we could not on our own, because he was fully defined by the words with which he came into the world: “I have come to do your will, O God” (Heb 10:7).

On one point, however, I think Johnson nods. Regarding the (admittedly) challenging dogmatic principle of the “communicatio idiomatum,” he says:

The residual power of monophysitism is found in the peculiar principle called communicatio idiomatum (“exchange of characteristics”), which serves to compromise the “unmixedness” of the two natures in Christ by asserting the legitimacy of ascribing the characteristics of one nature to the other. But while all would recognize the value of asserting that Mary is the “Mother of God”-the first and most important instance of the principle-it is, in fact, a principle that can be dangerous when used carelessly, as it would be, for example, if one asserted, without careful qualification, that God was born in Nazareth or that Jesus created heaven and earth. Is such language appropriate to the exuberance of prayer and piety? Yes. But sober theological discourse requires greater circumspection.

Though one may hear in various quarters that the principle asserts that one may ascribe “the characteristics of one nature to the other” (in Johnson’s words), this is a faulty understanding of the principle. Rather, it contends that one may ascribe the properties of each nature to the one ontological person who is both divine and human. But the natures remain distinct even in their hypostatic union — as Chalcedon insists.

There is much more matter for considered reflection in this fine article: the latest occasion for gratitude to the judicious Johnson.

Great review of what seems like an interesting book...

"I'm lost in admiration for Lamin Sanneh's magnificent study of world Christianity, for the work's geographical scope and historical sweep, and for the breadth of the author's learning. Throughout, Sanneh asks the critical question: how can we reconceive Christianity in a way that frees it from its European and imperial contexts, permitting the faith to adapt to the kaleidoscopic realities of different societies around the globe. This is a splendid achievement." --Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom and The New Faces of Christianity



By Matt K. "happy reader" (Michigan, USA)

A spate of recent works on "world (or global) Christianity," including Philip Jenkins' widely read "The Next Christendom" (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007), have drawn needed attention to one of the most striking developments of the past century: the rise of a "Post-Western Christianity" which is now firmly rooted and growing dramatically in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

In his recent book, "Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity," Lamin Sanneh sets out to describe some of the "pillars" or roots of this worldwide Christian awakening, which he calls the "Third Awakening" (p. 274). It is a wide-ranging study that chronicles the fascinating, if somewhat messy, story of Christianity's naturalization (or "inculturation") and growth among various peoples throughout its history. It is the story of Christianity becoming "the most diverse and pluralist religion in the world." To tell the story, Sanneh focuses on certain themes ("pillars") that define "world Christianity," and then illustrates them in multiple ways, drawing out interesting implications along the way.

It is an eye-opening study that contains fascinating, and sometimes myth-busting insights about our understanding of the nature of the Christian religion, our understanding of Western missions, and the role of local agency and native resources in the spread of Christianity. Anyone interested in the worldwide Christian movement or current events would greatly benefit from Professor Sanneh's thorough study.

Let me offer one small warning: someone reading "Disciples of All Nations" without a decent background in the history of Christian missions may well find this book overwhelming. Sanneh has such a remarkable breadth of knowledge and draws his examples from such a variety of contexts that I sometimes struggled to stay with him. At times, Sanneh rather abruptly turns to particular historical examples that feel more like extended rabbit trails than helpful contributions to the flow of his argument. The book would have been much strengthened by clearer organization. Still, in spite of this, I warmly recommend the book.

One of Sanneh's dominant themes that emerges again and again is that Christianity has a "peculiar temper"(p. 12) acquired through its long encounter with a dizzying diversity of cultural, political and social contexts. "The characteristic pattern of Christianity's engagement with the languages and cultures of the world has God at the center of the universe of cultures, implying equality among cultures and the...relative status of cultures vis a vis the truth of God. No culture is so advanced or so superior that it can claim exclusive access or advantage to the truth of God, and none so marginal...that it can be excluded. All have merit, none is indispensable" (p. 25).

As such, Christianity both absorbs and transforms the cultures it encounters. It spreads by making local appropriations and adaptations with local cultural resources, while investing those preexisting materials with new meaning and purpose. All that is to say, one reason for Christianity's appeal as a world religion is that it is a "translated and translating" religion, a religion with an "amazing power of adaptation" which enables it to speak to the heart of human beings in exceedingly diverse historical and cultural situations.

If this "peculiar temper" of Christianity is one of the faith's greatest strengths, it has too often been hindered by notions of cultural superiority, and connections to political power. Sanneh shows, again through a multitude of examples, the "heavy price" that has often been paid when Christianity's "intrinsic character as a worldwide religion... was framed in the uniform tenets of Christendom," and thus used to justify exploitation and domination (p. 54).

In the West, this is an often-told story: the story of missionary complicity in colonial imperialism. Sanneh is not shy to point out many examples of this. But, he is quick to add, though western scholarship and popular opinion would have us believe otherwise, that is not the whole story.

Sanneh writes, "I am urging a revisionist history without claiming that missions and colonialism were not in cahoots." So while acknowledging the colonial connections and mindset of many missions, Sanneh contends that "the frontier experience... ultimately transformed missions' agenda and modus operandi," so that many missionaries repudiated their ties to the colonial powers and worked for local empowerment in the cause of Christ. There were many shining examples of this throughout missions history. Missions saw increasingly that though the Gospel was a universal message meant to flourish in any and every cultural milieu, the "crushing burden" of "Europeandom" had muted the Gospel and robbed it of its power.

Moreover, wether consciously or unconsciously, missionaries who translated the Bible into local vernacular languages, and who preached the essentials of Christianity, often sowed the seeds of local empowerment that contributed to the undermining of colonial domination.

Bible translation, it turned out, was a great act of cultural affirmation and empowerment. Bible translation work also produced grammars and lexicons for languages that otherwise might have disappeared.

Though Sanneh devotes a great deal of attention to foreign missions, that is not his ultimate focus; to focus on Western missions would be to misread Sanneh. Throughout "Disciples of All Nations," he explicitly shifts the focus from expatriate initiative to local reception, from foreign control to native direction. This is another crucial and convincing aspect of Sanneh's argument.

Sanneh claims that scholarship related to the growth of Christianity in Africa and the colonial era often makes the same mistake the colonial powers made: they ignore the vital, creative, energetic response and involvement of local people themselves.

However, Sanneh contends that this one-sided picture of native passivity in the face of missionary hegemony is far wide of the mark. It soon became clear that while foreigners may have been the initial bearers of Christian teaching to parts of Africa, Africans had taken the ball for themselves and run with it.

In the last chapter of the book, Sanneh points out a similar Chinese appropriation of Christianity which took place in very different circumstances. In its paranoid repression of Christianity as a "foreign religion," the communist revolution in China (itself the bearer of a foreign ideology - Marxism) ironically cleared the decks for the thoroughly Chinese Christian awakening that is currently underway in China (ch. 8).

Returning to Africa, it became clear that Africans wanted Jesus, they wanted the Bible, they wanted healing and miracles and power over evil in the spirit realm (things they found ample evidence for in the Bible), but not the European civilization that was supposed to accompany Christianity (something the Bible seemed to oppose at many points). Sanneh provides a cogent summary: "It is remarkable the extent to which colonial co-option weakened Christianity by presenting it as a freshly minted European creed. Africans rejected that view by circulating the religion as local currency" (p. 161).

On the one hand, then, African Christians brilliantly separated the Christian kernel from the colonial husk, and made Christianity their own. In so doing, they often recaptured the spirit of primal apostolic Christianity against its secularized European counterpart. On the other hand, this story illustrates that Christianity itself, with its "peculiar temper" refused to be domesticated. It is almost as if Christianity itself was just waiting to shake off its colonial baggage and break out in fresh ways in these new contexts.

In the end, by putting the Christian movement into the broader context which I have attempted to summarize above, Lamin Sanneh has convincingly shown that the present growth of world Christianity, while unprecedented in its scale, is not at all out of character. By carefully demonstrating the "peculiar temper" of Christianity, the two-sided process of Christian expansion (missionary outreach and local appropriation), and the "serial nature" of Christian history, Sanneh has helped us to see again that Christianity is a dynamic world religion, a religion able to flourish and be "at home" in a wide variety of cultural, linguistic, social and political contexts.

This may be surprising in certain quarters, for example, where the Western pedigree of Christianity has been long assumed, or where the supernaturalism of Christianity has been long assumed discredited. But this surprise may well say more about the cultural or ideological captivity of these quarters than it does about the true nature of the faith.

Fresh posts at NonviolentJesus

Jesus for President - Politics for Ordinary Radicals

Chapter/Section Summaries

Section 1
A good Creation of love and beauty takes a turn for the worse, landing it in a murderous chaos. What to do? Flood it and start fresh? Build a tower that reaches heaven? Appoint an adventurous elderly couple to lead the people out of the nations to the Promised Land? Something has to save humanity from themselves …

Section 2
The construction of a set-apart people into a living temple of blessing is going so-so. The solution: God puts skin on to show the world what love looks like. But here’s the catch: the Prince of Peace is born as a refugee in the middle of a genocide and is rescued from the trash bin of imperial executions to stand at the pinnacle of this peculiar people. A strange way to start a revolution …

Section 3
Flags on altars, images of the gods on money … Caesar is colonizing our imaginations. What has happened to the slaughtered Lamb, the Prince of Peace? There seems to be another gospel spreading across the empire, and two Kingdoms are colliding. What is a Jesus-follower to do when the empire gets baptized?

