Developments in Christian Theology

Critically discuss different Christian interpretations of what heaven is like. [40]

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All Christians believe in heaven.  The belief is affirmed in the last line of the Nicene Creed “We believe also in… the resurrection of the dead, in the everlasting judgement of souls and bodies, in the Kingdom of Heaven and in the everlasting life.” Yet Christians have different interpretations of what heaven is like, ranging from belief that heaven is a place much like earth, but perfected and everlasting, through to belief that heaven is a spiritual state or even entirely symbolic. Overall, it is the first of these interpretations, that heaven is a perfected, eternal place, that is most consistent with Christian doctrine.

Firstly, the Roman Catholic Church affirms that while human beings have a soul and a body, these form a single human nature, and according to Catechism 366 “[the soul] will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.” This suggests that our eternal life in heaven will be much like our life on earth, so that each person will have a soul and a body, but our life in heaven will be eternal and we will be with God, much as Adam and Eve were with God in Eden.  This view of heaven is consistent with Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels and with the fact that Jesus ascended into heaven, where he remains “at the right hand of the father”, which suggests that heaven is a place.  In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25 Jesus describes a final judgement where people are judged and then sent off for an eternal life in heaven or eternal punishment in hell.  This confirms that there will be a final resurrection and judgement, as the Catechism says, and that heaven will be eternal life. Also, the Parable of Dives and Lazarus in Luke 16 describes heaven being separated from hell by a chasm, with those in hell being able to see and call to those in heaven.  Again, this suggests that heaven and hell are eternal places, of reward and punishment respectively.  Nevertheless, it is true that the two parables give different impressions of when people will go to heaven.  The Parable of the Sheep and Goats suggests that there will be a final judgement, followed by eternal heaven or hell, whereas Dives and Lazarus suggests immediate judgement and entry into heaven and hell while life on earth continues.  Despite this, Roman Catholic teaching makes sense of this through its teaching about purgatory, whereby the soul separates from the body and is reclothed in a heavenly body for purification in purgatory, a temporary hell, the gates of which will then be opened at the final judgement so that souls can be released and reunited with their risen bodies for final judgement and eternal reward in heaven, as appropriate. While purgatory is not supported by clear Biblical evidence, the Church was given authority to “bind and loose” by Jesus in Matthew 16:19 so the authority of the Church to add to Biblical revelation such as regarding purgatory is consistent with the Bible. Further, purgatory makes sense of how sinners can still hope for eternal life given what Revelation 21:27 says about heaven namely that “nothing impure will ever enter it”, and how God’s goodness and justice are compatible.  It follows that the Roman Catholic view of heaven as a place is most consistent with the Bible and Christian doctrine. 

Secondly, the idea that heaven is a spiritual state has always been popular because there is no physical evidence supporting the belief in heaven as a place while heaven as a spiritual state would not require such evidence.  Belief in heaven as a spiritual state is also compatible with Platonic Dualism; heaven would be like the world outside the cave in Plato’s famous allegory, illuminated by the sun and filled with the “forms” of things we only encounter as shadowy particulars in the body. Naturally, St Augustine’s view of heaven was influenced by neo-Platonism; he spoke of heaven as the eternal contemplation of God in Confessions Book XII.  Patly because of St Augustine, Platonic Dualism dominated the Classical and then Medieval worldviews, with philosophers such as Descartes seeing the soul and heaven saw as purely spiritual, with death being a liberation from the mechanistic snares of the physical body. There is some Biblical support for the view that heaven is spiritual; for St Augustine and later for Descartes, the ultimate reward was to see God face to face and have a perfect understanding of reality, as was promised in 1 Corinthians 13:12 and also in 1 John 3:2.  This might explain why Pope John Paul II seemed to imply that heaven and hell are spiritual states more than places in some remarks he made in 1999.  He spoke most particularly of hell, describing it as the absence of God in a way that is consistent with 2 Thessalonians 1:9 “They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might”.  But the Pope also said “Heaven “is neither an abstraction not a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father which takes place in the risen Christ through the communion of the Holy Spirit…” this seems to suggest that the Pope supported the view that heaven is a spiritual state and not a place, contradicting his own Catechism.  Yet this is a misunderstanding of the Pope’s meaning. The Catechism affirms that through the sacraments we participate in Christ, who is in heaven at the right hand of the father, so through the sacraments Catholics have a “living personal relationship with the Holy Trinity” in heaven while they are still alive, tasting the heavenly reward they will one day enter each time they partake of the sacraments.  The Pope in his remarks was telling Catholics to focus on what heaven is to them now rather than speculating about what it might be like in the future in a way that cannot be accurate.  After all, the “Kingdom of Heaven” – at least as it will be after the end of time and judgment – does not exist yet. Also, neither the Bible nor Pope John Paul II’s remarks exclude the view that the Kingdom of heaven will ultimately be a place.  It could be that people are shut out from God’s presence while in a place that is Hell, or that they see God face to face and know God as he is while in the place that is heaven, described in other Biblical references.  Seeing heaven as a spiritual place casts doubt on the numerous references which suggest that heaven is a place.   Further, if heaven is a spiritual state only, this suggests that only our soul goes to heaven.  This implies that “I” am my soul and that my body is less important, which might encourage me to denigrate the body and/or see its actions as less important than those of the soul, as Gnostic heretics did during the first centuries of Christianity, and as Cathar heretics later did.  Because of the practical implications of these heretical positions, such as for sexual ethics, the Roman Catholic Catechism 362-368 specifically rejects these ideas, affirming that the body and the soul are a unity and are both necessary for eternal life.  The Roman Catholic theology of the body is consistent both with the doctrine of the incarnation, which shows the importance of the human body in that God chose to become incarnate in one, and with St Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honour God with your bodies.” So, it follows that the idea that heaven is a spiritual state is less consistent with the Bible and Christian Doctrine than the idea that heaven is a place.

Thirdly, the idea that heaven is a symbol of a person’s spiritual and moral life on Earth and not either a place or a spiritual state has grown in popularity through the later 20th and early 21st Centuries amongst ordinary believers, seeking to reconcile their faith with a scientific worldview. Amongst philosophers, Paul Tillich is most often associated with the argument that words used to describe heaven are symbolic.  However, by Tillich’s understanding of symbolic language, this does not suggest that heaven is not a place or spiritual state, because for Tillich symbolic language is cognitive and symbolic words participate in the objective reality to which they refer.  For Tillich, just as God is not a thing but is the “ground of our being”, ‘immortality does not mean a continuation of eternal life after death, but it means a quality which transcends temporality’ (Tillich 1963: 410 [vol. 3]).  This suggests that it is mistaken to imagine that heaven is a place like earth, because it will be timeless as God is timeless.  Nevertheless, Tillich did not suggest that “heaven is a symbol of a person’s spiritual and moral life on earth and not either a place or spiritual state.”  This idea might instead be associated with anti-realism and the belief that religious language takes its meaning not from correspondence and reference but from coherence within a religious form of life.  By this view, when a believer speaks of heaven, they would not be referring to a specific place or state after death, but to their hope for reward in union with God more generally.  It is fair to say that this position is neither compatible with the Bible nor with mainstream Christian doctrine.  The Bible speaks of what is “True” and not of what is “true for us” and so does Christian doctrine. Also, it is difficult to find scholars who really accept this anti-realist position.  While John Hick had some unconventional views about the afterlife and went so far as to describe the incarnation as a metaphor, he never suggested that talk of heaven is only symbolic.  In his earlier writings he implied that heaven was a place, populated by people in replica heavenly bodies, while in his later writings he spoke of some form of re-incarnation, whereby the energy of one life is reused in and influences future lives.  Hick was not an anti-realist and neither did he see heaven as a symbol.  Some textbooks suggest that DZ Phillips is a good example of a Christian who saw heaven as a symbol and not as a place or a spiritual state, and yet Patrick Horn describes this as a “caricature” of Phillips position, and is supported by others including Mikel Burley, who reject the basic claim that Phillips is a non-realist. While Phillips did claim that much religious discourse is “not fact stating”, he did not mean that it is non-cognitive but rather that it refers not to the worldly reality in which there can be facts, but to a different kind of reality.  For Tillich, Hick and Phillips, as for many other Philosophers of Religion through history, God’s existence is not like our existence.  God does not exist in the way that a cat exists, but that does not mean to say that he does not exist either.  As Aquinas put it, there is no-thing that is God… but God is not nothing.  Extending this to heaven, if heaven exists it would not be a place quite like earth but that doesn’t mean that it is not a place, so Tillich, Hick and Phillips is right to point out that religious language about heaven is neither like ordinary language nor only an expression of our own beliefs and hopes. This shows that the view that heaven is only a symbol is not compatible with the Bible, with mainstream Christian doctrines or indeed, even with the philosophy of those claimed to share this view.

In conclusion, the Roman Catholic view of heaven as a place is most consistent with the Bible and Christian doctrine.  While the view that heaven is a spiritual state is supported by some Biblical references and by parts of Catholic doctrine, both in the Catechism and in Pope John Paul II’s 1999 remarks, the view that heaven is ONLY a spiritual state is not compatible with the Bible or Christian doctrine as a whole. It could be that heaven is a spiritual state AND a place therefore.  Further, while some Philosophers have explored the nature of language that refers to heaven and have shown that claims are not ordinary fact-stating claims, the view that heaven is only a symbol is not found in scholarly works, probably because it is not compatible with either the Bible or with Christian doctrine.

Marx does not offer a satisfactory solution to the problem of the exploitation of the poor. Discuss. [40]

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Karl Marx’ proposed solution to the problem of the poor proletariat being exploited by the bourgeoisie within a Capitalist economic system is to abolish that system – as well as the superstructure that perpetuates it including religion – through a violent revolution.  By contrast, Liberation Theology has proposed that the first and second act of praxis offer a better solution, which obvious avoids the pitfalls of violent revolution while still achieving change, and mainstream Christian teaching has proposed that charitable work, combined with spiritual formation and prayer, is the best solution because it combines efforts to improve conditions for the poor with spiritual preparation for the afterlife, in which the only lasting equality can be attained. In theory, Marx offers a satisfactory solution, however in practice and largely because of political opposition to Marxism from the entrenched vested interests of the bourgeoisie, mainstream Christian teaching provides the most satisfactory solution.

Marx’s solution of revolution is theoretically at least the most satisfactory solution to the problem of the exploitation of the poor.  Only by dispelling the false class consciousness that capitalism depends on, through education and the weakening of religious influence, will the proletariat recognise their own exploitation and become resolved to stop it.  As Marx observed, capitalism is inherently unstable because it consists of a vast and growing majority of people being oppressed and cheated by a small and shrinking minority.  Capitalism cannot continue without the acquiescence of the poor, which the bourgeoisie achieve by keeping the poor divided and in ignorance.  Marx was right that religious teaching serves to keep the poor acquiescent, encouraging them to believe that those in power rule with God’s authority, that resistance is sinful and will be punished eternally after death and that they should focus on being peaceful and compliant.  As such religion forms part of the superstructure or what Althusser later called the “Ideological State Apparatus”, which creates and perpetuates the false class consciousness that capitalism needs the poor to believe in order to permit their own exploitation.  Abolishing the superstructure, including religion, is both the precondition for and aim of the revolution, which will liberate the poor from oppression.  Examples of countries which have gone through a Marxist revolution include Russia and more recently Cuba… in both cases capitalism and religion were overthrown and inequality between rich and poor was reduced.  Of course, neither example is wholly positive.  The Russian revolution quickly descended into Stalinism and the Cuban revolution led to decades of poverty for all Cubans, but arguably this was due to political opposition from entrenched capitalist interests overseas.  For example, the Cuban revolution struggled with poverty because the USA enforced trade embargoes in order to destabilise the Marxist government.  This shows that while in theory Marxism offers the most satisfactory solution to the problem of the exploitation of the poor, in practice Marxist revolutions struggle because they encounter powerful opposition which increases and prolongs bloodshed and creates greater poverty across society. 

