Eric Hodgens. 8 June 1999
This presentation was the keynote address at the Catholic Education Conference held at Melbourne University in July 1999.
Luke – the Jubilee Evangelist: Set the oppressed free.
Luke is the jubilee evangelist. Mark, and Matthew following him, present Jesus starting his preaching ministry in Galilee with the proclamation, “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Good News.” But Luke is more specific. It is in the Synagogue at Nazara. He stood and read a passage from Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.” He goes on to tell them that “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
In fact, Luke is playing loose with the Isaiah text. He substitutes “let the oppressed go free” for “the release of prisoners” in the original. And he omits the last phrase in the original, to announce “a day of vengeance by our God.” This may be an explanation for the bad reaction he gets. Jesus’ God is a God of compassion to all, not the vindicator of Israel’s slights. Hence the references to the outsiders who won God’s favour over the Israelites in the next verses.
Freedom for the oppressed! “Do not be afraid” will be a constant theme for Luke.
This speaks to me of a jubilee that is fitting for the turn of the 21st century. Sin and fear has been so central to the proclamation of Christianity for centuries. Have a look at Delumeau’s book “Sin and Fear.”[1] We have all borne a heavy yoke of oppression by fear. It has been heavily woven into the tapestry of the ideology that has been very pervasive in Catholic life for centuries. That ideology is crumbling. We are losing some aspects of the life of the church that a strong ideology supports. But we have already begun a new experience of faith that brings the freedom of the Gospel, releases the bonds of fear and can bring us into a new period of joy especially for those involved in faith education.
Nevertheless, for those who love the Church and its Good News there are additional fears and anxieties today. The Church appears to be falling apart. It is certainly losing numbers. Most of us know people who have given it up. Many of us have had the same temptation either because of disillusionment or demoralization as we struggle against the tide. I say all is well – on balance. There are massive changes afoot – and much more to come. Not all of this is good – but on balance it is good – if not very good. Here is my reasoning for that assertion.
The 60’s Family:
I went to the seminary in 1953, just three years after the last jubilee year. I have been a priest for the best part of 40 years. For the whole of the years between these two jubilees my life has been intensely associated with the Church. As a new curate you tend to learn from the Parish Priest on the job. As early as 1961 I was discussing a parish family with my Parish Priest. There were several children – all baby boomers and being brought up very strictly. The PP said, “Oh, they will all give the church the flick.” “Really?” I said, “ Why?” He replied, “They are Catholics like Collingwood Supporters, one-eyed and tribal. Those kids are willful. They don’t like the tribe. They will choose another.”
A couple of years ago, that’s 35 years later, I met those parents. “None of our children are still practising”, they said, but added, “They’ll be back.” I doubt it.
Four Points Spotted:
That priest was very perceptive. He had spotted:
- The looming loss of them.
- The Generational difference of the Baby Boomers.
- The Cultural aspect of being a Catholic – “tribal”.
- The Ideological aspect of being a Catholic – “like Collingwood supporters – one-eyed”
We lost them.
We did lose a lot of them. Let’s take a couple of pointers.
Mass Attendance.
Surveys taken in the post-war years into the 1950’s show 60% of Catholics attending Mass regularly. Today it is around 18% and dropping relentlessly. The main reason is that the older generations are dying off. The Baby Boomers are not so regular and the Generation X’s are virtually absent. And now something even more insidious. We are losing a proportion of the parents of these two generations. The disillusionment is spreading.
Dramatic Drop in Vocations and Ordinations to the Priesthood.
These have dropped dramatically. And it all started back round World War II. A steady proportion of the WW I and WW II generations went to the seminary. Three quarters of them stayed to ordination. The Silent Generation joined up after WWII, but the retention rate dropped. And this was the group which started the exodus from the priesthood after ordination. A smaller proportion of Baby Boomers joined up. The retention rate dropped further. Post-ordination departures increased. And Generation X has shown virtually no interest at all.
The looming absence of priests is the most far reaching fact facing the Church in the English speaking world and Europe today. It is a major indicator of the sea change that the Church is going through.
Explanation?
What is the explanation? We can use the other three hooks which that priest of 40 years ago gave us in his pithy observation.
The Generational Differences.
If we look at the century which is coming to an end we see that five generations have come of age (i.e. entered the twenties). This is all out of “Generations” by William Strauss and Neil Howe.[2]
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Table 1: The Generations of the 20th Century
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Title
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Dominant/
Recessive
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Generation Type
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Birth Years
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Came of Age
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Lost Generation
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Recessive
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Reactive
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1883-1900
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1903-1920
World War I.