Section 4
Snapshots of political imagination … the question is not are we political, but how are we political. Not are we relevant, but are we peculiar? The answer lies in how we embody what we believe. Our greatest challenge is to maintain the distinctiveness of our faith in a world gone mad. And all of creation waits, groans, for a people who live God’s dream with fresh imagination.

Ten propositions on political theology, by Kim Fabricius

[Marc Chagall]













...

8. The flipside of an apolitical church is a sacralised state. This is “the Constantinian trap” (Lesslie Newbigin). And a sacralised state easily becomes a demonic state. The cross is draped with the flag, and discipleship is absorbed into citizenship. The German Christians are the paradigm nationalist idolaters; history repeats itself in the farce of the Religious Right. “Never was anything in this world loved too much,” wrote Thomas Traherne, “but many things have been loved in a false way, and all in too short a measure.” The true love of ecumenism trumps the sentimental love of patriotism.

9. The church’s political witness ends in the public square, but it begins around a table. At worship the church bows neither to Caesar, nor to Mammon or Mars, but to the crucified and risen One. At worship the Spirit begins to straighten our disordered desires, as we hear an alternative narrative to manifest destiny, and learn an alternative praxis to Realpolitik. Yet worship can be a bolthole rather than a sign of reconciliation and resistance. “Where the body is not properly discerned, Paul reminds the Corinthians, consumption of the Eucharist can make you sick or kill you (1 Cor. 11:30). This might explain the condition of some of our churches” (William T. Cavanaugh).

10. The Apocalypse of John is “a visionary theological and poetic representation of the spiritual environment within which the church perennially finds itself living and struggling” (Richard B. Hays). It is a samizdat text of protest to the pretensions of power, a warning against complacency, and a call to discernment in reading the signs of the times. The powerful inevitably twist it into a self-serving mandate for accumulation and aggression; only those who long for justice and peace see that the hermeneutical key is the slaughtered Lamb who gently roars. Here is the text for a political theology that begins to re-imagine and re-shape the world in anticipation of the parousia of Christ.

Post-9/11 Postscript
In Apocalypse Now: Reflections on Faith in a Time of Terror (2005), Duncan Forrester proposes an interesting juxtaposition: on the one hand, the statement of support for the Kaiser published by a group of ninety-three leading German intellectuals, including theologians, on the day the First World War broke out; on the other hand, the public “Letter from America: What We Are Fighting For” in support of President Bush’s “war on terror,” signed by sixty prominent American intellectuals, including theologians, five months after 9/11. Both letters are so theologically thin, however, that they amount to pom-pom propaganda for imperial states. The first letter awoke Karl Barth from his Schleiermacherian slumbers, the second letter aroused Stanley Hauerwas and Paul Griffiths to a polemical response. But by and large the people of Germany and the US sleepwalked into slaughter. Moral: When political theology is faithful, expect it to be critical and subversive; when it is unfaithful, expect it to be ideological and fatal.

Labels: ethics, Kim Fabricius, politics

posted by Ben Myers at 8:00 AM
35 Comments:

The Nation State Project, Schizophrenic Globalization, and the Eucharist: An Interview with William T. Cavanaugh

Follow up to recent Pullman post

The comments after the post are interesting, especially this one from Kim Fabricius:

...You are right, Matt, about the cultural and theological illiteracy of our times which the New Atheists exploit and promote, but the answer is not ecclesiastical denial and meanmindedness, hysteria and picket lines. Rather Christians should own up to the truth in the diatribes of the cultured despisers of religion, especially when it hurts, and do that most counter-cultural thing, publicly repent; point out their half-truths and ignorance, and substantiate those charges of dishonesty; and, above all, proclaim the word of the cross with the power of weakness, not engage in ecclesiastical triumphalism.

In other words, we should do what Dostoevsky did in The Brothers Karamazov. I'd like to see Scorsese take on as a project that greatest of novels on rebellion and faith. That would be a filmic narrative that would piss off New Atheist and Christian right alike - and thus show itself to be right on the money.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007 6:38:00 PM

Great Annie Dillard quote

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”

—Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), pp. 40-41.

Old Nobodaddy, Christians and The Golden Compass

From: Faith&Theology [blog]

...[Pullman:]“My books are about killing God.” I just hope that The Golden Compass faithfully executes the deicide that the author so imaginatively conceived and elegantly crafted in the novel.

For the death of this God would actually do the church a great service. He is the god Pullman’s mentor and fellow iconoclast William Blake, whose 250th birthday we celebrated last Wednesday, called Old Nobodaddy, who bears as little relation to the God Jesus called Abba as the straw deity that the New Atheists so tediously torch. This god, who is finally defeated in the third book of the trilogy, is a bearded old fart “of terrifying decrepitude, of a face sunken in wrinkles, of trembling hands and a mumbling mouth and rheumy eyes.” He is the object more of ridicule than indignation (one thinks of the satire on idolatry in Isaiah 44).

The real target of Pullman’s animus is not this impotent wretch but his grand inquisitors who deploy religion in the (dis)service of control and repression, the ecclesiastical authority so savagely pilloried by Blake in “The Garden of Love”:

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.

As Rowan Williams, a great fan of Pullman, has written: “What the story makes you see is that if you believe in a mortal God, who can win and lose his power, your religion will be saturated with anxiety – and so with violence. In a sense, you could say that a mortal God needs to be killed.”

But the narrative does more than smash empty idols, expose institutional hypocrisy, and condemn vice – “cruelty, intolerance, zealotry, fanaticism … well, who could quarrel with that?” asks Pullman – it inculcates what are decidedly Christian values. Pullman’s coming-of-age story is articulated in terms of growth in wisdom. Here is the winsome heroine, Lyra, reflecting at the very end of the trilogy on selflessness and truthfulness, the virtues it takes to create anything good, beautiful, and enduring: “We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and brave and patient, and we’ve got to study and think, and work hard, all of us, in our different worlds, and then we’ll build.” If such values are indicative of a “pernicious atheist agenda,” bring on the AOB.

Okay, Pullman’s onslaught is unrelenting, his didacticism can get the better of his art, and for a writer so knowledgeable about a literary tradition steeped in Christian faith – not only Blake and, of course, Milton (“his dark materials” comes from Paradise Lost), but also, among others, Edmund Spenser, George Herbert, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Emily Dickinson – he can be theologically quite obtuse, if not without flashes of insight.

But that’s not the point. The point, for the church, is the embarrassing mini Magisterium of Christian Pharisees and Philistines who prove the point Pullman is making. And the ultimate irony: there is nothing like a good boycott to market a product. Popcorn, anyone?

Richard Sipe's website: "Priests, Celibacy and Sexuality"

Picture - Michael Morgenstern

Very Informative site. Worth bookmarking

What Are Our Voices For?

More wisdom from NonViolentJesus

"And woe unto you if you are torturing your fellow human being. Woe unto you if you are getting rich by providing material support, service, or assistance to the purveyors of torture, for how does it profit a person to gain the whole world but lose his or her soul? Woe unto the politicians who have abused our nation’s fear to find support for torture and who change the definition of torture in order to say with a straight face, 'Americans don’t torture'. Woe unto the politicians who have not spoken out loudly enough to condemn torture. Woe to the religious communities and leaders who have been silent. Woe unto you, for you will have to go to bed each night knowing that you have sinned against humanity and against God." - Ben Daniel

Listen to the words of a soldier trying to follow his faith:

Specialist Joshua Casteel - Listen to the audio clip (or download)

warcomeshome.org


Where is the leadership which should expect from bishops, the shepherds of the people of God? Justice must be enthroned - this is the work of Jesus. 40 years of hermaneutics, Vatican II, and all the rest, and not a single forthright criticism of a war that they admit was in no way justified by just war principles, not as long as it really matters - while the war is in progress.

"For too long the language of morality and sin has been commandeered by those among us who think the primary goal of religion is to regulate human intimacy. People like you and me—that is to say, thoughtful people of faith whose souls are inclined to the work of making the world a better place—we don’t want our religious faithfulness to be confused with prudishness, so we shy away from anything that might look like a pounded pulpit or that might smell like brimstone.

"Brothers and sisters, dear friends, when it comes to torture, we need to lose that inhibition, because how can torture be anything but immoral? And if we cannot condemn as sin that which truly is immoral, then what might our God-given voices be for?Brothers and sisters, dear friends, when it comes to torture, we need to lose that inhibition, because how can torture be anything but immoral? And if we cannot condemn as sin that which truly is immoral, then what might our God-given voices be for?" - Ben Daniel, speech at the headquarters of a company that renders "enemy combatants" to be tortured for the edification and career advancement of American politicians.

Indeed, what is the purpose of spiritual life if it can't be moved by the plight of our brothers and sisters and we are condemned to live in a fairy land of Rapture? For what has God given us minds and hands and hearts if they cannot be moved by a world of starvation caused directly by the corporations that coddle us with obscene and undeserved comfort? Our hearts were not given us so that we could distract them with brainless nonsense while the world burns.

"I am not schooled in national security or in international politics. I am a pastor, and I wouldn’t be a very good one if the promotion of social righteousness were not part of my ministry. What I know about torture is this: it’s not just ineffective, and unpatriotic and illegal, and dangerous. To torture someone is immoral because it is cruel and it is unfair. Torture uses punishment to determine guilt rather than using guilt to determine punishment. Torture desecrates the image of God that is common to all humanity. Torture is a sin." - Ben Daniel

It is as much a mortal sin as abortion, though you don't hear Catholic bishops shaking that tree very often. They have more important things to deal with than the torture of human beings.

