According to recent surveys, Americans more than ever say they believe in God (95 percent). But faith in Jesus Christ and his Church wields less and less influence. Many draw a distinction between religion, with its defined doctrines and moral demands, and an amorphous “spirituality,” which requires no particular commitment—even to occasional gatherings.
The erosion of religious sensibility, especially awareness of the unique role of Jesus Christ as Redeemer, is occurring not only in secular culture, but in the Christian body itself. Former priest John Dominick Crossan, professor of theology at De Paul University, can say on television (apparently with impunity) that, if the human remains of Jesus were found, “It wouldn’t affect my faith.” Even Evangelicals, popularly perceived as a bulwark of conservative Christology, are not immune.
In a recent televised interview, Kirby Godsey, president of Southern Baptist Mercer College in Atlanta, hedged reporter Bob Abernethy’s questions about Jesus’ divinity: “The Trinity itself is not a biblical concept,” Godsey said. “I don’t view Jesus as God. I prefer to think of him . . . as the Son of God.” What’s important, he added, is not the person of Jesus, but his values. Perhaps that is an inevitable conclusion for those who lack the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, to bring them into daily, actual contact with the Person of Christ.
It could not be more timely, then, that “Proclaiming Jesus Christ, the One Savior of the World” is the theme of this year’s Defending the Faith Conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville, July 11–13.
The eighth such conference, it will focus on the need to proclaim the truth about Christ as the millennium approaches and will offer practical tips on how to set about it. Outstanding theologians, evangelists, and apologists will lead participants to explore the meaning of Jesus for the twenty-first century.
Scheduled are Scott and Kimberly Hahn, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR, Tom and Lovelace Howard, Peter Kreeft, Fr. Peter Stravinskas, and Catholic Answers’ own Karl Keating. For information call (800) 437-TENT.
Ann Landers an apologist for the divine origin of the Catholic Church? We confess we were a little surprised, too, when we saw this recent column. But we can’t think of a handier little reference sheet:
“Dear Readers: Do you have any idea when your religion was founded and by whom? If you are not interested in the subject, skip today’s column and go directly to the horoscope or crossword puzzle. I found the following fascinating:
“If you are a member of the Jewish faith, your religion was founded by Abraham about 4,000 years ago.
“If you are Hindu, your religion developed in India around 1500 B.C.
“If you are a Buddhist, your religion split from Hinduism, and was founded by Buddha, Prince Siddhartha Gautama of India, about 500 B.C.
“If you are Roman Catholic, Jesus Christ began your religion in the year 33.
“If you are Islamic, Mohammed started your religion in what is now Saudi Arabia around 600 A.D.
“If you are Eastern Orthodox, your sect separated from Roman Catholicism around the year 1000.
“If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex-monk in the Catholic Church, in 1517.
“If you belong to the Church of England (Anglican), your religion was founded by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry.
“If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded when John Knox brought the teachings of John Calvin to Scotland in the year 1560.
“If you are Unitarian, your religious group developed in Europe in the 1500s.
“If you are a Congregationalist, your religion branched off from Puritanism in the early 1600s in England.
“If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your religion to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam in 1607.
“If you are a Methodist, your religion was founded by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1744.
“If you are an Episcopalian, your religion was brought over from England to the American colonies and formed a separate religion founded by Samuel Seabury in 1789.
“If you are a Mormon (Latter-Day Saints), Joseph Smith started your church in Palmyra, New York, not Salt Lake City, which would have been my guess. The year was 1830.
“If you worship with the Salvation Army (yes, it’s a religious group, not just an organization that collects money in kettles on Christmas and serves dinners to the homeless), your sect began with William Booth in London in 1865.
“If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year your religion was founded by Mary Baker Eddy.
“If you are a Jehovah’s Witness, your religion was founded by Charles Taze Russell in Pennsylvania in the 1870s.
“If you are Pentecostal, your religion was started in the United States in 1901.
“If you are an agnostic, you profess an uncertainty or a skepticism about the existence of God or a Higher Being.
“If you are an atheist, you do not believe in the existence of God or any other higher power. This country’s best-known atheist, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, has not been seen or heard from in more than a year. According to her son, she has disappeared without a trace.”
If only some of our dear priests were as clear about ecclesiology. A recent report from Australia left us scratching our heads. Rather than adopt practices intended to form the spiritual life of seminarians, five staff members, including the rector, of Corpus Christi College Seminary in Melbourne, Australia, resigned their positions.
Archbishop George Pell, who had asked the staff to implement the changes, was bemused: “They’re the basic sorts of things that most Catholics would already believe were happening in the seminary—daily Mass, morning meditation, morning prayer of the Church, night prayer of the Church, a holy hour once a week in front of the Blessed Sacrament, recitation of the rosary, and devotions to our Lady in May. It’s a very non-controversial program.”
The archbishop said he was following the recommendations in Pope John Paul II’s 1992 document Pastores Dabo Vobis (I Will Give You Shepherds) : an increased emphasis on spirituality in formation in general, a year devoted to spiritual development early in the seminary program, and possibly a similar year after a seminarian’s year of work in a parish.
Those who resigned did not state their objections to the spiritual reform. Melbourne currently faces the lowest levels ever of those training for the priesthood.