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World War II
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Dominant
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Civic
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1901-1924
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1921-1944
Depression and World War II.
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Silent
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Recessive
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Adaptive
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1925-1942
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1945-1962
Post-war Reconstruction.
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Baby Boomer
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Dominant
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Idealist
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1943-1960
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1963-1980
The Free Sixties.
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Generation X
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Recessive
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Reactive
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1961-1981
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1981-2001
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Two World Wars and a serious depression dominated the first half of the century. The Lost Generation was the cannon fodder of World War I. They suffered it largely in silent grief. They became the emblem of the Little Aussie Battler, but their performance under awful, tragic suffering paved the way for the World War II generation to deal with the depression and the war with energy, resolve and success. After WW II this generation rolled up their sleeves and led the post-war reconstruction with the Silent generation keeping its head down but making sure that the black and white drive of the WW II’s was adapted and softened and transformed into a system that worked. The Silent Generation see themselves today as the Lucky Generation.[3] These two generations also settled down, had large families and got on with the job of re-building a good, healthy society. And they got the shock of their lives when their offspring, the Baby Boomers, came along, kicking and screaming and ready to teach the rest of the world what the real issues were.
The New Baby Boomer Vision.
The Baby Boomers are a visionary generation and an assertive, dominant generation. They broke the mould of standards, historical continuity and community service. No ideological or cultural presumptions could constrain them. All power groups had to prove themselves. Not for them the reverent submission to civic or religious authorities simply on the basis of convention or presumption. Many remained strongly affiliated with the church, but by their own choice and on their own terms. The rest started the exodus.
They reveled in starting change. But now they think it has gone too far and they are powerless to stop it. They see themselves as the stressed generation.[4] They have spent too much and not saved. Their Generation X offspring run rings around them in a disengaged, almost patronizing way. But, once the cat is out of the bag it is hard to put it back.
Generation X.
Generation X’s are a recessive and reactive generation. I call them the Angoras. Cute, decorative, every household should have one. But, they live their own lives. They are the first generation this century that faces an economic future worse than the generation before them. They have experienced social instability, broken families, unemployment, homelessness such as has not been seen since the Lost Generation which came of age at the very start of the century. They have had to look after themselves. They do not trust institutions - political, social or religious. They are not interested in the news or what other generations think or feel. They stick together. They are the most peer group oriented generation this century.
They are nomadic and they network informally. The dream of Dick Whittington with his pack on his back, baseball cap on his head and a mobile phone on his belt has been fine tuned to perfection by the Angoras. Furthermore, the Angoras took over the focus on self of the Baby Boomers and turned it into an art form. If it suits, it is good – for as long as it suits. Then, “I can do without this. I’m out of here!” A click on the mobile and the network is engaged, the pack on the back is replenished and off we go. Hugh Mackay calls them the Options Generation.[5] And after the way they have been treated as a generation I don’t blame them one bit.
I respect them enormously. They are the fourth generation since the Lost Generation. They intuitively know that they will have to carry the can and they will rise to the expectations. Their Lost Generation counterparts were the leaders of that WW II group who came of age during the depression and WW II. Look at Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower and you will see them when they are faced with fixing the mess.
But, their distrust and disengagement is not very conducive to docile membership of an authoritarian institution led by very, very old and strange priests and giving the impression that its primary objective is to disapprove of everything they stand for.
The Angoras are all in their 20’s and 30’s now. We have lost them to the Church and I do not think they will be back. My priest back in 1960 may not have foreseen all this in detail, but he did spot the willfulness of the Baby Boomers, alerting us to the importance of the attitudes of cohort generations.
The Historico/Cultural Aspect of Being a Catholic.
Sectarianism.
To be born a Catholic in the first half of this century was to be born into a sub-culture as well as a faith system. Sectarianism and poverty raised boundaries which provided protection from the non-Catholic enemy and fortress strength to those sheltering inside.
When I was a child the pressure to stay in your religious sub-culture was very strong. The walls between Catholics and Protestants were as high as those between ethnic groups. It was defection to move out and treachery to join another group. The family ostracized many a person who converted to marry a partner. The fact that a person was a “convert” was notable leading to either praise or suspicion. Job discrimination led to the development of groups like the Knights of the Southern Cross to counteract the Masons.
