Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Christianity beyond Christendom: reflections on a European sojourn

By Noel Preston - posted Wednesday, 7 November 2012


Olga and I have just returned from a guided tour of Italy and central Europe. Predictably, our daily diet included one 'bloody church' after another. To a tourist from the antipodes, these cathedrals and abbeys with their multi-century histories are awesome. As structures, their construction defies the imagination. Architecturally, they are masterpieces. The music they create is superb, while the stain glass windows, statues and frescoes retelling the biblical sacred history are artistic wonders.

At the end of the day, however, they are testimonies to the significance of institutional Christianity in the past era of Christendom in which the spoils of power and wealth were shared between church and state amid great violence which often enslaved and impoverished the masses.

At the same time it cannot be denied that in post-Feudal days, institutional Christianity, arguably influenced by the Enlightenment, was the crucible from which many social welfare initiatives were born. Moreover, these structures still radiate spiritual influence, inspiring countless devotees to compassionate service, as a visit to Assissi reminds us. To this day these grand places of worship provide an ambience for the remaining faithful to celebrate rituals in settings which point to the transcendent.

Advertisement

However, even if one were to approach these amazing sites as a pilgrim seeking the mystical and magical among the medieval, only intellectual dishonesty would deny that, in the twenty-first century, they are essentially museums and mausoleums.

As we moved from sanctuary to sanctuary, there were reminders of martyrs who witnessed to costly discipleship, sometimes in spite of the established church, though such stories often went unmentioned by our guides. For instance, the official tour of Westminster Abbey made no mention of the ten twentieth century martyrs (including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Father Kolbe and Martin Luther King) represented in a row of stone busts above the entrance to the Abbey. While in Florence, the story of Girolama Savanorola, a Dominican Monk executed in that city in 1498, went unnoticed. Savanorola was put to death after condemning the corrupt excesses of the Medicis and the incumbents of the Vatican. One exception was in very secular Prague where the monument to Jan Hus, burned to death for heresy, stands prominently in the town square, perhaps more as a testimony to Czech nationalism than faith.

In my heart of hearts the question was never far away: what would the Nazarene think of all this? Though, as a twenty-first century tourist, I observed all this as a theologically trained tourist, schooled by the social sciences to see religious phenomena as a social construction.

Two conclusions are unavoidable: Without doubt, European civilisation is now thoroughly secular, though that doesn't mean that religion or spirituality is dead. The property wealth of Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism and Lutheranism are sure indicators that institutional religion is far from dead.

A story from my Protestant youth came to mind. As the wealth of the New World of the Americas was confiscated in the sixteenth century and brought back to Europe, indeed, much to the coffers of Cardinals, Archbishops and the Pope himself, one churchman was heard to say to another (recalling a story in the Book of Acts): "No longer need St Peter say, 'silver and gold have I none' to which the other replied, "yes but no longer can he say ' in the name of Jesus rise up and walk' ". Perhaps that story is apocryphal, though as we wandered around Vatican City and observed the homeless huddled in behind its colonnades it certainly had the ring of truth. It poses the conclusion our travels provoked: too often temporal power has been traded for spiritual integrity?

It so happens that our journey coincided with significant events for establishment Christianity: the search for a new Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Benedict's convening of a Synod of Bishops. The Synod was to debate how to counter rising secularism on the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, whose conclusions Rome now seemingly eschews. During October, the Synod has heard the call of the Pontiff for a "new evangelisation", while returning Catholicism to Roman orthodoxy. Europe is a special concern of this German Pope for, across Europe, Rome is fast losing adherents and many priests are joining the rebellious laity disenchanted with the hierarchy. This concern was clearly flagged by Cardinal Ratzinger when he became Pope taking to himself the name 'Benedict', the saint who led the evangelisation of Europe in the first millenium of the Christian era.

Advertisement

Incidentally, on our return from Europe we were fascinated to see two excellent Compass reports on ABC television (October 7 and 14) which documented the struggle going on within Catholicism in Europe and the connections between the Vatican and regressive, even fascist, groups like Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ.