If you think public witness to the principles of Catholic faith doesn’t matter, take a look at this item from Citizen, published by Focus on the Family, an Evangelical publication:
“Nearly $60,000 in donations have poured in from across the nation to benefit an impoverished school after a Catholic priest refused $5,000 from a pro-abortion senator.
“Fr. George H. Parker said St. Joseph Catholic School will never be so poor as to accept money from U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who helped lead the fight against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act earlier this year. Parker said Dodd’s donation was ‘soaked with the blood of innocent babies.’
” ‘The Holy Father himself said no one can be a Catholic and pro-abortion at the same time,’ said Parker. ‘As far as I am concerned, Sen. Dodd was acting as an impostor and trying to buy the Church’s approval with money.”
“Local media picked up the story and, quite unexpectedly to Parker, donations flowed from every state except Alaska to the K-8 school, which had an $80,000 deficit last year.
“Dodd made the donation in 1995, but Parker was not in a position to return it until January when he was appointed temporary parish administrator.
“The issue came to a head in April when Dodd called abortion a ‘Church issue he disagrees with’ at the annual breakfast and Mass held for him by the local Knights of Columbus, a lay organization which is charged with reflecting Church teachings.
“Parker said for Dodd to use a Church forum to openly defy the Church is ‘bordering on the incredible.’ Calling the local Knights ‘rogues,’ Parker reminded them that parish facilities may not be used by those who violate church teachings.
“‘This is more than an issue, it is the sacredness of life that is at the heart of the gospel,’ Parker said. ‘To suggest that the truths of our faith should be determined with an eye on the collection plate is absurdly sad and borders on the b.asphemous. To save just one child from such a fate as abortion is worth even parish bankruptcy. No one can serve God and money.’”
The Unification Church, popularly if irreverently called “Moonies,” is making inroads in once solidly Catholic Latin America. A recent New York Times News Service story explains that the Moonies, when they could not make converts by open proselytizing, resorted to indirect methods:
“When missionaries from the Unification Church came to South America in the early 1970s, they faced hostility in many countries where the teachings of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the church’s spiritual leader, were considered sacrilege.
“Critics of the Unification Church—particularly the Roman Catholic Church, which has long dominated religion in Latin America—denounced Moon’s suggestions that he was the Messiah, as well as his recruiting and fund-raising tactics.
“Angry crowds stoned and sacked Unification churches. But the missionaries did not give up and return home to South Korea, where the church has its headquarters. Instead, the Unification Church began quietly winning converts and big donations through a variety of civic organizations that it established, it says, to promote world peace, women’s rights, and family values.
“Just how far the Unification Church has come in Latin America during the last twenty years was evident when former President George Bush and dozens of current and former heads of state from the region agreed to attend a party in Buenos Aires to inaugurate a new Spanish-language newspaper that is being published by a media company with close ties to Moon.
“The new publication, called Times of the World, is an eighty-page tabloid that will be distributed via satellite to almost every country in North and South America. The newspaper is being published by News World Communications Inc., which owns The Washington Times, a conservative daily, and whose board includes Unification Church members.”
There’s trouble in the unfallen world of Matthew Fox. His school of “creation-centered” spirituality has been kicked out of its quarters at Holy Names College in Oakland, California, amid an acrimonious power struggle.
Fox, who was dismissed from the Dominican Order and left the Catholic Church rather than rein in his heterodox theology, has set up shop in a warehouse across town as the University of Creation Spirituality. At issue in the divorce were Fox’s plans to conduct “rave masses,” which entailed demands for pricey sound equipment, computers, and smoke machines. (A rave is a now-almost-passé youth fad which began in England. Authentic raves involve all-night dancing to pounding electronic music, preferably in a venue spontaneously and illegally invaded for the purpose, such as an abandoned industrial site. Tamer Stateside versions are scheduled, advertised, and held in a rented facility.)
When the college balked, Fox walked—taking with him many of his Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality instructors. It’s difficult to know what happened, exactly. Fox says the faculty were fired; the college says they weren’t. Fox’s new program, priced at $7,500, drew thirty-three students in its first season.
Meanwhile, Holy Names continues its graduate spirituality program as the Sophia Center.
You might be hoping that the good sisters had returned to their senses and the charism of their foundress, Bl. Marie-Rose Durocher. Alas, the brochure from the new program offers scant grounds for optimism:
“Drawing on both ancient and inner wisdom, the Sophia Center at Holy Names College, in Oakland, California, blends personal healing, creativity, social transformation, and mysticism. The teachings of the new science, the wisdom of women and indigenous peoples, and the mystical roots of Western Christianity in the context of the world’s other great classical traditions open students to new ways of thinking and living as we prepare to enter the new millennium.”
Students pay $375 per unit to study with Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joanna Macy, Br. David Steindl-Rast, and Mary Hunt, among others. The chaplain is Jann Aldredge-Clanton, author of In Search of Christ-Sophia: An Inclusive Christology for Liberating Christians.
Holy Names does have some Catholic identity left, though. College President Mary Alice Muellerleile said of Fox’s Anglican rave mass, “We had no reservations about him teaching how to do it, but the institution could not have the rave be its ritual since it has its own.”