What If "To Be Deep in History" is to Cease to Be Catholic?
A note from the author:
THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT JOHN HENRY NEWMAN'S THEORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE.
So there is not need to keep saying "You've got Newman all wrong." Cause this post is not about that. Which is why you'll notice that I didn't write about Newman's understanding of the development of Doctrine at all. Really. Capiche?
This post is about how people actually experience and understand the meaning of their conversion at the personal level. The current popular understanding of Newman’s famous phrase is that Christian history is European history and that an essential and nearly universal motivation for becoming Catholic is (and should be) seeking to connect with one's historic roots in western Christendom, and that anyone who is "deep in history" will become Catholic.
Which is not true for the hundreds of millions of new Catholics in Africa and Asia whose familial, historical, and cultural roots are in one of the ancient non-Christian faiths. How instead of the common experience in the west of coming home to one's historical and cultural roots in Catholicism, many African and Asian converts experience becoming Catholic as a new thing, that requires a significant break from their own historical and cultural roots.
My point is how real people understand what becoming Catholic means in light of their own lived cultural and historical context. And how different that looks in the west with our historical experience and in the new Catholic communities of the global south. Not that the western pattern is bad or invalid. Just that it isn't the only pattern.
And now back to the original post.
One corollary of becoming a "World Church" as John Allen terms it.
How often have I heard Catholic apologists and writers quote John Henry Newman: "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant"?
Fr. Dwight Longenecker over at Standing on My Head has another thoughtful post this morning on the proposed Anglican Ordinariate and after reading Allen this weekend, I was struck afresh by the language he uses:
"I believe that the new Anglican Ordinariate will eventually become a bridge into full communion with the historic Church for Protestants of many different backgrounds. Many Catholics do not realize that there are large numbers of Evangelical Christians who look very longingly at the historic liturgical churches. They hold to the historic faith, but they want to belong to a historic church."
And all this is very true - for western European culture Christians. Catholicism is the historic church for western Christians and Protestantism is the Johnny-come-lately. It was most certainly true for Newman, steeped in the writing of the early Fathers, and writing as the most English of men.
A love of and longing for historical depth and continuity is one of the most common themes in the sort of English language conversion stories that conservative Catholics love to read. It is a very common theme on Catholic blogs. To the point that those of us where aren't primarily drawn to the Church by a longing for historicity, authority, and a bulwark against western secularism, can feel very much out of place in the contemporary Catholic scene.
As though those were the only possible reasons for a 21st century man or woman to choose to follow Jesus Christ in the heart of his Body on earth.
But what about those Catholics who live in a world where Catholicism, indeed Christianity of any kind, is brand new? John Allen points out that most Catholic growth in sub-saharan Africa has happened in the late 20th century. And the same is true in large parts of Asia and in those parts of the Muslim world which are starting to see significant conversions to Christianity. One, or at most, two generations deep.
A large part of Catholicism where to be "deep in history" is to be Buddhist or Hindu, or Muslim or animist. Or perhaps another kind of Christian: Nestorian or Orthodox or Coptic or Melkite?
Where being a Catholic is profoundly new and literally "ahistorical" as far as your own family or culture or national history is concerned.
Where being a Catholic looks historically a lot more like being an evangelical in the west. Like a break with history in order to follow Christ, not a return to historical cultural roots.
Where a "thick" Catholic culture won't exist for generations, if not centuries, because it has to be created from scratch.
History is critical for European culture peoples who lived through the historical break of the Reformation. Particularly in the western English speaking world where the trauma and historical amnesia was great.
But we are not the whole world. We are, in fact, a fairly small minority within the larger Church. For large parts of the southern majority, in Africa and Asia, Catholicism is mostly new and the spiritual hunger it answers is usually not historical.
Fr. Benedict Groeschel pointed out years ago in his wonderful book "Spiritual Passages" that Catholic spiritual theology has long recognized that people seek God under many guises. The Good. The Beautiful. The True. The One. Not The Historical. (And I write this as someone who has been passionately interested in history since I was a small child and for the historical dimensions of Catholicism are very important - but not the reason I became Catholic.)
If it is legitimate and fitting for southern Christians to seek Christ without reference to history, as a wholly new revelation of God, it is surely appropriate for western Christians to do the same. Every historic Christian culture began that way. Even the Irish and the Poles had a first generation of Christians. Throughout history and around the world, people have sought and encountered Christ and Christianity as something fresh and revolutionary that called them beyond their individual and collective history.
Which is important to remember because so many millions of young adults in the west now no long have any living connection to Christianity as a culture or a historical past. For them, the fall of the Berlin wall is ancient history and there are no memories of Christendom at all. And a genuine living Christian faith is something absolutely new in their experience.
In every generation, the first mission of ecclesial insiders is not to create a dream church for ourselves, but to proclaim Christ to our own generation. For so many of whom, today - in Europe or Asia or Africa - the Catholic faith is truly something new.
And for whom, to be deep in history is to to be anything but Catholic.
posted by Sherry W @ 8:26 AM
48 Comments
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48 Comments:
There's another aspect of "going deep into history" besides return to cultural roots. That's the idea that history has meaning. That it is going somewhere, not just revolving in the same place. That it reveals something of God's nature and plans. That's a Jewish view, inherited by Christianity, and picked up by the secular Enlightenment. And not, I believe, one that has ever been part of Hinduism or Buddhism or folk religions...maybe Islam.
I'd guess that that might be just as exciting to new "south" Christians as it can be to some of us. It's the intellectual basis of the Back to Jerusalem movement, for instance. That plan is based on the idea that the historical movement of Christianity has been ever westward, and the duty has now fallen to people in China to carry carry this movement onward and westward towards an eventual return to where Christianity started.
It's easy for us to kind of take this sort of thing for granted since the idea of history having a direction is part of our culture. But I suspect that to those millions of Chinese who have encountered the Back to Jerusalem idea, it is an exciting intellectual revolution. And one that is sending thousands of people on dusty roads to what may be suffering or martyrdom...
Of course, the idea of a progressive history is an essentially western idea and history can be very important to people of any cultural background. And, of course, it is no longer an idea that is foreign to most cultures in the world.
I'm just saying that cultures that are both incredibly ancient and overwhelmingly non-Christian (like India, China, Japan, etc.) they aren't going into their own history when they consider Christianity. Certainly not in a way that an Italian is doing.
They may "take on" Christian history and make it their own - or they may simply not be concerned with history at all.
I see your point here, but I think Newman's proverb as it were holds true for all Christians, even those in Africa and Asia. Those recently evangelized, upon becoming a Christian, will realize that there are may denominations and wonder at it.
At that point, when they delve into the history as to why there are so many denominations, Newman's proverb will certainly apply.
Christopher:
Denominations as we know them have much less meaning or significance for Christians in the Muslim or Hindu worlds. The fine lines between different historic Protestant denominations have very little meaning there - especially for someone from a non-Christian background.
The difference between Catholics and Protestants is about as detailed as many get.
Christians of all kinds often hang together. Very few new Christians are going to be interested in or have the time and resources to do the kind of historical research you are talking about.
It's our history. Not theirs.