"And woe unto you if you are torturing your fellow human being. Woe unto you if you are getting rich by providing material support, service, or assistance to the purveyors of torture, for how does it profit a person to gain the whole world but lose his or her soul? Woe unto the politicians who have abused our nation’s fear to find support for torture and who change the definition of torture in order to say with a straight face, 'Americans don’t torture'. Woe unto the politicians who have not spoken out loudly enough to condemn torture. Woe to the religious communities and leaders who have been silent. Woe unto you, for you will have to go to bed each night knowing that you have sinned against humanity and against God." - Ben Daniel

And you will have to sleep in the sin your silence has nurtured.

"The final word belongs to grace. Grace enables and empowers us to change. The good news is that no matter what the propagators of hatred and fear may tell us, we can reject the sin of torture and so can they. We can just say no. There remains time for the amendment of our national character. By grace we can affirm the sanctity of each human life. By grace we can refuse to live under the illusionary comfort of security that is conceived in cruelty and born of brutality. By grace we may live moral and upright lives." - Ben Daniel

Wake from sin and speak. It is the only true security.

posted by Boyd at 1:05 PM | 0 comments links to this post

ON THE LINE

What happens when a group of activists, priests, celebrities, and students risk arrest to protest U.S. foreign policy in Latin America?

ON THE LINE is an inside look at the people behind one of the largest nonviolent movements in America today: the movement to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC, a U.S. Army school that trains Latin American soldiers. In a world where politics, passion, and Constitutional rights collide, protesters discuss their activism, the dark side of U.S. foreign policy, and the challenges of protesting since 9/11.

The principal cast includes:

* Martin Sheen, actor
* Susan Sarandon, actor
* Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Founder of School of the Americas Watch
* John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman
* Bob Barr, political analyst and former US Congressman
* Gerry Weber, ACLU-Georgia

Spe Salvi a 'Greatest Hits' collection of core Ratzinger ideas

Brilliant report by JohnAllenJr.:

By John L Allen Jr Daily
Created Nov 30 2007 - 07:44

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York

If one were to compile a list of the core concerns of Joseph Ratzinger, his idees fixes over almost sixty years now of theological reflection, it might look something like this:

• Truth is not a limit upon freedom, but the condition of freedom reaching its true potential;
• Reason and faith need one another – faith without reason becomes extremism, while reason without faith leads to despair;
• The dangers of the modern myth of progress, born in the new science of the 16th century and applied to politics through the French Revolution and Marxism;
• The impossibility of constructing a just social order without reference to God;
• The urgency of separating eschatology, the longing for a “new Heaven and a new earth,” from this-worldly politics;
• Objective truth as the only real limit to ideology and the blind will to power.

All those themes take center stage once again in the encyclical Spe Salvi, released today in Rome. In that sense, one could argue that the text represents a sort of “Greatest Hits” collection of Ratzinger’s most important ideas, developed over a lifetime, and now presented in the form of an encyclical in his role as Pope Benedict XVI.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, lent credence to this reading in a Rome news conference this morning, saying that in Spe Salvi “we see very clearly the hand and the style of the author,” describing the encyclical as “absolutely and personally” the pope’s own thought. (In fact, Lombardi said, papal advisers are working on the draft of another encyclical, this one on social themes, and were "surprised" that in the meantime Benedict produced an encyclical more or less entirely on his own.)

One should hasten to add, of course, that Benedict himself would not really see these as “his” ideas, but rather as foundational principles of 2,000 years of Christian teaching and tradition. Yet few figures over the last 60 years have articulated these points with the force, or the political and ecclesiastical consequence, of Joseph Ratzinger.

In essence, the message of Spe Salvi can be expressed this way: If human beings place their hopes for justice, redemption and a better life exclusively in this-worldly forces, whether it’s science, politics, or anything else, they’re lost. The carnage of the 20th century, the pope suggests, illustrates the folly of investing human ideology and technology with messianic expectations.

Instead, ultimate hope – what the pope describes as “the great hope” – lies only in God, because only through the moral and spiritual wisdom acquired through faith can technology and political structures be directed towards ends which are truly human.

As early as 1977, in his book Eschatologie: Tod und ewiges Leben (“Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life”), which Ratzinger once described as his “most thorough work,” the future pope argued that under the impact of Marx, mistaken notions of the Kingdom of God were threatening the integrity of the Christian message. When people confuse the gospel with a political message, he wrote, the distinctively Christian element is lost, “leaving behind nothing but a deceptive surrogate.”

In his 1987 book Church, Ecumenism and Politics, Ratzinger returned to the theme: “Where there is no dualism,” he wrote, meaning a strong distinction between eschatology and politics, “there is totalitarianism.”

The fear that politics could replace the Last Judgment and the afterlife as the focus of Christian hope was also perhaps Ratzinger’s deepest underlying objection to liberation theology, the movement in Latin America in the 1960s, 70s and 80s that sought to align the church with progressive efforts for social change.

Thus it is no surprise in Spe Salvi to see Benedict XVI drawing a sharp distinction between Jesus and social revolutionaries of his era such as Spartacus and Bar-Kochba, nor warning once more that Marx’s “fundamental error” of materialism led to “a trail of appalling destruction.”

The necessary link between reason and faith is also a favorite preoccupation of the pope; it was the heart, for example, of his now-famous lecture at the University of Regensburg in Bavaria on Sept. 12, 2006, that touched off protest in the Islamic world because of Benedict’s citation of a 14th century Byzantine emperor concerning Muhammad.

“Reason needs faith if it is to be completely itself,” Benedict writes in Spe Salvi. “Reason and faith need one another in order to fulfill their true nature and their mission.”

Throughout the 19,000-word encyclical, there are several other vintage Ratzinger touches.

For example, Ratzinger has long pressed the need to re-present basic concepts of the faith to a modern world he regards as jaded by a sort of weary familiarity with Christianity. Thus in Spe Salvi, we find him writing: “We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God.”

Likewise, both as a personal theologian and as pope, Benedict has long said that he has no objection to the theory of evolution as such, but is alarmed by a radically materialistic philosophy that would see human beings as exclusively the random product of an evolutionary process.

“It is not the law of matter and of evolution that have the final say,” he writes in the new encyclical, "but reason, will, love – a Person … Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love.”

Many observers have noted that sometimes Benedict the Supreme Pastor and Joseph Ratzinger the exacting theologian sit in uneasy tension with one another, and those contrasting elements of his personality are clearly visible once again in Spe Salvi.

At times, Benedict can be almost poetic, as in this passage attempting to express the notion of eternal life: “It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love,” he writes, “a moment in which time – the before and after – no longer exists.”

In other passages, however, Spe Salvi can read like an essay one might find in a journal of theology of Biblical studies. Benedict critiques an ecumenical translation of the New Testament, for example, one approved by the German Catholic bishops, for offering what he regards as an overly subjective reading of the Greek word hypostasis. The pope prefers the term "substance" arguing that what's meant is not an inner conviction about the faith but rather its objective foundation. Benedict also spends considerable time reflecting on two pairs of Greek terms: hypostasis/hyparchonta and hypomone/hypostole.

Benedict can also be surprisingly ecumenical in his erudition; to correct the translation mentioned above, the pope cites approvingly the work of a liberal German Protestant exegete, Helmut Köster. (Köster, by the way, was a student of Rudolf Bultmann, the liberal exegete who developed the idea of “demythologizing” the Bible, and a longtime bête noire of Ratzinger’s.)

Benedict is, by his own admission, a convinced Augustinian, and no one could miss that in Spe Salvi: Augustine is cited no fewer than 13 times, often at some length.

Finally, Benedict the intellectual is also a man deeply respectful of pious popular tradition, and this too shines through Spe Salvi. For example, towards the end of the encyclical, Benedict recommends a return to the custom of “offering up” one’s small daily sufferings in prayer to God, writing that even if there were “exaggerations and perhaps unhealthy applications” of the idea, it still offers Christians a way to insert small inconveniences “into Christ’s great compassion.”

Benedict XVI is a classic music lover who, at age 80, still enjoys passing time at a piano keyboard. To evoke another musical metaphor, Spe Salvi amounts to Ratzingerian “variations on a theme,” reworking and refining key leitmotifs of his thought. The question is whether the new score in Spe Salvi will also catch the ears of those who, to date, have not yet started humming the tune.

Western Christians can learn much from Eastern Christians, says pope

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christianity is not and never has been a uniquely European phenomenon, and Christians of the West can learn much from the cultural expressions of Eastern Christians, especially those of the early church, Pope Benedict XVI said.

"Today it is a common opinion that Christianity is a European religion that exported European culture to other countries, but the reality is much more complicated and complex," he said Nov. 28 at his weekly general audience.

"It is not only that the roots of the Christian religion are found in Jerusalem, in the Old Testament, in the Semitic world and Christianity is constantly nourished by these Old Testament roots," he said, "but the expansion of Christianity in the first centuries" went simultaneously West and East.

In Europe, but also throughout the Middle East and over to India, "Christianity with a different culture was formed," he said. Christians in the East lived the faith "with their own expressions and cultural identities," demonstrating "the cultural plurality of the one faith from the beginning."

With fewer than 8,000 people present, the weekly gathering was held inside the Vatican audience hall, offering greater protection from the cold and wind for the pope, whose voice was hoarse.