Most of that sectarianism has gone now. (I say “most” because you may be surprised where it lingers with considerable influence in establishment circles.) This relieves the pressure to stay in the Catholic group.
Upwards socio-economic movement.
Catholics moved from being largely poor laborers and tradesmen to the middle class status of the professions, upper public service and business management with concomitant increase in wealth. Massive efforts to provide formal education resulted in this move. Greater wealth and status brought greater freedom.
Once again my PP had spotted this factor. He used the term “tribal”. And the tribe was undergoing big changes.
The Ideological Aspect of Catholic Life.
My Parish Priest spotted another key factor – the main point of this presentation today. Catholic life was very ideological for the first half of this century. When he said that those parishioners were Catholics like Collingwood supporters – “one-eyed”, he meant that they were what I would call ideological Catholics. The team they barracked for was “The Catholics”. They were strong supporters of Catholicism – an ideology.
It is my thesis that, in the main, the loss of the younger generations was due to their rejection of ideological Catholicism rather than the central Catholic Christian message.
So, it is important for me to show you what I mean by ideology. It is hard to define. The best way to do it is to use ostensive definitions. And where better to start than by my telling of my own tale?
My background.
At the outset I should let you know that I am an INTJ on the Myers/Briggs scale and an 8 on the enneagram. Being an intuitive as opposed to sensate I am more into concepts than image, color and movement. Being a thinker as opposed to a feeler I can be fairly dispassionate and logical in making decisions.
I grew up in a strong, though not rigid, Catholic family. We never missed Sunday Mass and were amazed to find that some kids at school did. It was a mortal sin to miss Mass. I can remember wondering at Mass how many of those going to Communion would miss out on heaven. It was easy enough to commit a mortal sin and if you died in that state you went to hell.
As a teenager I was taught and believed that the most important thing was to save your soul and get to heaven. That was possible because of Jesus’s atoning death. You got his grace through the sacraments which were dispensed through the Church. God continued his direction of us all through the church with its teaching and ruling authority. The teaching was contained in the catechism which we learnt by heart. I accepted without question, and without reflection, the infallibility of the Church and of the pope. Later, during seminary days in the 50’s I accepted the creeping infallibility, which was the style of the time, viz. that a papal statement on any issue involved an end of the discussion amongst theologians.
The moral rules were central to my life. For a few years I was scrupulous and anxiously went to confession very often.
Jesus’ work of saving souls was done through the priesthood. This was the greatest of all possible vocations. That is the reason I applied to go to the seminary and become a priest.
I accepted the sacraments and the sacramental role of the priest in the rather mechanical, juridical understanding of the time. Grace came ex opere operato i.e. simply because the rite has been celebrated. The priest’s sacramental actions were effective no matter how well or badly the liturgy was celebrated and irrespective of the personal style of the priest or, indeed, his personal worthiness.
All were called to holiness, the priest to greater holiness. This was achieved mainly by prayer and keeping God’s law. And God’s law was clearly listed in the mortal and venial sins we knew by heart.
The church of the 50’s was a church firmly and effectively contained by:
- Law;
- Doctrine;
- procedures and protocols (praxis).
It was controlled by:
- Clergy and hierarchy. The laity were to follow clerical instructions.
In other words it was legalistic, doctrinaire, clerical and hierarchical – using those terms in a descriptive, neutral sense. (It is interesting that I have to make that qualification because that implies that each of these qualities is unfashionable in today’s world.)
The whole system was integrated, clear, closed and unchanging. And it was a package – all or nothing.
Apologetics
As a teenager I knew that many non-Catholics either disagreed with the Catholic version of Christianity or thought Christianity, even God, to be nonsense. Some of them were highly educated and articulate. I was nervous that they may better me in a debate – or even be right. Consequently I valued apologetics and memorized the arguments for the existence of God, the authenticity of the bible, especially the validity of the claims for the resurrection of Jesus and the legitimacy of the claims of the one, holy catholic and apostolic church. On reflection, the real insecurity or doubt that was being assuaged was in me. Recently I was watching “Foreign Correspondent” on rural industry life in China. A young, up and coming woman was the union leader in a large local factory. She chaired the local doctrine sessions. She was very articulate and supremely confident as she recited the virtues of hard work, service of the people and fidelity to the thoughts of Mao Ze Dong. Different content, but same style as mine in the seminary years and early after ordination.