This misses the point of what Newman was talking about. The reason he said that to be deep is to cease to be a Protestant is that if you learn about the history of Christianity, you find that the characteristic Protestant positions did not appear until the fifteenth century; and it is incredible to suppose that God waited fourteen centuries before providing an accurate version of the Christian faith. Catholicism, on the other hand, can be found throughout the history of Christianity, including its earliest period. So history shows that Catholicism is the only version of Christianity that can credibly be attributed to Christ and the apostles. It is the history of Christ and the apostles that Newman was talking about. Moreover, what Newman thought was of importance was finding out what religion Christ actually established, If he came up with a sound way of doing this, he thought his goal was accomplished, and he would not have had any doubts about using history to do this because it might not make sense to non-European peoples. I think the idea that such peoples aren't going to be interested in the task of finding what religion Christ actually established, if that task involves some historical research, is condesceding and unfair to them. It was after all an American (Henry Ford), not a Chinese or an Indian, who said that 'history is bunk'.
What John Lamont said, and...
What's the point? That somehow those who value Christian history are dense or parochial? That you are so much more enlightened and worldly?
Your derogatory tone towards those who come to Catholicism through history erodes good will. It's not necessary to belittle the way others come to the faith in order to point out that not everyone comes to it that way.
I see little positive value in this post, a lot of misunderstanding of what Newman and others mean, and a whole lot of pride, that is, a sort of look-I-can-point-out-something-you-haven't-thought-about-ness, which is essentially pride.
But really, the main thing is like John said: simply that Newman was saying that if you look at history to find the true Church of Christ, you find the Catholic Church has the best claim to be that Church. This is a very real question for Protestants (especially) to deal with, so it is perfectly good and valid to consider it. And most apologists who quote Newman are talking to Protestants.
John and Ambrose:
My topic wasn't Newman or his methodologies as the most superficial glance at the post would show you. It was about how Newman’s famous phrase is used popularly by Catholics today. And the assumptions we therefore make about what is a normal journey to faith.
Nor have I disparaged in any way those who value Christian history. I am one of those people. I have studied history both at the undergrad and graduate level and have posted on various aspects of Christian history a number of times here.
The point of the post was something that had just dawned upon me: that for the millions of new Catholics in the south, becoming a Christian is to do something utterly new (in terms of their experience, the history of their people, culture, and nation) not embracing or returning to something old (as is almost axiomatic these days in conservative western Catholic circles.)
For them to be "deep in history" in that way would be to be Shinto or Buddhist or Muslim as their ancestors have been for hundreds of years.
So it is a very different understanding of the whole experience than the one that is talked about incessantly around St. Blog's. And in light of the staggering growth of Catholicism in places like Africa, I think it is important that we recognize this.
And that the experience of those new Catholics in the south may not be that different from a complete post-modern pagan in Seattle or Vermont for whom historic Christianity just doesn't exist. Which is important if we are going to evangelize them.
Comment (part 2)
99% of the Catholics in this country aren't interested in the doctrine and history that say, separates American Baptists from the UCC. Nor are they are never going to read Newman on the development of doctrine and it has nothing whatever to do with their intelligence or worthiness.
Those of us who do that sort of thing (and I count myself in that number) are ecclesiastical nerds. We have always been tiny, tiny part of the Body of Christ and we always will be.
The great scholars like Newman will change the course of history and a small number of us will actually read his books and more will have heard his name and then there will be the majority who don't know that he ever lived. And it does not make them less worthy a person or a Christian nor does it make them stupid. Who says they must know his name or have read his books?
It is no more "condescending" to recognize that reality than to acknowledge the reality that the vast majority of Americans are not surgeons or physicists.
Most people don't read their way to faith. Not because they are not intelligent but because historical or intellectual questions aren’t burning for them, aren’t what drives them.
That doesn't invalidate the historical path at all for those who are intensely curious about such things but it does mean that we must be aware of and honor the full breadth of how God works in people's lives.
Our danger around St. Blog's is not that we won't honor those who are traveling the historical path to faith. Our temptation is quite the opposite. It is assuming that everyone's motivation and journey should be like ours.
Of course, it much less likely that a new Nigerian or Algerian Catholic embraced the faith because they were reading Christian history. Which is largely the history of Europe. It happens, of course. Just rarely.
Because I have spent time in the Muslim world and know many people who have spent decades in the Muslim world, i know that denominational distinctions mean very little there. Sometimes because there is only one or two churches to choose (you aren't allowed to have more) so Baptists and Presbyterians and Episcopalians and non-denoms all worship together.
I have been told many times by people who live there that in an often hostile, non-Christian environment where you are overwhelmingly out-numbered, denominational distinctions that seem more important in the west, don't matter any more.
The important thing in such a setting is that you are a Christian, not that you are Anglican or Congregationalist or whatever.
Allen also talks about this dynamic for southern Christians. if you have never lived in a non-Christian culture outside the west, you will probably never have encountered this but it is real.
In general, I would have to say that a "cultureless" and "history-less" Christianity is a pipe dream of those who would jettison old forms in the name of whatever happens to now suit their fancy. Such a Christianity has not existed since Pentecost, at the very earliest, and only if we are going to discount two millenia of tradition as so much water under the bridge, then such a thing could never happen again. Like it or not, the domus Christi of European civilization is the only real reference Christianity has in the world; there is no reason to or possibilty of "starting from scratch". Personally, I fault the novelties of Vatican II that diluted the "thickness" of cultural Catholicism very much on purpose.
It's funny, since you say you have spent time in the Muslim world, but how can you say stuff like this when the fastest growing religion in the world mandates that all its adherents pray in Arabic, read their sacred scripture only in Arabic, face Mecca to pray, follow strict dietary laws, etc. Seems to me that such a "cultural imperialism" doesn't put people off one bit. Makes me think that the best way to get people involved back in the Church is restore Gregorian chant and put the whole liturgy back into Latin.
Even in those places where the Church is growing, it is the "traditional" devotions (rosaries, statues, etc.) that are the real bread and butter of the religion. The "charismaticism" may be mixed in there (my grandparents are Mexican charismatics who still say the rosary every night), but to say that people there have to hack through the tired old "European" ways to find a new path reeks more of agenda than analysis.
Thus, I can't speak for Africa perhaps, but I can very much say that in Asia and Latin America, at least the people who I have seen here in the diaspora continue to be as "Eurocentric" as any other Catholic. I knew one Patristics professor who told me that Catholics in Indonesia kept trying to invite him to give seminars in Augustine and other Fathers of the Church. Yes, they actually care a great deal about what Christians before them thought, even in the fourth century. That for me speaks volumes as to how much the "new Catholics" of the "Third World" consider our church history of "dead white men" very much their own history. Any attempt to create artificial dichotomies is just paternalistic liberalism in the American sense. If Christianity is to survive in these parts of the world, it must do so by appropriating the traditions of the Church and making them its own, just as was done in Spanish America, for example.
As for what people tend to do or think as to what they should do or think, all I have to say is:
Vox populi vox Dei non est. Blasphemy for an American in the 21st century, but still very much the truth.
Sherry,
Melkites are Catholic.
And Newman was talking about Protestant Christians, not Eastern Christians or pagans.
He was not saying that the history of any particular tribe or region was a compelling argument to become Catholic; nor the history of the West, but only the history of the Church.
You're mixing apples and oranges.
Thank you, Sherry, for your thought provoking essay. (I've been thinking about it since I read it yesterday.)
Your ideas implicitly call into question the cultural categories that so often go unexamined. In other words, "history", we should remember, is not always and for everyone a single, monologic, cross-cultural reservoir of human experience.
But does this mean that Newman's phrase only applies to those who share the particular history?
I would suggest that perhaps for those who have gone into history and have *not* been led to Catholicism, that they haven't truly gone deep enough.
Your thoughts?
