I occasionally look at the blog of Fr Ray Blake, who is a Roman Catholic priest in Brighton. He bewails the increasing secularism in England through his entry of yesterday, Like the Monks of Egypt. I have very simple questions to ask.
Essentially, what is it that Christians do that annoys the powers-that-be? I think it is two-sided. I have personally been “out of it” for too long, unused as I am to urban life, to say much of value, but I can offer a guess. On one side, I can only guess that there are hot-headed Evangelicals constantly “witnessing” and bothering people, and a very small minority of right-wing Catholics who think everything is due to the Church – all one-way. On another side, a nurse who holds the hand of a dying person and says a discreet prayer can lose her job. For the sake of the zealots, all Christians can be put into one basket and assumed to be “enemies of the people” – (Now where have I heard that one?).
It seems to be simple. If you are brash and bother people, the system will fight back. What place is left? Fr Blake suggests a return to the monastic life or something like the catacombs. Frankly, I think it would do us all a lot of good! The atheist and secular backlash must be reacting to something. On one hand, it may be inventing its own enemy like the Nazis when they burned the Reichstag and blamed the Communists! On the other hand, there has to be something to react against – bigotry and intolerance. Society then becomes increasingly polarised when everything is related to homosexuality and people wanting to “change sex” becoming something normal.
I had a long talk with my wife about the demonstration of last Sunday in Paris against the Socialists’ project of introducing same-sex marriage. Of course, we are talking about civil marriage, what happens before Monsieur le Maire before the couple goes to church for a sacramental wedding if they are believers and want a church wedding. The real issue here is not so much the couple of men or women, but that heterosexual married couples and single people can adopt children and the children have the right of paternity from their mother and father, or single parent. There is a problem when a child of two same-sex parents (the child being adopted or the result of artificial insemination in countries that allow it like Belgium) suffer from the separation of the couple or the death of the legal parent. The person who is not the legal parent cannot adopt the child and has no rights. Civil marriage of two persons of the same sex would resolve this legal difficulty so that all children would have the same rights as those of heterosexual married couples.
Of course, we could go back to imprisoning homosexuals like in the nineteenth century – but the genie is out of the bottle. Hitler stuck pink triangles to them and sent them to concentration camps and most were murdered. Nowadays, we have no choice other than to accept the trajectory of history, knowing there will be other changes and reactions in the future if the provocation is too great. For those who are Christians, the priest is called to minister to them pastorally like anyone else. Then it is a question of persons and conscience.
We are of course talking about civil law and people who for the most part are not Christians or believers. Intégriste Catholics go from the standpoint of the “social kingdom of Christ”, the rights of the Church over all humanity and the moral duty of all to convert to the true Church. Vatican II introduced ecumenism, the inter-religious dialogue, religious freedom. The 1983 code of canon law states that the Church claims jurisdiction only over baptised and practising Catholics. No claim is made over others. The Inquisition dies hard!
We Christians may disapprove of homosexuality on moral grounds and wish that society were more influenced by Christian tenets, but that is no longer the case. There is also abortion that involves the taking of human life. Abortion is wrong, but doctors and their clients will still do it. As a lesser of two evils, it seems better to allow abortions in proper surgical conditions than forcing the women concerned to resort to the use of knitting needles and coat hangers! And that after having shown the woman what abortion really involves, the bloody and gory killing of a human being. The Church can teach its own faithful about sin and wrong, but not those outside and beyond. The secularists now have strength and have the advantage over religious organisations and believers. Do we still go on rattling the sabre and provoking trouble?
It certainly doesn’t seem wrong to believe that secularism is showing an ugly side of intolerance and hatred of belief and Christianity in particular. English society is side-lining Christianity, and here in France, Christianity is closing down. French secularism has always been vigilant about les dérives sectaires, sectarian tendencies with a number of characteristics that present real dangers to the weak and vulnerable. To be fair, there are some very unpleasant organisations coming over from America, very aggressive, totalitarian and very interested in large amounts of money! There are always two sides to everything.
In recent history, France had anti-cléricalisme from about 1880 up to World War I. There were similar movements in Italy, and corresponding in time with the infallibilist movement of the 1860’s and Vatican I, amidst a number of skirmishes in Europe. Germany had the Kuturkampf, and the Church had to suffer. The clash was essentially an Enlightenment world view against the visceral anti-liberal combat of Pius IX.
How far can the Church go without ceasing to be the Church? In those days, it was a question of separation of Church and State and the believer’s attitude to science. Now, the extremes are pushed ever further apart.
Some unmarried young people might feel inclined to enter a monastery, and others are drawn to “alternative” lifestyles by buying abandoned villages in Spain and elsewhere and living the “good life”. Most of us have to stay where we are, dictated to by our jobs and need for money and the material necessities. We depend on the politicians and the businessmen, and they are holding the aces.
I have no simple answer to everything or even anything. However, I think we can make certain distinctions that will make it less difficult for Christians to live in a secular or even a hostile society. Perhaps in America, you can still knock on doors and “witness”. If I had some kind of “witness” at the door, even if he wasn’t from some weird cult, I would not accept Christianity coming from there. No one I know here in France would either, especially if the religion on offer is something irrational and inhuman.