The pope's main audience talk focused on the life, teaching and poetry of St. Ephraem the Syrian, a fourth-century deacon.

"He remained a deacon throughout his life and embraced virginity and poverty," the pope said.


Pope Benedict, whose new encyclical on the virtue of hope was to be released at the Vatican Nov. 30, said St. Ephraem was a model of the Christian virtues: "faith, hope -- this hope that allows us to live poor and as virgins in this world, placing all one's hope in the Lord -- and, finally, charity to the point of self-giving in the care of victims of the plague," which he contracted and which caused his death.

In his hymns and poetry, St. Ephraem offered theological reflections using images "taken from nature, daily life and the Bible."

His use of song, especially liturgical song, the pope said, was an effective means of religious education because "precisely by singing, celebrating, praising God, we see not only the beauty, but the truth of the faith and we encounter the truth in person, Christ."

St. Ephraem's reflections on God the creator, he said, are very important.

The saint taught that "nothing in creation is isolated. The world, alongside the Scriptures, is God's Bible. By using his freedom in an erroneous way, man upsets the order of the cosmos," the pope said.

- - -

Editor's Note: The Vatican text of the pope's remarks in English is available online at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20071128_en.html.

Mindblowing..."Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace"

Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace (Theology in Global Perspective) (Paperback)

By Mary J. Miller (Iowa and Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

"This book may take our breath away." So states the cover blurb from Walter Brueggemann on "Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace," released on April 17, 2007 by Daniel G. Groody. The basic premise is, metaphorically, that the global family has booked passage and is now aboard the ship of globalization and there is no turning back to the shore. The question we must ask ourselves, as passengers on this ship, is, "who is at the helm and where are we going?" As Gustavo Gutierrez quips, "Being against globalization is like being against electricity." We can't stop the ship, and one would question the wisdom of wanting to, but the issues of who's driving and where will we end up are legitimate.

The book begins by offering an overview of the dual nature of globalization--its inherent propensity for good, such as the triumphs of technology, and for ill, such as the tragedy of poverty. Perhaps more importantly, chapter one details where we have sailed on this ship so far. This chapter seeks to give a realistic picture of the world today and paints that picture by using the most current statistics available. These statistics were gathered from sources such as the World Bank, the United Nations annual Human Development and World Development reports, and the World Institute for Development Economic Research. It is staggering to learn that 19 percent of the global population lives on less than $1 per day, 48 percent live on less than $2 per day, 75 percent live on less than $10 per day, and, according to the World Bank, two-thirds of the population of the planet lives in poverty. The weight of these income disparities is compounded when one looks at the unequal distribution of wealth and our disordered spending patterns. According to an article in the December 2006 issue of "The Economist," half of all wealth is held by only 2 percent of the world's adults. The world spends almost as much money on toys and games as the poorest 20 percent of the population earns in a year, and four times as much on alcohol as on international development aid. The troubling area of military spending is also addressed.

The world picture, from the perspective of poverty and need is indeed bleak, but Professor Groody does not leave us in the grip of its reality with no hope. He is convinced that, while fully aware of the abuses committed in the name of religion throughout history, the gift theology can bring to the process of globalization is a navigation system that has the potential to guide us to a place of solidarity and peace, where if globalization is left to itself or to those leaders who are only motivated by profit we may run aground on the icebergs of greed. As Groody notes, we are doing theological reflection all the time, but he argues that to find a place of human solidarity we must undergo a conversion from "money-theism" to monotheism. The remaining eight chapters of the book deal with how the various sub-disciplines of theology inform the process of globalization.

* Chapter two details the core narratives of the Bible--the Narrative of the Empire, the Narrative of the Poor, the Narrative of Yahweh, the Narrative of Idolatry, and the Narrative of the Gospel, integrating them all with the Narrative of the Passover.
* Chapter three challenges idolatry and excessive wealth through the words of the early church writers.
* Chapter four lays out an overview of Catholic social teaching with an acronym ("A God of Life") that provides a framework on which to hang the basic tenets. There are also several very useful charts that detail the documents of the universal and regional churches by categories of year, author, context, and key concept.
* Chapter five consists of a short section (five or six pages) on the basic social teachings of each of the major, non-Judeo-Christian, world religions--Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Bahai Faith, and African Indigenous religions. Here we see that social justice is not unique to Christianity.
* In chapter six the lives of five contemporary models of justice are briefly chronicled: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, and Oscar Romero. Attention is paid especially to their foundational experiences, the major metaphor of their life, their operative theology, and their core contribution to justice.
* Chapter seven reflects on God through the perspective of the poor by looking at liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor. This chapter is an especially helpful read for anyone who wishes to understand what is meant by these two terms and the position of the Vatican on liberation theology. The global perspective is readily apparent again in this chapter as attention is paid to Black, Hispanic, Feminist, and Asian liberation theology.
* Chapter eight concerns the rite of the liturgy, and justice as living in right relationships with God, self, others, and the environment. This chapter also has several nice charts that are helpful in linking the sacraments to social teaching by way core issue.
* The final chapter on spirituality and transformation beautifully sums up the book by looking to the spiritual disciplines which can strengthen us for doing the work of justice in the world: fasting, prayer, community, solidarity, nature, simplicity, recollection, and Sabbath.

Each chapter begins with a relevant story, and ends with a set of questions that would be helpful for personal reflection, group discussion, or classroom use, and a detailed bibliography for further reading and study.

I recommend Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice for upper level undergrads and graduate students in theology, peace studies, political science, ethics and justice, and economics and business, as well as justice groups, and the general reader interested in this vital and timely topic. Groody has managed to research and write a compelling treatise on global injustice without conveying a bleak and hopeless message. At its core, this book seeks to respond to the deeper issues of the human heart that globalization has largely left unexplored--questions related to belonging and loneliness, good and evil, peace and division, healing and suffering, meaning and meaninglessness, hope and despair, love and apathy, justice and injustice, freedom and slavery, and ultimately life and death. He is not interested in overwhelming readers with guilt, but rather with guiding readers to examine our personal and corporate lives and motivations, all the while encouraging us to think beyond ourselves to the needs of our brothers and sisters in the global family. The book is clear and well documented, exquisitely written, and sings a wonderful melody of the gratuitousness of God that is both a gift to and a demand on our lives.

Brilliant post by Jeff at Aún Estamos Vivos

Monday, November 12, 2007
Tagging Myself For a Meme
The So-Called "Extraordinary" Meme

I'm tagging myself for this meme for two reasons. The first is that I would never be tagged for it otherwise. You see, the originators and devotees are waiting for people like me to "die off" before they would ever consider it.

Second... There really wasn't anything wrong with this meme in principle, but it took a nasty twist at the end, and I'd like to stick up for the maligned individual in question. I don't know if the last question was on the original meme or not, I think it was an accretion, but it epitomizes the ugliness, chortling malevolance, and mean-spiritedness that has unfortunately become the dominant characteristic of the posts and combox responses to be found in the Catholic blogging world today. It sickens me.

As I alluded earlier on Crystal's blog, I'm sick and tired of people who are still wet behind their ears from their chrismation presuming to tell people who've lived their entire lives in the faith what authentic Catholicism is and what it is not.

I'm also frustrated by all these young traditionalists, "re-discovering" their Catholicism on some apologetics website within the last two or three years imagining a so-called Golden Age prior ot Vatican II, either trashing the Second Vatican Council outright, or giving it the most tepid endorsement possible, characterizing it as a sort of failed "pastoral" council that didn't change any dogma thank goodness, and should be quietly jettisoned. Another variant urges people to look at the "letter" of the Vatican II texts rather than the "demonically-inspired 'Spirit of the Council'". Anyone old enough to remember, on the other hand, who actually happened to be around in those years, is spurned as a gray-haired liturgical-dancing loving fogey who presided over the "ruin" of the Church, which is lying in shambles, and waiting for the young traditionalists to fix it. The fogeys are urged to die off as soon as possible.

It's more likely that the young trads will shrink it down to a curious museum piece, if they get their way.

The truth of the matter is, every single indicator that worries them so much was already present in the years before Vatican II. Europe was already in a crisis of faith. That's why the Council was held. That's why Henri de Lubac, a peritus at the Council, wrote The Drama of Atheistic Humanism, seeking to explore why the Church had already lost the hearts and souls of so many of the faithful. As for the US, it was living a hermetically-sealed ghetto Catholicism in a hostile Protestant society. Once Catholics became educated, affluent, and mainstream, those very elements, along with the secular upheavals in the sixties and seventies themselves, contributed to leading us where we are today.

The young radtrads cry, "Look at the wreckage in the Church after Vatican II! Wow! Great idea that was! What fruits of the Council! It's Springtime!"

I answer, "World War I - 9.7 million military deaths, and 10 million civilian deaths. World War II - 25 million military deaths and 50 million civilian deaths... Yes, It was Summertime before Vatican II!" That's not counting all the other wars around the planet in the Twentieth Century. What kind of Christian continent was that? That Latin Mass certainly was a panacea for everything that was ailing Western Civilization, wasn't it? It certainly was doing the job, obviously.... If anything, the Council was held about 10 years too late, putting it up against the perfect storm of the sixties.