(ps. Did you make it to Christ the King in Ann Arbor?)
I think what's missing in the post is the added context you provide in your reply. It's not at all obvious you knew what Newman meant.
In any case, I've met 40 yr old Americans that don't know the distinctions between Protestant denominations. And there are huge swaths of people in the U.S. that wouldn't read a religious blog--or even any blog--to save their lives. What you're talking about isn't new, only for the young, or limited to the "southern" Christians.
But given these folks wouldn't read such blogs anyways, I'm not sure what the point is. Religious bloggers are writing to those who do read religious blogs; seems like it'd be futile to do otherwise. You should write for your audience.
As I see it, should any of these folks stumble across such blogs, they'd only be intrigued to learn more or just keep moving along--a good result or a null result. Seems better than what they might take away from reading petty infighting between religious bloggers, which is almost certain to cause some amount of sadness, confusion, repulsion, or even scandal.
Auturo:
You said:
“In general, I would have to say that a "cultureless" and "history-less" Christianity is a pipe dream of those who would jettison old forms in the name of whatever happens to now suit their fancy.”
That is true. The only problem is I have not and am not talking about a “cultureless” or “history-less” Christianity. Because non-European Christianity and “cultureless” Christianity are not the same thing.
I do so love it when people keep telling me what I’m saying but never bother to read what I have in fact, written.
You write:
‘Like it or not, the domus Christi of European civilization is the only real reference Christianity has in the world; there is no reason to or possibility of "starting from scratch".
Right.
If only the Church had thought this whole thing through before she set out to obey her Lord's command to make disciples of all nations.
If the Church intended to stay culturally Jewish as she was at the very beginning, St. Paul should never have undertaken those missionary journeys to the Gentiles. If the Church was meant to remain entirely European, she should never have undertaken the great missionary expansion of the Counter-Reformation and the 19th & 20th centuries. Now it’s too late.
Just as the Church of the first century slowly moved from being Jewish to being overwhelmingly Gentile, just as the Mass gradually moved from being celebrated in Greek to Latin in the 3rd and 4th century, so too, the presence of a non-European Catholic majority is going to change the Church as a whole slowly but profoundly. Europe will remain important but as one center of the faith, but not the *only* center.
The intense identification of Catholicism with western Europe was the result of disaster and tragedy. The rise of Islam and the destruction or suppression of the great Christian centers in the middle east and North Africa. The gradual separation from and then the break with Greek Christians. The Mongol hords destroying the thriving missionary communities of central Asia founded by the Dominicans. The fall of Constantinople. The terrific struggle and martyrdom of the Christian communities in China, Vietnam, and Korea. The 250 years of living underground and priestless for the Catholics of Japan. The rise of Communism in eastern Europe.
When I taught my class on the history of the laity, it was startling to realize that I really only had to focus what happened in 3 or 4 western European countries. Because the center of Catholic debate was that narrow in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
But that has all changed. Only 25% of the Catholic population lives in Europe today. By 2050, there will be twice as many Catholics in the Congo as there will be in Italy. Three African nations: the Congo, Uganda, and Nigeria will take their placed among the 10 largest Catholic nations while traditionally Catholic countries like Spain and Poland will drop off the list.
Auturo:
You wrote:
It's funny, since you say you have spent time in the Muslim world, but how can you say stuff like this when the fastest growing religion in the world mandates that all its adherents pray in Arabic, read their sacred scripture only in Arabic, face Mecca to pray, follow strict dietary laws, etc. Seems to me that such a "cultural imperialism" doesn't put people off one bit.
I respond:
Actually, there is real evidence that Islamic "cultural imperialism" does turn people off.
Lamin Sanneh, a Gambian convert to Catholicism and professor at Yale points out that “Christianity had an important edge over Islam in some part of Africa in its capacity to absorb the local language and culture as opposed to Islam’s need to “Arabize” it’s converts.”
Sannah's research show that Christianity grew where the local African culture had preserved had preserved the indigenous name for God, as well as aspects of the native religion; Islam was successful where the indigenous religion had been obliterated by colonialism. In fact, Sannah found that the change from Latin to local languages after Vatican II, was an enormous missionary asset in large parts of the global south.
Islam has historically grown primarily through conquest, not free conversion and is growing today primarily through birth rate, not conversion. That is about to change however, because the birth rates in the middle east are falling faster than anywhere else in the world.
Christianity is growing much, much faster than Islam through conversion. But the collapse of both Christian birthrate and practice in Europe is off-setting the enormous gains in the global south.
You wrote:
Even in those places where the Church is growing, it is the "traditional" devotions (rosaries, statues, etc.) that are the real bread and butter of the religion. The "charismaticism" may be mixed in there (my grandparents are Mexican charismatics who still say the rosary every night), but to say that people there have to hack through the tired old "European" ways to find a new path reeks more of agenda than analysis.
I respond:
Except of course, I never said that. In fact, I didn’t mention Mexico at all or ever said people have to “hack through the tired old ‘European” ways”. I was talking explicitly about Africa and Asia and the new Christians who come from historic non-Christian faiths and cultures.
Arturo:
You wrote:
I knew one Patristics professor who told me that Catholics in Indonesia kept trying to invite him to give seminars in Augustine and other Fathers of the Church. Yes, they actually care a great deal about what Christians before them thought, even in the fourth century. That for me speaks volumes as to how much the "new Catholics" of the "Third World" consider our church history of "dead white men" very much their own history.
I respond:
I have actually worked in Indonesia with 1000 real live Catholics who were, as a group, well educated (many educated in the US). Been to the Cathedral in Jakarta and two of the largest parishes in the city.
In every country on earth there will always be a small group of the intellectual elite who 1) have heard of Augustine; and 2) would happily attend a Patristic lecture. Indonesia has its westernized elite like every other country in the south. (And what else would you ask from a Patristics professor but a lecture on Patristics?) But it is simply ridiculous to pretend it is the norm of Catholic life and practice – in this country or Indonesia or anywhere else.
Some of the well heeled, educated Indonesians I met might happily read St. Augustine. In English probably because it is most unlikely that that his works have been translated into Indonesian. But the ability to read Augustine in a European language eliminates a huge swath of the population right there.
One person who might have done so was the only woman in a country of 260 million with a Master’s Degree in Catholic Theology She served as one of our interpreters. She came from a fabulously wealthy family. Her family’s hilltop mansion (complete with waterfall emerging in the living room and running through the traditional open wall into the garden outside) reminded me irresistibly of a Chinese Brideshead. Does she exist? Yes. Is she representative? Are you kidding?
Only someone who has not experienced the extraordinary poverty, chaos, and corruption of Jakarta could think it. Christianity is growing there – but it is evangelical Christianity. Their little congregations were to found in strip malls throughout the city. With their drum-driven praise and worship music. The same music that our well-heeled Catholic hosts arranged to be sung before each talk.
You write:
If Christianity is to survive in these parts of the world, it must do so by appropriating the traditions of the Church and making them its own, just as was done in Spanish America, for example.
You must be kidding. Are you seriously holding up the practices of the Spanish conquistadors as a model?
The indigenous peoples of the Americas 1) died off by the millions due to be exposed to European diseases for the first time (something not intended by the conquistadors, of course); 2) were essentially enslaved by their Spanish conquerors; 3) were never well evangelized as Latin American Catholic leaders openly acknowledge today. Now that’s a model we want to import into the 21st century.