The seminary training produced a deeper internalization of the same law, doctrine and ethos. It also resulted in a self-confidence as a member of the clerical caste. We were “Other Christs” by ordination. Noblesse oblige meant that we had very serious obligations. But these were offset by being set apart as sacral leaders of the church which was the only path to salvation. It also brought clerical status, power and prestige. If you don’t believe that, I will quote my mother who could annoy the very devil out of my four siblings by saying to them, “Eric is the only one who has brought any prestige to this family.”
Vietnam.
I was also a very strong supporter of the Vietnam war and Australia’s involvement in it. I had been briefed on this issue by the National Civic Council which I also supported and promoted passionately. I was a “good Melbourne Catholic”. Sydney? There was a problem. In those days of the 60’s I could not understand how an obviously very committed Catholic like Arthur Caldwell could oppose it. My stand was a very ideological one. I learnt by heart the arguments in support of the war. I was unshakably convinced that all the South Vietnamese wanted was to be free from Communism. I supported Nho Dinh Diem. Recently I was in Saigon and made a special visit to the Cha Tam church in Cholon where Diem and his brother Nho were taken into custody early in that November 1963. His murder was unjustified, but his regime was corrupt and awful and did not represent the South Vietnamese at all. Saigon went wild with excitement when he was killed.
Support of the Vietnam war and the domino theory of Communist expansion in SE Asia was one of the planks of that complex platform of Catholicism in Melbourne.
The Real Education of Young Eric.
What were some of the factors that led to a turnaround in understanding of God, Jesus, the Church and faith itself?
Two years before my ordination John XXIII was elected pope. Vatican II was called. The council started two years after I was ordained. Let me list some key transforming moments.
The opening up of the scriptures. The discovery that they were not reportage of events but faith statements intended to evoke or support faith. They were faith statements, but not systematic theology. I started studying the scriptures at Melbourne University a couple of years after being ordained. This “Biblical Literature and Antiquities” course was my first introduction to biblical criticism. The seminary course introduced us to the text, but not to the methods of analyzing it. Since then my knowledge and love of the scriptures, especially the New Testament, have had three effects:
- They have become both the basis of my faith and my main source of insight into the real core of Christian belief.
- They have taught me that faith is primarily an attempt to take the experience of life – mine and my tribe’s – no matter how painful and chaotic, and see it as meaningful, valuable and purposeful.
- It has also convinced me that the best way of communicating faith is by telling stories and, therefore, using imagery. The story is an open statement. The doctrinal definition is a closed statement. Both have their place, but the story engages the hearer and resonates with the hearer’s own experience.
Then followed the enormous changes of the 60’s
- In the early 50’s Pius XII changed the fasting rules for communion.
Fasting from midnight had been what Mary Douglas, a great English sociologist, would call a “concentrated symbol” of being a Catholic.[6] It bound under pain of mortal sin! This change, though simple enough now, marked a break in the Catholic package. I can remember a Victorian bishop jokingly commenting, “The pope is becoming a Protestant.” That bishop moved from being pastorally flexible in the 50’s to being a staunch opponent of Vatican II over the ensuing years. An example of pure ideology.
- The abolition of Friday abstinence.
Another “concentrated symbol”. I believe this had much more impact than people give it credit. It broke the package further.
- The dramatic drop in confession during the mid 60’s.
It is hard to overestimate the significance of the demise of confession. It started a serious decline in the mid sixties. During the five years after Humane Vitae it virtually ceased to be part of the sacramental life of western Catholics. Two big shifts were taking place. Many started to re-evaluate and prioritize their morality and started to think we had maintained wrong priorities. Secondly, many started to see that morality is not the central focus of the Christian message.
- The reformation of the liturgy in 1963, in particular the introduction of English in the liturgy.
- The birth control encyclical in 1968 “Humanae Vitae”.
We all knew that the pope’s commission had stated that there was no obstacle to softening the prohibition on contraception. We knew that the matter had been referred on again to a commission of curial cardinals and feared the worst. In fact, it was the cardinals who feared the worst and advised the pope that his authority would be undermined if he changed his stance. Paul VI rejected his broader commission’s advice and re-asserted that contraception was intrinsically wrong. Overnight the church was split, with the side effect that the papacy, which had been all powerful in the Church this century, was deauthorized. A majority of Catholics and half the clergy dissented at that instant, and the proportion of dissenters has increased ever since. The biggest single credibility gap between official Vatican policy and the opinions of the lower clergy and laity is in the area of sexuality. Contraception, extra-marital sex and homosexual sex are totally condemned by the Vatican while most lower clergy and laity do not agree.