As for these youngsters who are bitter about their whiffle-catechesis while growing up, angry that all they got in their classes was word-search puzzles and smiley-faces, I hear you excorciating the nuns and laywomen who taught you. Well, I remember how difficult is was for them to educate the spoiled brats in your generation, because you had no manners and you had no attention span for anything much deeper. Don't blame those educators for your woeful lack of knowledge. If you were brought up without the Faith in your households, it was the fault of your parents, not the fault of the educators who worked their hearts out trying to get through to you. Just because you're jealous of the vitality of Evangelical Protestantism in comparison to how you view Catholicism these days, don't blame the educators. Look closer to home. Truth is, your parents likely checked out with Humanae Vitae (when Paul VI listened to his curial mandarins instead of the laity) , which is why you weren't brought up like they were themselves.

I consider myself to be in neither the traditionalist nor the liberal camp. I must say, however, that I can certainly understand the frustration on the part of progressives in recent decades. I don’t have a problem with Latin. I don’t have a problem with the historical legacies of our Church, although I do agree with traditionalists that Vatican II was in fact a revolution. It was not a revolution in the sense that they mean it, in that the values of the French Revolution infected the Church. It was a revolution in the sense that the assembled bishops finally stood up like men and acted like real bishops, and were not cowed by the coterie of extreme anti-modernist integrists in the Roman Curia who equated the Church with themselves. The bishops had the support of the Pope in that regard, at least with John XXIII. The Curia has been fighting a rear-guard action in a restorationist effort ever since. The Curia was never reformed as it should have been. They just waited for the bishops and the theologians to go home, then it was back to business as usual. Now that the Church is in a mess, they point the accusing finger at others rather than themselves, casting aspersion and blame on the very council they worked so hard to scuttle.

I understand the frustration of progessives on matters related to the liturgy in particular, because a lot of this was SSPX-driven, and there is a lot more wrong with the SSPX than the illicit consecration of a handful of bishops in defiance of the Pope. In addition to their non-acceptance of the Council is their obnoxious anti-semitism (which should be roundly condemned by all Catholics everywhere) and their inane, crackpot theories around Judeo/Masonic/Communist plots. These Jansenists are still obsessed with the French Revolution and the Ancien Regime. These are the people Benedict is extending an olive branch to, while progressives, concerned about more lay involvement in the governance of the Church, a wider role for women, a reconsideration of mandatory celibacy, and a recognition of positive aspects of Liberation Theology, are shunted to the side, or investigated, censured and disciplined.

Anyhow, here's this meme...

Contine reading Jeff's post

67/68. Who was this guy called Pierre Teilhard de Chardin? Why is he Famous in the Scientific Community?

From Are Jesuits Catholic?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a visionary French Jesuit, paleontologist, biologist, and philosopher, who spent the bulk of his life trying to integrate religious experience with natural science, most specifically Christian theology with theories of evolution. In this endeavor he became absolutely enthralled with the possibilities for humankind, which he saw as heading for an exciting convergence of systems, an "Omega point" where the coalescence of consciousness will lead us to a new state of peace and planetary unity. Long before ecology was fashionable, he saw this unity he saw as being based intrinsically upon the spirit of the Earth:

"The Age of Nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the Earth." Teilhard de Chardin passed away a full ten years before James Lovelock ever proposed the "Gaia Hypothesis" which suggests that the Earth is actually a living being, a collosal biological super-system. Yet Chardin's writings clearly reflect the sense of the Earth as having its own autonomous personality, and being the prime center and director of our future -- a strange attractor, if you will -- that will be the guiding force for the synthesis of humankind.

"The phrase 'Sense of the Earth' should be understood to mean the passionate concern for our common destiny which draws the thinking part of life ever further onward. The only truly natural and real human unity is the spirit of the Earth. . . .The sense of Earth is the irresistable pressure which will come at the right moment to unite them (humankind) in a common passion.

"We have reached a crossroads in human evolution where the only road which leads forward is towards a common passion. . . To continue to place our hopes in a social order achieved by external violence would simply amount to our giving up all hope of carrying the Spirit of the Earth to its limits."

To this end, he suggested that the Earth in its evolutionary unfolding, was growing a new organ of consciousness, called the noosphere. The noosphere is analogous on a planetary level to the evolution of the cerebral cortex in humans. The noosphere is a "planetary thinking network" -- an interlinked system of consciousness and information, a global net of self-awareness, instantaneous feedback, and planetary communication. At the time of his writing, computers of any merit were the size of a city block, and the Internet was, if anything, an element of speculative science fiction. Yet this evolution is indeed coming to pass, and with a rapidity, that in Gaia time, is but a mere passage of seconds. In these precious moments, the planet is developing her cerebral cortex, and emerging into self-conscious awakening. We are indeed approaching the Omega point that Teilhard de Chardin was so excited about.

This convergence however, though it was predicted to occur through a global information network, was not a convergence of merely minds or bodies -- but of heart, a point that he made most fervently.

"It is not our heads or our bodies which we must bring together, but our hearts. . . . Humanity. . . is building its composite brain beneath our eyes. May it not be that tomorrow, through the logical and biological deepening of the movement drawing it together, it will find its heart, without which the ultimate wholeness of its power of unification can never be achieved?"

In his productive lifetime, Teilhard de Chardin wrote many books, which include the following: LET ME EXPLAIN
THE APPEARANCE OF MAN
THE DIVINE MILIEU
THE FUTURE OF MAN
HOW I BELIEVE
HYMN OF THE UNIVERSE
LETTERS FROM A TRAVELLER
LETTERS TO LEONTINE ZANTA
THE MAKING OF A MIND
MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
SCIENCE AND CHRIST
THE VISION OF THE PAST
WRITINGS IN TIME OF WAR
BUILDING THE EARTH
Most of these quotes were taken from Building the Earth, and The Phenomenon of Man, but as I no longer have a copy, but only old notes, I can't quote exact page numbers.

by Anodea Judith, Dec. 96.

from: http://www.gaiamind.com/Teilhard.html
more on Teilhard de Chardin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin

posted by sonoftheprodigal at 8:43 PM 3 comments

What Are Theologians Saying About Christology? ['America' magazine, Sept 17, 2007]

Editor’s Note: After the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a notification March 14 on some works of the liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, S.J., the editors wondered how we might inform our readers about the questions at stake. We concluded that the most useful approach would be to set the issues in the context of contemporary Christology, explaining what major theologians, Scripture scholars and schools of theology are saying regarding the six questions about Jesus to which the congregation drew attention in its notification: method, divinity/humanity, incarnation, the kingdom of God, Jesus’ self-consciousness and soteriology (explanations of how Jesus achieved our salvation). We have asked six theologians to explain what the tradition and their colleagues are saying today about the church’s confession of Jesus as Christ and Son of God.

Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, Kevin Burke, Robert P. Imbelli, John R. Donahue, William Thompson-Uberuaga, Robert A. Krieg

Faith and the Poor

By Alejandro Garcia-Rivera

Recently I had the honor of listening to Metropolitan Kallistos Ware as he gave a talk on the Orthodox understanding of the Holy Spirit. During the question-and-answer session, a young Roman Catholic seminarian asked him what he thought of the recent Vatican notification on the works of Jon Sobrino, S.J. Bishop Ware smiled, thought for a minute and quoted this famous passage from St. John Chrysostom:

Would you see his altar?... This altar is composed of the very members of Christ, and the body of the Lord becomes an altar. This altar is more venerable even than the one which we now use. For it is…but a stone by nature; but become holy because it receives Christ’s body: but that is holy because it is itself Christ’s body…[which] you may see lying everywhere, in the alleys and in the marketplaces, and you may sacrifice upon it anytime…. When then you see a poor believer, believe that you are beholding an altar. When you see this one as a beggar, do not only refrain from insulting him, but actually give him honor, and if you witness someone else insulting him, stop him; prevent it.

Homily 20 on 2 Corinthians

Wisely Bishop Ware refused to elaborate on the quotation and left us to ponder its meaning. Its relevance to the Sobrino notification, however, has become more and more evident as I have studied the text by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The notification questions first the methodological presuppositions of Sobrino’s Christology. Father Sobrino emphasizes the social setting defined by the “church of the poor”; the notification identifies the proper context as the “faith of the Church.”

The C.D.F. apparently thinks Sobrino is playing fast and loose with the nature of the church. By identifying the church with the poor instead of with the faith, the C.D.F. warns that Sobrino’s Christ is being wrenched from his ecclesial matrix. What is feared, I suppose, is a Christ who emerges out of a social setting instead of a communion of faith. Such a Christ could be subject to political and ideological currents that have little interest in faith. Indeed, Sobrino’s method of taking the social context as the ecclesial matrix from which Christ emerges may lead to an unabashed theological pluralism where the one Lord can become a Christ of a thousand faces, each depending on its own social setting.

Such a scenario might be one reason this notification was issued. Sobrino’s method opens up a postmodern Pandora’s box of theological speculation. To ask if Jon Sobrino’s Christ is too postmodern is to ask if the C.D.F.’s primary concern is the role that truth plays in theological reflections. The notification, referring to Donum Veritatis, suggests as much: “Thus the truth revealed by God himself in Jesus Christ, and transmitted by the Church, constitutes the ultimate normative principle of theology.” Trust in the normative power of truth claims is at odds with the postmodern zeitgeist, which questions not simply the truthfulness of statements but truth itself. Such faith and the deep value it holds can legitimately be offended by the skepticism over normative claims so prevalent today. Does the notification assert that Sobrino’s Christology falls prey to such skepticism? There is reason to think so, namely, the concern for “the manner in which the author treats the major Councils of the early Church.” The notification lifts out this particular quote from Sobrino’s Christ the Liberator: “While these texts are useful theologically, besides being normative, they are also limited and even dangerous, as is widely recognized today.” While recognizing the limited character of dogmatic formulation, the notification insists that “there is no foundation for calling these formulas dangerous, since they are authentic interpretations of Revelation.”