Again, you are too late. African Catholics are not only “surviving”, they are thriving. Catholicism has grown 6,700 % in the 20th century. Most of the growth happened after Vatican II. They have made the essential traditions of the Church their own. And have Africanized them.
They are going to be good Catholics but they are never going to be traditional European Catholics.
Gideon:
The Melkites have only been in communion with Rome since 1729.
Before that they were Arabic speaking Orthodox Christians and under the authority of Constantinople.
Ready:
Jaraslav Pelakin was "deep in history" and he became Orthodox as a result. Academe is filled with Christian professors of history. Some of them become Catholic. Some become Orthodox. Some of them come away reinforced in their Reformed traditions.
If Christian history was that simple and an easy to decipher guide to what to believe, we would not have been separated from the Orthodox for 1000 years. History is just not that simple.
Ambrose:
I'm not writing for the usual suspects who dominate Catholic blogging.
I am writing 1) for the lurkers who don't usually comment; 2) to foster a wider discussion of the Catholic faith, practice, orthodoxy, and history than is usually found on blogs. Especially where it is related to the theology, mission, and formation of the laity and the Church's primary mission of evangelization.
Because many Catholics do their catechesis online these days. And many seekers get their primary understanding of the faith online.
My original post made no attempt, at all, to do a serious dissection of the thought and historigraphical approach of John Henry Newman (whom I admire greatly and whose major works I have read).
My topic and focus was completely other. On those, who unlike Newman, hail from ancient non-Christian religious traditions and cultures.
Sherry:
Yes you have misunderstood - or simply deliberately misused - Newman.
the "Deep into history" is a reference, not to one's own cultural history, but into the history of the Christian story. No matter how intensely one encounters Christ in the present, one inevitably faces questions of history in relationship to the Christian story - did this really happen? Did it happen as reported? And what of all the different interpretations that exist of the Christian story? Which is true? Part of the answer to this lies in exploring history, and it is not only Europeans who feel the pull to explore this.
Jan:
As I have said before - the topic of the post wasn't Newman.
Yes, those who encounter Christ want to explore "how did this happen" but that could happen in many ways.
Evangelicals have traditionally done it through a passionate exploration of Scripture and Biblical history. If ordinary evangelicals are into history, it tend to be Reformation and later history that "skips" most of that uninteresting stuff between the second and 16th centuries. Or picks up various interesting personalities and bits from the middle ages but "frames" it in a Reformation understanding.
It is a kind of history and it has some depth but not one that impels most of them to become Catholic.
And for many new Christians, both in the west and in the south, the faith is about answers to present and future concerns, not primarily about historical ones.
Which I suspect is why many of our own go to the evangelical or Pentecostal worlds. Because they find a form of Christianity there that speaks to their burning practical and future-oriented concerns.
What Dr. Sannah calls the "frontier Catholicism" of Africa and Asia is very much like that. Present focused.
"We feel a real responsibility for the shaping of society. Our societies are new. They have to reinvent themselves and Catholics want to make sure that the Church makes a significant contribution."
While historically minded western seekers migrate to Catholicism and Orthodoxy because they are asking different questions. Fighting a different enemy: secularism.
An unintentional exchange of prisoners. Neither set of burning issues or focus is wrong. God is not asking us to choose between the two.
(trying again as it seemed not to post; sorry for any dups)
Sherry,
If nothing else, this is a good post because of the dialog it has stirred. I think outside of the context of this post, you and I would agree on many things.
I understand the frustration of feeling like people are not understanding you, but I think you might consider owning some of the responsibility for the breakdown instead of saying "I wish people would read what I wrote." We did, and we got a different message than what you intended to send--a lot of us.
Anyways, I do agree with you that the center of Catholic culture could shift again. I am not so sure that what you seem to be advocating here is the way it will happen. By that I mean you seem to suggest that we "Westerners" should be trying to adapt what we're writing to suit this larger, emerging "Southern" culture.
That sounds artificial to me and could easily come across, especially for those of us who lack experience in their contexts, as a kind of condescension--like they're too stupid to understand our culture and draw out from it on their own what is valuable and works for them, so we try to massage our message to some ill-conceived idea of what their culture is. Maybe for you, you could avoid that problem because you say you've spent time there, but suggesting that those of us who haven't imbibed their cultures do this kind of adaptation could easily result in the problem of apparent condescension.
I would suggest, rather, that if these "southern" cultures truly will be the new dominant force in Catholic culture, that it will emerge naturally on its own and that *people in those cultures* will need to step up and lead shaping that. Us trying to do that for them is just interloping and arrogance, IMO.
In the meantime, I think the better way is for us westerners to stay focused on what we know best and what are our chief concerns and talk about those and to those. Maybe some like you who have the privilege of spending extensive time in these other cultures can start to bridge the gap and collaborate with people in those cultures to establish a stronger online presence that suits them--that would be great. But it doesn't mean that we westerners need to (nor should we) self-deprecate our own culture.
There are still many millions of us here and many millions more who could be evangelized, and, as you point out, the biggest concern for us is indeed secularization. We have quite the mission field of our own, and those of us called to that mission field should not be made to feel like it is not worthy or parochial or somehow less good than those who feel called to work in the newer fields.
Ambrose:
I appreciate the spirit of your response. I’m sure we would agree on many things.
I’m going to add a sentence at the beginning of my post, saying “This is not a discussion of the historical theology of John Henry Newman”
I can see that I would have done better not to name Newman. But he was the source of the popularly quoted saying. It was the contemporary popular mindset that the Newman quote is used to buttress that I was interested in.
But apparently was such unfamiliar territory that people kept trying to make it be about Newman. Because he was the only familiar face in the crowd.
You said:
Anyway, I do agree with you that the center of Catholic culture could shift again. I am not so sure that what you seem to be advocating here is the way it will happen. By that I mean you seem to suggest that we "Westerners" should be trying to adapt what we're writing to suit this larger, emerging "Southern" culture.
Where did I say that? Chapter and verse, please. Cause I didn’t even think it. All I said was (several times) was that it behoves us to be aware that many people in both west and south are not spiritually motivated by historical questions.
I respond:
What I was advocating was *awareness*.
Awareness is what I was after. Awareness of our tendency to think mono-culturally and mono-historically about the challenges ahead of the Church. Awareness that the struggles of the western Church in the 21st century is very different from the challenges facing the southern Church. Awareness that we really are not “the” Church anymore.
And at a practical level, awareness that even in the west, many, many people are seeking God but not through history – and that has implications for our own pastoral and evangelical practice. Awareness of the complexity gives us the flexibility to respond to people’s real questions in a wide variety of ways because we are actually paying attention to them and not simply projecting a pre-existing paradigm on them.
You wrote:
I would suggest, rather, that if these "southern" cultures truly will be the new dominant force in Catholic culture, that it will emerge naturally on its own and that *people in those cultures* will need to step up and lead shaping that.
I reply:
I never said they would be “the” dominant force. I said they would be “a” new force. How did “a” center get morphed into “the” center? Unless we simply cannot conceive of a Catholicism with multiple cultural centers.
You wrote:
But it doesn't mean that we westerners need to (nor should we) self-deprecate our own culture. There are still many millions of us here and many millions more who could be evangelized, and, as you point out, the biggest concern for us is indeed secularization. We have quite the mission field of our own, and those of us called to that mission field should not be made to feel like it is not worthy or parochial or somehow less good than those who feel called to work in the newer fields.
I reply:
Where did I suggest that we depreciate our own culture? Again, chapter and verse, please. Since most of my time on this blog is spent precisely on the topic of evangelizing our own in the west, I have never thought, much less said or written that evangelizing our own is “unworthy” or “parochial” or “less good”.
What is genuinely parochial is our working and talking as though we in the west are the Catholic Church. Distinguishing between the “west” and “the Church” is just being recognizing the facts on the ground. Rejoicing in the incredible fruit of Catholic missionary efforts. It isn’t saying that it is all over with the west and that we have no value or importance in the future of Catholicism. It is the north and the south – together – that is our future. Not either-or.
Far from it. Our struggles with secularism which are very real and important and will ultimately benefit the whole body. Just as we can learn things from Catholic experience in the global
Really, the "it's our history, not theirs" comment is kind of silly.
It's their history too, of course, if they are Christians.
The history of the Arian controversy is mine not because I am European, still less because I am Egyptian.
It's mine because I am Christian.
I am not going to condescend to Africans and say that they cannot be interested in the history of Christianity because they have animist ancestors.
If they are deep in history as Newman was--by that he meant and I mean Christian history, THEIR history--then they will cease to be Protestant.
I really think this is a failed point. Not all Africans will have the bent or interest or ability to get deep into their Christian history. But not all Americans or Europeans are going to go deep into it either.
We in the West HAVE BEEN the Catholic Church. That IS the history of the Catholic Church. So far. So what? That's a delightful thing for Africans too, just as the fact that the origins of MY Church are Palestinian Jewish is a delightful thing for me, in spite of the the fact that my ancestors were wild Balts who hunted bison in the primeval forests while Jesus walked the earth.
"Awareness of our tendency to think mono-culturally and mono-historically about the challenges ahead of the Church"
See, this is where I think you are going wrong.
In large part, our tendency to do this is a RESULT of living in culture formed by Christianity. As the Pope never tires of pointing out, the Church has her own culture which forms her members.
Some peoples live in the present. Some peoples live in a world that sees recurring cycles, the Wheel of Life. Some people live in a world of legends of the origins of their tribe.
But in very large part the sense of universal human history progressing in a meaningful way--history as opposed to chronology--is part of the Christian patrimony to the human race. As people become Christianized, they become more sensible of this.
To the degree that Protestantism doesn't have this, it is defective. The fact that God can find ways around this defect in individual human hearts is a tribute to His love and greatness. But it's not something to be encouraged in an ecclesiological sense.
In any case, how anyone can read the Bible as a whole and not understand Revelation as historical and progressive beats the heck out of me. To the extent that they do get this sense of historical progression they will want to extend the line after the day of Paul and John.
That will lead them to Europe, I'm afraid. No getting around that.
This blog entry completely misunderstands Newman's point, and the point of those apologists who cite him. Newman was not linking up 'history' with 'cultural-rootedness' or 'heritage'. Nor was he linking up 'history' with 'longevity' or even 'antiquity', if those are understood as ends in themselves. For Newman, history is evidentially relevant precisely because it reveals to us the character of apostolic Christianity---and apostolic Christianity is normative for all of us. The kind of Christianity the apostles left behind is 'historic' Christianity.
It is therefore true now, and always will be true, even to the end of the age, that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant, and, for that matter, that to be deep in history is to be Catholic.
(Part I)
Hi Sherry,
Enjoying the convo..
I avoid citations whenever I can; I find it deadens the style and tends toward unproductive rabbit holes of deconstructing language. The Fathers didn't do it; why should I? ;)
I do think that there is a dominant culture at any particular time in the Church. You pointed out the shift from Jerusalem/middle east to North Africa and from Greek to Latin. That's where I thought you were going--that we may be shifting from a western dominance to a southern (again).
I agree that a healthy awareness of the different ecclesial traditions that are part of the Catholic Church is a good thing, and even acknowledging the new ones that seem to be shaping up.
I don't see what you seem to be seeing in, e.g., Longenecker's post (and certainly not in Newman as we've established). Saying you want to be a part of the historic Church could be valid even in cultures where there is no Christian history (as I hope we've established). In fact, it might seem more valid a concern for new converts without a Christian heritage of their own (like Protestantism).
I mean, if I'm converting to a new religion that has different sects, I'd probably at least think about which one has the best claim to be the truest/best for that religion, which for a historically-grounded religion like ours inevitably involves history. Not everyone thinks like that for sure, but it's not a cultural thing so much as a personal thing (some people give more importance to thought/creed/history and some more to personal relationships, for instance).
I keep coming back to not understanding why the original post was setting itself up against those who are more historically oriented. There are elements in your rhetorical style that are used to suggest that one way (the way you are suggesting) is better and that those who follow the different way that you dichotomized are not as good. We could mince words all day on this and not come to a resolution; I'm just explaining where my responses are coming from regarding this post.
Why didn't you just say "hey, check out all these awesome cultures we have in the church! we should be aware of them, both new and old, and try to serve them all" rather than implying through your rhetorical setup that those who deal with history and western problems are somehow parochial? There are much less provocative and productive ways to make your point than the way it was done. I mean, we've had to dig this deep into a conversation to bring out that you were just trying to raise awareness of other Catholic cultures, so if that was your point, it was pretty obscured by the way you chose to present it. (IMO) You, apparently inadvertently, rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with it, judging by most of the comments. I'm just sayin. But I guess it is water under the bridge now as far as I'm concerned.
TBC...
(Part II)
Finally, as to the actual point, I return to suggesting that it would be best for those in these other cultures to step up to the table and become a part of the conversation about the problems in the Church, rather than for us to try to pretend to understand them for them. And again, I think this will happen naturally if they do become more dominant forces in the Church. Surely awareness is good, but to go anywhere terribly productive with that awareness, we need the voice of those cultures speaking up for themselves.
I also think that practically speaking, as I noted before, religious (Catholic) blogging is sort of a subculture of its own. I came to the church online (pre blog era) for the most part, but I wouldn't have worried too much about what this or that particular blogger said--I'd go to the source (and I did) thanks in large part to newadvent.org (the Fathers, the Encyclopedia, etc.), some well-known biblical apologists, conciliar texts, papal texts, the catechisms, and dialog in various forums. What I'm saying is that I wouldn't get too overly concerned that Catholic blogging seems to do a lot of navel gazing. It's natural, healthy, and fills a need for those involved.
We have plenty of things to sort out in our own culture, and focusing on that even to the exclusion of actively trying to hypothesize about other cultures is okay in my book. God will surely call people to focus on these other cultures, as I suspect he has you.
Even in our own cultural mission field, there are different kinds of things going on: apologists to atheists, apologists to Protestants, apologists to popular culture, etc. And there is the simple, one-on-one evangelization/apologetics that is often the most effective and is about *listening* to individuals and responding directly to their questions, forming relationships with people, and simply living as if we really believe what we believe.
It would be easy to say, for instance, that blogging is pointless and we should all preach the Gospel at all times, using words if necessary, to paraphrase a great saint. Certainly there are those who probably think this. But just like we should be aware of other cultures, we should be aware of the many different callings and apostolates and not create false dichotomies between them. We are all members of the same Body.
okay, now I *know* I'm rambling.. bye for now.
Ambrose:
What I saw in Fr. Longennecker's post was the five uses of the word historic in two sentences. (I tried to bold the word “historic” to make the point but it didn't come through very well). Here's a snippet:
"Many Catholics do not realize that there are large numbers of Evangelical Christians who look very longingly at the *historic* liturgical churches. They hold to the *historic* faith, but they want to belong to a *historic* church."
