"The Catholic story went like this." No, it didn't.

There are Baptists, and there are Baptists—and then there are Baptists.

And then there is David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, who upholds the ancient (nearly 400 years!) Baptist distrust of the Catholic Church—but not for the usual reasons, as demonstrated in his December 3rd column for the American Baptist Press:

The act of reflecting this week, in class, on the development of Catholic social ethics resonated in an unexpected way with the situation facing Christians today. It became clearer than ever to me that when Christians become cultural reactionaries, they doom the church to irrelevance.

The Catholic story went like this: After the Reformation, for centuries the Catholic Church postured itself in a defensive crouch. It missed the opportunity to respond to the challenge posed by the Reformation. It resisted creative engagement with modern science. It held onto a feudal-agrarian economic vision long after industrialization and capitalism. It resisted political liberalism and modern democratic movements. It resisted egalitarianism in gender relations. It resisted birth control and legal divorce. It resisted its own loss of political power and cultural hegemony. It resisted the separation of church and state.

In all of these matters, the Catholic Church dug in its heels and just said “no.”

Ah, the blasted, stubborn Catholic Church, always playing defense in an offensive world. Of course, half of what Gushee says is false and the other half elicits the fair reply, "So what?" (Nevermind that terms like "cultural reactionaries" and "defensive crouch" and "creative engagement" mean little if anything at all, being simply empty buzzwords with all the substantive content of a slightly stale, badly burnt marshmellows.)

For example, did the Catholic Church respond to the challenge of the Reformation? Yes, of course, and most people familiar with European history are at least vaguely aware of what is commonly called the "Counter-Reformation," which included (but was not limited to) the Council of Trent (1545-63). As historian Christopher Dawson noted in The Dividing of Christendom (Image, 1967), "this religious revival ... created the spiritual ideals and theological norms and ecclesiastical administration of modern Catholicism, and in the second place, it inspired the new forms of humanist or post-humanist culture, generally known as the Baroque, which became dominant in the 17th century" (p. 156). Dawson goes on to also mention the movement of Christian Humanism (featuring Erasmus), the growth of Italian mysticism (St. Philip Neri, among others), and the tradition of Spanish mysticism (St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross). Dawson argued that the cultural, social, and political greatness of the Spanish culture in the 16th century was due directly to "the Catholic revival" and "the new moral dynamism which it introduced into the ecclesiastical world," a revival featuring none other than St. Ignatius of Loyola. He further noted that the terms "Counter-Reformation" and "Baroque" have an undeserved "pejorative sense" among those who are wedded to the cult of "progress." The "Baroque culture represents the alliance of two traditions—the humanist tradition of the Renaissance and the tradition of medieval Catholicism as revived or restored by the Counter-Reformation" (p. 159). Without belaboring the point any further, we can see that the Catholic Church was not crouching, but creating; not failing to respond, but responding quite vigorously and positively. Meanwhile, the Baptists were...well, not yet in existence.

What of the alleged resisting of "creative engagement with modern science"? It appears that Gushee has drunk deeply from the well of Enlightenment waters, seemingly unaware that without the Catholic Church there wouldn't be such as a thing as "modern science." The number and influence of Catholic philosophers, scientists, astronomers, and such is large and hard to miss—unless, of course, you don't want facts to interfere with your pet theories and strained historical parallels. (Revealingly, many of Gushee's claims are identical to those tossed about by avowed and self-described secular humanists.)

"It held onto a feudal-agrarian economic vision long after industrialization and capitalism." Because, don't you know, it's so much better to die slaving in a factory for 15 hours a day than to have a piece of land of your own to till and work. One doesn't have to be a Luddite to recognize the many serious problems, both moral and cultural, created by the Industrial Revolution.

"It resisted political liberalism and modern democratic movements." This is a complicated subject, to put it mildly, considering how much scholarly (and polemical) ink has been spilled about what, exactly, constitutes "political liberalism" and "modern democracy." But it can be fairly pointed out that many Europeans of the late 1700s believed that the French Revolution, more than any other event, embodied those qualities. And yet the French Revolution was rooted in an atheistic skepticism that moved quickly to subsume the Catholic Church. So much for the separation of Church and State; during the French Revolution, there was no such separation as the State worked to either destroy or control the Church. And what did the "liberalism" and "democracy" of the Revolution lead to? The murder of tens of thousands and a succession of dictatorships.

"It resisted egalitarianism in gender relations." What, exactly, does this mean? Does Gushee not know that while the Baptists (indeed, all Protestants) did nothing to uphold and defend the dignity of women during the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity (I know, I know, that's not fair), the Catholic Church did do so (see, for example, the arguments of sociologist Rodney Stark, among others). As for more recent centuries, it has been shown that women in many Western societies lost freedoms and rights that they had enjoyed during the medieval era (see, for instance, Régine Pernoud's Women In the Days of the Cathedrals and Those Terrible Middle Ages!).

"It resisted birth control and legal divorce." And this is bad because....?

"It resisted its own loss of political power and cultural hegemony." My, this is indeed damning stuff: the Catholic Church sought to defend herself, her status, and her beliefs! Who does the Catholic Church think she is? The Church founded by Jesus Christ?! Doesn't she realize how important it is to bow low and grovel before the god of Modernity? Etc., etc.

"It resisted the separation of church and state." In part, of course, because the separation of church and state in modern times has almost always had the same result: the church controlled or even destroyed by the state. Duh.

Now, all of this would be interesting and entertaining enough on its own, but there is more:

Everyone has to make their own judgment about how to read “the signs of the times” in any particular cultural moment. As for me, I think this is a time for Christian engagement rather than reaction; for creative participation rather than angry retreat.  I believe that, if conservative white Protestants and their leaders continue in a stance of mere reaction, they will doom themselves and their version of Christianity to irrelevance.

Cultural engagement does not mean the abandonment of Christian Scripture or tradition. It means creative reflection on the contemporary significance of Scripture and tradition to the culture in which we have been placed. It means engagement with real people around us right now, not dreamy retreat to an earlier era that is now gone forever.

This is rich stuff. And I don't mean glittery gold rich. Gushee's hastily constructed straw man (the defensive, detached, and narrowminded Catholic Church) was first dismissed with a huff of condescension ("In all of these matters, the Catholic Church dug in its heels and just said 'no.'"), supposedly based on some sort of objective criteria ("when Christians become cultural reactionaries, they doom the church to irrelevance..."), but is now tossed rudely into the vacuum of relativism and radical individualism ("Everyone has to make their own judgment...), which is rooted, so to speak, in the thin air of "creative reflection" and "engagement with real people."

I'm very willing to grant that many Catholics—bishops, priests, laity—fail miserably in many ways, including failing to be witnesses to the Gospel, to engage in a Christ-like manner with the prevalent culture, and to do the difficult work of meeting modern man where he is at without compromising the Faith. But, honestly, is Gushee advocating anything more than simply raising the white flag and strapping oneself giddily to the mast of the Good Ship Modernity? Is he resorting to anything more than empty clichés and vague slogans employed in the service of sloppy polemics?

"Let us," Dorothy Sayers wrote a few decades ago, as she reflected on squishy, anemic forms of Christianity, "in Heaven's name, drag out the Divine Drama from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment heaped upon it, and set it on an open stage to startle the world into some sort of vigorous reaction. If the pious are the first to be shocked, so much the worse for the pious — others will enter the Kingdom of Heaven before them. If all men are offended because of Christ, let them be offended; but where is the sense of their being offended at something that is not Christ and is nothing like Him? We do Him singularly little honor by watering down till it could not offend a fly. Surely it is not the business of the Church to adapt Christ to men, but to adapt men to Christ. (Creed or Chaos?, 24-25).

The liberal, pseudo-orthodox Christian story goes like this: it mistakes accommodation for sophistication, it sacrifices historical fact on the altar of chronological snobbery, and it resorts to sophistry while avoiding real thinking. It gives lip service to theology while cutting political deals contrary to doctrine and dogma. It sells its soul while claiming to be spiritual; it nods to Scripture and tradition with its fingers crossed, its heart cold, and its mind closed. Sadly, many Catholics tell and live that story. As do, apparently, some Baptists.

Related Ignatius Insight Articles and Excerpts:

• Dark Ages and Secularist Rages: A Response to Professor A.C. Grayling | Carl E. Olson
• The Counter-Reformation: Ignatius and the Jesuits | Fr. Charles P. Connor
• When Jesuit Were Giants | Interview with Father Cornelius Michael Buckley, S.J.
• The Jesuits and the Iroquois | Cornelius Michael Buckley, S.J.
• The Tale of Trent: A Council and and Its Legacy | Martha Rasmussen
• Reformation 101: Who's Who in the Protestant Reformation | Geoffrey Saint-Clair
• Why Catholicism Makes Protestantism Tick | Mark Brumley
• His Story and the History of the Church | An Interview with Dr. Glenn W. Olsen, author of Beginning At Jerusalem

Related Ignatius Press Books:

• The Catholic Church: The First 2000 Years: A Popular Survey and Study Guide to Church History | Martha Rasmussen
• Beginning at Jerusalem: Five Reflections on the History of the Church | Glenn Olsen
• St. Ignatius of Loyola | James Brodrick, S.J.
• The Jesuit Missionaries to North America | Father François Roustang
• St. Ignatius and the Company of Jesus (Vision Series) | August Derleth
• The Word, Church and Sacrament in Protestantism and Catholicism | Fr. Louis Bouyer
• A Danger to the State: A Historical Novel | Philip Trower

Comments

[joanne]

The Dorothy Sayers quote was a gift. Thank you, I needed that. Ironically, it contains a message that would strengthen and encourage the Christian witness of Catholics and most (or many?) Baptists!
"If all men are offended because of Christ, let them be offended; but where is the sense of their being offended at something that is not Christ and is nothing like Him? We do Him singularly little honor by watering down till it could not offend a fly."
This reminds me that I want to die despised by those who hate Jesus Christ. Which reminds me that I had better live that way, too.
There is no merit (and certainly no joy) in being liked by people who are anti-Catholic, either. In fact, I am increasingly nervous about being liked by anyone for any reason! (Not that over-popularity is a frequent problem for me--but it could become one, and the threat of "offending", which may really be the disguised threat of losing a friend, could be the foundation for moral bankruptcy.)
Ecumenism and inter-faith cooperation need all the power and grace of God to bring about good, I think. We are too easily seduced into a comfortable false peace by friendship. Of the two "great commandments" we focus on the second as if it could bear good fruit by itself.

[LJ]

"chronological snobbery"

I like it, Carl. I've been looking for an apt expression for this phenomenon.

I do find it fascinating that he mentions the response to the Reformation. In my own research backward when I was looking for authenticity before becoming Catholic I remember distinctly noticing that very fact. The Catholic Church held the line at Trent. My question was, "Why would they do that?"

So I read Trent, and then some Catholic apologetics, then more, and more, until one day I realized I was Catholic.

[Jackson]

Another excellent post, Carl. You're on a roll.

Speaking of being a reactionary, John Lukacs presents a charming defense of it - entitled "Confessions of a Reactionary" - in the first chapter of his book, Confessions of an Original Sinner. You can read it here by using the "LOOK INSIDE!" function:

http://tinyurl.com/63lchs

[Carl Olson]

LJ: All credit for the term "chronological snobbery" goes to C.S. Lewis, who used it in Surprised by Joy. Like you, my reading of the Reformation and its aftermath moved me closer to the Catholic Church. Gushee's glib reading (or non-reading/mis-reading) of the historical record is pathetic.

[Stohn]

HAHAHAHA! This is amazing! I like his 'accusations'!

"It resisted creative engagement with modern science." - Oh no! How could we resist Darwinism, in-vitro fertilisation, cloning, drugs, etc.

"It held onto a feudal-agrarian economic vision long after industrialization and capitalism." - As you mentioned, "it's so much better to die slaving in a factory for 15 hours a day than to have a piece of land of your own to till and work", and you know rejected the materialism and anti-family individualism of capitalism is so bad.

"It resisted political liberalism and modern democratic movements." - Because so much good has come from liberalism & democracy: industrialism, marxism, abortion, gay marriage, feminism, Napoleon, Hitler, etc, etc, etc.

"It resisted egalitarianism in gender relations." - HAHAHAHA! Because men and women are exactly the same...maybe I'll get pregnant...oh wait!

"It resisted birth control and legal divorce." - Also so much good: broken families, abortion, sexual revolution, etc.

"It resisted its own loss of political power and cultural hegemony." - How can someone resist something they've lost....?

"It resisted the separation of church and state." - Once again, how much good has come from separation of church and state?

[LJ]

"Chronological snobbery" should not be confused with "chronologitis" which is a tendency to have a very narrow and limited view of transcendence, specifically the transcendence of God. This complaint is very human and common to all of us but manifests itself doctrinally, most commonly in Protestant theology.

[Austin]

Carl,

Very good. My only wish is that you would have elaborated each point you made to about 300-500 words. I think the thoroughness of the "apologia," is what sets it apart, aside from the obvious origination of it.