Here the wisdom from the Orthodox tradition and the relevance of Chrysostom’s text become evident. The Orthodox warn against making dogmatic claims with too much confidence. While truth is behind all such claims, the ecclesial setting for truth is not objectivity but love. Truth is not simply about objectivity but also solidarity. And this is one of the lessons I learned from Chrysostom’s text. The Christ the church worships at its altar is also the Christ found at the altar of the world’s poor. In this sense both Sobrino and the C.D.F. appear to speak truthfully and accurately. Christ’s ecclesial matrix is the church that worships in faith. It is also the church of the poor. This is the famous both-and that marks the church as Catholic.

Having a both-and Christology is not the same as postmodern skepticism. It is the very nature of a faith that proclaims that God is one and three, that Jesus is human and divine. There is something more dangerous to the faith than a Christ who can only be grasped through multiple views; it is a view of truth as either-or.

“Definitive” truth that is not loving can bring only despair to an already nihilistic world. Postmodernism thrives precisely because it sees the suffering of this world as having reached horrendous and senseless proportions. A church that is methodologically indifferent to senseless suffering is at odds with the methods of Jesus himself. Only a Jesus who belongs to a church that is not afraid to identify itself with the suffering of this world can have any rational claim on the world itself. In other words, the normative character of the truth of the church’s faith is protected, defended and nurtured by a praxis that will not regard as normative the senseless suffering of billions. The church has two altars. The C.D.F. points rightly to one; Sobrino points to the other.

Balancing Human and Divine

By Kevin Burke

Christology is a complex discipline. It requires an intricate balancing act among assertions perennially in tension with one another. One of my first theology teachers, Brian Daly, S.J., emphasized this point in a course tellingly entitled “The Christological Controversies.” He noted how every orthodox Christological claim tends toward one or another heresy and needs to be complemented by other claims. Moreover, this process of complementing and balancing involves more than rehearsing the facts of church doctrine, for the language of faith often explodes like a riot of color in a wild garden or a true poem. As such, Christology involves evocation. Its arguments turn on the subtlest of metaphors.

And the work is always unfinished. Theology itself has to grow to stay alive. Theologians betray their vocation if they simply repeat word-for-word definitions taken from Scripture or doctrine, as if formulas could contain faith or words exhaust mystery. Every age, every culture needs to find access to Jesus Christ from within its own distinctive language and worldview. But the future of theology does not undermine the importance of its past. Theological growth needs direction to remain authentically alive. It needs Scripture (the normative witness to apostolic faith) and the Christological dogmas formulated by the theologians of the early church.

However, the teachings of Scripture and tradition are not self-interpreting. For this reason, Christology is not only complex but dangerous. Even devout believers can lose their way in the thickets of Christological reasoning. Even clear and apparently unambiguous statements like “Christians believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ” need to be interpreted in relation to other statements. Taken in isolation, without reference to the full humanity of Jesus, this statement is misleading and potentially harmful. In contrast, the classic formula developed at the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, affirms the full divinity and full humanity of the one person, Jesus Christ, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” And even this profound and balanced definition is not the end of the matter, for inquiring minds want to know: How do we make sense of this?

In the effort to make sense of the language of faith, the choice of where to begin is crucial because it shapes the way we imagine Jesus. This, I believe, represents the key difference between the Christology of Jon Sobrino, S.J., and the logic of the Vatican notification that criticizes his work. The notification implies that theology should start “from above,” with the Nicene Creed’s affirmation of Jesus’ divinity (“one in being with the Father”). Sobrino, by contrast, begins “from below” where the synoptic Gospels begin, with Jesus as he appeared to his contemporaries (“Is this not the carpenter’s son?”). The one approach starts with doctrine. The other begins in history.

On the surface, starting from doctrine appears to be the strongest way to safeguard the faith. But throughout Christianity’s history, it is the return to Jesus that consistently protects theology from the greatest danger of all—the temptation to use its own logic to misrepresent God. Concern for this danger lies behind the commandment forbidding false images of God: God cannot be described by analogy to what we think a god ought to be like. For his part, Sobrino is wary of the assumption that “we already know what divinity is” when we apply the term to Jesus. Rather, Jesus reveals what divinity means. Starting with Jesus and moving from there to an interpretation of his being the eternal Word of God unmasks the temptation to manipulate his image (and thereby God’s image) for our own ends.

Furthermore, Sobrino begins with Jesus precisely to “make sense” of Christian faith in a world burdened by “senseless” suffering, especially the suffering that results from inhuman poverty and violent oppression. Starting with Jesus and his scandalous love for the poor provides the best way today to lead people to authentic faith in Jesus Christ. It empowers Christians to live as disciples of Jesus while confirming their claim to be advocates of a universal, integral justice. Finally, it provides a credible way of holding the tension between the divine and the human natures of Jesus. Sobrino directs the imagination to that which is most easily imaginable: Jesus as he appeared to his contemporaries. He then leads it beyond its normal limits, as theology must, in order to give a complete account of Christian hope.

The Vatican notification warns that Sobrino’s method might scandalize believers who are not sophisticated enough to follow his subtle theological ascent. If people begin by imagining Jesus in his humanity, they might remain there, with a “merely human” Jesus. Of course, a corresponding risk exists for those who start with the Nicene Creed and utilize a dogmatic imagination. This approach can lead simple believers into a heretically high Christology like Docetism, in which Jesus, the Son of God, only appears to be human.

Christology wrestles with difficult questions. In-deed, its own use of reason can be dangerous. But not every danger can be addressed by authoritative pronouncements. More-over, while it may be prudent to warn believers about the possible dangers of Sobrino’s Christology, it seems equally necessary to call attention to corresponding dangers in Christologies that begin with Jesus’ divinity. At the very least it is a mistake to think that Christologies “from below” pose the only or the greatest danger to Christian faith.

Word Incarnate

By Robert P. Imbelli

Pressed to choose but one New Testament verse to recapitulate the Good News, the Gospel within the Gospel, one might opt for the climax of the Prologue of St. John (1:14):

And the Word became flesh

and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.

The Word, the eternal Son of the Father, who precedes and “pre-contains” all creation, became part of created reality, entered into human history, lived a complete human life, became one of us—even unto death.

So stupendous is this mystery that already in the first century some demurred. Surely it was unseemly for the divine to enter into the muck of humanity, confined in a body, subject to the indignities and torments to which flesh is heir. So began the perennial Gnostic revulsion against the flesh, and especially against the flesh-taking of the Holy, Immortal One.

The First Letter of John stands at the origin of the ecclesial tradition of discernment of spirits. It reiterates with insistence: “Beloved, do not trust every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Messiah has come in the flesh belongs to God” (1 Jn 4:1-2). The incarnation of the Word is not adventitious to God’s saving action; it is the very heart of salvation.

The Letter to the Hebrews sealed the canonical New Testament’s incarnational conviction. “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to God who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb 5:7-9).

Almost 400 years later, the great Christological Council of Chalcedon articulates, in the language of its culture and time, this core discernment and persuasion of the New Testament. Jesus the Christ is “perfect [Greek teleion] in divinity, perfect in humanity, truly God and truly human, of a rational soul and body.” In a famous formulation the council confesses the one Lord Jesus Christ “in two natures with no confusion, no change, no division, no separation...the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being.” Here the mystery of the Incarnation is neither explained nor reduced, but confessed and celebrated. Chalcedon enunciates the “deep grammar” that governs the church’s preaching, catechesis and theological reflection.

Fast-forward 1,500 years. As part of the commemoration of the anniversary of Chalcedon, Karl Rahner, S.J., wrote an essay that stands at the origin of renewed Christological reflection in the Catholic tradition. The essay, in revised form, appears in the first volume of his Theological Investigations under the title “Current Problems in Christology.” In the context of the Catholic theological world of the 1950s, these sentences rang like a manifesto:

We shall never cease to return to this formula [of Chalcedon], because whenever it is necessary to say briefly what it is that we encounter in the ineffable truth which is our salvation, we shall always have recourse to its modest, sober clarity. But we shall only really have recourse to it (and this is not at all the same thing as simply repeating it), if it is not only our end but also our beginning.

Rahner lamented that there was far too much mere repetition of creedal formulae, rather than genuine appropriation of the council’s insight. Moreover, he also judged that some of what was said in standard textbooks and in popular preaching was, often inadvertently, not consonant with Chalcedon’s measured doctrine. In particular, Rahner discerned a “crypto-monophysitism” that emphasized the divinity of Christ to the virtual exclusion of his full humanity.

In retrospect, this article (published in German in 1954 and in English in 1961) anticipated the direction of much of post-Vatican II Christological reflection by Catholic theologians. It stressed the need to do full justice to the humanity of Jesus, to return anew to the canonical range of New Testament witness rather than relying, almost exclusively, on the Gospel of John. It advocated complementing a “Christology from above” with a “Christology from below,” one that takes with utmost seriousness “the human experience of Jesus.”