"look very longingly" at a historic church, "wanting to belong" to a historic church."
Which counts as motivation in my book. Highly personal, feeling language. A felt longing by contemporary Christians for historic Christianity, not to admire it from the outside but belong to it.
You wrote:
I mean, if I'm converting to a new religion that has different sects, I'd probably at least think about which one has the best claim to be the truest/best for that religion, which for a historically-grounded religion like ours inevitably involves history.
I'm sure you would.
But it wasn't my question. (Although I love history and read all the usual works, including Newman.) My questions and issues were all very much present and future oriented. And my discernment of the “truth” and reliability of the Church’s teaching was on a different basis.
Nor is that sort of thing of any interest at all to a huge spectrum of my family and friends, all of whom are exceptionally intelligent but for whom history of that kind doesn't exist. And who, if I mention something historical, are likely to walk out of the room.
Nor was this sort of question of interest to the vast majority of the evangelicals that I knew and still know. It's a valid, wonderful concern but a highly specialized one. Unless you live in a time and place where it is a common topic of conversation.
You said:
"Not everyone thinks like that for sure, but it's not a cultural thing so much as a personal thing (some people give more importance to thought/creed/history and some more to personal relationships, for instance)"."
It's both. If you grew up in a era and a place (let's say as a middle class boy in Oxford in the 1830's and 40's) where this was a public controversy, you probably would think about it - even if that wasn't your natural bent. Or in an academic and/or Bishop's family like Ronald Knox.
But most people grow up in more ordinary families where people don't know or care about such things and where one person who does is pretty much on their own.
And growing up in a culture to which this whole idea is foreign just makes it less likely. Not impossible. Just not likely. Because most of us can't think about things we've never heard anyone else talk about.
But that kind of talking is going on around St. Blog's. So lots of people who might not otherwise be concerned are highly concerned. They have been formed by their blogging experience.
As to the all the kuffle on this post, this is nothing compared to the blogging debates that broke in on the right and left over the title of our blog" Intentional Disciples. From Amy Welborn to Commonweal, people were indignant at the use of the word "intentional" and for that matter, at the very idea of being a "disciple".
We thought we were being as bland as apple pie and then found that we had violated some nearly universal Catholic cultural norm.
When you do that, I've found that people begin to read in all kinds of things that you didn't say - because they never were reacting to what you actually wrote but to something larger and more personal than that.
And although we tried to articulate what we meant over and over in light of the Church's teaching, a majority across the spectrum simply couldn't take our words at face value.
We *had* to mean something much deeper and more sinister. So deep was the anxiety that our language had triggered.
Now people have gotten used to the idea of "intentional Disciples" and we don't get that kind of grief anymore.
So I've learned that getting a strong, wide-spread over the top negative reaction isn't necessarily a sign that you did something wrong.
You'll learn to do it better next time. But sometimes it just needs to be said and repeated a thousand different ways while you ride out the reaction.
Sherry,
what I understand you to be saying (and I could be wrong) is that the function of history as a kind of self-understanding, like a missing chunk of family's past, can work for people of a Western background but not so much for those in Africa & Asia who don't have that "family background", so to speak. I think, though, that history might play a role for Africans and Asians the way it did in the ancient Mediterranean. As I understand it back then Christianity had the advantage of pointing to a real historical person (Jesus) in real tangible places (Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem) unlike the mystery religions with Orpheus or whoever inhabiting a vague Golden Age. For African & Asian people whose animist or other relgions look to a "dreamtime" or other mythic age, Christianity has the advantage of being something you can place on a map and on a calendar. It can serve, not as missing family history, but as a a flagpost or a lampost. It wouldn't be the only function or benefit, but it would be something.
I do think you were a bit unfair in the comment about the Spanish Conquistadores. History is a bit more complicated thatn that and I think Arturo was referring more to the Church in "Spanish America" rather than the deeds of the Conquistadores. Evangelization may have been incomplete by today's standards but it was succesful enough that some of most populous Catholic nations are in Latin America.
What?
Sherry, I don't think Ashton is saying what you think he's saying.
He's saying that since many evangelicals searching for historic Christianity end up in Orthodoxy, your contention that this is all about pseudo-European medievalism is questionable.
(Theo - this is not aimed at you personally. I appreciate your comment)
But I am finding this whole conversation beyond belief.
I am NOT contending that this is about "pseudo European medievalism".
What I said (and I quote) was "historic roots in western Christendom". That does not equal "medieval". It encompasses the entire 2,000 years. All of it.
Once again, a reader is projecting something onto me that I didn't actually say. Or think.
I am saying just what Fr. Dwight was saying that many are become Catholic because they are longing to be "deep in history", to be part of the historic Church.
That's all. I'm closing these comments because they seem so pointless. it has got to be the most frustrating conversation I have ever had in 3 years of blogging.
Well not absolutely. But close.
We clearly are talking completely past each other and there apparently no way to change that. And I don't have the time to keep up with it.
Thanks for your participation.
Okay, let me see if I can put what you are trying to say in my own words:
An intellectual Englishman practicing intentional Anglicanism in 19th century England and seeking his own historical roots in a national context will naturally gravitate toward Catholicism.
But this historically based appeal of returning to the roots will not have a similar resonance for people without the Catholic historical background and the particular European mindset of, say, Africans, for whom the question of recovery of an interrupted historical development does not apply.
Is that right?
Reading the previous post on witchcraft and polygamy being the chief issues in African Catholicism, I see better the point you were trying to make.
I think I still disagree with it.
But it's a deep and complex point and naturally people will approach it with the tools they have in hand: their preconceptions. It seems to me that it needs patient talking through, not comments closing! :p
Sherry please don't be upset but I think the problem is that you are using the words of John Newman's with a very different understanding of them. I have read you post multiple times but it is very confusing as you say it is not about Newman but then frequently use a quotation of his (hence alluding to the concepts, etc behind that quotation).
That quotation attributed to Newman has a very defined meaning and history. By using something that is phrased very closely you are attaching a meaning,etc to your article it seems you may not realize. That is why the common consensus is that you have erred in using it. It would be better to say in the beginning that this has no relation to John Newman's quote (though to the detriment of your article you do relate to it by frequently using it even if no realtion is intended). Nor have I ever heard it to be understood by anyone else in the manner you are citing. It is not self evident as the most obvious meaning would seem to be that Protestantism is not as old as Catholicism and hence can not be traced back to Christ. The understanding you cited seems to be a very localized understanding, not widespread, nor common. As has been stated it is erroneous and has little to do with ethnic or geographic history. Most likely it is because it was not read it in context.
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Hello again Sherry I won't post anymore on this topic but I did think I would mention that I think you misunderstand most of those who are attracted to Catholicism by its historicity. It is not so superficial as you seem to think. Yes "historicity, authority, and a bulwark against western secularism" no doubt play a factor (it does seem you do are slighting of those claims even so). However, the major reason often is apostolicity (which is an element of a properly understood historicity). The simple fact is only those Churches which can be traced back to Christ have any claim of being the True Church (the reasoning behind it is pretty simple). Most of the converts via those means are former protestants who can not bring themselves to say that Christ's Church could not withstand the gates of Hell at some point and therfore must have existed from the time of Christ. The logic is very simple but and beautiful. This is why many former protestants become Catholic. After all apostolicty is own of the Four Marks of the True Church. Therefore historicity is very very important. As you will recognize by your study of history a proper understanding of history is crucial for understanding the Church and Her mission. After all the Scriptures even have an historical element and Jesus Christ existed historically. The historicity of the Church is part of Her treasure and is always being added to in this world. It is important to communicate it to those who are not aware of it else one is depriving them of part of their spiritual heritage. After all the saints, etc belong to all Catholics. As far as those who attracted by other means I am always amazed by God's grace and the manifold ways He calls us. Some more mudane than others but all with the same purpose of loving and knowing God.