We have to think as individual persons, think outside the box, and be sober about everything. People will do what they want, and we might feel offended. People have always done their own thing, including wrongdoing, and they haven’t always been punished by the law. We live in an unjust world. We are also “doing our own thing” by being Christians and doing what Christians do. Our rights find their limit at the beginning of other people’s rights, whether they identify with another religion or none.
We will probably be called to worship in houses and small churches, rediscover prayer and the value of spiritual experience. We will certainly need to rediscover the underground church like in China today, in the Soviet Union yesterday or the Roman catacombs centuries ago. The French réfractaires also survived when they didn’t get killed by the revolutionaries, and many of those people really gave their lives for the faith and not for politics and bigoted opinions. We can resist and fight like some people did against the Nazis in France during the war, but not be surprised when we suffer the consequences.
Above all, Christians are no longer the owners or policemen of the world. Christ’s kingdom was not of this world, as he responded to Pilate that awful Friday morning. History is no longer in our favour, and it probably never has been. So, it is not a surprise that if we put our head on the block, we are likely to get it chopped off. We cannot provoke without expecting a reaction. So, it seems to be ad fontes!
The Blue Flower 
I think the most subtle, and probably most dangerous temptation of all is that of using coercive power for good. I’ve never thought that Constantine did Christianity any favor by making it the state religion. If only he has stopped with making it permissible! The quest for power, for whatever end, just doesn’t seem a good match to the Gospels. To take up power and attempt to enforce what seems like a good thing (even if it really is a good thing) leads inexorably to a desire for power in and of itself; as Lord Acton said – power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Jesus had interesting things to say about returning good for evil, and about walking willingly with those who compel us , or accepting persecution or death when what they want is not permissible. He says nothing about forcing compliance on others. We can see in our day what happens when people no longer feel compelled to cleave to Christianity. They wander away. Those who truly love the Gospel, on the other hand, stay, even when it has a price. We may be reentering a pre-Constantinian period when the church has lost its power and is left merely with the Gospel. That seems to me to be far more like what the New Testament describes than all the political wrangling we’ve seen in the past few centuries. Perhaps we actually need the catacombs for the good of our souls.
We really seem to see eye-to-eye. 🙂
Ed, Outside of a very few places, I doubt the future of our secularizing, materialistic world is a Church that relies on the State or vice versa. Look at the CofE. Scandanavian Churches. Germany. Italy. What few places we still see such abominations will likely see that recede as the State realizes it has little use for a declining manipulatable Church. Thus, I don’t worry too much about your concern: “I think the most subtle, and probably most dangerous temptation of all is that of using coercive power for good.” I much more greatly “fear” the State’s coercive power turned on practicing faithful Christians. Thought through the blood of martyrs…
I think Christians and the developed world are on two separate courses. Could be permanent. We’re inclined to get back to our ancient roots. To be more like a faithful remnant that we hope can re-evangelize the world. I think it helped back then that the Church and the faithful actually could and did help each other in ways that neither the State nor competing religions could or did. Take reactions to plague. Birth rates. Abortion. Heaven, Hell, and the resurrection. Are we to become more like the Amish?
Today, we have the welfare/nanny State that crowds out or crushes the work of the Church in health care, elderly care, social services, etc. The masses come to rely on an all-powerful State that provides it things it both needs and wants. And these same masses spend their time in a heavy technology world with their minds on what that means to them now and in the future. So State hospitals or health systems or health care take care of our medical needs. And instead of heaven and the resurrection, we get the (false!) lure of immortality through…vampires, zombies, cloning, cyborgs, artificial intelligence & the downloaded mind, etc. And for day-to-day things, the masses are addicted to TV, radio, cellphones, FB, Twitter, iPhones, iPads, etc. Not to mention the rise of psycho-pharmacology and the medical-psychiatric establishment that blames all things on brains-gone-bad-in-search-of-better-living-through- chemistry! Hello Brave New World and soma. So we have to be realistic and account for those huge changes in the world that can’t likely be undone (technology and the personally intruding leviathan State) and which are taking over the developing world.
Will be interesting to see what happens in places like South Korea. A fascinating developed nation that has embraced Christianity but is addicted to technology. Which one will win? If I was punting with my own coin, I’d likely pick technology. Anyone see Cloud Atlas and its (dystopic techno-) vision of New Seoul 2143 AD? That seems to be a very possible future outcome, one that has the masses showing little desire for the Church or Gospel.
My concern is as to how fervently many Christians still work to get governments to do their bidding and to enforce what they (in contradistinction to the society) believe to be right. That is still a remnant of the power that Constantine gave to the Church, and I believe it to be still a great danger to the church itself, a truly subtle temptation. We won’t have that power, and should never have had it, but the temptation to want it is still strong.
Once again, ed expresses a very important point very nicely. I absolutlely agree.