What was happening?
Very important elements of the package were going: the rigid morality, the inflation and distortion of morality, and, above all, the distortion of making morality the centrepiece of Christianity and the image of God as judge the dominant image.
Apologetics lost their urgency because faith was not an argument leading to a notional acceptance “on the balance of probabilities”. It was a commitment which arose from a way of viewing experience – a way instanced in the life and death of Jesus who, on the cross says, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” and then “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” His life, isolated death and faith-full commitment to God leads the believer to make his own option for God. It is not a judgement on the balance of probabilities. It is a conviction that God is somehow at work. And it results not so much in a conviction as a relationship of trust – faith, and loyal love – agape. Jesus dies “faith-full”.
The ideology was breaking down – massively. Vatican II gave it an enormous boost. Not universally, of course, but massively and these were the indicators.
Reading Peter Brown. By the early 80’s my scriptural background was reasonably rich. I read Peter Brown’s biography of St Augustine.[7] This alerted me to how the New Testament message had been transformed once it became inculturated into the Greco-Roman world. It acquired an oppressive, law-focussed character that was the opposite of the New Testament stress on freedom from oppression. The image of God became more like the controlling gods of the Roman world than the Father God of New Testament preaching.
Peter Brown is a renowned historian of late antiquity – say 3rd to 7th century in the Roman world. Specific points his writings highlight are:
- The 4th century transformation of Christianity from a small faith community on the margins of society to the religion of the state, drawing the bishops into the political arena.[8]
- The political power struggles associated with the doctrinal definitions of the 4th and 5th century.[9]
- The historical accident which established celibacy as a concentrated symbol of Christianity. (The Body and Society.)[10]
Reading Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann,[11] then Andrew Greeley, Clifford Geertz, Mircaea Eliade – all great sociologists of religion. This tied in with the sociological bent of my MA thesis in the early 70’s. I started to understand the social construction of reality, the insatiable human search for meaning and the deep truth contained in myth and legend. These studies also underscored the necessity for metaphor to communicate the mystery of life and for sacrament to celebrate it.
Incidentally, I found out in the early 70’s that hierarchical leaders did not like sociology or the insights that statistical analysis can offer. I did a study of Australian priests that drew heavily on one just concluded by Andrew Greeley in the USA. This set me on a course of keeping statistics on the numbers of clergy – their arrivals and departures. But, like Andrew Greeley, I discovered a mentality amongst church leaders that the church was a sacred institution and, therefore, not subject to the sociological laws affecting secular institutions. Sociology was set in opposition to the Holy Spirit rather than being one of the Spirit’s tools. The polarization which abounds today was beginning.
As a result of all these influences the secure cleric in the contained institution no longer exists. How can I describe the change? There are many models one could use, but the clearest is to describe it as a move from ideology to faith.
Spotting Ideology.
You spot it in:
- single-issue campaigners – the Greenies (rather than the Greens), anti-abortion groups, especially in the USA;
- racist groups like the KKK and neo-Nazi youth packs;
- “The Jews” of chapter 9 of John’s Gospel and the Chief Priests, the elders and the scribes of the synoptic gospels;
- many political and religious leaders e.g. Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchannan in the USA, Milosevic.
- adherents of fundamentalist religions like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons. (You are wasting your time and theirs if you try to convert them).
- Especially in ideological states such as communist Russia and Nazi Germany.
- Strong opinions – they despise the “wishy washy”;
- Black and white opinions;
- Intolerance of ambiguity;
- Closed; they have “the truth” cf. Lenin;
- Authoritarian – a recognized individual or group formulates policy and rules of praxis;
- Compliance with the authoritarian policy and praxis is enforced;
- Suspicion that there are dark forces of opposition out there;
- Fear that a win by the opposition will be cataclysmic – “Five minutes to midnight!”;
- The focus is always on ideas rather than relationships – hence “ideology”.
Here are some of the characteristics of the ideological mindset:
Ideological Organizations.
The two biggest and clearest examples of ideological organizations are Communist Russia and Nazi Germany. What characterized them precisely as ideological?
Membership.
There is a central party that alone determines policy and praxis. Membership is selective. Tested total adherence to organization structure, policy and praxis is a pre-requisite for membership.
Policy (What we hold).