Jeff:
"An intellectual Englishman practicing intentional Anglicanism in 19th century England and seeking his own historical roots in a national context will naturally gravitate toward Catholicism."
Sherry:
Nope. That was *NOT* what I was trying to say.
My purpose was descriptive, not prescriptive.
I was trying to say that the Englishman in that situation often *experienced* and "understood" his journey toward Catholicism as a recovering of his historical and cultural roots.
If he is historically minded, there may well be a natural attraction or at least, natural curiosity, involved. If he is romantically and aethestically inclined, the images of the pre-Raphaelites, England as Our Lady's Dowry, Chesterton, Belloc all touch that chord.
If he was a natural conservative or loathed what Britain has become, conversion could also serve as a vehicle for rejecting modernity and claiming his citizenship in an earlier, more attractive era. (Read Joseph Pierce's LIterary Converts for more on that. Rejection of modernity and the 20th century motivated many of the famous English converts of the 20th century.) Etc. There were and are many such reasons.
Most people are not Newman. They don't make such a decision as a result of years of disciplined scholarship, pure intellectual conviction and submission to the will of God, whatever it costs them.
Although we hear many western converts these days who talk about “reading one’s way into the Church” even today, that only represents a tiny (less than 1%) percentage of adults in RCIA. (They tend to hang out in blogs a lot.)
In earlier eras in the west, when most people couldn’t read or couldn’t read at a high level and didn’t have the leisure to read a lot at a high level and when books were less available and the internet did not yet exist: only the most privileged “read their way into the Church”. (Many of the celebrated converts of the 19th and 20th century were extremely privileged culturally and intellectually. It wasn’t called the “Oxford Movement” for nothing.)
Many people were and are attracted to Catholicism because it taps into all kinds of feelings, concerns and desires. It’s a personal stew all jumbled together, a stew that is also influenced *by what they are told entering the Church means by others about them and what they see and hear other converts of their time and place value. *
Yes, I AM saying that how people understand the meaning of their conversion changes from era to era because of what they experience personally and because of what the Catholic community of their time and place tells them it means. Which changes.
In conservative Catholic circles today, history and recovering or defending historic Catholic European culture looms exceedingly large. Because the European present and future seems filled with a profoundly hostile secularism that is shaking off all traces of that history and culture.
If one is moving in those circles. it quite naturally becomes one of the primary ways that you might understand the significance of becoming Catholic. And if you are concerned about secularism, you might easily find yourself attracted to Catholic circles who share your concern.
Which is where Newman comes in. Because if your concerns are historical, the phrase "to be deep in history" has great resonance. I known many people to quote that phrase who have never read Newman's On the Development of Doctrine. Quoting it not as an intellectual exercise but because it a cool phrase that they have heard many others use that expresses and reinforces the historically-oriented emphasis of conservative Catholicism in the west.
(Note: I am NOT saying these concerns are not valid reasons for conversion. I'm just saying they ARE reasons that I have read and encountered over and over and over again in the literature of conversion to orthodox Catholicism over the past 20 years. The literature I was urged to read when I was considering making the leap myself.)
My focus: How people "experience" and *personally understand* the meaning of their conversion. Which is affected very much by the "mood" or general ethos or interests of their time and place and of the Catholics that they know.
Obviously, the "mood" and general "ethos" of new Catholics in Nigeria or Korea is going to how individuals interpret what becoming Catholic means in their historical and cultural setting. It can affected by their family's reaction (getting cut off by your family because you abandoned the historic traditions of your own people and have “dishonored” them and/or knowing that you are part of the first or second generation of Christians among your own nation doesn't lend itself to understanding your own decision as rooting yourself in the past. It would feel closer to breaking with the past in order to affiliate one’s self with a brighter present or a better future.)
It will also be affected by what you hear from other Christians about you.
And motivations for becoming Christian in the global south can be very surprising to westerners. Freedom from demonic spirits or alcoholism or drugs, having dreams or visions of Christ or Mary, being healed, hope that you and family can get out of poverty, the hope of education, and many other more immediate and primal concerns fuel many conversions in the south. The "paradigm" of what conversion means there to individuals and what is passed on to them by the Christian community is very often profoundly different.
In the global south, “reading their way into the Church” western style is possible only for the exceedingly privileged. (Who might well attend a lecture on Augustine but who represent only a tiny sliver of their own people. They are the cultural and intellectual princes and princesses of their people – and come from elite families.)
The average African moving from Animism or Asian leaving Hinduism or Buddhism understands the meaning of their conversion differently than a middle class American who because their experience WAS profoundly different.
Deliverance in the present and hope for the future, not as a recovery of or rootedness in the past. The basic catechesis is the same but the way the whole experience is framed in that person’s mind varies tremendously.
That was my point. Experience and interpretation of the meaning of one’s own conversion in profoundly different cultural and historical settings are usually remarkably different.
My post was not a meditation on the thesis of Newman's Development of Doctrine.
Which I only mentioned once in my very long original post. In the first sentence.
Sherry,
I think you've made your position clear through the comments conversation. I would agree that anyone at this point would either not be reading the comment threads or just willfully ignoring what you're saying to misread you at this point.
So my question is, where do we go from here? Are you suggesting a course of action for us?
Ambrose:
My original post was written on the spur of the moment because I had just "seen" how different the experience of conversion might be. In a single intuitive flash.
But I do think there are some significant implications for us in the west.
1) In our own evangelization efforts, be aware that the spiritual journeys of unchurched post-modern western people can look must closer to that of a southerner than our own.
Present and future focused. Experiential. Mystical. Intuitive. Emotional. Social. Looking for healing, deliverance, relationship and love, meaning, beauty.
Not intellectual in the classic sense. Not historically minded. Not because they are a natural conservative. Not about fear of secularism.
Reading is not the primary path. Living is.
All paths that bring us closer to Christ are legit. But many are surprising. People don't travel one path. They move close to Christ and his Church from the full 360 degrees.
To help them, we need to be able to recognize the individual's unique journey and walk it with them, even if it is astonishingly different from our own.
2) In pondering the future of the Church, we must remember that our western battle with secularism and the accompanying historical amnesia about the Christian roots of western culture is not universal. We are not the Church. We are not even the majority.
If we don't grasp our present reality, how can we discern where to go from here?
Okay, Sherry,
So a few years ago I saw a biker dude in a parking lot at lunch and had an epiphany--that guy would never read my blog. Years before that, in college, I was struggling with the "point" of being an intellectual apologist because intellectuals make up such a tiny fraction of the population.
But in both cases, I had the accompanying insight that it was okay--everyone doesn't need to be an intellectual nor read my blog, as long as *one* person does. If I could just impact that one person who stumbles across by blog, it'd all be worth it. And even if no one else ever read it, I would have benefitted from thinking it through and putting my thoughts together so that I could better be able to discuss it in person or simply just for my own deepening of my faith.
So I am back to wondering what the implication is for us Catholic, religious bloggers. It seems to me that there are few implications beyond, as you say, awareness. But what are the implications of that awareness in how we blog? It seems like it is appropriate for us to blog what we know--the old adage for writers is to write what you know. There are bound to be some folks for whom it is appropriate, and if you know your audience, write for them.