It follows that mainstream Christian teaching offers a more satisfactory solution to the problem of the exploitation of the poor in practice.  The Church has been committed to giving the poor a “preferential option” since the late 1960s, recognising the need to address the growing inequality and exploitation caused by free market capitalism in practical as well as spiritual ways.  Gaudiem et Spes (1965), the last document emerging from the Second Vatican Council, clearly identifies the exploitation of the poor as a major problem inherent in capitalist societies and recognises the impatience of Christians to change this.  Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio (1967) cries out against the “less than human conditions” endured by the poor, recognising that efficiency should not come at the expense of workers’ humanity and reminding Christians that “the earth belongs to everyone, not just the rich.”  Following on from these teachings, through the Puebla Document (1979) CELAM called for every Catholic to give the poor a “preferential option,” using a phrase coined by Fr Pedro Arrupe in 1968.   Nevertheless, by a “preferential option” the Vatican and CELAM meant that Christians should “be the evangeliser of the poor and one with them, a witness to the value of the riches of the Kingdom and the humble servant of all our people. [Puebla Document]” This suggests that while Christians should stand in solidarity with the poor and serve the poor, as Jesus did, their focus should be spiritual in spreading the Gospel and helping those who are exploited to recognise that there is hope in God’s Kingdom.  In practice, in the absence of a practical prospect of achieving liberation for the poor through a Marxist revolution, focusing on improving their immediate conditions through sustainable development projects and helping them retain hope and avoid alienation must be the most satisfactory solution. 

On the other hand, Marx and many other secularists have argued that Christianity’s focus on the Kingdom of God and on heavenly justice encourages the poor to put up with the status quo, however unjust it might be, and so serves the interests of capitalism.  Inspired by Gaudiem et Spes, Populorum Progressio and the Medillin Document of CELAM, Liberation Theologians went further than the mainstream Church, interpreting the “preferential option for the poor” in more political terms and advocating structural change.  In his “A Theology of Liberation” (1971) Gustavo Gutierrez prioritised orthopraxy over orthodoxy and described how Christians should live with the poor, not only stand in solidarity with them (first act praxis), and from that perspective re-read scripture with a “hermeneutic of suspicion”, being awake to the possibility that traditional interpretations of it have encouraged the poor to acquiesce in their exploitation (second act praxis).  From the perspective of the poor, Jesus seems like a political liberator, determined to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth through a revolution of some sort.  While Gutierrez focused on a social revolution, Leonardo Boff recognised the need for more decisive action to overthrow unjust regimes.  He recognised the good achieved by socialist revolutions and that this had been achieved without help from religion, noting that Jesus recognised and promised reward to those who had served God by showing love to their neighbours without realising it.  Of course, this led to Liberation Theology being condemned by the Vatican in 1984 and 1986. In the context of priests being targeted by both right wing and left wing military factions across South America because the line between religion and politics had been blurred, the Papacy criticised those, like Boff, who engaged with Marxism too much and too uncritically.  This is why it is mainstream Christianity and not Liberation Theology which offers the more satisfactory solution to the problem of the exploitation of the poor.  While Liberation Theology tries to combine Marxism and Christian Teaching, this only serves to undermine the ability of Christianity to address the effects of exploitation while doing nothing to make a lasting Marxist revolution more realistic and failing to recognise the threat that Marxism itself presents to religion in all forms.  While Liberation Theology might seem to offer a more holistic solution to the problems of the poor than Marxism does, recognising the need to address the spiritual poverty caused by exploitation and alienation in a way that classical Marxism does not, in practice it struggles to deliver any solution because it attracts hostility from secular and religious authorities alike in short order, compounding the problems of the poor rather than solving them.

In conclusion, mainstream Christian teaching offers the most practical solution to the problem of the exploitation of the poor.  It encourages all Christians to advocate for reforms to the Capitalist system and to give time and money towards sustainable development projects, while also giving hope to the oppressed poor, albeit hope mainly focused on the next world rather than this one.   Mainstream Christian teaching recognises the wisdom of Jesus’ words “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” The fate of so many Marxists and Marxist sympathising Liberation Theologians only serves to demonstrate this, along with the deaths of mainstream Christians such as Oscar Romero who died because Liberation Theology had blurred the line between religion and politics. In focusing on peaceful solutions, mainly in an afterlife, and by disavowing Liberation Theology and other political allegiances, Christianity is able to offer a more satisfactory solution to the poor in practice than more ambitious but unrealistic alternatives. 

Critically assess the view that in Christian teaching, all people will be saved. [40]

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Mainstream Christian teaching explains that not everybody will be saved.  The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church confirms, “The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life”.  It quotes the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats from Matthew Chapter 25, confirming that only the good will be saved and rewarded in heaven while the wicked will be sent to eternal punishment in hell.  Further, the Westminster Confession, accepted by most Protestant Christians, also confirms that “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death” showing that it is not true that “in Christian teaching, all people will be saved.” While a few universalists and inclusivists might argue that in Christian teaching, all people will be saved, perhaps selectively quoting certain Bible passages – such as 1 John 2:2 which suggests that Jesus “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world…” – in practice this is a distortion of Christian teaching.

Firstly, mainstream Christian teaching is that only baptised Christians will be saved.  John 14:6 famously states “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me!” which strongly suggests that only Christians can be saved and go to heaven.  While Karl Rahner and John Hick might suggest that for all we know, God being omnipotent and omnibenevolent, might give what Rahner called “anonymous Christians” a second chance to accept Jesus and thus be saved through him after death, this is not a mainstream teaching.  In John 3:5 Jesus said “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God…” which most Christians interpret to mean that Baptism is necessary for salvation.  Indeed, the Roman Catholic Catechism 1257 teaches that “the Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation…” and the Orthodox Churches teach that baptism is the means by which Christians receive the Holy Spirit, which is necessary for Salvation.  While Quakers, including John Hick later in his life, might argue that sacraments are unnecessary, because the outward signs of grace have no power in themselves and may serve to distract from the spiritual signs of salvation within, this is a minority view.  Most Protestants also teach that Baptism is necessary for salvation, being a sign of election.  The Westminster Confession confirms that “much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever…”  Further, some Christians might argue that unbaptised infants might be saved by the grace of God, so why not good people of other faiths.  Even the Roman Catholic Church, which had taught that unbaptised infants go to limbo, not heaven, changed this teaching in 2007.  Yet Roman Catholic teaching still suggests that “Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament.” (Catechism 1257) and while it admits that God “himself is not bound by his sacraments…” and might decide to save unbaptised people, this possibility is not known to the Church and seems to conflict with Scripture.  For these reasons then, in Christian teaching not everybody will be saved.

Secondly, mainstream Christian teaching is that only good people will be saved and that the wicked will be punished eternally in hell.  Matthew 25 (the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats) makes it clear that at the Last Judgement God will divide people into the good (sheep) and the wicked (goats) and send them for eternal reward or punishment based on how they have treated “the least of these brothers of mine”.  Similarly, Luke 16 (the Parable of Dives and Lazarus) suggests that once we are in heaven or hell, based on our choices in this life towards the most vulnerable, then this fate is eternal and cannot be changed.  In John 13:34-35 Jesus states “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This suggests that being “in Jesus” and therefore saved depends on good works, which means that those who do not love others will not be saved.  Based on these scriptures, the Roman Catholic Catechism 1022 teaches that “at the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love…”  and 1033 states “we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbour or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” [1 John 3:14-15] Nevertheless, mainstream Christian teaching also makes it clear that salvation does not depend on works.  Rather, we are saved by grace and God’s decision alone, which does not depend on anything we do or choose.  For Roman Catholics, “Grace is favour, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life” so that being Baptised, taking the sacraments and living a good life are evidence that we have been saved by God’s grace.  Yet, for Protestants, it is possible that a person might be baptised and live an apparently good life and yet still not be saved.  The Westminster Confession explains that “others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, and therefore cannot be saved.”  God’s decision to save is one of grace and so independent of anything which we do, or how we might appear to others. John Calvin confirmed that “Therefore, as Paul testifies, election, which is the cause of good works, does not depend upon men.” Commentaries on Election and Predestination. In this way it might seem that it is possible that God saves all people by his grace, including those who are unbaptised and even those who live lives of sin.  Yet there are few Christians who would accept this, because the idea that Hitler and Stalin might end up in heaven alongside the Saints conflicts with Justice, which is one of God’s core attributes.  It follows, therefore, that it is wrong to say that “in Christian teaching, all people will be saved.”

On the other hand, some Christians argue that the existence of an eternal hell is incompatible with God’s goodness. Whatever sins we commit in this life are temporary, so an eternal punishment could not be proportionate, which is a core principle of justice.  If hell is not eternal, it would follow that in the end all people will be saved.  Roman Catholic teaching suggests that after we die, we can atone for sin through Purgatory, a temporary hell, before making progress towards paradise and eventually being released into heaven at the Last Judgement.  The Catechism 1030 stated that “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” Yet this still implies that some people – those who die outside God’s grace and friendship – do go to an eternal Hell.  This is also suggested by the Bible, in Matthew 25, Luke 16 and elsewhere.  Karl Barth and later John Hick both addressed this issue, asking how a just God could punish people for temporary sins – however bad – with an eternal punishment.  They came to similar solutions, that God offers all sinners a “way back” after they die, but that God’s gift of grace is freedom which extends to the ability to reject God’s grace and salvation a second time and choose eternal damnation for ourselves.  Despite this, the idea that all people will be saved eventually is not acceptable to all Christians, because it implies that we are saved by our own decision, not God’s.  Barth tried to get around this by saying that it is freedom which is the gift of grace, so when we choose to accept God’s salvation we are saved through grace.  He wrote “The command of God sets man free…” Church Dogmatics p.586 and “The determination of the elect consists in the fact that he allows himself to be loved by God” p.411  Yet for Augustine and Calvin this is unlikely to be acceptable, because it does seem to limit God’s omniscience.  If God gives us freedom as a gift of grace, allowing us to choose to accept the salvation which is offered to everybody or not, then it might suggest that God does not know whether we will accept or not.  It might be that God limits his own knowledge of who will be saved to facilitate his gift of grace, which is freedom.  Yet this implies that God is limited in power, having to choose between giving us freedom and knowing who will be saved. It might be that God does know who will accept salvation – and who will not accept – despite our freedom. Yet this seems close to Arminianism (and so not compatible with Lutheran or Calvinist Protestant Theology) because God’s knowledge of who would accept salvation and his gift of grace in freedom would be simultaneous in God’s timeless nature and God might be seen to choose who to save or not based on whether they will accept.  It follows that mainstream Christian teaching does not embrace the idea that God offers salvation to everybody and freedom as a gift of grace to either accept or reject that salvation.  In the end, some people will not be saved, and this will be by God’s decision alone, according to mainstream Christian teaching. 