Rahner already anticipated that this commitment would entail not only a focus on the human nature of the Word in some abstract, timeless fashion, but a consideration of the “flesh-taking” in its concrete historical, religious and social setting. This commitment, supported and promoted by the experience and teaching of Vatican II, led to a profusion of works in Christology: from Hans Küng to Edward Schillebeeckx, from Hans Urs von Balthasar to Walter Kasper, from Jon Sobrino to Elizabeth Johnson. Though the works of these authors certainly differ among themselves, all would echo Rahner’s claim that Chalcedon marks not only an end, but also a beginning of the church’s never-ending reflection on the mystery of its Lord.

In the present situation of Catholic theology, at least in its university setting, I think few would contend, as Rahner did 50 years ago, that there flows “an undercurrent of monophysitism.” The acknowledgement of the humanity of Jesus, of his immersion in the Jewish religious-cultural world of his time, has become an indisputable given (see Elizabeth Johnson, Consider Jesus; N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God; Gerald O’Collins, Christology: a Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus). New archeological findings continue to “flesh out” the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth (see James H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archeology, Eerdmans, 2006). The present danger may lie, rather, in an inclination to present a Jesus who is fully, but only, human: a “Christology from below” that never quite manages to get off the ground. The church’s foundational faith in the incarnation of the only Son risks being reduced to a vague avowal of the divine inspiration of one who is a provocative prophet. Indeed, some even hint that the church’s dogmatic tradition distorts the reality of the first-century Jewish figure.

I read the recent notification of the C.D.F. on some writings of Father Jon Sobrino as a call to accountability to the grammar of Chalcedon, even as theologians probe new insights and forge new language. In the spirit of 1 John, it offers guidelines for discernment. I do not think Karl Rahner would object in principle to this admonition, though he might differ, of course, with regard to the congregation’s specific findings.

The challenge before us all, not only theologians, but preachers and parents, artists and educators, is to rekindle in our day and place the Christic imagination: to appropriate and extend Vatican II’s confident confession that Jesus is “the light of the nations” (Lumen Gentium, No. 1), that he is “the mediator and fullness of all revelation” (Dei Verbum, No. 2) and that the Holy Spirit offers to everyone “the possibility of being associated with Christ’s paschal mystery” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 22).

In pursuing this inexhaustible blessing and mission, we can do no better than take as a sure guide the Letter to the Hebrews, which so forthrightly celebrates the humanity of the Lord. For it also, with equal boldness, proclaims his unsurpassable uniqueness (Heb 1:1-2):

In times past, God spoke in partial and diverse ways to our ancestors through the prophets, but in these, the days of fulfillment, God has spoken to us through a Son, whom he has made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe.

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

By John R. Donahue

The kingdom of God assumes a central place in the notification on the works of Jon Sobrino, S.J., as it does in contemporary New Testament scholarship. A wide spectrum of New Testament scholars of all denominations significantly agrees that the central theme of the public proclamation of Jesus was the arrival of God’s powerful reign. Beyond this consensus is a virtual storm of scholarly discussion and debate. The kingdom is a major topic in three recent scholarly tomes: Jesus: A Marginal Jew, Vol. 2, by John P. Meier (reviewed in America, 4/8/95); Jesus and the Victory of God, by N. T. Wright (Am. 3/8/97); and Jesus Remembered, by James D. G. Dunn (Am. 12/3/03).

The Greek term itself, basileia tou theou (literally, “kingdom of God”), expresses the power of God active in the ministry of Jesus, but it also implies a spatial or local dimension, as in “United Kingdom.” The expression is a tensive symbol, evoking a host of associations rather than a single referent. The proclamation has a clear eschatological dimension—the final and definitive rule of God is at hand.

A host of problems accompany interpretation of this proclamation. There are three principal groups of sayings. The first stresses the presence of the kingdom; the second, its future coming; the third, its demands on people who wish to accept or enter it. A seemingly endless debate centers on which sayings are closest to the actual statements of Jesus (his ipsissima vox). Advocates of the presence of the kingdom interpret Jesus primarily as a prophet of reform (John Dominic Crossan), while the future sayings form the basis of interpreting Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher (Albert Schweitzer). Current exegesis leans toward some version of the thesis of Joachim Jeremias, that Jesus proclaims God’s reign as already at work in his ministry, while anticipating its fullest realization in the future.

Evidence for both positions is ample. Jesus inaugurates his public ministry by proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand and summoning people to reform and renewal (metanoia, Mk 1:16-17). Jesus also proclaims that the kingdom is “among you” (Lk 17:21), not “within you,” a translation that spawns many inaccurate appropriations. His mighty works of healing, confrontation with demons and his power over nature are the signs of God’s power now at work in his life and teaching. The kingdom is “of God,” both as gift and challenge; despite common parlance, nowhere does the New Testament speak of “building the kingdom of God.” For his part, Jesus speaks often of the kingdom in parables drawn from the ordinary lives of his hearers. Human experience is the path toward the transcendent.

Future expectation is also strong. Disciples are to pray that the kingdom will come, just as they pray for God’s will to be be done on earth as in heaven (Mt 6:10). Other sayings of Jesus reflect Jewish apocalyptic thought, with its emphasis on the end of the world, when the exalted Son of Man will reign as king to judge evildoers and restore justice to the elect (the sheep and the goats, Mt 25:31-46). According to Paul, eschatological fulfillment of the reign of God will come when at the end time the risen Jesus will hand over his kingdom to “his God and Father” (1 Cor 15:24).

The radical challenge of the kingdom is crystallized in a series of sayings on conditions for “entering” the kingdom. Rather than scandalize a child or commit other sins, one should be willing to enter the kingdom of God blind (Mk 9:47). Those who wish to enter the kingdom should be powerless like children (Mt 19:14); riches provide an overwhelming obstacle to entering (Mt 19:23-25). Disciples who seek the prestige of sitting at the right hand of Jesus in the kingdom are urged instead to become servants and slaves (Mt 20:21-25).

The powerful reign of God is not otherworldly, but embodied in history. Its arrival brings special hope to the poor, the suffering and the marginal. When Jesus calls the poor happy because “the kingdom of God is yours” (Lk 6:26), he is declaring that God’s reign is on their behalf. After the rich young man fails to heed Jesus’ call to give his wealth to the poor, Jesus comments to his disciples about the young man’s reluctance, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mk 10:23).

Jesus’ personal consciousness of the reign of God constitutes an enduring problem. Though, apart from John 18, Jesus never refers to “his kingdom” and does not accept the title “king,” he has a unique relationship to God’s reign. For decades scholars have called attention to Origen’s description of Jesus as autobasileia (literally “himself the kingdom”). Recent magisterial statements have frequently appealed to this text. While reflecting on Matt 18:23-35, Origen says that “king” refers to the Son of God. He goes on to ask: Since Jesus is “wisdom itself” (autosophia), “justice itself” (autodikaiosyne) and “truth itself” (autoasphaleia), is he not also autobasileia “the kingdom itself” (In Mt. Hom., 14:7)?

Origen prefers the spiritual sense over the literal, and his commentary is allegorical and Christological. The phrase “the kingdom itself,” therefore, is a theological expression on the trajectory that leads to the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. It is an interpretation, rather than a description of the historical Jesus.

Jesus’ Self-Consciousness

By William Thompson-Uberuaga

Regard for Jesus’ human identity and consciousness is not new. Luke 2:52 tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom. The Gospels attest to threshold moments in which Jesus’ consciousness unfolds, such as his baptism (which brings a heightened awareness of his relationship with his Father and his mission, tutored by John the Baptist), his desert experience (when he confronts his “demons” and readies himself for the struggles to come), his anointing by the Spirit (bestowing the gift of bringing good news to the poor), his transfiguration (opening up further depths of his particular person and mission) and his struggle in Gethsemane (about the will of God for him unto death).

In the second century Irenaeus wrote that the Son established a genuine communion with us through passing “through every stage of life” (Against Heresies). Still, early church councils found that they had to defend Jesus’ authentic human soul, intellect, will and vital energy against some who would deny them, so counterintuitive did it seem that God would come among us as a human being.

Since the connection between persons and their consciousnesses is an intimate one, it is reasonable to think that any special qualities of personhood would also shape one’s consciousness. Such thinking brings special challenges to our understanding of Jesus the Christ. His person, according to Christian doctrine, possesses two natures, divine and human. The communion between Jesus’ divinity and humanity, as a true communion, would entail an exchange of attributes between the two: God truly sharing the human condition. All of this is attested to by Scripture and taught by church councils. But does his divine identity and nature affect Jesus’ human consciousness? If so, in what way(s) can this happen without tampering with an integral human nature and human mind, and so risk being inconsistent with the doctrines of Chalcedon and Constantinople III?

The question is difficult and brings us to one of the fault lines among theologians today. We might argue a case deductively, based on a view of how God would act. God would never do anything to harm Jesus’ consciousness, we might say, but rather would create it and sustain it. That position uses the theological principle that God as the creator always enhances rather than curtails creation. We cannot do much without general principles like that from which to make deductions.

But we reach a limit here. For how well do we know who God is and how God should act? Some early heretics thought they knew God’s being well enough to argue that it would be inappropriate for Jesus to have a truly human intellect and will, because that would diminish the sovereignty of his divine nature, giving too much independence to his humanity. This sounded reasonable. Yet the church, following Scripture, could not accept such a view. The Word truly became human in Jesus, and being human entails the presence of a fully functioning human intellect and will. Apparently God was trying to reveal to us a different view of who he is and how he acts.