God gives us all gifts, talents, and predispositions. Surely we should capitalize on those and not try to be something or someone we're not.
Ambrose:
I guess i didn't really think about bloggers per se but all the other stuff I do and am responsible for. I've got a few thoughts. None of them very original.
From a blogging perspective, I think it is critical to write for the lurkers who may never comment. They may be spiritual seekers just sticking their foot in the door or returning Catholics trying to figure out what it means to be Catholic as an adult. And they are not just Americans. They come from all over the world.
Don't let the shibboleths of St. Blog's box you in. So much of the conversations around the blogosphere are conducted in cliches. Our mental ruts are so deep that all we need is a single whiff of the familiar, whether it is "to be deep in history" or the liturgy or life issues or whatever - and we're off down our rabbit trails.
Think about those aspects of the faith that you really know and care about and blog on those. Especially if other bloggers aren't covering them. Make it your business to hold up, rejoice in, and expound the value, beauty, significance and implications of that aspect of the faith. To broaden the expression of the Catholic faith that is available online.
Be persistent because if you aren't writing on the same hot button issues as everyone else, people have to find you. But they will find you.
And look for opportunities to write about non-western stories that are relevant to your focus. So we can hear about the challenges, experiences, and faith of the whole Church.
Keep reminding yourself that we in the west are only a part of the Church and that God is doing wonderful things through his whole Church. Things we in our bunkers need to hear and be encouraged, inspired, and illuminated by.
Things that bloggers can bring to their readers .
Thanks for the long and interesting explanation.
I see that your focus is not on Newman but on people unlike Newman.
My feeling when I try to think through why so many people found this a provocative post--and I found and still find it a provocative post--is that it has something to do with the antithesis you set up.
I guess in a way, people are focusing on Newman because they think you are wrong NOT to be doing so.
Saying that village people in Malawi who convert to Catholicism are thinking of something very different from Newman is saying WHAT precisely? How is it different from saying that a villager in Picardy was thinking of something very different from Aquinas when he venerated the bones of some saint?
The man who said "to be deep into history..." etc, also said, "Birmingham people have souls too!"
Thomas Aquinas writing scholastic theology and Newman writing about the Arian controversy are doing something vital that touches even hoi polloi.
Here is the point:
Newman's specific experience of getting deep into history was naturally informed by his Englishness. But he was looking at early Church history, not the Reformation when he said that. It was "the Monophysite in the Mirror" that led him to see the Catholicity of Romanism.
Most Catholics are not going to get to Newman. Or to Aquinas. Or to the Fathers of the Church. Or probably even to Benedict's encyclicals. God loves them as much or more than those of us who mumble the dry bones of ancient controversies.
But those in Malawi who are really deep into history--Christian history, as Newman was--will see that Protestantism makes no sense. It's an invented religion, disjunct with historical Christianity and therefore utterly implausible.
What does it mean to be deep into the history of the Councils of the early Church from a Malawian perspective? How does that differ from Newman? I just bet you that if you asked someone like Cardinal Arinze or Cardinal Turkson or any of a variety of African Catholic intellectuals, they wouldn't find Newman irrelevant at all.
Of course, you might find people for whom the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism was unimportant. And one can understand how they might think so.
But if they really thought so in a deep sense opposed to Newman, they wouldn't be approaching things from a different, African perspective. They would be: wrong.
I deny that Newman was seeing things as a Romantic English intellectual. He was seeing something true. And accessible even to Mandarins or Zulus if they are able to comprehend the issues involved.
Will that issue be what converts most Zulus today? Probably not! There are plenty of other proofs and signs of Catholicity. But that doesn't mean that Newman's vision doesn't matter because bloggers are interested in it more than villagers.
There is a danger in being a hothouse intellectual. But there is also a danger in being a populist. Catholicism is a wonderful stew of both, thank God.
You know, I read my post and I read what you wrote in the comments again and in the original post and I feel "Gee, maybe we are picking on her."
But then I think, "No, she purposely wrote the post in a provocative way. SHE is the one who brought in Newman in.
You can't title a post "What If "To Be Deep in History" is to Cease to Be Catholic?" and then say "don't talk about Newman."" If you don't want to talk about what Newman meant by this or what people think Newman meant by this, you shouldn't have used it in the post.
You used it because it was good to use: it was provocative. But it was also distracting.
A possibly useful way to join the two would be to say that those who are deep in their OWN history will be anything but Catholic..perhaps. But those who discover the newness of Christ in a Catholic context will simultaneously discover the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the saints and Fathers...they will discover a whole new God-centered history of which they are overjoyed to be a part.
They will discover a whole new past as well as a whole new present. You can't preach Christ without talking about days gone by in places far away. There's just no getting around that. There is no Christ of the Present detached from the Christ of the Past.
There are those for whom the historical dimension stops at the end of the New Testament. And there are those for whom it continues on and ends with them, with stories of the Roman martyrs and Gregory of Tours and all the population of the Roman calendar.
The second bunch have a more lively ecclesial sense and that makes them more deeply Christian. Tear Christ away from the Church over time and you get something very dangerous. Christ as a figure only of today who heals me from spirits who assault me is not going to have much staying power.
Jeff:
I wrote it because it had just occurred to me and I thought it was an interesting and important perspective.
What I didn't grasp as clearly before is that the historical hermeneutic that fills many conservative Catholic circles makes it almost impossible to see why it is both interesting and important to grasp how profoundly different Christian conversion and life is in the larger part of the Church.
A particular hermeneutic - interpretative tradition - help us see certain things very well but they can also blind us to other aspects of the truth. We all operate out of them but it behoves us to to understand the strengths and limits of our particular hermeneutic and be conscious of the aspects of the reality, of the truth, that our particular hermeneutic makes us less likely to recognize when we met it.
I used the Newman quote as an illustration because it was a familiar, quick and dirty summary of our familiar mental progression in this area.
I thought it would make an intriguing title that might make people want to read the post. I haven't hung out in popular apologetics circles in years so I didn't anticipate the intensity of the response. I saw a connection that was far more out of the Catholic blogger box that I realized.
I really didn't get that 1) readers would find it almost impossible to see my point; 2) that when a few finally did, they would go "So?"
Which says so much about the fixed intensity and narrowness of our western internal debates especially as they are expressed in popular forums like blogs.
So much of which is driven by the peculiarities of our experience and situation in the west at this moment in history. And. because we are human, by anxiety, anger, and other emotions as much as by the hunger for spiritual truth.
Magnified by the echo chamber that is the internet.
I realize this is a rather older post, but I just finished reading through it and through most of the comments, so I thought I'd say something. Thank you, Sherry, for the fascinating post. I have very seldom thought about how Catholicism matters differently to different people and just how little intellectual/historical reasons will matter to most average people in the world. I liked your title, it certainly caught my attention (why I'm reading it now, weeks after it was posted :).The way you used the quote was the way I had always thought to use it. I never knew that's not what he was talking about it had actually occurred to me a few times that it couldn't be true for everyone, so I didn't like the quote much, and I'm a history major ;). My thanks to you for making me more aware of how counter-cultural Catholics in the Asian and African countries must be, and how history, when you get down to the root of things, doesn't necessarily do as much for people's growth as a shared living gospel will do.
I hope that makes some sense :). I count myself as one of those lurkers you mention, so I'm not used to leaving comments, but I thought I owed you a thank you after all the intense commenting you had. :)
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