Meeting in the Middle

Posted by - frinkt

 

Catholic Men’s Conference, Jan 30, 2016

 

Introduction

 

Good intentions are not enough. Nor piety nor zeal. Consider these historical examples in which key leaders in the church were inspired by the desire to rid the world of evil and error and to advance the faith. This meant going to war with a threatening party rather than use some peaceful means of engaging them.

 

Historical Examples

 

Crusades: Pope Urban II who preached the First Crusade in the 11^th century (1095). The Crusades (cruz = cross for the red cross that troops wore on their cloak) lasted 200 years. There were eight or nine crusades in all.

 

• Stated purpose of the project: come to the rescue of Constantinople, which had been taken over by Turks, thus reuniting the Eastern and Western churches after their split 40 years earlier; regain control over the Christian sites in the Holy Land, and stimulate devotion of people by opening Holy Land for pilgrimages. This was a Christian jihad undertaken to stop the advance of the Seljuk Turks.
• The First Crusade was successful; it liberated Constantinople and captured Jerusalem, although it did not check the enmity between Eastern and Western churches. And it certainly did not improve the relations between Christian Europe and the Muslim empire. St. Bernard preached one of the later crusades, but he was horrified at the brutality that followed. No surprise, since Crusades could only harden the “us against them” mentality.
• Result: arming of Christian princes, looking for adventure on a divine mission as well as the indulgences offered; they sparked a war against Islam that also led to sufferings of civilians along the way. When Crusaders entered Jerusalem in 1099, there were massacres, destruction of sites. Blood bath of Jews, Muslims and even Christians in Jerusalem. Hence, the hardening of opposition between religions, militarism, retreat from the pacifism that the church at its best embraced. [Knights are a relic of that era]
• Alternatives: Islamic countries were coming to terms with Christians. Allowances were made for religious “tourism” since Islam had its own pilgrimages; its policy was to tax other religions, not to deny them access.

 

Inquisition: It started in 12th-century France to combat religious sectarianism, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians.  Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, to replace the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.

 

• Inquisition was a group of institutions within the judicial system of the Roman Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. It was a check against individual piety to an extreme. Purpose was to purify the faith and preserve it from error.
• It was instituted in the 1100s as a couple of strong heresies–Catharism was the main one–ran rampant in Europe and threatened the unity of christendom. Fear of the breakdown of society and the faith that guided it persuaded kings and some bishops to adopt strong punishment toward heretics.
• In the centuries before this, by contrast, church teachers like Augustine and Ambrose argued that nothing justifies the shedding of blood by the church. Church itself had been persecuted on the very same grounds–that it was undermining the unity of the Roman Empire. Saul had been present at the stoning of Stephen for religious reasons. Would that have been justified if Christians had the rocks in their hands and heretics were on the ground?
• In the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the concept and scope of the Inquisition was significantly expanded in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Its geographic scope was expanded to other European countries, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. It was dominant in Spain, but also in Italian cities. Led to the auto-de-fe, the burning of heretics and the forced conversion of those who were believers in God but of another faith.
• The damage done to the credibility of the church is clear centuries after the end of the Inquisition. It is symbolic of evil done in the name of good, a distortion of the gospel message of peace and love, and a historical blot on the church forever.
• Alternatives: trust in the individual and the power of the Spirit, as the early church teachers recommended. Not all cleansing must be done by religious authorities. Our desire to preserve the unity of the church should not override the rights of conscience and the message of the gospel itself.

 

Early mission attempts in the New World: prompted by discovery of the “Indies” during early 16^th century.

 

• Purpose: was to spread the gospel to the newly discovered peoples, and to do so in such a way that the great European nations would assume responsibility for spiritual duty.
• But since the spiritual had priority over the temporal (soul more important than the body), local peoples could be compelled to accept that which would save their souls, even if it meant loss of political authority in their own land or bloodshed in the interest of conversion.
• Effects: legitimized usurpation of authority, and led to land grabs and even slavery by greedy and power-hungry local governors.
• Presumption: Non-Christians could not be saved unless they were baptized. In other words, God only arrived with the coming of the first missionaries. The religious beliefs of local peoples were erroneous and had to be corrected if the people were to be saved.
• Alternative: to begin with what people had and to work from there to a fuller understanding of God’s word. This was Paul’s approach to the people of Athens in Acts 17. It was also the approach of missions in Asia, when missionary work is tempered by the understanding that those bringing the gospel have much to learn from local cultures.
• • Mateo Ricci and the Chinese Jesuit mission (but some of the good effects nullified when final decision was made in the Chinese Rites controversy). The Rites were not pure enough for some Church authorities.
  • Valignano and the Japanese mission. Adaptation to the Japanese culture that was effective, even after the persecutions began under Hideyoshi and others in the late 16^th
  • DeNobili and work in India. (But the final decision of Rome in Malabar Rites controversy was negative, as in China Rites).

 

Lessons Learned from History

 

Examples of good intentions gone astray creating institutions that have represented the worst in the church over the years. Church felt threatened, panicked and attempted to seize control without dialogue.

 

Likewise, the church’s mission of evangelization, which should engage others in a dialogue, has sometimes been done without listening or any recognition that God has been speaking to the opponents of Christianity, whether they are Islamic, heretic, or non-Christian people practicing their religion long before the arrival of missionaries.

 

Lesson: We evangelize with a sense of who we are and the mission we are to carry out. But we can never afford to dismiss the culture and personalities and good will of the recipients of this gospel.

 

• Evangelization is not force-feeding, it is a dialogue. It is an appeal to the in-built goodness and the holy desires of the people we encounter.
• We can never assume that they are in the claws of the devil and are wallowing in error, and that we alone are in full possession of truth and goodness. We must be very careful in our judgments of what is good and what is evil.
• The unevangelized may have much to learn from us, but we can also learn something from them if we believe that the Spirit speaks to all of us, even to those who do not know the name of the One guiding us.

 

What This Means Today

 

• Importance of Word. The revelation of God to us comes in various forms–saving deeds in history, prophecy, theology–all of which is combined in the Hebrew word dabar. We also present this word to others in the same way–a combination of theology, personal and group history and prophecy. This is what it means to pass on the word of God today.
• Speaking to the world–carrying on a conversation with unbelievers, not delivering monologues on who God is and how to reach him, much less condemnations. The goal of our evangelization efforts is not “truth” but “trust.” At the end of our lives we will not be graded on how much we know about God–like the score on a test. We will be judged on the response we make to God’s personal invitation. Knowledge about God does not save; personal acceptance, even if implicitly, does.
• Hence, our conversation with people of another or no discernible faith can deepen their response even if they don’t accept the story we are sharing or the theological teachings we espouse. This is true of our willingness to share that which touches our deepest beliefs. (My conversation on faith with the dean of the Fiji med school)
• Our actions of kindness speak even louder than our words–our life is itself a form of evangelization. They preach eloquently to those who share little of our faith. (Mother Theresa)
• We are not sent to judge but to stir the deepest longings of the heart to help others find God. Welcome to those who are doing the best they can under the circumstances. (Pope Francis’ words of encouragement to the single mother of three)

 

Applications Here and Now

 

• Evangelization today might begin here on Guam by trying to regain our sense of unity as a church. Importance of conversation–“meeting in the middle.”
• Conversation with the young: taking seriously their views on the church’s moral and doctrinal positions, engaging them in conversation rather than simply dismissing their views altogether. (My conversations with young staff at MicSem on such matters)
• Example: reconciliation of troubled marriages. This means not just understanding both points of views, but often going beyond that: even unpacking what is called today “spouse abuse.” This is labeled as bad and impermissible today (like heretical beliefs in old Europe). No argument that it is not good, but neither is it the most terrible of evils. Striking a spouse is indication of strong emotional feeling (I always regarded heated conversation between spouses as a sign there was hope for the marriage). Second, it can be a last desperate resort of the inarticulate (Billy Budd syndrome). In some cases it can be a real danger to the woman, but imprisonment for all cases regardless of severity can be a threat to bigger goals.

 

Conclusion

 

The church has a multi-dimensional mission:

 

• First, it must challenge people to go beyond the bounds of what they consider the ordinary (the sensate and the sensible, the worldly) to discover the God who invites us from beyond. It must push people beyond the customary to penance, the otherworld, the land of mystery.
• Second, it must integrate–the natural and the supernatural, this world and the world to come, gospel teachings and the life of the people to whom God’s word is spoken. It must devote energy to building bridges between such different facets of reality. (We’ve had a theological tradition of weaving together faith and reason. Shouldn’t this continue?)
• Third, it must build bridges among people–sign of the final messianic banquet in which we all dine together at the table of the Lord. We are not just dropping seeds of faith along the way, but also building community as a sacrament of the oneness that the Lord intends for us. But to build this community we need to reconcile various factions–within our church and without. This means listening, with a presumption that the Spirit has something to say to all of us. It means admitting faults of our own. It means finding common ground with those on the other side. It means meeting in the middle.