Policy is formed by an inner group (politburo) at the top echelon of the party. In both Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany the dictator totally controlled the politburo.
In Communist Russia the political philosophy of Karl Marx formed the rough basis of policy. However, the philosophy is selectively modified to support the organization that gains power. Karl Marx was opposed to ideology. His said, “I am not a Marxist.” Lenin and Stalin’s dictatorship had a very remote resemblance to Marx’s theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the stratification of privileged ranks was antithetical to his theory of “to everyone according to his needs from everyone according to his ability”.
Nazi Germany’s policy was based on a vague theory supporting Aryan racial superiority. The policy ended up fairly simply as military expansion, providing liebensraum for the Aryans and the genocide of the Jews and other inferior races or groups.
Organization.
- Tight membership of the party.
- Strong policy formation by politburo or leader/s.
- Strong propaganda organization – agit prop – and indoctrination of members.
- A bureaucracy (nomenklatura) to implement policy selected on the basis of known compliance and controlled by preferment.
- An internal security department to monitor any deviance from policy or praxis.
- An external security department to watch the actual or potential enemy.
Praxis.
The praxis of ideological organizations shows some consistent similarities:
- Uniformity.
A key quality is uniformity maintained by clear directives, implemented by the nomenklatura and monitored by security. In many authoritarian organizations uniforms and badges of rank are worn, even celebrated, to reinforce the organization’s uniformity.
- Resistance to change.
Ideological institutions tend to canonize their structures, policy and praxis. They claim that they have “the truth” which is timeless and unchangeable. Lenin claimed that Marxism (his version, mind you) was “the truth” which we had to accept and could not change. The ideologue in the face of failure redoubles his efforts rather than review and formulate another plan.
- Goal displacement.
The central belief or purpose of the organization is often pushed off centre by peripheral issues which become central. Furthermore, the newly elevated focus is frequently a behavioral rule or rules. Religions have an in-built tendency to moralize and use morality as a means of control. Jehovah’s Witnesses are known chiefly by their refusal of blood transfusions. Catholicism is known for its opposition to contraception, hardly its central belief. Protestants oppose gambling.
- Tolerance of inconsistency
Ideological institutions tend to evolve by changing praxis while maintaining stated policy. This can lead to inconsistencies such as the anti-abortion campaigner who takes his daughter to have an abortion. Russian communism was renowned for the class system of its nomenklatura, totally at odds with its major tenets. The speeches reinforce the unchanging policy but there is a credibility gap between the rhetoric and the praxis.
- Morale
is maintained by rallies, often martial in style, parades with the banners of the organization, wearing of the uniform and the singing of anthems. Nazism made an art form of this.
- Heresy Hunting
is sometimes used to purify policy adherance. Mao’s Hundred Flowers Movement in 1956 brought people seen as a threat to policy out into the open. Then the crackdown followed.[12]
- Leadership Cult
Cf. Hitler, Stalin, Mao.
Ideology.
Let us then try to shape up a definition of ideology in the sense in which I am using it.
Ideology is very different from faith. Ideology is a closed and compulsive system of beliefs and rules espoused by a person so that the closed belief system becomes an essential part of the person’s self-definition. The compulsive component springs from a defensive fear that if one part of the belief system falls, it all falls. The ideologue espouses the cause so passionately because of a need for the security it gives. A fear or freedom characterizes the ideologue.
Ideologues are often called “True Believers”. This is because of the tenacity with which they hold the party line. “True Believers” was the title of the series on the Labour Party. I suggest that real faith, at least real Christian faith, is not possible if the options are closed. Metanoia – the ability to re-think - is an essential component of real faith. They are not true believers. They are true ideologues.
Faith
Faith, on the other hand, is a commitment of oneself to a way of viewing life as meaningful and of value. Christian faith espouses Jesus as the Son of a God who is God’s emissary to bring salvation and life to us who are his people. His life and death on the cross instances this hopeful view even in the face of suffering. His cry, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” is followed by, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” His life, isolated death and faith-full commitment to God leads the believer to make his own option for God. This is not a judgement “on the balance of probabilities”. It is a conviction that God is somehow at work. And it results not so much in a conviction as a relationship of trust (faith) and loyal love (agape). Jesus dies “faith-full”.
It entails a personal, day to day commitment of self to Jesus Christ, within the context of the church, which is primarily a community of fellow believers on a day to day journey of renewed commitment. The whole People of God share their faith and commitment to the order necessary for the church to function. The hierarchy and clergy are the leaders in this process and will be effective in their role to the extent that they reflect the shared faith of the whole community.