Other theologians take an inductive approach, led by the witness of revelation. Scripture teaches that Jesus was sinless (Heb 4:15), for example. Sinlessness is one of the special ways in which Jesus’ divinity enhanced his humanity. It coheres with Jesus’ mission, too, which is to be the way out of humanity’s sinful condition. Scripture teaches that Jesus possessed an extraordinary ability to discern the depths of the human heart, like the hearts of Judas, Peter and the Samaritan woman at the well. Sinlessness and deep discernment of the human heart exemplify the exchange between Jesus’ divine and human natures.

Overlapping the fault line is the theologians’ tendency either to maximize the ways in which Jesus’ divinity enhances his human consciousness or to understate them, in a more reserved way. For example, did Jesus enjoy the “full” beatific vision from the moment he was conceived—did he know as a fetus in the womb all that he would know after the resurrection? Was Jesus the only human ever able to see the Father continually creating his humanity, thus making it easier for him to be faithful to his Father’s will in accepting his death, as Bertrand de Margerie holds (“The Double Con-sciousness of Christ”)? When does the divine enhancement go too far, reducing Jesus’ humanity and leaving him with only one nature, the divine nature?

Other theologians choose to be reserved about the divine effects, unless compelled by revelation. Jesus, they suggest, enjoyed some vision of his divine nature and of his Father and the Spirit, but not the full, beatific vision of the resurrection state. Jesus’ earthly vision likely started out dim and grew in clarity as he passed through threshold experiences and matured. These theologians suggest that along with his special visionary knowledge as the Son in obedience to his Father, Jesus still was a person of faith, albeit of a unique kind. Such reasoning can be found in the work of Karl Rahner (Theological Investigations, Vol. V), Hans Urs von Balthasar (Theo-Drama, Vol. III) and Walter Kasper (Jesus the Christ) as well as Jon Sobrino (Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological View and Christ the Liberator: A View from the Victims). Gerald O’Collins (Christology) offers one of the more developed analyses of the types of faith manifested by Jesus, that of trust and that of believing certain truths, such as those about God taught him as a Jew.

My impression is that the magisterium reflects the spread of views noted among the theologians. Reflecting the reserved, inductive tendency, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, so far as I can tell, rather than attributing the beatific vision to Jesus, speaks of his knowledge of everything pertaining to God, such as an “intimate” and “immediate knowledge” of the Father and a full understanding of those plans of God he had come to reveal (Nos. 472-74). This knowledge of his Father entails his knowledge of his own unique sonship (No. 444), of course. The catechism also attributes to Jesus a “trusting commitment” to the Father (No. 2600), which seems to be faith-as-trust. By contrast, the “Notification” sent to Jon Sobrino reflects a maximalist perspective, attributing the beatific vision to Jesus and arguing that it obviates the need for any faith by Jesus.

The views expressed on both sides of the fault lines fall within a legitimate spread of interpretations of the Catholic faith. From time to time we theologians may go too far, but doing so results in error rather than heresy in faithful theologians. Occasionally “some magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies” either, as Cardinal Ratzinger has written (Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, 1990, No. 24).

Jesus as Savior

By Robert A. Krieg

How did/does Christ bring about our salvation? The question comes to mind when reading the recent notification by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concerning the theology of Jon Sobrino, S.J. In the C.D.F.’s judgment, Sobrino’s writings contain an inadequate account of the “salvific value” of Jesus’ death.

In theology an entire subdiscipline, called soteriology, is devoted to such matters. Soteriology means critical, systematic reflection on the mystery of God’s saving activity on our behalf. In particular, it inquires into the redemptive significance of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection by examining Jesus’ own proclamation as found in the New Testament and as interpreted and transmitted in the Christian tradition, in specific church teachings and in the witness of contemporary Christians.

Today six widely held convictions shape soteriology.

1. Jesus saw his suffering and death as the price he would need to pay for remaining faithful to his proclamation of the coming of God’s reign (Mk 1:14-15). He judged his passion to be part of his mission and, along with his entire life and ministry, it had redemptive significance (Mk 8:31-33).

2. Jesus did not, however, explicitly offer a complete explanation, much less a doctrine concerning the salvific value of his life, death and resurrection. Rather, he spoke of his passion using such images as a “ransom” (Mk 10:45), a “grain of wheat” that dies and “bears much fruit” (John 12:24), the “beloved son” sent by his father to reclaim the vineyard (Mk 12:6), and his body “that is for you” and his blood “poured out for many” (1 Cor 11:24; Mk 14:23).

3. To elucidate the redemptive meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the New Testament writers employ a wide range of metaphors. Paul speaks of Jesus Christ as the “new Adam,” who lived and died in unswerving faithfulness to God, bringing grace “for the many” (Rom 5:15). Mark depicts Jesus as succumbing to death and thereby “tying up the strong man,” Satan (Mk 3:27). Matthew portrays Jesus’ passion as the death of an “innocent” and hence truly “righteous” person (Mt 27:19; Wis 2:12; 3:1). Luke perceives Jesus’ death and resurrection as the releasing of the Holy Spirit into history (Lk 24:49; Acts 2:4). John presents Jesus’ entire life, culminating in his suffering and death, as the revelation of God’s love (Jn 10:11).

4. The Christian tradition in the West similarly contains at least five different types of models or “theories” concerning the salvific value of the cross. The Christus-Victor view of St. Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395) speaks of Jesus Christ freeing us from Satan’s grasp. The “satisfaction theory” of St. Anselm (d. 1109) presents Jesus Christ initiating the restoration of right relationships in creation. According to the “penal-substitution” theory of John Calvin (d. 1564), Jesus Christ deliberately became the victim of the wrath of God that we all deserve. The sacramental view of Abelard (d. 1142) perceives Jesus’ cross as the definitive revelation of God’s love. And the representative theology of St. Irenaeus (d. 200) holds that Jesus Christ brought about the cosmic breakthrough of human faithfulness and love in response to God’s grace.

5. Although God’s saving activity in Jesus Christ happened once and for all, it is at the same time an ongoing reality. Thus it can be mediated through the sacraments, the act of faith, participation in the life of the church and care for people in need.

6. God’s redemption in Jesus Christ is a mystery, a reality that we can increasingly understand but never fully fathom. For this reason it is best understood by means of a variety of metaphors and models. In the Second Vatican Council’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes), four distinct “theories” of how Christ saved us occur all within the same article (No. 22). Jesus Christ saved us because he is “the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love” (sacramental model); he is also identified as the “new Adam,” who “has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin” (representative model). Moreover, Christ “merited life for us by his blood, which he freely shed” (satisfaction model), and he united us with God by “freeing us from the bondage of the devil and of sin” (Christus-Victor Model).

As the C.D.F. rightly states, Catholic theologians must uphold “the normative value of the affirmations of the New Testament as well as those of the great Councils of the early Church” (Explanatory Note, No. 3). Yet the C.D.F. neglects to clarify that theologians serve the church by exploring the soteriological implications of these “affirmations,” especially since the church possesses no complete and final doctrinal formulation concerning the theological value of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

An evaluation of an individual theologian’s soteriology is a complex endeavor. It requires analyzing the scholar’s entire use of redemptive metaphors and classic theories, and then locating this theological configuration within the spectrum of soteriological positions contained in Scripture, tradition and church teachings.

On the one hand, Sobrino’s work contains some soteriological statements that are inadequate or ambiguous, especially when they are extracted from their texts. For example, Sobrino wrote in Jesus the Liberator, as the C.D.F. notes, “Let it be said from the start that the historical Jesus did not interpret his death in terms of salvation....” This statement by itself is inadequate. When it is completed by its subordinate clause, it becomes more acceptable, but remains ambiguous: “Let it be said from the start that the historical Jesus did not interpret his death in terms of salvation, in terms of the soteriological models later developed by the New Testament, such as expiatory sacrifice or vicarious satisfaction” (P. 201). Also problematic, as the C.D.F. has observed, is the following statement concerning Jesus’ death: “This saving efficacy is shown more in the form of an exemplary cause than an efficient cause” (P. 230). Is Jesus Christ no more than an example or role model of a life of love?

On the other hand, the notification understates the merits of the Jesuit theologian’s critical, systematic reflections on salvation in Jesus Christ. In Jesus the Liberator Sobrino unites three of the classical “theories” of Jesus Christ as redeemer—Christ the victor who remained faithful to the true God amid “the battle of the divinities and their mediators,” and thereby overcame death by “bearing the evil from which we have to be redeemed” (Pp. 219, 217); Jesus the new Adam, “the revelation of the homo verus, the true and complete human being...depicted by the New Testament as one who ‘goes about doing good,’ who was ‘faithful and merciful,’ who came ‘not to be served but to serve’” (P. 229); and the cross as sacramental: “Jesus’ cross is the expression of God’s love.... And God chose this way of showing himself, because he could not find any clearer way of telling us human beings that he really wills our salvation” (P. 231).

Taken as a whole, Sobrino’s writings express a rich—though not flawless—Catholic soteriology. Father Sobrino deserves the church’s gratitude, not its suspicion.

Alejandro Garcia-Rivera is a professor of systematic theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.

Kevin Burke, S.J., is academic dean of the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.

The Rev. Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, teaches systematic theology at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass.

John R. Donahue, S.J., is the Raymond E. Brown Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies (emeritus) at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, Md., and was author of America’s The Word column from 1999 to 2002.

William Thompson-Uberuaga is a professor of systematic theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Robert A. Krieg is a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.