In conclusion, it is not fair to say that “in Christian teaching, all people will be saved.”  While there are a few Christians who might like to think that, and while a few Bible quotes taken out of context might imply that, mainstream Christian teaching is united in its view that some people will not be saved.  This will probably include most non-Christians and serious sinners. 

Critically assess the significance of Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall. [40]

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This AS question from 2018 is possibly the worst I have seen, and the mark-scheme does little to show that it is a reasonable question to have asked students, let alone AS students, in an examination. Nevertheless, because it is a past question student might encounter it and it is certainly worth considering how it might be answered.

St Augustine taught that human beings existed in a state of CARITAS before the Fall, loving God and loving each other as themselves in an ideal state of AMOR or agape and friendship.  In the City of God Book 14 St Augustine described how God “created man with such a nature that the members of the race should not have died”, such as being IMMORTAL and so in no need of SALVATION.  For St Augustine, human beings had BONA VOLUNTAS before the Fall, much the same as what Kant later describes as a GOOD WILL.  Their choices were directed by REASON and they had, therefore, a UNIFIED WILL and not the DIVIDED WILL that characterizes human nature after the Fall.  It follows that, for St Augustine, the whole blame for the FALL and the evil, suffering and death that it caused, lies within human beings and not with God.  St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall is, therefore, a highly significant part of his Theodicy and particularly his Free Will Defence; without his teaching about human relationships before the Fall, St Augustine could not explain how God, being OMNIPOTENT and OMNIBENEVOLENT, allows evil and suffering to exist within His creation.   

Firstly, St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall shows that the original choice to disobey God and sin was free in the sense that there were ALTERNATE POSSIBILITIES.  St Augustine is clear that with a unified, good will (BONA VOLUNTAS), human beings would have no reason to disobey… it made no sense to do so.  Although St Augustine saw LUST as the explanation for human beings choosing to do what it made no sense to do, he is also clear that “they are in error who suppose that all the evils of the soul proceed from the body”.  If the body was the source of LUST and what caused us to sin, God as the creator of the body would still be responsible for our sin and its consequences, nullifying St Augustine’s Theodicy.  For St Augustine, it was “the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible”, so the choice to disobey God was internal to Adam as the agent and not determined by any external factor, even his own body.  The fist sin was man having the PRIDE to live according to his own desire and not God’s, so disobeying God and following his CARNAL WILL.  It follows that St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall is highly significant, making his THEODICY and particularly his FREE WILL DEFENCE work.   

Secondly, St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall shows that everybody is a SINNER in need of SALVATION through God’s GRACE.  For St Augustine, all human beings were “seminally present” in Adam (God “was pleased to derive all men from one individual”), meaning that all human beings were originally created having BONA VOLUNTAS and existing in CARITAS, not just Adam and Eve, and all human beings sinned against God and earned the punishment for sin which is death (Romans 5), not just Adam and Eve.  This shows that all human beings are capable of CARITAS and that AGAPE as a moral imperative has force, being towards something that our PRE-LAPSARIAN STATE shows that we can do.  In this way, we fully deserve God’s punishment in this life and the next for existing in a state of CUPIDITAS.  Indeed, if God did not punish us (harshly) for our CUPIDITY, God could not be just because then there could be no incentive to change and do what we know we should.  Further, St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall supports his teaching about the Fall and Original Sin, which in turn supports his teaching that we depend on God’s GRACE for SALVATION and can in no way deserve or earn it for ourselves.  St Augustine utterly rejected PELAGIANISM, pointing out that it limits God’s OMNIPOTENCE (suggesting that we decide who is saved, not God), OMNISCIENCE (suggesting that the future is open and unknown to God) and OMNIBENEVOLENCE (suggesting that God only saves those who deserves it, when in fact His goodness extends to saving all those who don’t deserve it).  St Augustine agrees with St Paul, who wrote

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:38-39

If we are saved, then we are pre-destined for salvation by God’s Grace, and nothing on earth can change that. For these reasons as well, St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall is highly significant in his wider THEODICY and THEOLOGY for that matter.   

Nevertheless and despite is significance, St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall is problematic.  

Notwithstanding the damning consequences of accepting the story of the Fall as conveying deep truth about human nature (Centuries of SEXISM, MISOGYNY and repressed SEXUALITIES flow from the story of the fall, including our pre-lapsarian state – being seen as ARCHETYPAL in the way that St Augustine’s teaching encourages) St Augustine’s teaching about human relationships before the fall depends on seeing the Bible as containing deep truth, when BIBLICAL CRITICISM casts doubt on this.  Textbooks are wrong to claim that St Augustine was a naïve literalist in the modern sense, seeing the Fall as historical, when he was fully aware of the different genres that the Bible contained and was amongst the first to develop rules for the interpretation of scripture, and yet St Augustine did rely on the Bible conveying truth, albeit in a more complex way.

Further, St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall and how they relate to human nature today depends on an antiquated notion of how human beings reproduce.  Although Aristotle’s theory from “On the Generation of Animals” that the male is the efficient cause of his children (the woman only providing the material causes) was commonly accepted in St Augustine’s day, making his claim that all humanity was “seminally present” in Adam seem plausible, the discovery of the human ovum in the 17th Century undermined St Augustine’s claim.  It may be that the potential for all life was contained within Adam and Eve, but while Adam was fully culpable for his sin in the Fall, arguably Eve was not. Eve’s relationship with God was secondary and God’s command not to eat from the tree given to Adam before she was created. Eve’s sin would in breaking God’s commandment would be towards Adam, who she had been created to help… but then she thought she was helping Adam as the fruit was “as good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom…” If all humanity was not, as St Augustine suggested, “seminally present” in Adam it does not follow that all human beings sinned in his sin or are justly punished in dying for it.

Also, as John Hick pointed out in “Evil and the God of Love” (1966) p173, St Augustine’s attempt to use human nature to explain the fall and justify God in allowing evil and suffering “considered as a contribution to the solution of the problem of evil… only explains obscurum per obscurius.”  Even if we ignore the problems with taking the story of the fall literally in either a historical or scientific sense, St Augustine blaming human nature for the fall – whether in the body or the soul – does little to excuse God from responsibility for the evil and suffering that frail nature causes, because God created that frail nature and God is supposed to be both OMNIPOTENT and OMNISCIENT… in other words he could have done better and should have known how it would turn out.  

It seems that St Augustine’s teaching on human relationships before the Fall is BOTH highly significant AND deeply problematic.   

The extent to which this is true can be seen in Immanuel Kant’s “Religion within the boundaries of reason alone” (1794).  Kant, as a Lutheran, was deeply influenced by St Augustine, but wanted his philosophical system to work without relying on faith.  Like St Augustine, Kant believed that human beings are born FREE, that we choose to do what is wrong against reason and that this has a permanent effect on our moral character, limiting our freedom.  While Kant called what limits the human ability to have a good will RADICAL EVIL rather than ORIGINAL SIN, the concepts are sufficiently similar for Goethe to claim that Kant had “criminally stained his philosophers’ cloak with the shameful stain of original sin.”  For Kant, as for St Augustine, the possibility for human beings to have a good will (BONA VOLUNTAS) is significant, because it ensures that we can do what we rationally know we should do.  Without evidence that it is possible to have a good will, Kant would be arguing that we should do what nobody can do, which is irrational.  Without evidence that it is possible to have a good will, there would be no CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE or reason to believe that we really are free or that the universe is really ordered as it appears to be.  For Kant, living in an age where Biblical Criticism made taking Genesis literally impossible, Jesus was the evidence that it is possible to have a good will and live in a state of what St Augustine called CARITAS, so in this way through Jesus we are “saved” from despair through the knowledge that in Jesus what we know we should do is possible.  Jesus is the evidence that human nature “before sin” is and can be good and so the evidence that we should be good, despite the otherwise seeming impossibility of having a good will by Kant’s definition.  Despite this, like St Augustine, Kant’s teaching on the good will is deeply problematic because human beings are born and grow up through a state whereby that are not capable of having a good will – childhood.  As children we are bound to do what is right, not out of a sense of duty, but out of fear, deference to authority or habit… all of which would make the “right” action pollute the will as much as an obviously wrong action, and pollute it permanently, holding us back from ever achieving a good will as an adult.  While Jesus shows that it is possible for a human being to have a good will, there is no sense that Jesus was like us subject to ignorance and tutelage as a child or that as an adult his will was encumbered with the effects of childhood choices.  Because of this, Kant’s teaching about a good will is no more convincing than St Augustine’s.  Like St Augustine, Kant asserts our freedom but provides no real evidence that we have ALTERNATE POSSIBILITIES to choose from.  Like St Augustine, Kant asserts that we are morally responsible for not having a good will (BONA VOLUNTAS) and for living in a state of RADICAL EVIL (CUPIDITAS) without evidence that we could ever have done otherwise.  Just as Kant’s teaching about a good will shows that Kant has no basis for postulating GOD (the universe is not fair, so there is no need to believe in God to explain its fairness), St Augustine’s teaching about human relationships before the fall shows that St Augustine has no basis for believing that God is both OMNIPOTENT and OMNIBENEVOLENT in the face of evil and suffering in the world that He created.   

In conclusion, St Augustine’s teaching about human relationships before the Fall is highly significant.  Without this element of St Augustine’s teaching, St Augustine’s THEODICY and particularly his FREE WILL DEFENCE could not work and St Augustine’s wider THEOLOGY of Grace could not work either.  St Augustine’s teaching about human relationships before the fall are crucial in defending the possibility of God being both OMNIBENEVOLENT and OMNIPOTENT, human FREEDOM real and the universe FAIR, so much so that even Immanuel Kant relied on a similar, albeit unsatisfactory and contentious, theory to explain the human condition.  And yet, St Augustine’s teaching about human relationships before the Fall relies on some degree of Biblical LITERALISM and on scientific NAIVITY. It does not provide the needed evidence that human beings are capable of being good or responsible for all the evil and suffering in the world, because as St Augustine put it, all the evils that affect mankind are “either sin or punishment for sin”.  In the end, the very significance of St Augustine’s teaching about human relationships before the fall undermines his wider attempt at THEODICY and THEOLOGY.   

Christians should not show favouritism or prioritize one group over another. Discuss. [40]

/ vardycharlotte / Leave a comment

On first sight it seems that there is little to discuss here.  Showing favouritism seems opposed to treating people fairly and equally, as the Christian principle of the Sanctity of Human Life seems to demand. Famously, Jesus taught “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:32), suggesting that Christians should love all people equally and not prioritize one group over another, and his brother James clearly wrote “…believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism…” (James 2:1). Nevertheless, when in 1968 CELAM’s Medellin conference called for what in the same year Fr Pedro Arrupe had called a “preferential option for the poor,” many Christians responded, agreeing that Christian teaching on social justice demands that the Church should prioritize the poor.  Further, in recent months many Christians have supported the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which seeks to prioritize black lives now to address the fact that these lives have long been ignored.  On closer examination it seems that there is a lot to discuss here, not least because the ideas of favouritism and prioritizing one group over another have been conflated in the question, when in fact – as Stephen J Pope argued in 1993 – they are distinct.  In reality, it is true that Christians should not show favouritism, but that does not mean that they should not prioritize one group over another.

In his article “Proper and Improper Partiality and the Preferential Option for the Poor”[1] Stephen J Pope opened by acknowledging that “the preferential option for the poor has become a major theme in contemporary Catholic Ethics.”  The theme is often attributed to the influence of South American Liberation Theology from the late 1970s, but as Todd Walatka argued persuasively in 2015[2], the origins of the preferential option for the poor are really in Vatican II documents “Gaudiem et Spes” and “Lumen Gentium” (1965) and Pope Paul VI’s “Populorum Progressio” (1967), which predate CELAM’s Medillin conference in 1968 and Gustavo Gutierrez’ “Towards a Theology of Liberation” (1971) and far predate the famous articulation of the concept in CELAM’s Puebla conference in 1979.   In this way, Christians have long argued for the poor to be prioritized as a group.  Indeed, there is good Biblical justification for prioritizing the poor.   Arguably, Jesus himself gave a preferential option to the poor and to sinners; he chose to become incarnate of an unmarried mother and to live as and with the poor.  In a society that saw wealth as a reward from God and misfortune, including poverty, as a sign of sin and God’s displeasure, he rebuked those who questioned his spending time with sinners, saying “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners…” Mark 2:17.  Of course, he might have meant that the righteous and, by implication in that society, the wealthy were in no need of his help as they would achieve salvation anyway, but in Mark 10: 23, 25 Jesus remarked “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”…  25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God…” as if wealth is a barrier to salvation.  This suggests that God gives a “preferential option” to the poor, making it easier for them to enter His Kingdom.  Nevertheless, in Romans 2:11 St Paul teaches that “God shows no partiality” and in Galatians 3:28 confirms that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  How can it be that Jesus gave the poor a preferential option and taught that God made it easier for the poor to enter His Kingdom, while “all are one in Christ Jesus” and while “God shows no partiality”?  The answer is, of course, that there is a difference between giving the poor a preferential option and showing favouritism, treating the poor equitably and treating them with what Stephen J Pope calls “unjust partiality.” 

As Pope argues, “the preferential option, properly understood, refers to an expansion rather than a contraction of love and wisdom… this form of partiality must not be associated with those forms which encourage a disregard for fairness…”  In this way offering the poor a “preferential option” does not take away from the love God – or Christians – shows to others.  A parent does not love a child less by choosing to have another child; love is not a finite resource but expands to meet the need.  Further, no Christian who proposes giving the poor a preferential option proposes to treat other groups unjustly from now on.  Of course there will be those who perceive any measures taken to curtail their unjust privilege as unjust treatment, but is it unjust to stop a thief from enjoying the proceeds of their crimes? As Marx said, capitalism is theft because the capitalist relies on seizing the means of production and paying the workers less than he charges for their labour.  Even the father of free-market Capitalism Adam Smith agreed that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.[3]”  In this way, the rich are criminals and justice demands that they should not be allowed to enjoy the proceeds of their crimes with impunity.  Further, as Rawls pointed out “The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.”[4]  Could those who would complain of the injustice of being deprived of unjust privilege say that they would choose for the unjustly privileged to go unchallenged if they did not know that they were so privileged?  As Gutierrez pointed out[5], the poor are in the vast majority, both now and through history.  They occupy the underside of history and have suffered in every possible way because of material deprivation.  Any theory of justice decided on behind a veil of ignorance could not accept Capitalism, because it is only to the advantage of a tiny and shrinking minority. Further, because Capitalism is structurally sinful it causes even to that minority to be dehumanised and distanced from God, both in this life and the next. Oligarchs and ultra-high-net-worth individuals might appear to benefit from Capitalism – and they certainly enjoy the supercars and mansions – but their property and investments force them to be complicit in the oppression of workers and the destruction of the environment and so ensures that so long as they remain rich, they cannot show agape or follow God’s commandments.  By challenging and even by stopping the continuation of a systemic injustice which has so long and so severely oppressed the poor the Christian does not show unjust favouritism, she works for justice – liberating the rich as well as the poor from the structural sin that is capitalism.

In addition, in Luke 6:20 Jesus taught “blessed are the poor”, continuing in verse 24 “woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.”   In this way Christians who commit to giving the poor a preferential option and so prioritizing the poor seem to do only what Jesus said that God would do.  Further, even if that is to misinterpret Jesus’ teaching about how God will treat the rich, unlike God whose relationship with the poor and other groups is timeless, the preferential option CELAM called for is time-bound and in response to millennia of injustice and oppression.  Where the poor have been given a worse and manifestly unfair option through all recorded human history, addressing this by committing to try to give them a preferential option now is not unfair or unjust.  Just as the Black Lives Matter movement draws attention to the value of black lives now and going forward in the context of addressing the effects of centuries of discrimination and oppression, the preferential option for the poor is a step towards – and only a step towards – combating injustice and not in itself a new injustice.  In calling for some sort of affirmative action to address injustice, Liberation Theology, Black Liberation Theology and other contextual theologies like feminist and Dalit theologies all draw on the thinking of John Rawls, who pointed out that injustice is done when we treat different groups with different needs differently.  He wrote: “The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.”[6] For Rawls, justice demands that institutions focus resources on those who have need, according to their needs, rather than sharing them out equally and giving to those who already have more than they need.  This echoes Marx’ mantra “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,”[7] a principle that was previously adopted by the Early Church, as described in Acts 4-5. In this way, by prioritizing the poor over wealthier groups, Christians treat all people equitably and so justly rather than equally and so unjustly.  To treat all people equally when some are, to quote George Orwell “more equal than others” is actually to prefer the rich and treat the already-privileged with favouritism. 

Of course, the title-quote does refer to prioritizing “one group over another” and it is true that this might imply what Pope called “unjust partiality” of the type which takes from one group in order to give to another.  If the title is so interpreted then it is fair to say that “Christians should not show favouritism or prioritize one group over another.”  St Thomas Aquinas taught that a good judge should not show any favouritism for or discrimination against the poor when passing sentence[8] and indeed, impartiality seems to be a condition of justice.  For example, Immanuel Kant taught that a “good will” must “treat humanity, whether in the person of yourself or another, always as an end and never as a means to an end,” suggesting that moral decisions should be made in respect of humanity without consideration of any particular characteristic, protected or otherwise.  Nevertheless, Rawls was strongly influenced by Kant and saw no necessary conflict between treating humanity always as an end in itself and demanding that the poor and disadvantaged are prioritized when it comes to resource-allocation. Not giving more to somebody who has enough is not the same as taking from them and so using them as a means to an end of improving conditions for those who lack.  It follows that Christians can prioritize the poor by treating them equitably, without acting unjustly with respect of the rich.

Having said that, those who call for a “preferential option for the poor” often call for the abolition of private property in the same breath, and this could reasonably be seen as using property owners as a means and not as an end in themselves. Kant distinguishes between negative and positive duties, arguing that a negative duty – not to do something evil – always trumps a positive duty – to help.  So, while not giving more to those who already have enough might be consistent with Kantian Ethics, taking from the rich would not be.  This implies that there should be a line for Christians when it comes to giving the poor a preferential option and so prioritizing them and that endorsing the wholesale abolition of private property would cross that line.  Nevertheless, Populorum Progressio confirms that for Catholics at least “the right to private property is not absolute and unconditional…” because “The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich” and “No one may appropriate surplus goods for their own use when others lack the bare necessities of life.” This relates to 1 John 3:17 “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” and to Jesus’ own reaction to the Rich Young Man in Mark 10, in asking why – if he has truly followed God’s commandments – he is still rich.  While Christians should stop short of supporting Marxist revolutions and a legal abolition of private property, that does not mean that Christians should passively accept the capitalist status quo and its concomitant injustices, including the grossly unequal distribution of private property, a large proportion of which was originally appropriated from what was held in common ownership and more would not have been possible without that appropriation. As CELAM affirmed in “A message to the peoples of Latin America” (1979) and as Jon Sobrino reminds us any “solidarity in faith must of necessity pass through solidarity with the poor.”[9]  Christians must choose; even while they should not endorse Marxist revolution, if they want to remain Christians they must divest themselves of their property and stand in solidarity with the poor.  Similarly, the Church must now become a “Church of the Poor” as Gutierrez put it, because there is no way for the Church to passively accept its own wealth and privilege because in doing so it implicitly endorses and seems to advocate for injustice. It follows that Christians should prioritize disadvantaged groups such as the poor and while they should not foment violent revolution as a means of abolishing private property, they should set a positive example, both individually and as a Church institution, in divesting themselves of the spoils of Capitalism as the necessary first step on a journey towards a fair and equitable redistribution of resources. 

So, in conclusion, Christians should not show favoritism in the sense of displaying what Pope calls unjust partiality, giving to one group by taking from other groups, but they still should – must – prioritize disadvantaged groups and show what Pope calls “just partiality” for them to the extent of sacrificing self to work for justice and their equitable treatment.  Jesus’ own example in doing this is one that Christians should follow.  Jesus chose to live poor, in solidarity with the poor, and sacrificed himself to change an oppressive, structurally sinful system which benefited nobody in a real and lasting sense.  In the same way Christians should accept his challenge to “pick up your cross and follow me,” giving all they have to the poor in the knowledge that – if not in the next life then in this one – this is the only way to build the Kingdom of God.

[1] Theological Studies, Vol 54, 1993

[2] Church as Sacrament: Gutiérrez and Sobrino as Interpreters of Lumen Gentium by Todd Walatka, published online by CUP in 2015 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/horizons/article/abs/church-as-sacrament-gutierrez-and-sobrino-as-interpreters-of-lumen-gentium/512E3C124F371744588801B105E72C34

[3] An Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol 1

[4] A Theory of Justice

[5] Towards a Theology of Liberation

[6] A Theory of Justice

[7] 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program

[8] ST 2-2, q. 63, a. 4, ad 3

[9] Jon Sobrino, 1985:37-38

Orthopraxy is more important than Orthodoxy! Discuss. [40]

/ vardycharlotte / 1 Comment

Orthopraxy is certainly important and should not be ignored in favour of a focus on Orthodoxy. As the 1965 encyclical Gaudiem et Spes confirms,

“… the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.”

Pope Paul VI might have been inspired by Jesus’ own example in admitting this.  The Gospels record how Jesus put the needs of the poor, the sick and outcasts and the spirit of agape ahead of following the letter of the law. For example, he was criticized for healing people on the Sabbath (Luke 13).  Although Jesus affirmed that he had not come to alter “one jot or iota” of the law (Matthew 5:18), and even required higher standards from His followers than the notoriously fastidious Pharisees did of theirs (Matthew 6-7).  Jesus clearly respected Orthodoxy, the Scriptures and particularly the Law of Moses.  Nevertheless, Jesus reminded His followers that the Law was created to serve man, not man to serve the Law; He put the immediate needs of people, love and compassion, first and ahead of following the letter of the Law as it was usually interpreted.  For examples, when Jesus was touched by the woman with a hemorrhage, he didn’t for a moment consider how her action in touching him had made him ritually impure (Mark 5:25-34) .  When Jesus was approached by the Centurion on behalf of his servant (Matthew 8), or on behalf of the Syro-Phonecian woman on behalf of her daughter (Mark 7), Jesus agreed to help people who were beyond the pale in Jewish society.  His parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) underlines how Jesus put emphasis on orthopraxis.  Jesus forced his Jewish listeners to admit that the Samaritan’s good actions meant that he deserved praise, despite his identity, while by inference, the behavior of the Scribe and the Levite deserved no praise, despite the letter of the law and their exalted positions in Jewish society.  It is clear that both the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the Bible confirm the importance of Orthopraxy, that it should not be ignored in favour of a focus on Orthodoxy.

Further, following Pope Paul VI’s teaching in Gaudiem et Spes, in “A Theology of Liberation” (1971) Gustavo Gutierrez argued that the process of Praxis and doing Theology must include both a critical reflection on Christian texts and interpretations (Orthodoxy) in the light of peoples’ lived experience and the needs of the poor (Orthopraxy).  It is not a case of either orthodoxy or orthopraxy, both are needed, both must be in dialogue – to risk using the Marxist language f historical materialism, in a dialectical relationship – if Christianity is to stay alive.

If Orthopraxy is given priority to the exclusion of Orthodoxy then there is nothing distinctively Christian about what is done to improve conditions for the poor.  The actions of feeding and clothing somebody, of visiting them and listening to them, are definitely right actions but any or all of these can be carried out for multiple reasons, including reasons which have nothing to do with Christianity or love.  For example, a political party might help the poor with the intention of buying votes or an overseas-aid project might help the poor with the intention of exerting political influence in another country; this might seem like Orthopraxy, but because it is not informed. guided and motivated by Orthodoxy it is not.  Without Orthodoxy, there is no clear line between Orthopraxy and basic social work and, as St Paul confirms in 1 Corinthians 13:3:

“If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

Marxists and indeed many other non-Christians who are concerned with social justice engage in first-act Praxis by visiting and/or living with the poor and acting in solidarity with them.  Yet without second-act Praxis and the mediations of seeing, judging (reflecting on what is needed in the light of the Gospel) and acting, there is nothing Theological, nothing distinctively Christian, about what is done.  Certainly “liberation theology leads to action” but, as Leonardo and Clodovis Boff affirm in “Introducing Liberation Theology” (1987, p.39) this is

“action for justice, the work of love, conversion, renewal of the Church and the transformation of society”

and is thus much more than just charity work.  It follows that both Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy are important, and that neither is more important than the other.

On the other hand, if Orthodoxy is given priority to the exclusion of Orthopraxy Christianity loses sight of what it is for.  Before the Second Vatican Council Pope John XXIII recognized that the Catholic Church had become obsessed with Orthodoxy and had turned inwards, focused on narrow issues in ecclesiology rather than on the social problems faced by most Christians.  This threatened to make the Church irrelevant in the lives of ordinary people, which would in turn lead to a decline in numbers, influence and strength.  Jesus’ great commission demands that Christians should “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), not be satisfied with a diminishing pool of existing believers. Further, Jesus’ parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25 emphasizes that the eternal fate of each Christian depends on how they respond to people who are in need.  Jesus affirmed that “when you do this for the least of these brothers of mind, you do it for me…” (Matthew 25:40). In allowing itself to become irrelevant, the Church would have betrayed a disregard for people and for the poor in particular, who are most in need of its love and help.  Further, the Church would have demonstrated that it was ignoring both Jesus’ Great Commission and the consequences of ignoring those in need, falling well short of what it means to be disciples of Christ.  Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council to cause the Church to engage with social challenges and by confronting them and critically reflecting on its own teaching (Orthodoxy) devise a series of reforms designed to refocus the Church on holiness, each individual being responsible for doing Christ’s work (Orthopraxy). The Papacy of Pope Francis has resumed this drive for Holiness, with the encyclicals Laudato Si and Amoris Laeticia serving as powerful, if controversial, calls for Catholics to temper their zeal for ecclesiology and Orthodoxy with heartfelt consideration for the lived experience of other Catholics, particularly the poor. In Amoris Laeticia Pope Francis acknowledged

“Nor it is helpful to try to impose rules by sheer authority… We also need to be humble and realistic… We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them… Rather than offering the healing power of grace and the light of the Gospel message, some would “indoctrinate” that message, turning it into “dead stones to be hurled at others”

While it is clear that Pope Francis’ words are informed by concern for Orthodoxy, he is seeking to refocus the teaching and work of the Church in the lights of Orthopraxy.

Within the Protestant Reformed tradition, John Hick drew attention to the consequences of focusing on Orthodoxy in such doctrines as the Incarnation or Sin and Salvation. He argued that Religious traditions have much in common and can work together to the benefit of humanity. Inter-faith dialogue opens the way for reconciliation and peace-building in communities from India to Indonesia, from South Africa to South Armagh. The obstacle to meaningful dialogue lies in peoples’ attachment to doctrines like the Incarnation or Original Sin which either cannot be understood literally or are frankly incompatible with broader principles which all religions can agree on such as love and justice. For Hick, Orthopraxy is more important than Orthodoxy. It is not that Orthodoxy has no importance, just that what we accept as Orthodox doctrines on the strength of history, tradition and authority should be open to revision in the light of experience. When Orthodox doctrines conflict with reason and science and undermine the pursuit of the real and what is true, when they cause confusion and lead to disillusionment with faith and when they lead to division, conflict and injustice, then it is right that Orthodox doctrines should be reconsidered and even revised. Hick proposed that the Incarnation should be understood as a powerful metaphor rather than as a literal fact, that the Christian beliefs in Original Sin and Exclusivism should be revised to allow for non-Christians to be saved by a just God. In his arguments for Philosophical Pluralism Hick did not suggest that Christians should ignore Orthodoxy, just that it should be informed by Orthopraxy. Nevertheless, his ideas led to deep and lasting controversy, particularly following the publication of The Myth of God Incarnate in 1977. Hick was put on trial for heresy twice as leading Christians lined up to condemn the idea that Christianity should be guided by humanitarian love, should not be quick to judge and should be humble. The affair serves as an illustration of why Orthodoxy cannot be allowed to dominate and exclude considerations of Orthopraxy.

It is fair to say, therefore, that both Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy are important and not fair to say that Orthopraxy should override considerations of Orthodoxy altogether.

Despite this, some Liberation Theologians argue that Orthopraxy is more important than Orthodoxy when Orthodoxy means conforming to Church teachings which prevent good works because of points of doctrine or which intend to stifle Orthopraxy for political reasons.  For example, Leonardo Boff argues that the Papacy changed direction away from that set by Vatican II under Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, largely because of pressure from the Americans, who found the activities of Liberation Theologians threatened their policy of creating dependency in South American states.  The Americans found both Liberation Theologians’ use of Marxist terminology and the willingness of some Priests to get involved in the Political struggle for workers’ rights and policies which would give the Poor a Preferential Option in a practical sense, incendiary and not conducive to the success of their ongoing war against Communism in Catholic countries such as South America.  It is true that CELAM was set up as a result of Pope Paul VI’s initiative and directed by Vatican II’s call for holiness.  It is also true that the language of Gaudiem et Spes (1965) and of Populorum Progressio (1967) is distinctively Marxist in flavor.  Gaudiem et Spes seems to accept a Historical Materialist account of history:

“the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis.”

Populorum Progressio rejects:

“oppressive political structures resulting from the abuse of ownership or the improper exercise of power, from the exploitation of the worker or unjust transactions.”

The attempt to exert control over CELAM through the Puebla conference in 1979 did indeed coincide with the beginning of Pope John Paul II’s papacy and it is easy to see how his opening speech to the conference could have been interpreted as a radical change in direction by the Liberation Theologians – including Gutierrez – who were barred from attending CELAM for the first time.  The Papal condemnations of Liberation Theology, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1984 and again in 1986 seemed to reverse the focus on Social Justice that came out of Vatican II.  In claiming that…

“Liberation is first and foremost liberation from the radical slavery of sin… Faced with the urgency of certain problems, some are tempted to emphasize, unilaterally, the liberation from servitude of an earthly and temporal kind…”

there seems little doubt that Pope John Paul II (and Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI) were trying to assert the importance of Orthodoxy over Orthopraxy, and seemingly the importance of faith over works.  While they could legitimately claim support from St Paul and St Augustine for this argument, there is undeniable tension between the focus on spiritual liberation rather than practical liberation and the practical focus of Jesus, found in the Gospels and described above.  For this reason and because it does not seem to match the teaching found in documents emanating from Vatican II under John VI (or the more recent documents emanating from the Papacy of Francis I) the Orthodox position defined by Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, with its inward-looking focus on spiritual salvation rather than practical liberation, cannot be taken as reflective of Christian Orthodoxy as a whole.  There is no denying that Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels, along with Gaudiem et Spes, Populorum Progressio and recent encyclicals like Laudato Si and Amoris Laeticia support a focus on Orthopraxy, right action and providing a preferential option for the poor in a practical sense.  Pope Francis beatified Oscar Romero and invited Gustavo Gutierrez to be the keynote speaker at a Vatican conference to underline this point.

In conclusion, there is no way that Christian Orthodoxy can be defined in terms of ignoring the practical needs of the poor and focusing on unity and political expediency over agape and what is right.  To define Christian Orthodoxy in these terms is to take the same path as the Papacy did during WWII in appeasing the Nazis.  While it is fair to criticize some Liberation Theologians for embracing Marxism too “uncritically“, being a Christian cannot and should not be apolitical.  While Jesus avoided confrontation with Rome over paying taxes, saying “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what belongs to God” (Mark 12:17), he also cleansed the Temple in a fearless political protest against the corruption of the Jewish authorities and showed no hesitation in either healing on the Sabbath or in helping Gentiles, in both cases putting himself on the wrong side of religious law in the interests of love and attending to the practical needs of people.  Further, Marx’ critique of institutional religion as peddling the “opium of the masses” was fair, given the practices of the Church during the 19th Century.  The fact that Marx and most Marxists were atheists and critics of religion does not detract from the truth of their analysis of Capitalism or the legitimacy of Christians learning from their work to further Christ’s mission.   While some of those influenced by Liberation Theology have undoubtedly gone too far in their pursuit of Orthopraxy, in effect excluding the hermeneutical mediation (reflection on the Bible and Christian doctrine in the light of the situation faced by the poor) from their second act praxis, it is not fair to reject Liberation Theology as a whole for its focus on Orthopraxy.  Seen in context, the focus on Orthopraxy that Gutierrez and Boff argued for offered necessary balance and was designed to pull Christians back from the Papal retreat into inward-looking politically expedient Orthodoxy during the 1980s and 1990s.  In the end, both Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy – in the sense of a focus on the Bible and central Christian principles – are important; they should exist in a dialectical relationship at the heart of all Christian Praxis and it is wrong to prioritize either one to the exclusion of the other.

 

 

 

 

Secularism does not pose a threat to Christianity. Evaluate this statement. [40]

/ vardycharlotte / Leave a comment

Programmatic secularism is the policy of separating religious and public life, ensuring that the state is free of religious influence and leaving religion as a purely private matter for citizens. Both the USA and France are secular republics, which means that religious leaders have no place in government, religious holidays do not necessarily coincide with national holidays, religion is not taught in public schools and religious values are not necessarily reflected in legislation. By contrast, in the UK the Monarch is both the head of state and the head of the established Church. Bishops (and more recently other religious leaders) are represented in the House of Lords, giving them the opportunity to influence legislation. Religious holidays coincide with national holidays; Christmas Day will always be a Bank Holiday, as will Easter Monday. Religious broadcasting is protected by law; it only recently started to include non-Christian broadcasting and still does not feature Humanists. Under the terms of the Education Act 1988 as amended, schools are actually required to organise acts of collective worship of a broadly Christian character and to teach about Religion for 5% of curriculum time and 50% of what they cover is reserved to the “main religious tradition of the UK” i.e. Christianity. In 2018 NatCen’s British social attitudes survey demonstrates the difficulty with this approach; 52% of people now claim to have no religion and only 14% now identify with the established Church of England. If the state seeks to represent the people, there is now a clear case for programmatic secularism, as “no religion” is now the belief of the majority of UK people. However there is resistance to policy changes designed to reduce or remove the influence of religion in UK public life and this resistance comes, for the most part, from Christians. To what extent, therefore, does secularism pose a threat to Christianity in the UK? The answer very much depends on how “Christianity” is defined. If “Christianity” refers to following Jesus’ teachings – to loving God and one’s neighbour (Mark 12:31-32), then secularism poses little threat.

Secular states like the USA and France permit citizens to practice their religion privately, so there would be no bar to baptism or worship or indeed to charitable giving and good works. In Matthew 6:1 Jesus taught his disciples: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” He praised the widow for making her offering to the Temple treasury quietly and with total sincerity and devotion, contrasting her with the rich men making a show of giving only what they could easily afford. Arguably, Christians could better practice their religion when that practice is limited to being in private. In that case, there could be no confusion that engaging in worship might yield worldly rewards, whether legal, social or otherwise. Further, Jesus taught that ethical action is more important than religious ritual. Jesus made a point of healing people on the Sabbath (Mark 3), he made himself ritually impure by eating with sinners – saying “it is not the well who need a doctor, but the sick” – and he challenged the Pharisees who criticised the disciples for picking ears of corn on the Sabbath, pointing out that in their zeal to enforce the letter of the law they were ignoring its spirit, which is to protect life (Mark 2:23ff). For Jesus, the essence of Christianity lay in loving God and showing this by loving our neighbours as ourselves (Mark 12:31-32). In no way would being prevented from making a public show of ritual worship pose a threat to Christianity as understood like this.

Certainly, phasing out faith schools would take away some options from religious parents in terms of educating their children in a faith, yet American Christian parents seem to have coped with the challenge of organising religious instruction outside school, whether in the home or through the Church, or paying for private education. Arguably, putting the responsibility for planning and overseeing the process of educating children in a faith back onto parents (and Churches) would cause them to take a greater interest in the efficacy of the process in terms of forming faith. This done, it might do something to stem the decline in Church attendance which is charted dramatically by the Brierley Institute’s Church Statistics research, which covers the period from the early 1980s to the present day. One of the key findings in the 2018 Faith Survey reads: “UK Church membership has declined from 10.6 million in 1930 to 5.5 Million in 2010, or as a percentage of the population; from about 30% to 11.2%. By 2013, this had declined further to 5.4 million (10.3%). If current trends continue, membership will fall to 8.4% of the population by 2025”[1] While there are obviously other factors contributing to this and while this trend does not follow through to France, Church attendance is far higher in the USA, where religion cannot be taught in schools. At least programmatic secularism could lead some Christians to practice their faith more actively, even if it leads others to abandon their nominal faith altogether. In addition, while actual research data is difficult to find, it seems likely that UK Faith schools do not have much effect on the religiosity of young people after they leave school. According to NatCen’s British Social Attitude Survey 2018, some 70% of 18-24 year olds in the UK claim to have no faith at all, a figure which has been rising steadily, despite more than 1/3 of UK schools having a faith designation[2]. Humanists UK point out the incongruity in designating so many schools as Faith Schools, when they do not reflect even the nominal faith of those in their areas. Further, in the UK, Faith schools have struggled to recruit Headteachers and RE teachers who are practicing members of their faith tradition and Faith schools have struggled to form faith when forced to admit 50% of their students from outside their religious tradition anyway, to facilitate multiculturalism and prevent ghettoization. Nowhere in the Bible does it suggest that Christians should expect the state to subsidise and/or facilitate the process of parents educating their Children in a faith. Nowhere does it suggest that the Roman state does or should even respect Christianity. In the Temple Jesus taught people to “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s; give unto God what is God’s” (Mark 12:17) Which suggests that he envisaged peoples’ religious lives existing in parallel to their civic responsibilities. It follows that programmatic secularism in the UK would not pose a threat to Christianity if it is defined by the Bible and Jesus’ teachings. Rather, it would offer Christians the opportunity to experience their faith as early Christians did and force them to decide whether to commit or not.

Cases like the famous “Gay Cake” case involving Asher’s Bakery and its Belfast owners the MacArthurs may seem to point to the weakness of this argument. If laws conceived out of programmatic secularism make acting (or not acting) on religious principles illegal, then it seems that peoples’ ability to be Christian is under threat as a result of secularism. Nevertheless, Christianity was born into adversity, as a minority faith within a remarkably plural Roman Empire. Jesus taught his followers to… “take up your cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24) always recognising that being a Christian was a brave choice that would entail significant hardships or even death. The whole point of Christianity was to do what is right, not what is easy, and earn an eternal reward in heaven. Almost all of Jesus apostles were martyred, along with innumerable early Saints. Coming into conflict with the authorities as a result of one’s Christian faith seems almost to have been a mark of a true Christian within the early Church. While secularism will lead to larger numbers of Christians finding that their faith brings them into conflict with the law, this is not necessarily a threat to Christianity. Indeed, during the early centuries of Christianity the sacrifices Christians had to and were willing to make for their faith drew attention to the religion and advertised its fundamental beliefs and benefits as nothing else could. In a sense, without opposition from the state, it seems doubtful whether Christianity would have spread as quickly and as far as it did. The fact that cases like those of the MacArthurs have attracted widespread publicity and have caused even non-Christian commentators to admit respect for the sincerity of peoples’ faith, suggests that the relationship between Christians coming into conflict with the state and the religion growing is not only a thing of the past. Further, data showing that Christianity is growing fastest where it encounters most opposition from the state supports this argument. Looking at the International Bulletin for Missionary Research (IBMR) for 2015, Christianity is growing most quickly in African countries like Nigeria and South Sudan where Christians are being persecuted by Muslim militia. In the 15 years to 2015 Christianity in Africa grew by a staggering 51% to 541 million. Similarly, in China Christianity exploded in popularity at a time when any form of religious practice was banned by the secular Communist state under threat of “re-education” in camps. The same pattern can be seen in North Korea today. In the Middle East, in countries where Bibles are banned, Christianity is experiencing exponential growth. By contrast, in Europe, where the state is either actively Christian or only procedurally secular, Christianity is in long-term and significant decline, Islam is the fastest growing religion and increasing numbers of people have lost faith altogether.  While Christianity can justly complain that secular laws impede peoples’ ability to act on their religious principles – when it comes to matters as diverse as mission and discipleship, denouncing homosexuality or gay marriage, wearing visible symbols of their religion or refusing to condone or facilitate what they perceive to be sinful behaviour – the suggestion that these laws or the conflict they cause threatens the continued existence of Christianity is misplaced. On the contrary, secular laws and the conflict they cause are likely to be the cause of growth in Christianity.

In conclusion, it seems that if “Christianity” refers to following Jesus’ teachings – to loving God and one’s neighbour (Mark 12:31-32), programmatic secularism poses little threat to its continued existence and might in time lead to renewed growth in the UK, where it has been in decline. Of course, if Christianity is defined in terms of Church institutions and particularly as the Church of England, then the threat posed by programmatic secularism would be real. A Church founded to facilitate a King’s divorce (and resolve a royal cash-flow issue) will obviously struggle when its privileges and protections are withdrawn. Antidisestablishmentarianism has always been a minority movement in the Church of England because of the certainty that divorcing Church and State would be traumatic and the difficulty of advertising the benefits succinctly on the side of a bus! Nevertheless, the growth in Evangelical Protestant and conservative Roman Catholic Christianity demonstrates that it is possible for Churches to thrive outside the UK establishment. If the Archbishop of Canterbury and other leaders of the Church of England were liberated from their establishment positions they would be able to speak out freely against social injustices and thus give witness to the true Christian message. While basic calls for tolerance and compassion from Justin Welby (such as in his recent speech to the TUC) always attract a barrage of press criticism for political meddling (as if that wasn’t always the job of an Archbishop!) if the Church was disestablished there would be no basis for such. While Church leaders would have a smaller platform – one commensurate with the numbers sitting in their pews – they would have the ability to represent Christian teaching and opinion on that platform, which is more than can be said at the moment. Similarly, without forcing families to confess beliefs they don’t have to secure a good education for their children, without forced acts of communal worship in Schools and without teaching about Baptism and Communion in classrooms, there might be less hostility for religion in general. Similarly, without a protected position in BBC schedules, the Church might lack prime time coverage of acts of worship… but would it really miss the bland, vanilla portrayal of what it means to be a Christian? Constant reinforcement of the (false) idea that Christianity is all about community singing, forced happiness and boring “thoughts for the day” read out by people nobody wants to listen to is far from being a help to the religion! It is fair to say that programmatic secularism in the UK would lead to further sharp decline within the Church of England – and particularly in the numbers of people who claim to be “CofE” but rarely attend Church – but whether this “threat” would harm the longer-term prospects of even this Church is uncertain.

[1] https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html

[2] Parliamentary Briefing on Faith Schools, 2018.

No true Christian could embrace Marxism! Discuss [40]

/ vardycharlotte / Leave a comment

Clearly, the question is a controversial one and any response to it will depend on the definition of “true Christian” adopted and, to a lesser extent, on the working definition of Marxism, because the ideas of Marx and those of writers and politicians described as “Marxist” do not always coincide.  By way of illustration, for a Roman Catholic, obedience to the teachings of the magisterium is of primary importance in defining a “true Christian”, whereas for a Quaker individual conscience and relationship with the Spirit would be the defining factor.  For the purposes of this essay a “true Christian” will be understood to mean any member of a Church which accepts the Nicene Creed and the discussion will be limited to the compatibility between Christianity so-defined and the ideas of Marx himself.

The question of whether Christians can and should embrace Marxism is an extremely important one at the present time.  Although there have been debates about the potential compatibility of Christianity and Marxism since the 19th Century, the development of Liberation Theology – and in particular its confrontations with the Roman Catholic Church in 1984 and 1986 – brought has brought the question particular currency.  Furthermore, since 2014 Pope Francis has been giving clear signals that he would like to bring Liberation Theology back within the framework of the mainstream Church.  He has even been labelled a Marxist by some critics because of this and other related actions.  This has caused Christians to reflect on how Christianity should relate to Capitalism and to Marxism in the 21st Century world.  Should Christians be on the side of the free-market and accept the pursuit of profit as the main aim of human life?  Alternatively, should Christians be willing to engage with Marxism – for all its atheism – because its social analysis seems in tune with the New Testament and its message for the poor, alienated and exploited is one with some similarities to that promoted by the Church?  In the end the evidence points towards it being appropriate for “true Christians” to engage with Marxism, although they would have to stop short of becoming Marxist because to do so would necessitate atheism and a rejection of objective Truth, both of which would make “true” Christian faith redundant.

The New Testament contains many references which demonstrate similarities between both Jesus’ teaching and the practice of the Early Church and Marxism.  Firstly, through the Sermon on the Mount Jesus preaches a revolution.  The Beatitudes in Matthew 5 predict that all those groups who have been alienated and exploited by 1st Century Jewish society – the meek, the humble, the bereaved and the poor in spirit – would go on to inherit the earth in a new age.  Marx also preached a revolution, predicting that Capitalism would collapse and that the poor proletariat – alienated and oppressed by Capitalism – would rise up and seize control.   Secondly, through his encounter with the Rich Young Man in Mark 10, Jesus taught that the rich should share their wealth with the poor, seeing private property and privilege not as a right but as an opportunity to improve society as a whole and the lives of the poor in particular.  Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16 makes a similar point; the situations of the two men will one day be reversed and rich people will pay the price if they failed to share when they could.  Marx’s mantra “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” seems to fit in with Jesus’ teaching perfectly… the rich (and talented) have the ability to contribute more than the poor and the poor have more need than the rich.  Thirdly, the Book of Acts Chapter 4-5 tells how the Early Church tried to put Jesus’ teaching into practice by implementing what Engels recognized as an early form of Communism.  Ananias and Sapphira were struck down by God for holding property back from the common pool, for not giving all they could have and for taking more than they strictly needed.  While Marx would have seen the idea of divine punishment as superstitious, he would have supported the moral of the story, that people who cheat and deceive for personal advantage should be subject to justice even to the point of forfeiting their lives. In short, Jesus’ ethical teaching seems to foreshadow much of Marx’s thinking and in this way it would appear that “true Christians” should be able to embrace at least the ethical element of Marxism.  

Further, many Christians – practicing members of mainstream Churches which use the Nicene Creed – have engaged with Marxism.  Thomas Hagerty was a Catholic Priest who was inspired to champion workers’ rights in 1890’s America because of his reading of Marx as well as the New Testament.  Martin Luther King was inspired by his reading of Marx and agreed with much of Marx’s analysis of Capitalism and society, although he stopped short of embracing Marxism because of its opposition to religion and its rejection of the idea of objective Truth.  More recently, Liberation Theology has brought together many Christians who have engaged with Marxism and some who are fully Marxists. In the 1980s and 1990s Jose Porfirio Miranda expressed the similarities between Jesus’ teaching and Marx’s analysis of Capitalism and society in books such as “Marx and the Bible” (1971).  Leonardo and Clovis Boff have been positive about Marxism, emphasizing the practical usefulness of Marxist analysis and revolutionary techniques and the common end of improving the conditions of the poor in “Introducing Liberation Theology” (1987).   The fact that many Christians, including ordained Catholic Priests, have embraced Marxism to some extent does lend support to the thesis, that true Christians can engage with Marxism.

Nevertheless, just because some true Christians have embraced Marxism does not mean that they should.  As one example, Gustavo Guttierez has been increasingly cautious.  While in 1974 he wrote “contemporary theology does in fact find itself in direct and fruitful confrontation with Marxism”  (A Theology of Liberation, page 53) in 1990 (after the 1984 condemnation of Liberation Theology issued by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith) he stated that “at  no time either explicitly or implicitly have I suggested a dialogue with Marxism with a view to possible “synthesis” or to accepting one aspect while leaving others aside” (The Truth Shall Make you Free, page 63) “True Christians” have been less and less willing to speak about their approval of Marxism since the Roman Catholic Church voiced its opposition to Liberation Theology in the 1980s and it is probably fair to say that engaging with Marxism is unlikely to be a positive career move in some Churches.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between saying that “no member of the Roman Catholic Church can embrace Marxism!” and saying that “no true Christian can embrace Marxism!”  The fact that there were political reasons behind John Paul II’s denunciation of Marxism is obvious; 1984 and 1986 were at the height of the Cold War, during the Reagan administration.  The Church was under considerable political pressure to support US foreign policy and there was a real need to put distance between the Church and Communist regimes which were murdering Priests and outlawing Church attendance because they embraced Marx’s call for “the abolition of religion” (Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher) on the grounds that it is a tool of oppression which he famously likened to opium. As so often happens, “my enemy’s enemy” became a friend; the Cold War made developed the unlikely association between Christianity and Free-Market Capitalism.  While proponents of Prosperity Theology such as Creflo Dollar might argue that Christianity is perfectly compatible with deregulated markets and right-wing libertarian government, in fact this approach is not supported by a faithful reading of the New Testament. While the Old Testament certainly teaches (in places) that wealth is a blessing from God and a sign of His favour, Jesus explicitly rejected these teachings through both his words and his actions on numerous occasions.  Jesus willingly touched lepers (making himself spiritually impure – not something anybody, let alone anybody wealthy would do) and washed the feet of his disciples (the work of a slave).  Jesus said that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19) and said that people need to be like little children, as unconcerned about possessions as the birds of the air or the lilies of the field, to have a hope of entering heaven.  Whether or not Liberation Theologians are right to embrace Marxism in developing their “hermeneutic of suspicion”, they are right that rich people get short shrift in the New Testament and are generally cast as sinners.  It seems that engagement between “true Christians” and Marxism is unwise for reasons that are more political than ideological and that there is potential for fruitful discussions between Theologians and Marxists in the future, now that the political landscape has changed somewhat. 

Certainly, Pope Francis has suggested – both in words and deeds – that there is a future for engagement with Marxism.  In 2014 the Pope welcomed Gustavo Guttierez to the Vatican for meetings and Leonardo Boff has been a vocal supporter of Pope Francis, his encyclicals and actions.  Pope Francis has renewed the commitment of the Church to social justice and has been outspoken in his criticisms of Capitalism, speaking of how it alienates people and how it exploits the poor.  It is quite obvious that Pope Francis was affected by his experience working as a Bishop and previously a Jesuit in South America, the heartland of Liberation Theology.  This point has not been lost on Pope Francis’ critics.  John Finnis and Germain Grisez, leading conservative scholars of Natural Law, wrote an open letter to Pope Francis in 2016 criticizing steps he had taken to make the Church more forgiving and inclusive.  More recently, several Cardinals and Bishops have co-signed a letter calling for Pope Francis to stop trying to reform the Church, to stop shifting its emphasis towards providing the “preferential option for the poor” that was the basis for Catholic Social Teaching through the 1960s and 70s, but which had been lost somewhat in the 1980s and 90s. Pope Francis’ encyclical Evangelii Gaudiam affirmed that “Without the preferential option for the poor, ‘the proclamation of the Gospel … risks being misunderstood or submerged’.”  He sees improving the lot of the poor in this life as central to doing Christ’s work – and this would suggest that True Christians should at least engage with Marxism to this end – but other Christians disagree most strongly. 

Not least among these critics, who have a different vision of “true Christianity” would be Protestant Evangelical Churches.  Inspired by the teachings of Luther and Calvin, many Evangelicals believe that people are justified by faith alone and that the most important part of Christianity is spreading Jesus’ message of salvation and baptizing people so as to give them the prospect of a better life after death.  Protestants might think that there is less need to improve the conditions of the poor in this life, because this life is only a temporary preparation for an eternal reward (or punishment).  Without Purgatory, for which there is little scriptural foundation, Protestants focus on the saving power of faith and the need for God’s grace; people don’t save people, God does. It is interesting that Evangelical Churches are growing quickly in South America, in part because of support they are receiving from Churches and sometimes government agencies in the USA.  In 2006 in the National Catholic Reporter, John Allen recorded that “Latin American Protestants shot up from 50,000 in 1900 to 64 million in 2000… with Pentecostal and charismatic churches making up three-quarters of this number.”  It is probably fair to say that the shift towards Protestantism in the heartlands of Liberation Theology will, in time, affect the numbers of Christians who would agree that “no true Christian could embrace Marxism!”

In conclusion, it is appropriate for “true Christians” to engage with Marxism, although they would have to stop short of becoming Marxist because to do so would necessitate atheism and a rejection of objective Truth, both of which would make “true” Christian faith redundant.  The evidence from the New Testament, history and the teaching of Pope Francis all support this conclusion, although it would be roundly rejected by some Protestants, who have a very different vision for what “true Christianity” is about.   Perhaps the most important reason for engaging with Marxism is that it caused Christians to re-examine and consider Jesus’ teaching on wealth and poverty and to think again about what He meant by the Kingdom of God.  In the 21st Century it is easy and convenient to focus on the epistles with their occasional references to a purely spiritual afterlife and ignore the overwhelming number of references to a renewal of this world in the Gospels.  Perhaps we choose to ignore the Gospels because they are demanding of us, collectively as well as individually.  Jesus undoubtedly called for practical action (orthopraxy) as well as the right words (orthodoxy), for believers to give materially as well as spiritually and to build a better this-world in preparation for the second-coming.  He asked a lot of us and most of us fall well short.  It is easier and more convenient to ignore demands we feel that we can’t meet, but that doesn’t make it right to do so. Perhaps, in the end, “true Christians” should go further than engaging with Marxism and start engaging with Jesus’ words and example. That might start a real revolution!

“Religion will have no place in 22nd Century Britain!” Discuss (40)

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Religion is in decline in 21st Century Britain. This does not seem to be due to an increase in peoples’ understanding of science and acceptance of it as a complete explanation for life.  As Richard Dawkins has observed, even non-religious people remain wedded to unscientific beliefs and the battle for science and reason is a long way from being won, even in Britain which is one of the most secular countries in the world. In a “post-truth” era, people are increasingly willing to question scientific method and accept “alternative facts” on the strength of little more than popular opinion or convenience. Further, there is no clear correlation between supernatural beliefs and religiosity in Britain.  For examples, a YouGov poll in 2017 suggests that only 19% of British Christians have any difficulty accepting the Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection as a full explanation for human life and a YouGov poll in 2015 suggested that only 55% of self-identifying Christians actually believe in God!  Clearly, some people claim religious affiliation and even attend a place of worship, while not subscribing to the most basic doctrines of that religion.  Further, it is probably fair to say that a lot of people who do not attend a place of worship maintain religious beliefs.  Nevertheless, NatCen’s Social Attitudes Survey of September 2017 made headlines when it reported that 53% – a majority – of the British public now describe themselves as having “no religion”, up from 48% in 2015 and 31% in 1983.  From a straightforward statistical perspective, it would probably be fair to say that Religion will have a much smaller place in 22nd Century Britain than it does in 21st Century Britain. 

Of course, statistics do not provide a complete picture; they need to be contextualized and interpreted, as well as to be tested for validity.

Firstly, it is wrong to infer that because the number of people with a particular characteristic in a society is small that that characteristic “has no place” in society.  Consider; the percentage of people who identify as transgender or even homosexual in Britain is small.  Estimates suggest that around 1% of people are gender nonconforming to some extent and the 2013 ‘Integrated Household Survey’ undertaken by the Office for National Statistics found that just 1.1% said they were ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ and 0.4% said they were bisexual on a sample of 178,197 British adults. This suggests that there are about 545,000 homosexual and 220,000 bisexual adults in the UK but relatively few people would accept that this is evidence for gays, lesbians and bisexuals, their issues or culture, having “no place in” our society.

Secondly, the headlines of the data conceal the fact that both the religious landscape and the intensity of religiosity in Britain are changing as a result of evangelism and immigration.  The numbers of evangelical Christians, of Muslims is rising and is projected to rise further in the coming decades according to Pew Research in 2015.  Reasonable estimates suggest that the proportion of Muslims in Britain will increase towards 10% by 2050.  Further, Pew Research in 2015 suggested that Religion is very important to more Evangelical Christians and Muslims in the US than it is to members of more traditional Churches.  If the same is true in the UK, then the shift from traditional Churches towards Evangelical Churches and the increase in numbers of Muslims could signal an increase in how important religious people think religion is in their lives.  While the raw number of religious people might be much lower in the 22nd Century Britain than it is in the 21st Century Britain, these people might well see religion as more important than many religious people do today.  Possibly, the influence of religion will not decline as as sharply as the raw percentages might suggest it should.  On this basis, Religion might still have a place in 22nd Century Britain.

Thirdly, the sample size used by NatCen to gather religious affiliation and attendance data is small and its conclusions are contested.  NatCen’s surveys typically draw on fewer than 2000 responses, so the margin for error on projections of proportion across the sample would be just less than 3%, with a substantially higher margin for error on projections for age-cohorts, which are sometimes dependent on excessively small samples such as the 20 responses available for the before 1920 cohort in 2008.  Further, UK Census data suggests that the NatCen figures for religious affiliation may be significantly lower than the actual figures. For example, in 2001 NatCen suggested that 54% of the British population was Christian whereas the Census suggested 72%.  In 2011 NatCen suggested that 47% of the British population was Christian whereas the Census in the same year suggested that the figure was 59.3%.  Further, by the same comparison, NatCen seems to inflate the numbers of people who are not religious even more dramatically.  For example, in 2001 NatCen suggested that 41% of British people were not religious whereas the Census in that year suggested that the figure was just 15%.  In 2011 NatCen suggested that 46% of the British population was not religious while the Census suggested a figure of 25.1%.

Despite significant issues with the statistical evidence, it is clear that both NatCen and the Census data support the principle that religious affiliation is declining steeply and that the number of people with no religion is increasing rapidly.  Projecting forward it might be inferred that religion will have died out in Britain by the 22nd Century.  Indeed, NatCen’s figures suggest that the percentage of religious people has been falling by approximately 1% per year and that 71% of 18-24 year olds claiming to have “no religion” in 2016, compared with only 27% of those aged 75+.  Although the margin for error in these statistics is quite sizable, on this basis it might seem reasonable to argue that the % of religious people will be negligible by the mid 21st Century and that Religion will indeed have no statistical place in 22nd Century Britain.

Such a conclusion might seem to ignore the effect of age on religiosity.  It is clear that as people age they tend to become more religious.  Argue, Johnson and White documented this in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion back in 1999.  They stated that… “The results show a significant, non-linear increase in religiosity with age, with the greatest increase occurring between ages 18 and 30...” (Abstract)  This would make sense given analyses of Religious belief put forward by scholars from Feuerbach through Durkheim to Freud.  As Feuerbach and later Durkheim noted, Religion fulfills societal needs and seems to be projected and shaped by societies for their own purposes, such as to promote conformity or a collective moral conscience.  As Freud noted, a similar pattern applies to individuals, with religious beliefs and practices fulfilling psychological needs and desires for most people and so, arguably, being projected by the subconscious mind to quell anxiety.  If religion is a man-made phenomenon, a natural response to personal and social needs, then it would make sense for religiosity to be more apparent in older people who are more likely to have experienced the need for community, conformity and comfort.  If, as Freud suggested, God acts as a father-figure for those without a father it would make sense that belief in God would be more apparent among those who have lost their parents and are generally more lonely and isolated.  If, as Durkheim suggested, religion comes into being and is legitimated through moments of what he calls “collective effervescence” then it would make sense for older people – who are more likely to have had experience of such “moments” – to believe and belong. British Social Attitudes Graphs_001

British Social Attitudes Graphs_002However, once adjusted for aging, the statistics still suggest a real and significant decline in Religious affiliation and attendance. D. Voas and A. Crockett, ‘Religion in Britain: Neither Believing nor Belonging’, Sociology (2005), vol. 39, pp. 11-27 analyse British Social Attitudes by age-cohort, noting that affiliation and attendance declined markedly from cohort to cohort, but remained relatively steady in both measures across a 23 year period from 1984 to 2007 for each cohort born before 1970.  In addition, for the 1970s cohort however, affiliation declined from an average 46% in 1990 (when most of the cohort would have been teenagers) to an average 28.1% in 1997 (when most of the cohort would have been starting their careers).  Why the 1970s cohort were particularly susceptible to secularization during the 1990s is an interesting area for research, as is what the effects of this on the children of those in the 1970s cohort will be.  However, as it stands this research suggests that both on the basis of the lower rates of religious affiliation and attendance seen in successive age-cohorts through the 20th Century and into the 21st Century and on the basis of a further decline in religious affiliation and attendance seen during the 1990s within the 1970s cohort, it is reasonable to project that in the absence of other factors, religious affiliation will decline towards zero over the next century.  

Yet what might these “other factors” be and how might they still affect the place of religion in 22nd Century Britain?

One factor might be apparent in NatCen’s figures for the 1980s cohort rates of affiliation, which rose from 32.6% in 1997 (when the cohort were mostly teenagers) to a high of 39.2% in 2001, before returning to 32.3% by 2007 (when most of the cohort would have been in their 20s).  The short-lived spike in religious affiliation within the 1980s cohort around 2001 is mirrored within the 1950s and before 1920 cohorts, but was not evident in the attendance figures… apart from for the before 1920 cohort, who seem to have attended places of worship in 2001 and again in 2005 in significantly higher numbers.  It is tempting to interpret the correlation between higher church attendance among elderly people and big terrorist attacks as having some sort of causative explanation.  Going back to Feuerbach and Freud, perhaps the shock of 9/11 and 7/7 caused people to seek solace in religion?  Going back to Durkheim and thinking about Marx, perhaps the trauma of the attacks and the “war on terror” can explain the need for a collective religious response, both practically and politically.  If religion is the “opium of the masses” it would be reasonable to see more of it being used – rightly or wrongly – when the masses are in real pain!  Nevertheless, if the breakdown of the statistics is anything to go by, the statistical spike was not demographically uniform and nor did changes in affiliation rates translate into attendance.  Only the oldest people actually attended a place of worship more often in 2001 and in 2004-5; there is no apparent change in NatCen’s attendance figures for younger people and the attendance of the 1960s cohort actually dropped in that year and in 2005.  Perhaps the statistical spike in affiliation in 2001 and around 2005 is more to do with expressing solidarity, cultural and moral identity and to do with asserting hope in a seemingly hopeless situation, than it is to do with any actual change in what people believe or do in terms of religion.  In part, this seems to confirm Max Weber’s suggestion that religion emerges out of peoples’ need to respond to the injustice of evil and suffering and out of their need to believe in salvation and that something they can do could lead to a righting of this injustice.  What might the principle that people might be willing to state religious affiliation in greater numbers at times of social stress suggest about the place of religion in 22nd Century Britain?  Just that religion will probably continue to have a place in 22nd Century Britain and that then, as now, that place will be more apparent at times of national crisis and when people feel the need to assert control over their fates. 

Further, the population is aging.  This trend might be interrupted or even reversed by the reduction in antibiotic efficacy, the increase in cancers, the growing likelihood of pandemics as well as by decades of under investment in health and social care etc, but if it continues even at a slower rate, the proportion of very elderly people in the 22nd Century Britain might well be larger than it is today.  Sadly, a higher proportion of very elderly people is likely to result in a higher proportion of people suffering from poverty, loneliness, isolation and depression, all of which are indicators for higher rates of religiosity.  In “Religion and depression: a review of the literature” (1999) McCullough and Larson found that… “some forms of religious involvement might exert a protective effect against the incidence and persistence of depressive symptoms or disorders.”  Surveying more than 440 pieces of research, in “Religious and Spiritual Factors in Depression: Review and Integration of the Research” (2012) Raphael Bonelli et al found that  “Religious beliefs and practices may help people to cope better with stressful life circumstances, give meaning and hope, and surround depressed persons with a supportive community.”  According to a 2008 study, people who are lonely are more likely to become religious while rates of loneliness in the UK among older people are high and arguably rising, perhaps as a result of families dispersing and the long hours worked by British people.  These studies seem to support Freud’s suggestion that Religion can often help people to cope with voids in their lives and Jung’s suggestion that religion is about much more than a world-view or a set of rituals and is better understood as a process of working out our relationship with reality.

In addition, Gallup research in 2009 found that Religion is typically far more important to the population in poorer countries than it is in richer countries and that there is a direct correlation between economic prosperity and religiosity. If rates of religiosity in Britain have a relationship with the economy, then the place that religion has in 22nd Century Britain may depend on the long term economic future of the country.  Of course, the relationship between religion and economics was charted more than 100 years ago by Karl Marx and then by Max Weber, who both understood how religion can function as a tool of capitalism which keeps ordinary people motivated and engaged with the market and the political system which puts it first when it singularly fails to benefit them. Of course with Brexit on the immediate horizon, continuing problems with managing the deficit and the housing market, the national debt and the longer term effects of world population growth, climate change and resources depletion, it is difficult to forecast what the economy will be doing in five years time, let alone into the 22nd Century.  It could be that Capitalism will collapse before that time; Marx predicted that it will.  Suffice it to say that there is a real possibility that Britain will be poorer in the future, and that with the decline in its finances the country could see an increase in the number of people expressing religious affiliation… and even attendance (assuming that places of worship continue to function for long enough to benefit from an upturn in numbers that is).

In conclusion, the claim that religion will have no place in 22nd Century Britain is exaggerated.  While religious affiliation will probably continue to decline, part of this effect may be offset by an increase in religious intensity among those believers who are left, by temporary increases in religiosity at times of national crisis and by the probable effect of a potentially aging and in any case stressed, sick and impoverished population.  Further, even with a small proportion of religious people, there will continue to be a place for religion in British society as there are places for other minority ways of life. Clearly, the decline in religion will raise questions about the established status of the Church of England, the representation of religions in the House of Lords and about the protected status enjoyed by religions in relation to tax and education for examples.  How these questions are handled will have some effect on the place religion will have in 22nd Century Britain.

 

Charlotte Vardy will be proposing the motion “This house believes that religion should have no place in 22nd Century Britain” as part of Candle Conferences’ “Outstanding A Level Religious Studies” events across England during November 2017.