Nicholas Lash makes a very insightful statement right on this point in his book “A Matter of Hope”. He speaks of his
“recurring insistence that the ‘premise’ of Christianity is not an ‘idea’, but an event, a life lived, a deed done, a death undergone, and that the practice of Christianity – the ‘following of Christ’ in action, prayer and suffering – is prior to attempts critically and theoretically to ‘reflect’ that practice in Christian theology.”[13]
You could read this as implying that Christianity is not meant to be a religion. Religion (or spirituality) is something that people do to unify their personality around a system of values and to give meaning to their lives. Christianity, on the other hand, celebrates what God has done for us. You do not have to be “religious” or “spiritual” to be a Christian.
The Collapse of the Catholic Ideology.
My contention is that the strongly ideological Catholic church of the 50’s and early 60’s is collapsing. Furthermore we have lost many of the Baby Boomers and even more of the Gen Xs because they are not inclined to accept that ideology. This for four reasons:
- In the main these generations are not attracted by any totalitarian ideologies. They do not like the containment or control. They do not accept package deals.
- They did not accept the morality expounded in the name of the Catholic Church.
- They saw the church as a system of moral control rather than a proclaimer of life through faith in Jesus Christ. The central message of Christianity was pushed off centre.
- Even the articulation of central Christian message was given in doctrinal language and imagery which was not credible to many of them. This was the worst failure because we do have a message of salvation that is highly relevant to their lives, but needing a renewed articulation.
Were they right in rejecting the ideological aspect of Catholicism?
Let me state that I am a very orthodox Catholic, very conscious of the Church’s history and very conservative in the real sense of that word. I believe that Christianity is a credal faith. I accept all the solemnly defined doctrines of the Church, not only because they are defined, but also because they have been received. The magisterium teaches; the whole Church believes.
The Church always needs to review and reform itself (Ecclesia semper reformanda). This is always urgent because of that constant tendency of goal displacement to push non-central issues into the central position. (The Church’s main task after all is to proclaim salvation by God through faith in Jesus Christ, God’s son and to form and nurture the Eucharistic faith community of believers.)
All doctrinal definitions are conditioned by history, culture and language. This calls for constant re-articulation if we are to conserve their authentic meaning.
This should come as no surprise because a key element of Christian faith is metanoia – a readiness to change one’s frame of mind. In Mark and Matthew the first words of Jesus call for metanoia. Mark and Matthew see it a pre-requisite for believing the good news. Presumably their hearers were having difficulty in making the mental adjustment. No wonder! Jews had to forsake passionately held aspects of the law to become disciples of Jesus. And they were called to accept the unthinkable in Jewish life, viz. that a man could be the image of the invisible God.
The ideologue has a mindset that finds metanoia difficult, if not impossible. Ideology resists reform or re-articulation. In this it is an obstacle to real Christian faith.
The fifty years since the last Jubilee has seen the ideological aspect of Catholic life crumble very considerably. The most significant contribution to this came from Vatican II as it brought together the metanoia which had been taking place in nearly every area of the life of the Church. Insofar as the Baby Boomers and Gen X’s have contributed to that break down by their in-built aversion to ideology they have done us a service. The sad part of it is that those who have rejected it outright have thrown out the baby with the bath water.
That priest was right about that family 40 years ago. The parents as Catholics were like Collingwood supporters – one eyed. They were ideologues of the strong variety. And the kids were baby boomers who did not like the ideology.
Where to from here?
I believe that there was virtually nothing we could have done to stop this process. If we had spotted the trends in advance we might have fine tuned the transition a little. Cultural Catholicism has been on the wane for four centuries; ideological Catholicism has been under threat from the new knowledge, both within and outside the Church, since the renaissance. The world church, as opposed to the European church, must adapt to the new and varied cultures in which it is being planted. Karl Rahner said this in 1979 and Cardinal Konig said it only a couple of months ago (Tablet 27 March 1999 p. 424). And the ideology has been officially pushed aside by Vatican II which is the most authoritative action of the whole Church this century. A restoration movement is almost inevitable in the wake of a council such as Vatican II, but it cannot succeed.
Learn from the Experience.