Fr. Anthony, Is the situation in various parts of the developed Western world all that much different from what Christianity faced at various times in its first 3 centuries? Pagan Rome, persecutions, abortion on demand, homosexuality, imperial overreach, plagues, invasions, decadence, decay, materialism, competing religious systems (Gnostics, Manicheans), various heresies and schism, etc. It is a miracle just that Christendom preserved faith in the Trinity and Incarnation! I guess a key is to pay close attention to the faith, devotion, and practice of the average Christian in say the 2nd century that changed an empire and a world?
Was monastacism a reaction to the success of the Church in influencing society, such that some felt the need to withdraw once Christianity started being first tolerated, then accepted nearly everywhere, and with so many nominal Christians joining the bandwagon in the 4th century? Today, I’m not sure we need withdrawal so much as real Gospel-driven active living, participation, & engagement, which could lead to persecution and martyrdom?
Today, I’m not sure we need withdrawal so much as real Gospel-driven active living, participation, & engagement, which could lead to persecution and martyrdom?
That depends who you are, where you are and how much support you have from your parish. To get an idea of how much you would be prepared to take, come and live in Europe for a while. It also depends what you mean by “Gospel-driven”, a term that seems to be a cliché.
The early Christians in a pagan and hostile world don’t appear to have had much impetus toward withdrawal and monasticism, but, as Michael pointed out, rather lived out the Gospel as best they could in the midst of that society, gradually, more by example than by specific evangelism, winning more and more souls to Christ. The result often was rejection, persecution, and martyrdom, but few ran from that. Some of the early martyrs appear to have been isolated Christians, without the support of a local ekklesia, and still kept on, actively, in a hostile world.
It appears that withdrawal and monasticism was a response not to hostility, but to indifference. Once the Church became power, it became necessary to withdraw from that power into the desert to find again the heart of that same Gospel, and to demonstrate to the church that there is a better way. The early monks, BTW, were a rather noisy bunch, constantly and vocally appearing at the seats of power to challenge the secular assumption.
Gospel-driven, to me, means an intense effort to live as the Gospels expect and to communicate the Good News primarily by example and only secondarily by words. As St. Francis is said to have said, “Preach the Gospel – use words if you have to.”
I am reminded of an inscription from North Africa noted by Malcolm Muggeridge (it may be apocryphal – I have not been able to find it in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum). I no longer have Muggeridge’s translation to hand, but it went along the following lines: “I, a Captain of a Legion of Rome, have discovered that in life there are two things: love and power, and no man can have both.”
Fr. Chadwick, I am troubled by these words of yours: “The Church can teach its own faithful about sin and wrong, but not those outside and beyond.” Are you referring to matters solely as they are today? Or simply? To turn inward completely would be to give up evangelisation completely and that we mustn’t do.
To put it another way, granted, the Church is undergoing a major shift and we need a new form of evangelisation. We need to offer people a whole new way of life, as the primitive Church did, but that includes reaching out and appealing to people’s freedom and intellects. This modern world will pass away when the oil runs out or when it has so botched the environment that human life in many places can no longer be had; when it does, if the churches will have inwardly reformed themselves, we will be in a perfect position to offer people that other way of life.
It’s all a matter of helping people emerge from the Cave.
What I mean is that you don’t preach at people or try to get laws enacted against them until you have given them a situation in which they can have a spiritual experience of God.
Goodness knows what will happen in the future. A meteorite the size of Texas goes “splat” in the middle of Africa and that’s it for all of us, or the future of mankind will require a re-thought pastoral approach of Christianity. For the moment, all I can say is do what you want and weigh up the consequences. People can still climb up on soap boxes and shout through megaphones at Hyde Park Corner, but expect to be heckled!
One of the chief reasons the work of Tolkien is so dear to me is that inherent to it is the concept of the ”long defeat” of history mirrored in our own world. Fading, regret, loss, the passing of much that is fair and good, all these things are inevitable. It is exactly like the Church. It is finished – at least in a form still visible to the world.
But the catch is that salvation in Christ lies at the end, however hopeless. Think of Sam looking about the land of Mordor in despair, weak, dying for want of food, water and clean air, then he looks up and far above the reek he sees a single star twinkle for a moment and his heart is moved with the knowledge that the darkness is only a passing thing, that there is beauty and holiness forever beyond its reach. And so he is roused to a new hope, and moves on.
Perceptive observation, Patricius. The great poets of the last century, Kipling, Eliot, Yeats, and Auden in particular (and, before them, arguably, Baudelaire, the first poet to start to come to grips with the modern world) – true “vates” as the Romans would have called them – all saw the desolation at the heart of western civilization – and Eliot and Yeats at least, as Christians, saw beyond it. And there’s Hopkins’ insight as well in “God’s Grandeur”:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Sorry – that should be “Eliot and Auden at least, as Christians.” To the best of my knowledge Yeats was not a Christian; the idiots who conducted his early education drove Christianity out of him.
I’m not sure that ‘Gospel Driven’ is a cliche. Sorry but no acute accent on a Cornish keyboard.
I would think the common or garden meaning would be something along the following lines.
Practising our faith, trying to help other people, influencing our political beliefs and influencing our world view. Especially bringing the Good News of God’s love, forgiveness and the message of eternal life to the world.