The Afternoon of Christianity: The Courage to Change
When an influential priest (the Czech, Templeton-award winning author, teacher, and theologian Tomáš Halík) criticizes “ecclesiastical authorities” while seeking to advance the agenda of another ecclesiastical authority (in-deed, the highest of them all: Pope Francis, to whom the book is dedicated), one can’t help but be hopeful for or at least curious about the future of the Catholic Church. Healthy self-criticism becomes an institution, perhaps religious institutions foremost. And this book has lots of it.
But to comment on the book only as a window into internecine conflicts within the Catholic Church would do it a disservice. For it is far more: a ruminative examination of the state of Christianity in our late-modern times, a plea for a shift in attitude about how Christians see the secular world around them, a work of ecumenism, a work of (subtle) evangelization. Above all, it seeks to build bridges to the disillusioned—whether former Catholics or all other genuinely “seeking” souls who for whatever reason can’t cross the Rubicon into fixed conviction.
While the book is written from a Catholic perspective, other Christians and Christian institutions of all stripes have something to learn from it, not least American Christian colleges and universities. Nonetheless, Halík’s analysis strikes several discordant notes; these, too, merit comment.
Drawing from the famous Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung, about whom the author is quite (too?) fond, Halík argues that Christianity has passed its midlife or “noonday crisis” and now stands on the cusp of a deeper maturity, an “afternoon,” or at least it ought to be entering into this maturity. An appropriate maturity in Halík’s judgment would entail the church fretting less about policing its boundaries, clinging to the remnants of Christendom as it were, than actively engaging the secular, pluralistic culture around it—not uncritically, but thoughtfully, in a spirit of hope and good will, drawing on the best in Christian theology and the wisdom of others, past and present. Halík defines his methodology as “kariology,” from the Greek kairos, sacred or auspicious time—a season ripe with promise if Christians are only willing to read “the signs of the times” and act imaginatively and courageously. “The time has come for Christianity to transcend itself,” he boldly exclaims in the book’s opening pages; it must forego the “ideological imperialism” that it once wielded and open itself to a new “orientation” or “a new way of being in the world” (2–4).
What exactly constitutes this new way? As a caveat, “new” might overstate matters because what Halík labors for has been adumbrated by others, many of whom he cites: the untimely medieval thinker, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa; the twentieth-century Jesuit theologians Karl Rahner and Teilhard de Chardin; and, not least, Pope Francis. If one is familiar with the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), moreover, one will recognize many of Halík’s concerns broached in Gaudium et spes [Joy and Hope] or “the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” the Council’s longest and arguably most ambitious document. But, again, what is Halík’s new way?
For starters, it means taking seriously people’s “life experience.” How people respond to polls about church attendance or belief in God tells us very little, Halík believes. Their actions, their conversations, their private musings to friends tell us much more about who they are and what they believe: “A person’s life speaks more about their faith than what they think or say about God” in public (5). Allowing for this distinction, Halík finds grounds to be hopeful. Indeed, even in the landscape of heavily secularized Europe (the Czech Republic being among Europe’s most secularized countries), Halík espies many “anonymous Christians,” a phrase of Karl Rahner’s referring to individuals who, whatever their professed beliefs, try to follow their conscience and live rightly as best they can.
Second, a new way of being for the church, according to Halík, entails the church expressing itself less dogmatically and more in the spirit of frank, reflective conversation. To his credit, Halík rebukes not only dogmatic Christians but also dogmatic atheists for promoting unwarranted certainty. But between these extreme poles, one finds more fertile ground, and it is here that the church should sow its seeds, listening to others, to be sure, but, just as importantly, proposing insights and wisdom from its own traditions, and doing so all in a spirit of irenic good will, even friendship.
Third, and as alluded to already, the church must engage in honest self-criticism, especially in areas where it richly deserves criticism: e. g., the sex abuse crisis, overweening clericalism, shoddy homiletics. In addressing self-criticism, Halík sometimes strikes a note of dry humor; for instance: “When I hear certain sermons and read certain pastoral epistles and certain types of devotional publications, it strikes me that we should not only investigate why people leave [the church] but also where the ones who remain get their strength and patience [!]” (101).
Fourth, a new way means carrying forward Pope Francis’s message in the encyclical Fratelli tutti (October 4, 2020) to actively cultivate a “new ecumene,” a world in which people recognize one another’s dignity and are willing to learn from one another. In fact, Halík sees this as “the greatest task for our time,” amounting to transforming “the process of globalization into a process of communication and sharing, of true closeness” (113). He qualifies this by noting that, at least from the standpoint of Christian theology, genuine human solidarity is ultimately “eschatological,” awaiting the “embrace of God” beyond all temporality. Still, Christians only dither and delude themselves if they fail to labor for this comity and friendship in the here-and-now.
One could say much more about Halík’s agenda for the church’s future, but a reviewer is not worth his weight in salt if he doesn’t attempt to raise difficult questions for the author; and Halík leaves himself exposed to criticism in several areas—the “discordant notes” mentioned above. What are they?
For starters, Halík does not mince words in making clear those with whom he disagrees: churchmen wedded to “traditionalism,” “ecclesiastical authorities,” theologians too keen on “neoscholasticism,” and, perhaps especially, populist political leaders in Europe and the United States who, in Halík’s judgment, instrumentalize Christianity for political gain. At one point, Halík expresses nothing but “disgust” (69) for the rank and file who support these leaders. To be sure, these folks might well deserve criticism, but in a book that otherwise champions a charitable hermeneutic toward all people, one is left wondering why some categories of people seem exempted? The religion-infused populist wave sweeping the Americas and Europe shows no sign of abating, so I might humbly enjoin Halík to spend more time attempting to understand this phenomenon before indicting it. At the end of the day, Donald Trump supporters in the United States, Giorgia Meloni supporters in Italy, or Marine Le Pen supporters in France are created in the image of God too. How might the church constructively engage their worlds? How might the emergence of these movements, furthermore, raise difficult questions for those championing unimpeded global liberalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union?
Additionally, Halík paints with too a broad a brush when he dismisses neoscholastic thought—ascendant in Catholic theological culture from the time of Pope Leo XIII’s famous encyclical Aeterni patris (1879) until Vatican II and making a comeback in some circles today. Admittedly, seminary neoscholastic manuals and textbooks in the preconciliar era were almost universally dry and dismal, but the neoscholastic revival of this time also produced some genuinely bright lights: Jacques Maritain, a key architect of the United Nations’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); Étienne Gilson, one of the great twentieth-century scholars of the Middle Ages; and Josef Pieper, a sharp critic of postwar consumerism and the worship of material productivity, among other things. Unfortunately, none of these figures make it into the book. This is too bad, because their insights might have bolstered Halík’s own judgements.
As is wont of someone long embedded in a particular institution, Halík tends to view reality from the perspective of that institution, even when criticizing it. Accordingly, he sometimes exhibits what I would call a blame-the-church-first mentality when discussing contemporary secularism, atheism, apathy, and so on. Some of these phenomena might result from the church’s shortcomings and failures, to be sure. I would not disagree. But more perspicacious judgment would also permit the causal autonomy of extrinsic factors: the legacy of twentieth-century communism, the personal-choice-above-all-else mentality of contemporary liberalism and consumerism, the climate of the media today, the instrumentalizing exigencies of public education, and the high-handed secularism of the European Union among other elite-driven transnational bodies. I trust I might be forgiven for wishing that Halík had spent a little more time analyzing some of these forces before resorting to his bread-and-butter: reproaching co-religionists.
The delicate question of the relationship of Western Christianity to the rising Christianities in the Global South pops up at several points in the book. Karl Rahner famously interpreted Vatican II as the beginning of the end of a Europeanized church and the birth of a truly world church—one, Rahner predicted, that would offer a salutary challenge to Western Catholicism on many fronts. The sticky point for reformists like Halík (or Pope Francis for that matter) these days is that many of the leading voices from the Global South have gravitated toward conservative positions on hot-button issues such as clerical celibacy, the blessing of homosexual unions, and so on. In addition to the “culture wars” within the Catholic Church having an ideological dimension, in other words, it also possesses a notable geographical dimension between the former colonizer countries and the formerly colonized. Put differently, when Halík and others read “the signs of the times” as a signal to change in a more progressive direction, many from the previously colonialized world, now the majority world, read them as a signal to do just the opposite: entrench and restate certain teachings as a matter of faithfulness to more traditional viewpoints. The springtime of peoples from the erstwhile Third World has thus proven, ecclesiastically speaking, to have had demonstrably ironic results. How, I might then ask, will Halík’s charge of universal fraternity and deep listening to others play out in these areas within his own church? Will those from the erstwhile colonizer nations tell all others simply to get in line, to develop ideologically as they were once charged to develop economically, or will a genuine cross-civilization dialogue occur? Surely, true ecumenism must begin with disagreed parties under the same confessional roof truly listening to one another.
Permit me to conclude on a note of commendation. In Halík’s penultimate chapter, “The Community of the Way,” he sketches “four ecclesiological concepts” necessary for the church’s future. The first is the biblical concept of the church as the People of God journeying through history—an important motif at Vatican II, thanks in large part to the French nouvelle-théologie theologians such as Yves Congar; the second is the concept of the church as a school of Christian wisdom; the third, the concept of the church as a field hospital for wounded sinners; and, finally, the concept of the church as a place of encounter and conversation with the world at large. All four concepts merit consideration, but I would suggest that concepts two and four are especially relevant to American church-related higher education today. While many schools have done due diligence in theorizing notions of justice and especially social justice in recent decades, they have insufficiently theorized what, historically speaking, was a profoundly complementary virtue: wisdom, probing thoughtfulness about one’s actions, not to mention contemplation about one’s being-in-the-world. For this reason, I was heartened to read Halík suggest that “at this time there is an urgent need for Christian communities to be transformed into ‘schools’ along the lines of the original ideal of the medieval universities. Universities . . . were communities of life, prayer, and learning. The idea behind them was contemplata allis tradere,” passing on to the next generation the wisdom that you yourself have received. Halík continues,
From the very beginning, disputations . . . were part of universities; they were governed by the conviction that truth is arrived at through free debate according to logical rules. It seems time to renew this culture of dialogue with God and between Christians—linking theology with spirituality, and religious education with the cultivation of the spiritual life. (188–89)
Amen.
But Halík encourages Christians not only to engage in contemplation and dialogue with one another. The church, and perhaps especially church-related colleges and universities, should also strive to be places of “encounter and conversation,” inviting in all people of good will irrespective of identity, outlook, or belief, including those disillusioned or jaded post-Christians who are often only reacting in good faith to the degenerate instantiations of the faith that they have experienced. Without this type of external orientation, Christian communities risk becoming “ghettos” or “an artificial folk museum of the past,” as Halík writes (193). In these ghettos, like only encounters like without the capacity to grow intellectually and spiritually from the stimulation of alternative points of view.
Agreed. But I’m inclined to amend Halík’s concepts by suggesting that there is a logical sequence between concept two (church as a school of Christian wisdom) and concept four (church as a place of encounter and conversation with the world). For a church-related academic community to be a worthy dialogue partner with others, it must first remember what it is primarily about; it must have in place those wisdom-seeking practices of prayer, contemplation, and dialogue that enable the Christian intellectual tradition to truly flourish. Absent these, the community will not only be an amnesiac menace to itself but a limp rag for other dialogue partners who desire to know something of the breadth and depth of an authentic, functioning Christian intellectual community.
Finally, just as I asked myself while reading the book, the reader of this review might now be wondering: isn’t Halík’s metaphor of an “afternoon” in the book’s title a bit bleak, suggesting decline and decay? Aware that this might be on readers’ minds, Halík nonetheless leaves one hanging throughout the book before springing this on the reader in the final paragraph: “Doesn’t the concept of afternoon suggest the proximity of evening, of extinction, and death? My answer is: In the biblical concept of time, a new day begins at evening. Let’s not miss the moment when the first star appears in the evening” (211).
An eloquent conclusion to an eloquent book. Whether or not one fully agrees with Halík in every point, this book seals his reputation as a thoughtful and engaging conversation partner for all who care about the current state and future of Christianity.