The real pity would be if we did not learn from these experiences and the insights that are now available to us. If we do learn the lessons, it will help us to simplify and clarify our own faith, to see the Christian proclamation as Good News, to enjoy the freedom, especially from fear, that it brings about, to accept the changes, and to plan effectively for the future. All this is of immense importance for educators in faith.
There are two key areas we can look at under this plan for our future growth – reinstating the one central Christian vision and re-articulating that vision by re-imagining God and our relationship with God.
Reinstating the Central Christian Vision.
A priest about my age said to me recently, “When I was ordained I was proud to belong to this outfit. But, the way it is now, I don’t want to belong any more.” I asked him, “What do you mean?” He answered, “The public face of the church embarrasses me. The leadership does not speak for me. If they are right then I am in the wrong place.” I asked for clarification. He replied, “You know how every family has a bad photographer. They show you photos that should be in the bin. They are off-center and out of focus. They line up the object wrongly and cut off their heads. Then they photograph it with a shaky camera. The leadership is the same. Off-Center: They are all the time talking about behavior while I would prefer to talk about the mystery of salvation. Out of focus: When they talk about behavior, they condemn things I do not believe are wrong. Where do you go?”
The answer is: back to the sources. Rediscover the scriptures and the centrality of the message that Jesus is the Son of God. He is God’s ultimate statement to the world that all will be well. I’ll say that again. (Repeat). The ideologists will kick and scream, but Jesus and his salvation is the centrepiece of Christianity, not an idea.
Re-articulating the Vision.
There is another pressing demand for re-articulating and re-imagining the faith. A new cosmology has now become firmly set in the common imagination of our culture. We live in a culture that assumes the rights of the individual, that believes in the unconscious, that takes evolution for granted and accepts the big bang and the expanding universe.
This affects the meaning of credal statements from past ages. If you tell a child of the late 20th century that God made the world it is no surprise if he comes back with “What do you mean?”
The challenge posed by the new cosmology is not so much to re-define our Christian faith. It is to re-imagine it. To re-imagine God and our relationship with God. The engineer god who made the world and us out of nothing may have run its course if that image, and it is an image, is at odds with today’s cosmology. What is not at odds is the enduring meaning of a comforting, life-giving, saving force as proclaimed in the words and actions of Jesus as presented to us by the writers of the New Testament.
Furthermore, if the ‘premise’ of Christianity is an event then the most fundamental way to articulate it is by telling the story of that event. It is the ultimate thriller. Jesus is saved against all odds. No wonder the little Aussie battler can feel at home with this story. All can be well. You can be as realistic as life’s troubles make you, yet you can hope. “She’ll be right.” Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but insuperably hopeful.
Jubilee
Proud of our history we marvel at the energy, passion and faith that produced the articulations of the past. The Christians of those days and those cultures were faithful disciples of Jesus. Our challenge is to do the same on the threshold of the 21st century. The pall of mediaeval fear has gone. In our own minds we have broken the bonds of an ideology which constrained the good news and distorted our focus. We have re-discovered what the first century Christians learnt only with difficulty viz. that the law cannot save. As confident men and women with a shared faith and vision we come together to form the People of God and to re-imagine God with a gaze firmly focussed on Jesus. All this has coincided with the new millenium. If we persevere this will truly be a jubilee having moved from ideology to faith, from fear to freedom – a year of release, reconciliation and rejoicing.
Copyright © 1999 Eric Hodgens
[1] Delumeau, Jean (1990). Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture 13th-18th Centuries. St Martin’s Press, New York.
[2] Strauss, William & Howe, Neill (1991). Generations. Quill, William Morrow, New York
[3] Cf. Mackay, Hugh. (1997) Generations: Baby Boomers, their parents and their children. Macmillan. Pan Macmillan Australia PL. p. 14 ss.
[6] Douglas, Mary. (1982) Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. Pantheon Books, New York.
[7] Brown, Peter (1967) Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. University of California Press.
[8] Brown, Peter (1992) Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire. University of Wisconsin Press.
[9] Brown Peter, (1997) Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World. Cambridge University Press.
[10] Brown, Peter, (1988) The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. Columbia University Press, New York.
[11] Berger, Peter L & Luckmann, Thomas (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. Penguin Books.
[12] Cf. Salisbury, Harrison (1992). The New Emperors. Little, Brown & Co. pp. 136-139 and Chang, Jung (1991). Wild Swans. Flamingo, Harper Collins. Pp. 280-281.
[13] Lash, Nicholas (1981) A Matter of Hope. University of Notre Dame Press. P. 285.