At the end of our tour, in a Bolognian bookshop, I stumbled across a copy of the just released title by Matthew Fox, The Pope's War: why Ratzinger's Secret Crusade has imperilled the Church and how it can be saved. ( Fox was one of the many casualties during Ratzinger's period as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith). Meanwhile, at Gatwick, I read a newspaper with an article headed "Bishops to counter rising secularism" outlining the forthcoming Vatican Synod.

It concluded how the present Pope, as a young theologian, was an adviser to the Vatican Council convened by Pope John XXIII. The journalist quoted the young Ratzinger from those promising days: "Faith has to come out of its cage, it has to face the present with a new language, a new opening". The Report went on to say, "But then came 1968 – a traumatic year for Ratzinger when students at his faculty interrupted professors and mocked dogma in the name of revolution".

Actually, when we visited Regensburg in Bavaria I had been reminded of how, in his autobiography, Hans Kung (now disbarred as a Catholic theologian by the Roman Curia) recalls theologian Ratzinger's flight from the ecumenical and open, theological faculty of Tubingen, where both Kung and Ratzinger worked. Professor Ratzinger retreated to the safety of a Catholic University in Regensburg where he began his rise in the hierarchy, becoming by 1981 a Cardinal in the Curia where under Pope John Paul II he began to dismantle the work of the second Vatican Council.

Kung's account suggests that Ratzinger took fright at the challenges of the 1968 world-wide student unrest which demanded debate of dominant orthodoxies and liberation from an authoritarian culture. Ratzinger himself reflected later on his flight from the 1968 ethos: "everything falls apart if there is no truth" (Milestones, p.153 www.ratzingerfanclub.com/biography.html). And he has seemingly been imposing his version of 'Truth' ever since!

All this became vivid to me as we made our way across Europe. These museums and mausoleums could be seen as signs of institutional Christianity, withdrawn into itself, in flight from liberal democracy and post modernity, afraid to open its windows as John XXIII had prayed.

This personal analysis might sound overly cynical. It is not. Rather it backgrounds questions many of us who have grown up in one Christian church or another are asking: to what extent can a spirituality relevant to our global future be shaped within traditional religious institutions? That is, to use the time honoured imagery of the church likened to a ship: to what extent can we stay on board and rock the boat (i.e. honestly address these questions) or will we only be moving deck chairs on a sinking vessel? Is it inevitable that those who seek a spirituality, informed by the Jesus way, but stripped of unbelievable dogma, must either jump ship or risk being pushed overboard?

Post Script

A reader might ask: why I, as a person of Protestant heritage, should focus so much on the future of Roman Catholicism?

There are many valid responses to such a question. One simple answer is that what happens in the Roman Catholic community has clear impacts on those who are non-Catholics in our global and ecumenical society, both within and without institutional religion. Personally, I am drawn to this debate because Catholic spirituality, and the consequences of the second Vatican Council, have influenced my own life profoundly. On a wider stage, the drama now being played out under the papacy of the present Bishop of Rome has a similar character to the tensions in monotheistic religions of many brands - tensions about putting new wine in old wineskins, tensions between hierachical authority and communal authenticity, tensions between an orthodoxy forged in a past era (for some, Christendom) and one that recognises that that era has passed.

And finally, is this a futile struggle, even an indulgence, when the urgent challenge is to translate compassion into local and global acts for peace, social justice and environmental sustainability? Is it better to let the dead bury the dead ?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

13 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Dr Noel Preston is Adjunct Professor in the Griffith University Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance. He is the author of Understanding Ethics (20O1, Federation Press, Sydney), and several texts on public sector ethics. His web page can be found here.

Noel Preston’s recent book is Beyond the Boundary: a memoir exploring ethics, politics and spirituality (Zeus Publications).

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Noel Preston

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Noel Preston
Article Tools
Comment 13 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy