Charles Taylor's 'A Secular Age': My (JKK's) Initial Take on Its Most Important Points

SA – Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2007). All references are to this work unless otherwise stated.

HS – James K.A. Smith, How (Not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014).

(NOTE WELL! These notes and reflections are meant to be a “first step” into Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. As with all introductions, they are very preliminary, incomplete, and even simplistic. This piece is meant to lead into a more in-depth study of Taylor’s important work.)

 I've been working on trying to grasp better Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor's very important 2007 book A Secular Age because this work informs my current project (a book that I'm now writing) in a significant way. Here's my preliminary take on what I think are the most important points Taylor makes in the book ...

How did We Get Here?

     Charles Taylor posits a question at the beginning of the book which guides the whole work: How is it that in the 1500s in the West it was virtually impossible for anyone to doubt the existence of God, whereas now in the 2000s, in the same Western civilization, it has become so difficult for many people to believe in God and in a transcendent being and dimension (p. 25)? Note that this is a question about—to use Taylor’s words—the “conditions of belief” (chapter 1). In the past, belief was considered axiomatic, a given, i.e., it had high plausibility for most people in the West; now instead the tables have turned. Belief in God and in a transcendent realm is widely considered to be quite implausible, i.e., it has low plausibility among a substantial number of Westerners.

     The book A Secular City is intended as an answer to that question. Taylor tries to do it in the form of a “story” (p. 29) that purports to relate what occurred in Western history which transformed Western civilization into the secularized milieu that we know it to be now. Of course, he also describes extensively what he thinks as the situation in the West in the present with regard to how people find meaning in a secular world and what that implies for religion in general.

     I would say that this short piece of mine will focus on the present situation and what relevance that has and will have for religion in the West although it is very important to know the history of how the West became secularized, a topic that Taylor’s book has a lot to say about.

What is a “Secular Age”? “Cross Pressures”

     Firstly, what exactly then is a “secular age” for Taylor? We can say that Taylor perceives this to be an age in which the following situation is firmly in place: Today, faith in God or maintaining a transcendent worldview (i.e., a worldview in which the transcendent is perceived to be real) is largely and constantly contested and challenged in Western societies. In other words, all faith today (even in pockets in the West where people still do have religious faith!) is nevertheless fraught with doubt. We can say then that the “contestability of belief” (HS, p. 10) seems to be the widespread and general default position and situation in the West today. If people are believers in the West today, they are, one can say, generally in a socially weaker position because they are constantly nagged by the open and blatant questioning that contemporary Western society as a whole hurls at them, challenging them to justify why belief in God and in transcendence is still reasonable and justifiable. This is also partly the reason for the rise of vigorous apologetics in more conservative and fundamentalistic believers’ circles.

     Of course, the opposite also holds true. That is, non-believers are at times caught up in the nostalgic and intriguing possibility that there might indeed be a God or a transcendent dimension. Taylor refers to this situation as being “cross-pressured” (this is one meaning of the term among others, cf. chap. 16). At any rate, I would agree with Taylor that it is unbelief in or doubt about a transcendent realm that is dominant in the West today.

     So, what exactly has happened in the West that transformed it from a thoroughly religious to an almost thoroughly secularized civilization in the space of 500 years or so?

The Subtraction Theory

     The common and popular explanation as what could account for the secularization of the West can be expressed as the “subtraction theory” (pp. 26 ff). According to this theory, pre-modern people were “unenlightened” because they didn’t have the scientific knowledge that became dominant in the West only since the Enlightenment. Hence, their worldview was encrusted with pre-modern, primitive, mythical, even superstitious beliefs in supernatural beings, fairies, enchantments, magic, spirits, and so on and so on. Belief in the divine and the spiritual dimension, according to the subtraction theory, is part of this!

     Since the Western Enlightenment though, humans have made giant strides in—what this theory views as—the “real” nature of things based on science (also reason, mathematics, and technology) (see e.g. p. 273). These modern advancements have sort of taken off, scraped off the “enchanted” encrustations in order to reveal the true (which mostly means: scientific and rational) nature of things. In short, all the enchanted (mythical) ideas that governed pre-modern humans were “subtracted” from the equation (this process can also be called “disenchantment”) and what came out of it was voila! our secular and “enlightened” world (p. 572). This is the commonly heard subtraction theory-based way of explaining the emergence of a secular age.

     To be noted well though is that Taylor does not agree with the subtraction theory; he considers it too simplistic an explanation of the phenomenon of secularity that does not do justice to the complexity of how the secular age actually emerged.

The Secular Age is an Accomplishment (cf. also HS, chap. 1) – Exclusive Humanism

     Taylor explains the emergence of the secular age rather as a veritable and impressive post-Enlightenment human accomplishment. From a worldview that was centred on the existence of God and a whole transcendental realm, Westerners, from the Enlightenment onwards, were able to gradually construct a worldview in which the centre of gravity shifted from God/Transcendent to Human/Immanent (p. 143). In gradual stages and with the advancement of the empirical disciplines as well as philosophies based on human reason and consciousness (i.e., Descartes, Kant, etc.), humans no longer felt the need to invoke the Transcendent (whether that be God or the spiritual realm) in order to find meaning. They began to find meaning in the here and now, in the immanent realm. And not only a poor, measly kind of “life-meaning”. Post-enlightenment Westerners have actually constructed a meaning of life based (almost) exclusively on immanent realities, on the here and now, on humanistic values divorced from any divine, transcendent, and spiritual dimension and they (many/most? people) are perfectly happy with that and feel no need to have recourse to a “higher” realm!

     The secular age then is the rise of a civilization in which people began to have—what Taylor describes as—“exclusive humanism” (pp. 19-28; 636-642) as the default “social imaginary” (another Taylor-coined word which means “the way that we collectively imagine, even pre-theoretically, our social life in the contemporary Western world'' SA p. 146).

     Taylor’s description and analysis of key moments and movements that effected this change in Western society is, we can say, the heart of his 800+ page tome and it deserves a careful reading and study.

To be noted particularly are: Part I, chapter 2; Part II, chapters 6 & 7; Part III, chapters 8, 10, 11; Part IV, chapter 12. (Hopefully, I might have another blog piece that does more justice to the content of those parts!)

“Porous” and “Buffered” Worldviews

     The pre-Enlightenment Western worldview could be described as “porous” (pp. 35-43) because, in this view, humans and the world were, as it were, full of openings (hence “porous”) through which divine and transcendent realities were thought of as being able to penetrate and influence humans in direct and significant ways. Since the Reformation and Enlightenment though, Westerners—it can be said—gradually began to acquire and adopt a “buffered” (pp. 37-42) view of humanity and the world – buffered because we and our world were seen to be self-contained, not open, effectively closed to or, in short, “buffered” from the Divine and other transcendent realities. This immanent frame of reference—focused on exclusive humanism and this empirical world—has unquestionably become the dominant worldview in the West and Westerners have increasingly felt that they do not need to invoke “God” or other transcendent realities anymore to ground the meaning of life and existence. Taylor maintains that this is now our dominant “social imaginary” in the West and because of this we can indeed call our milieu a veritable secular age.

The Nova Effect and the Age of Authenticity

     Now that we are squarely located and living in a secular age, we can readily observe—what Taylor calls—a “Nova Effect” (p. 399) in our Western context. He refers to a veritable explosion of options for creating or finding significance (aka, “authenticity”). This began after the one dominant and controlling story or scheme of significance in the West (i.e., Christianity) broke down and exploded into a plethora of possibilities for sustaining meaning at the personal and communal levels since the Renaissance (that’s what “nova effect” wants to convey).

     Presently in the West, society-at-large by and large no longer gives institutional and social support to religion and the pursuit of spirituality, hence, each individual must fend for him/herself in order to become truly him/herself or “authentic”. This is of course reflective of our Western society’s individualism. The search for authenticity in our age takes place in a context where we are offered mainly humanistic and immanent paths. At the same time, as we search for authenticity, we are confronted with such a mind-bogglingly massive number of possible paths (the nova effect), that could lead to us being authentically true to ourselves or even “spiritual”(in a sense),  that it actually becomes very difficult to choose a/one path. Despite this, it remains a crucial task to seek our own path of meaning in this “age of authenticity” (pp. 473-504).

***

     These, I think, are some of the most important points that Charles Taylor makes in his landmark work A Secular City.

Now, it is time to do a more in-depth study of this significant work!

Prof. Judith Gruber's Lecture on Trauma and Hope - My Notes and Reflections

At one of the plenary sessions at the recently concluded Leuven Encounters in Systematic Theology (LEST XII) conference, Dr. Judith Gruber (JG) of KU Leuven gave what for me was a really high-level, intellectually and even emotionally stimulating lecture entitled "Where the Currency of Life is Death: Re/membering Hope in the Wake of Historical Trauma."

 

JG works particularly at the intersections of theology and critical theories and I've noticed for years now (from what I know of her work) that our interests intersect in many different ways. (Even Bradford Hinze told me that after I submitted a proposal for CTSA years ago!) This is probably why I was really deeply affected and provoked by her lecture. Here are my notes and reflections on that lecture. Note well that everything here comes through the prism of my own understanding (and probably misunderstandings!) and interpretations of JG's lecture. I claim full responsibility for them. (I hope JG [who’s a friend of mine] will tell me her thoughts about my thoughts sometime later!)

***

How Do We Think of the so-called “History of Salvation”?

I strongly felt that JG was prodding us to look hard again at what the traditional Christian tradition has called "the history of salvation." Doing so might make us realize that we have posited "salvation" all too easily, too facilely, maybe even too soon … without really appreciating the real and pervasive experience of trauma that characterizes, first, the human condition itself, and hence, also the whole of human history which is precisely what the Christian tradition claims as "salvation history."

Critical Theories & Popular Culture

To help us in this necessary task, JG suggested several useful critical theories as well as elements from popular culture. For example, Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin's categories of the "grotesque" and "carnival" disrupt what is perceived as "normal" and even "noble" and brings us down to the level of (brutal) reality.

Also mentioned were the following thinkers: Walter Benjamin pointed out that history is "a monstrous abbreviation" and "one single catastrophe." One could understand these as descriptions of trauma. Shelly Rambo suggested that trauma is something that "resists closure." Cathy Caruth made reference to the widespread and bewildering history of trauma and its being "an unclaimed experience." Achille Mbembe observes that after trauma, "the currency of life is death." This is where JG takes the title of the lecture.

Particularly significant was JG’s presentation of a video clip of the German hard rock band Rammstein's song, "Deutschland" (Germany) in order to illustrate her points about trauma and its relation to (or perhaps 'disjunction' with?) hope. 

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc

The song-with-video clip of Rammstein is quite provocative yet, at the same time, profoundly thought-provoking, especially for a Germanophile like me (After all, I did spend cumulatively one whole year of my life in Germany and Austria trying to learn German!). It presents a difficult-to-reconcile expression of the ‘highs and lows’ of German history. Black German actress Ruby Commey portrays the character "Germania" (personified!). JG commented that in the video, "messiah-Germania" is portrayed both as perpetrator as well as victim of violence and trauma. From a first, superficial viewing of Deutschland, it seems to me to be portraying a dark message – that German history is full of the "difficult-to-make-sense" themes of trauma and violence, which themselves form the very basic character of all human life, existence, and history.

Messianic Time – a History of Trauma

The point here is that the experience of trauma in human history is actually so pervasive that (JG suggested a few times, drawing on a number of critical thinkers) the concept of "messianic time" referred to by the Christian tradition could and maybe should actually be understood instead as “a history of trauma.” I repeat: the messianic time is a history of trauma! (Whoa! Stop! ... Savor that. Isn't that quite dark? I hear the Joker's chilling and sarcastic laugh after that declaration!) 

In this scheme, "salvation" (if and/or when it happens!) can be seen (very modestly!) as an interruption in the (dominant) history of trauma. That's a more sober, sobering, disconcerting, yet humble view of salvation. For the seriously traumatized though, that might make more sense and might be more faithful to their experience.

Catholic Christian Soteriology - Too Quick, Too Facile?

A part of JG's lecture which fascinated me in particular (also because I largely agree with it) was her (implicit?) message that Catholic-Christian conventional and traditional soteriology might be too facile because it flies in the face of the pervasiveness of unresolved trauma in human history. She takes Johann Baptist Metz's (JBM) famous political theology as a case in point. According to her, JBM indeed deals with human suffering but (and this is only my interpretation!) JG seems to think that JBM posits too facilely that there is a Christian salvific continuum under-girding the history of suffering in such a way that this claim of salvation, in effect, immunizes salvation from the real effects of trauma. I sensed that a number of people in the audience were not too happy with that. After all, JBM is one of the premier figures in Catholic political theology. 

However, when we allow the starkness of trauma to really ... (I repeat for emphasis) truly, and more existentially affect and impact our idea of "salvation," it becomes difficult to imagine and think of salvation primarily as an eschatological event (e.g., "in the end, we will be saved...") or even as a proviso (a condition - you'll be saved if you can do [so-and-so]...). 

The notion of ‘history as a-continuum-of-trauma’ instead makes us understand "salvation" as a kind of "rupture" in what is dominantly a history of repeated traumatic events. In other words, that means: the "normal" condition of human history is trauma; when some kind of "salvation" does occur, it's a rupture in the chain of traumatic events and experiences. (Hold it there ... stop and take time to savor that ... What is its taste?) This is not your usual "glorious", “triumphalistic,” and "optimistic" talk of salvation, is it? It is that kind of disconcerting, troubling talk that "resists a straightforward line from death to life," as traditional Christianity seems to claim too facilely. 

"Consumption" of the Victims?

What is more troubling is what JG referred to as "the consumption of victims." I'm not sure I got what she wanted to say here. What I understood is that, sometimes, in its efforts to imagine what Christian salvation is all about, theology treats the "victims" of trauma as if they were "items for consumption." What is problematic about that is that theology has never really grasped the true nature of trauma. It just utilizes some people's trauma in order to proclaim its idea of salvation which, for all practical purposes, ironically doesn't really touch the trauma itself! Thus, theology needs to reformulate and revise its soteriology in such a way that it would really respond to the trauma of people. 

Some Personal Reflections and Reactions

Who is not in the Room?

As I continue to ponder on this lecture, the questions that Bishop Rowan Williams posed (in another plenary lecture at this conference) kept coming back to me. He poignantly asked: In our efforts to theologize, who is not in the room? In other words, (applied to JG's theme here) who needs to be here so that we could (more realistically) theologize about trauma and hope in a better way? These questions of course echo Gayatri Spivak's famously haunting question: Can the subaltern really speak? 

One could simply say that those who are truly traumatized (tantamount to Spivak’s “subalterns”) are unfortunately NOT really “in the room”! Those who are theologizing for the traumatized are just trying their best to “manufacture” a theory of salvation and hope but it is not truly reflective of and responsive to the terrible history and experience of trauma that many people have in this world.

Where then are Hope and Salvation to be Found?

Still there was a palpable sense in the audience that the theme of hope was not addressed adequately. (Yes, we theologians just have to have some easy hopeful solutions here!)

One participant, reacting to the lecture, poignantly asked: What salvation? Whose salvation? Another participant remarked that it is hard to say where hope is present in the content of the lecture. 

To which JG deftly answered, "At this time, I have no answers to those questions as yet..." or words to that effect.

Hope Put on Hold

My conclusion then is …  It was not really JG's intention to give easy and readily available answers to the question of trauma and how hope is still possible in the midst of it. That would be defeating the point of her lecture. Her primary intention in this lecture was to urge us to look at the phenomenon of trauma itself straight in the eye, try to understand it really well, and not be impatient to answer with "quick" soteriological “fixes.” Trauma has to be really understood first and (yes!) appreciated more fully before any realistic "solution" or "hope" could be prescribed.

If that was truly your intention, Judith, at least this listener heard that message loud and clear.

“God” Might Be the Problem

Of course, I have a few points to make about where hope could be found, but … in keeping with the spirit of JG’s lecture, let me reflect on that on another occasion.

Just some last thoughts though …

For some time now, I’ve been working in the area of Buddhist-Christian Studies. A concrete fruit of that in me is that I’ve come to feel and realize more keenly that the concept of “God” in Christianity is often too facile and therefore problematic. I’m even thinking of writing in the future a book to be called God is Secondary …  What I mean is that many dominant ideas of “God” in conventional Catholic (and Christian) theologies are still too rooted in a childish, mythological level of growth-development (cf. the Integral Theory - what I presented at Leuven!) that could not really respond to more mature and sophisticated levels of developmental awareness that are more “battle-hardened” and “experienced” in the many sufferings and traumas of human life. This is the reason for the demise of conventional religion (read: Christianity) in the West today. Sadly, it (many forms of Christianity) just doesn’t respond to real and existential problems faced by a lot of people who, in their developmental consciousness, have already moved far beyond naïve, mythological levels of consciousness.

This may be the reason why Buddhism has become so popular and so “in” here in the West today. The historical Buddha (arguably) rejected the effort to speculate on “ultimate” and “ontological” issues (such as “god”) because, for him, what was more urgent was the ‘very real’ reality and problem of suffering (and trauma). The famous Parable of the Poisoned Arrow is very illustrative of this.  Thus, he proposed a more concrete way to solve the problem of suffering (e.g., the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Way, etc.).

Perhaps a way forward could be forged by putting Christianity and Buddhism in a more intense dialogue regarding the themes of Trauma and Hope. Christianity has a very robust ethical teaching. However, this ethics might be founded on too naïve and childish notions of God (at least that’s how I see it). Christianity might take some cues and hints from Buddhism as it seeks to forge a theological soteriology that more realistically responds to the experience of trauma in human history and make its theological foundations more mature and more robust.

***
Further Comments from Dr. Gruber herself (in a message to me 2019-11-10). Thanks for these insightful remarks, Judith!

For me, this paper has been quite an intense project, and indeed, raised a lot of questions that are as of yet unanswered. Perhaps, two trajectories have emerged for me towards the end of preparing the draft and during the conference :

1. there is a focus on reparation that both Walter Benjamin and Achille Mbembe share - reparation, however, not as a totalitarian restauration of an original whole, but as a "working in the ruins", a restitution through the debris of death and suffering, in ways that allow to imagine "new beginnings, [yet] without innocence" (H. Arendt). 

2. Indeed, during the LEST conference, the question of salvation was raised in response to my paper - in quite specific ways, as one participant highlighted. "WHAT salvation?" "WHOSE salvation?" Through these questions, we still seem to be able to imagine salvation as something we can grasp abstractely, in a once-and-for-all way to be then applied to (suffering) individuals and groups. But perhaps, once we think of salvation as reparation from and in the ruins, out of debris of death, we have to begin to look more carefully, nuancedly, contextually - not looking for total salvation, but for seeds and signs of living-on in the midst of suffering: "Salvation - where?" "Salvation - when?" "Salvation - how? in which modes?"

Star Trek Discovery New Eden Episode – Those “Unenlightened” Religious People

Wikipedia article on the series

(Season 2, Episode 2. Viewed the episode on 2019-08-07. It was noteworthy for me because of themes connected to religion.)

Episode Plot: What to Do with (Religiously) Unevolved Mentalities?

In one of their missions, the USS Starship Discovery encounters "New Eden," a religious community transported to a different planet during earth's World War III by a "Red Angel." Discovery's crew finds that the community has depleted their power source which condemns them to remain in a scientifically and technologically backward situation. Besides, the members are heavily invested in religion and in concepts such as divine revelation so much so that they have cobbled up a religion comprised of various religious traditions that existed on earth at the time of--what they believe--was its destruction. 

The protagonist—Commander Michael Burnham feels that it is the Starship's crew's duty to bring the members of New Eden to a more up-to-date, "enlightened" state and help them shed their "primitive" religious beliefs. Her commanding officer Captain Pike on the other hand maintains that, following the United Federation of Planets’ General Order #1, they have to let civilizations evolve organically and not needlessly intervene and  force evolutionary development in consciousness and knowledge in any species they encounter. 

However, in the New Eden community there lives a family that carries on a tradition of science and learning. One of its members, Jacob, has been maintaining the loop mayday message for assistance. That was the signal picked up by the Discovery which then brought its crew to New Eden. Jacob (and his family) is a symbol of the scientific mind that finds itself in a predominantly unscientific religious culture. Jacob himself strongly suspects that humanity has evolved significantly and seems to be ready for the revelation of the scientific truth.

Noteworthy for me: Captain Pike firmly maintains that the "enlightened" (the Starship's crew) have to let civilizations evolve organically and not force evolutionary development in consciousness and knowledge. 

Conversation between Captain Pike and Commander Burnham

(Here is a pertinent part of the episode's conversation exchanges between Burnham and Capt. Pike about this issue)

B (Burnham): Anthropologically speaking (she is also "Xenoanthropologist"), they (the New Eden

people) cobbled together a new religion based on the primary faiths of earth. Amesha (the community leader) and the others (members of New Eden) are kin to us. They deserve to be reintegrated into modern society.

P (Pike): By their own account, they left earth in 2053.

They are subject to General Order #1. We cannot interfere in their natural development. 

• General Order 1: "No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society." 

B: They believe earth and the human race were destroyed. They're wrong. Worse, the faith they cling to is a lie.

P: Can you prove that?

B: What I will prove is that none of this happened by some miracle.

Later on, Capt Pike rethinks his position and goes back to talk with Jacob (the scientifically enlightened one on Terralysium) to tell him the truth: that earth wasn't completely destroyed and that humanity evolved scientifically in fantastic ways, etc. 

My Reflections – Religion as Backward and Our Superiority Complex

This episode struck me as very significant because it showed, on the one hand, a civilization (New Eden) that is portrayed as backward and unevolved in a historical epoch in which humans have already reached advanced levels of scientific knowledge and technology such as travelling faster than the speed of light (through warp drives). Hence, these backward civilizations in Star Trek are called "pre-warp" civilizations. 

This particular pre-warp civilization of New Eden happens to be deeply religious and, as the conversation above shows, Michael Burnham, the protagonist of Star Trek Discovery, considers them as inferior and feels that she has to "bring them up to speed" by showing and proving that things have happened not because of any religious or supernatural reason but because of a scientifically explainable cause. 

Against her, Capt. Pike, her commanding officer (whose father has had some religious background) firmly invokes the Federation’s General Order #1 which states: No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society. What that means is that Starship crews should not forcefully interfere with the organic and natural development process that any life-form or society should undergo on its own. It just has to leave individuals and social groups to go through the developmental process at its own pace and in its own time. 

Applied to the New Eden situation, that means that the starship crew members who are in possession of superior scientific knowledge, a knowledge that discounts religious-supernatural phenomena in favour of scientific ones, should just leave the—deemed to be—“inferior” faith-based community of New Eden to itself in the hope that it may organically develop and one day hopefully overcome the darkness of religion-faith and come to know the superior scientific knowledge of post-warp civilizations. 

It also happens to us that sometimes we think we are more correct and thus superior and in so doing we consciously or unconsciously think that others are less correct than we are or that they are in an inferior ideological or even religious position than we. What do we do? Like Commander Michael Burnham, do we sense a duty to "enlighten" others? 

If we follow Capt. Pike's position (which reflects the Federation's sacrosanct directive), we just have to leave unevolved entities alone in that state and hope that, in time, at their own organic pace, they would also come to evolve in their consciousness. Is that the best thing to do?

What is the best course? At this point, I’m not yet sure I have a good answer to this question. I need to examine this issue more deeply. 

Our Need for Roots and Its Connection to the Bible

Simone Weil on the Human Need for Roots

Simone Weil wrote that “to be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”

(a quote)

The modern condition of rootlessness is a foundational experience of totalitarianism; totalitarian movements succeed when they offer rootless people what they most crave: an ideologically consistent world aiming at grand narratives that give meaning to their lives. By consistently repeating a few key ideas, a manipulative leader provides a sense of rootedness grounded upon a coherent fiction that is “consistent, comprehensible, and predictable".

Cf: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/arendt-matters-revisiting-origins-totalitarianism/#! . Accessed 2019-08-28

***

 (another quote)

And yet, as the French thinker Simone Weil indicates, “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. It is one of the hardest to define.” Weil rightly notes that we feed these roots through “real, active and natural participation in the life of a community, which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future” (The Need for Roots, p. 41).

Cf: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/deuteronomy-16-18-21-9-quest-for-rootedness_b_1813589

Some Thoughts of Mine Related with 'Roots' and the Bible

Simone Weil's assertion of the "need for roots" is a foundational idea for the book that I'm writing at present (during this sabbatical year). The work is about ... of course... the Bible and how we could ... better yet, how we should relate to it as something like "the village that raised us." In other words, for many of us, for better or worse, Christianity and its heart (which is the Bible) acts (in an abstract sense) like the Tradition in which many of us were raised. Put in a more concrete image, the Bible, I would like to suggest, is something like the village which raised us. This image is rooted in my Asian-North American identity... (This would especially resonate with you if you come from Asia, from a context like the Philippines where family and its extended network of so many people such as uncles and aunts [tito and tita], cousins [pinsan], god-fathers/mothers [ninong and ninang], "extended" siblings [kapatid] and so on and so forth, virtually form a whole village that raised you and continually supports you and interacts with you through all the vicissitudes of life.)

However, at present, many of us who are located in secularized, Western(ized) contexts can be said to feel estranged and alienated from our religious, particularly, biblical roots because we are either not familiar anymore with the Bible and its main stories, characters, concepts, and messages or we have acquired the idea somewhere along the way that all that religious and biblical stuff is no longer relevant to us today, maybe even detrimental for us today.

I strongly feel that this kind of alienation from our religious roots, in short, this kind of "rootlessness" has quite a negative effect on us in the sense that philosopher Simone Weil pointed out. Many of us don't know where we came from; for this reason, we likewise don't know where we're going. 

We have to tap into our roots (a significant portion of which are religious ones) in order to know where we came from, where our traditions lie, where/what our original village was. By doing this, maybe we would know better what direction we're supposed to go. 

This village image is not meant only for people like me who come from an original context in which the 'village ties among people' are really strong. The village image is meant for everyone, even in this Western context where the emphasis is on rugged individualism. I contend that if we dig deeply enough into our traditions and, dare I say, into our common humanity itself, we all come from a place like a village because, as philosopher Simone Weil argues, we all need roots! Hence, I would like everyone to discover their roots and when they do, they will find out that religion has been and is an important part thereof, something that each one will have to accept in order to find out more deeply who they really are.

By "re-rooting" ourselves in our biblical traditions and relating with them as if they were vital members of the village in which we were raised, I don't really mean to say that we have to be "religious" in a way that is childish - that is, uncritically accepting of any or all of our religious traditions. By religious "re-rooting", I mean instead, we become, first, familiar once again with the big plots and the important stories (and the ideas behind them) that comprise our religious traditions. Next, because we ourselves are now grown-ups, we can have a critical sense toward the village that raised us, a village which we didn't choose but we're just simply born into! That means (put in technical language) applying both a hermeneutic of trust-retrieval as well as a hermeneutic of suspicion; put more simply, we ought to have both an attitude of trust and openness to rediscovering whatever is life-giving in our traditions but, at the same time, also have a healthy dose of suspicion, of wariness to spot and call out the things that are inimical to our holistic flourishing today. This even entails rejection of parts of our religious traditions that are not beneficial to the wholesome development of our common humanity today. 

Biblical Studies - Should it End? (Hector Avalos)

Hector Avalos ‘The End of Biblical Studies’

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGGKzbfEEPo&t=1607s

The following notes are based on the youtube interview cited above originally created in 2007. Parts of this blog in-between parentheses are my own comments.

Violence (also Religious Violence) is Caused by Scarcity

All violence, according to Avalos, has "scarcity" at its core. If people perceive that there's not enough of something, they will compete in order to get a share of that and that struggle frequently results in conflict and violence. Religious violence is similar in cause and structure. At the national level, things such as water, political power, energy ... all of these could be scarce resources. 

Religion works in the same way. Religion creates scarcity. Avalos points out four religious scarcities:  1) Access to divine communication=only some people get divine revelation or more divine revelation than others; 2) Sacred Space such as the Holy Land=Israel as a physical-geographical location is not so valuable. It is very valuable though in terms of what it means for the religious identity of certain religious groups; 3) Group privileging on the basis of religion; 4) Salvation - long-term commodity such as eternal life. If only some are saved or if only one can be saved because of practicing or following a certain religion, then salvation itself becomes a “scarce resource.” Because of these religious scarcities, religion becomes an ingredient in causing violence.

The big problem here is: Religious scarcities can never be proven to exist or they may not exist at all. 

The End of Biblical Studies (2007 book)

Avalos’ main contention in the book is: Biblical Studies as it is currently practiced should end. Why? As the discipline stands now, it still functions as an arm of the church. It is founded on and permeated by religious and theological assumptions (that can never be proven). It is not yet completely secular. (By this he means, objective and free of vested theological interests. For Avalos, only if biblical studies becomes truly secular can it become also truly objective.) 

In biblical studies, there is always some apologetic aim, e.g., to defend the validity of the Bible for the current world. In all sub-fields of biblical studies, scholars try to prove that their disciplines are important even though the results have proven that they are not. (By that he means: many things contained in the Bible such as its laws and principles are so irrelevant to the world today. But biblical scholars try to show that they are still relevant.)

Why is the Bible not relevant to current life? Many Christians simply don't read the Bible. According to him, 21% of Protestants, 33% of Catholics do not read the Bible. What about those who do read the bible in some way? They actually do not read much of it. (Frequently, the reading style of many Christians is very selective, hence, many Christians only have a sketchy knowledge of the Bible.) Many Christians, even if they try to apply the Bible to their lives, apply very little of it. (The reason for this, I think, is that it is so difficult to apply many parts of the Bible as they stand!)

Promoting the relevance of the Bible today can be described as a mere marketing strategy. They try to say: you really need this book. The whole enterprise of biblical publishing is based on the message that this book is so important, you've got to have it!

Biblical translations often hide what the Bible really says in order to make it relevant and palatable to modern sensibilities. But if you take the Bible at face value, many of its injunctions are downright absurd or distasteful (bizarre, unacceptable or offensive) to modern people. E.g., Lk 14:27 "You must hate your parents to follow me." The Good News Translation says

²⁶ “Those who come to me cannot be my disciples unless they love me more than they love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and themselves as well. 

(“love me more than your parents” is not really the same as the original word “hate”.)

The book's title ‘The End of Biblical Studies’ is meant as a double entendre. There are three possible scenarios for biblical studies for Avalos:

• End it completely - not Avalos’ position
• Keep it going as it is - not completely objective. Obviously, this is what Avalos is struggling against.
• Keep biblical studies but expose the way in which biblical studies has been hiding what the Bible really says. No to a "doctored" (palatable to moderns) image of Bible. This is what Avalos wants!

My Reactions to Avalos’ Points

I am very sympathetic to the concerns that he raises about biblical studies being in many ways duplicitous and I agree to a certain extent that it is because the field is, as he says, meant to be an arm of the church in promoting Christianity’s message.

I’ve had the same dilemma for many years now. This is one of the major reasons why I became convinced that I could not remain a member of the clergy class anymore.

However, my position on this question is: I consider the Bible as an integral (hence, unabandonable and, yes, indispensable) part of the tradition (even the “Tradition”) to which many of us belong. In short, it is like letters, journals, documents that our family (ancestors) wrote and/or considered (even canonized as) sacred and foundational. The right relationship with the Bible therefore is not completely abandoning it but considering it thus (a family heirloom that still tells us where we came from and thus who we are [according to the tradition]).

Armed with that, we apply both a hermeneutic of trust-retrieval (positive) as well as a hermeneutic of suspicion. In short, we relate to it with love and a critical sense. Often we’ll have to struggle with it even by correcting and revising it in order to forge a better future.

All of these things are going into the book that I’m currently writing (while on sabbatical).

Thinking again about Postcolonialism in the wake of CWM-DARE Global Forum in Taiwan

     I was honoured to participate in this year’s CWM’s (Council for World Mission) DARE Global Forum held in Taiwan last June 19-21. I didn't quite understand the raison d'etre of CWM-DARE before the event but after having participated in the conference, I've begun to grasp its rationale and crucial importance. I'm really thankful for having been given this wonderful opportunity to participate in this forum and especially to learn from the insightful reflections of so many of my colleagues who attended the event.

Here is the report published at the CWM website.This article describes succinctly what happened at the said meeting:

Dare to engage radically and envision creatively a just world

Discernment and radical engagement are at the heart of the mission that makes CWM what it is. Attentive to the signs of the time and in response to imperial powers and powerholders that exploit, divide, despoil and threaten the world, CWM’s DARE program is a voice of counter-imperial consciousness.

This year’s DARE Global Forum was held from 20-21 June in Taiwan, a location we chose in solidarity with the Taiwanese people and especially with our member church Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) for their continuous struggle for democracy. During the opening service at Lo-Tong Presbyterian Church, CWM General Secretary delivered the keynote address and launched “Scripture and Resistance” – the second book in the “Theology in the Age of Empire” series.

The DARE Forum was a platform where theological and biblical scholars, activists and interested peoples engaged creatively to critique mainline scholarships, confidently rooted their views upon on the ground struggles and concerns and shared their radical engagements with global readership.

At the gathering, each presenter presented an academic paper, attended and engaged with the presentations by other participants of their stream, and submitted the revised paper for publication. There were six streams – earth, class, race, gender, occupation, and artificial intelligence (AI) – this year, and presenters were encouraged to discern and engage radically, creatively and justly.

Here are my most salient takeaways from the event:

Taiwan’s Plight as the Context for our Reflections

     I was really struck at the plight and marginalized international status of Taiwan. Taiwanese pastor-scholar Rev. Omi Wilang’s talk on his indigenous culture was particularly significant. There he emphasized the status of Taiwan as an international orphan which refers to its state of international isolation because of mainland China's continuing efforts to literally coerce the international community to recognize the "one China policy" by which only mainland China is legitimately recognized as the “real” China and Taiwan as an illegitimate entity.

     I ruefully reflected though that, recalling what I learned in younger days, when the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-Shek fled the mainland and established their base in Taiwan in 1949, it was Taiwan that was trying to convince the world that it was the legitimate China and not the Communist-led government that had taken over the mainland. Fast-forward 70 or so years later when China has become the gigantic and impossible-to-ignore military and economic powerhouse that it is today, the tables have been completely turned and Taiwan is at the mercy of the Chinese empire.

Resisting Empire

     I ended the conference thoroughly struck at and convinced once again that <reflecting critically-doing scholarship-theologizing or even just engaging in the very basic activity of thinking about life> in the context of empire (and postcolonial and decolonial critique) is a serious and most urgent task. Why? For the simple reason that imperial ways (known by many alternative names such as the basic human "lust for power and/or domination") have tried and largely succeeded to rule humanity itself and our world from the very beginning of history in countless forms. Imperialism is practically built into many of the structures in which we find ourselves. This time in Taiwan, however, I was made more acutely aware of empire's destructive effects because they threaten now more than ever the very existence of our earth-home through an impending ecological disaster.

My Own Modest Part in the Forum 

      

     There were several streams to reflect critically on the themes of empire, resistance and critical engagement at the conference: Land, Race, Gender, Occupation, and Artificial Intelligence. For my very modest part, I presented the significance of Paul's religious experience for the concept of artificial intelligence. I basically suggested that to retrieve the origins of how we imagine Artificial Intelligence as a “super intelligence”  (as expressed particularly in some science fiction movies), it may be worth looking more closely at what happened to Paul as a consequence of his religious experience and how he envisioned everyone and everything as “One in Christ” (Gal. 3:27-28). I didn’t have the time and space to reflect more on the implications of this for the theme of empire and power but I intend to touch on that aspect as well in my final paper. My proposal was originally prepared for the 'Race' stream but it seemed to have been well received by my AI group. 

Why Postcolonial Thought? (Revisited)

     At last year's SBL meeting in Denver, CO, I attended a session of the Theological Interpretation of Scripture unit in which the topic was, broadly speaking, postcolonial efforts to interpret the Bible theologically. During the Q&A session, someone asked this fundamental question: "What is it even necessary to do this postcolonial theological interpretation of scripture?"

     That question still keeps ringing in my ears after all these months and it was brought to the fore and answered in many ways in Taiwan. It is just incredible that there is still a substantial number (even of scholars, particularly, Roman Catholic theologian-colleagues of mine) who have not thought about or are not yet convinced why a postcolonial critique of theology and religious studies is even necessary. 

    

     To this question, I can only offer once again what I already stated in my 2012 book How Immigrant Christians … Interpret Their Religion (56).

What is the value of a postcolonial framework? Edward Said has, in my opinion, expressed most eloquently the need for a critical academic sense vis-à-vis the problem of imperialism when he states, “we are at a point in our work when we can no longer ignore empires and the imperial context in our studies.”(Culture and Imperialism, 1993, p. 6). He further remarks that, “whether or not to look at the connections between cultural texts and imperialism is therefore to take a position in fact taken – either to study the connections in order to criticize it and think of alternatives for it, or not to study it in order to let it stand, unexamined and, presumably, unchanged” (ibid., 68).

The implications of Said’s remarks are staggering. If we ignore imperial ideology in our critical studies, we are in reality actively contributing to its continuing unjust oppression of people. In short, we cannot remain neutral on such a key issue. There is a major ethical issue at stake here. Ignoring imperialist elements in our fields of study places a large interrogative against the integrity of all our endeavors. If we further reflect on the fact that many of us who are engaged in the Christian theological field have a confessional interest in Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed as the Christ and that his most pressing concern seems to have been the ushering in of the reign of God’s justice in the world to the detriment of this world’s unjust empires, the issue of integrity becomes all the more urgent.

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My Notes on - The Burial of Jesus by James McGrath

Overview 
This is (Butler University's New Testament-Religious Studies professor) James McGrath's "no-frills" study of and reflections on what Christians call "the Paschal Mystery," namely, the high point of Christian faith - the death-resurrection of Jesus. The book aims to mediate between history and (Christian) faith. What makes it unique is that McGrath pays particular attention to details regarding the burial of Jesus (hence the title) and what those factors imply for the historical and theological assessment of Jesus' death and resurrection. For its diminutive size (13.3 x 0.8 x 18.4 cm and only 142 pages of content!), this book, I would say, "packs a punch" and lays out succinctly but very well practically all of the major considerations related to the history behind and theology regarding the death-burial-resurrection and very person of Jesus, with an introductory section to different issues that make up Gospel study to boot! Even though New Testament and Christology are two of my main fields of study, I finished this book with much food for thought and truly learned a lot from it! I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about how history and faith correlate when it comes to the death-burial-resurrection and very person of Jesus.

My (Three) Takeaways

• [The Role of Faith and Doubt]  Faith and doubt even with regard to the burial and resurrection of Jesus are not polar opposites. They are necessary partners in approaching this subject. An uncritical faith can be described as accepting uncritically things that we are told by --what we think are-- the right book or the right person. On the other hand, in order to have a more critical (thus, more mature) faith, we need history, as well as the interplay of faith-as-trust and doubt (cf. p. 10, 13).

• [On the Burial of Jesus]  McGrath gives priority to the Gospel of Mark's bare-bones, most probably more historical account of the burial of Jesus (Mark 15:42-47). He puts the spotlight on the following noteworthy factors: Jesus' disciples were not in a position to give Jesus an honorable burial as they thought he deserved. As a consequence of that, (as we can observe in the developing tradition about this event in the New Testament itself)  "later Christian authors tried desperately to obscure [that historical fact]" (See pp. 70-75).  What most probably happened was that Joseph of Arimathea was a pious and observant Jew (not so much the "hidden" disciple of Jesus as he is portrayed in later New Testament traditions) who was not so much concerned about Jesus (as later portrayals make him to be) but was more keen on the observance of Jewish Law which forbade the leaving of dead bodies on the cross before sundown when the Sabbath begins. Because of this devotion to the Law, he put the body of Jesus in a tomb that was close to the execution site without much fanfare (not even giving Jesus' body to his family as popular piety has portrayed e.g. in Michaelangelo's pieta). This dishonorable burial embarrassed the early Christians and so they altered the story as time went on and made the burial of Jesus more honorable (pp. 76-86).

• [What Happened to Jesus'Body & Resurrection Faith]  Contrary to what many Christians think and believe, McGrath suggests that "not only is what happened to the body not the decisive factor in resurrection faith; in many respects it is irrelevant to it" (p. 97). McGrath's thoughts on this deserve careful reading and pondering!

The Wounded Body of Christ: Toronto Theological Colloquium on the Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis (Part 2)

THIS IS PART TWO. TO GO BACK TO PART ONE, CLICK HERE

Clericalism

Boston College’s Mary Ann Hinsdale began her lecture by going back to the Vatican II theologian Edward Schillebeeckx (one of my theological heroes) to draw pertinent lessons for formulating an ecclesiology that can speak to aspects of this abuse crisis. Again, some of my random recollections and impressions:

·         Ministry as Too “Sacerdotalized”   Ordained ministry in the church has become too “sacerdotalized,” that is, it has been conflated too closely with being ordained a priest. That, in turn, has been explained in ontological terms in which the priest (“sacerdos” in Latin) undergoes an ontological change into a character that enables the priest to preside over a community and have, as one of his most important roles, the duty to “confect” (manufacture) the Eucharist. This, one can argue, lies at the root of the exaggerated sense of importance that priests have of themselves (that’s my own take).

·         Women in the Church  Schillebeeckx thought that as long as women are effectively left out of real decision making in the church, there can be no real liberation for women (I hope I’m paraphrasing this fairly). My addition: I’m convinced that the real liberation is not only for women but for everyone in the church. In short, sharing real power and authority in the Church with women is the only way for us Catholics to have a balanced church!

·         Clericalism  … can be described as the protection of rights of clerics even to the detriment of non-clerical members of the church. This is a seriously dysfunctional element that has to be remedied through the improvement of seminary education, among others. Evils such as sexual abuse should be dealt with through restorative justice.

Some Other Noteworthy Matters

·         “Policing Oneself” is Wrong!  In the last session, lawyer Simona Jellinek dropped some pretty intense remarks: First, allowing an institution to police itself is just wrong! Hey, isn’t that Catholicism 101? The whole of the RCC’s polity, as Sr. Nuala also remarked, is “up-down.” There is no “down-up” way to make the church accountable. In effect, there are no effective “checks and balances” in place.

·         First Things First   Another noteworthy point (from Simona), the priority now in the Church should be, first, help the healing of those who were abused. This is the most urgent task. Then and only then can you fix the church. But justice and healing for the victimized should be the priority.

·         Where’s the Clergy?  I heard a lot of voices saying that there should have been more clergy (especially clergy with real power and authority in the church) present in this colloquium because it is this group that has to hear the message most urgently

My (Preliminary) Concluding Thoughts

·         Share Authority!  There is a fake (although insightful) Albert Einstein quote in which the brilliant physicist is supposed to have claimed, The mentality that created a problem cannot solve the same problem it created. The sexual abuse crisis, although devastating for everyone in the church, (I think it is fair to say) has been created by the dysfunctional and unjust hierarchical structure of the church and perpetrated mainly by the members of the hierarchy. But then, who has real authority and power in the Roman Catholic Church? Despite Vatican II and its encouragement to the church to be the people of God, (as they say in the Catholic Church), the church ain’t no democracy! Let’s be honest, the only ones who have real authority and power in the church are bishops and priests. And, as the fake Einstein quote says, they will not be able to solve a problem that they themselves have created and are part of. Unless authority and power in the Catholic are shared in a real way outside the circle of <ordained, male, celibate>, I’m afraid nothing substantial will change.

·         My Personal Context  A remark on personal context is called for here. I myself was a religious order priest (Salesian of Don Bosco) for 10 years. Before ordination, I trained for the priesthood for an even longer period of time. In 2005, I finally decided that, in conscience, I could no longer remain a member of the hierarchy because I came to the conclusion that this select clique of <male, celibate, ordained> persons was, ethically speaking, “uncondonable,” deeply dysfunctional and—I thought then—incapable of reforming itself. Yes, I know that everyone and everything is flawed. But the level of being flawed can reach a state which can no longer be tolerated and I thought that the Catholic hierarchy was that 14 years ago when I resigned as a priest and religious. This makes me a jaded wimp and, sadly, I’ve also been treated sometimes as a “traitor.” But I very simply concluded then (after years of intense discernment and prayer) that “institutional church” was overrated and that working for reform in the church was—in the words of theologian Matthew Fox—like standing in front of an oncoming train. And so, I thought, I had better, more important things to do in life. Fast forward … when I hug my wife and daughter today, I somehow have a sense of the most important things in life. I have never looked back although I still self-identify as Catholic (as well as ecumenical) and, more importantly, I still deeply love the Catholic tradition (with this important qualification) as a critical grown-up child of the tradition (and we all know how complicated those relationships can be!)

Why do I feel that there has been no substantial change today? I walked away from the colloquium with deeply mixed feelings. I still feel that the only real ones who can actually solve the problem (because only they have real authority) cannot and, sadly, just don’t have the real will to solve the problem. I repeat, this will happen only when we open up real authority in the church to transcend the <male, ordained, celibate> group!

The “Grain of Wheat” Must Die   At the very end of the colloquium, a survivor (who was not one of the panelists), took the microphone and said (words to the effect of), “Here we are talking of rebirthing the church. Why? The church in the form it is now should die! We should think about what has to come out after that death.”

That remark has remained with me. We cannot fix this problem with Band-Aid solutions. Something more radical is needed. Perhaps, Jesus’ words in John 12:24 should be radically applied to the church (sorry, I’m a New Testament prof), “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”

I’ve also written down other thoughts elsewhere if you’re interested:

A biblical-theological reflection on the Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis where I advocate a spirituality of brokenness: https://www.catholica.com.au/gc4/jkk/014_jkk_121118.php

My thoughts on the Vatican Summit on Sexual Abuse:

http://spiritual-notandyet-religious-jkk.blogspot.com/2019/03/my-thoughts-on-recently-concluded.html

Sorry for seemingly throwing cold water on the whole enterprise. Let’s end on a hopeful note: Sr Nuala pointed out that, for all the imperfections that could be pointed out about Pope Francis, he seems to display an awareness of this ecclesiological pathology that lies at the heart of this crisis. Now that is a clear sign of hope. I got deeply disillusioned with the institutional church during the John Paul II and Benedict XVI years. I’m pleasantly surprised that I am much more hopeful now under Francis! I savor and cherish that! I really, really hope that things will turn around. I’ll try my best to do my part to contribute to that.

Thank you very much, Jim (Dr. James Ginther-Dean of St. Mike’s theology department), and your collaborators, for hosting this important and urgent colloquium!

Peace and healing to all!