The World and the Church
In the mid-20th century many churches went through a theological renewal. The biggest of these was the Roman Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council, 1962–65, but on proportionately smaller scale similar changes happened in most churches. The renewal grew out of a sense that received church theology conveyed a view of the human being that was too negative, or that it focused too much on sins that we fall into. Renewal wanted to reclaim a vision of the human that highlighted our destiny to be glorious. This very positive view of the human was seen as emerging already in many cultural and political achievements. The world seemed poised to make great strides against disease and ignorance, thanks to scientific advance. The United Nations’ declaration on human rights was itself an international advance, as were the protocols concerning the treatment of prisoners and the conduct of war.
The movement in the Catholic Church was described as opening their church windows to the world. Some young catholic theologians said to me that, in those heady days following Vatican II, theologians saw the church as the problem and the world as the solution.
Today the situation is quite different. In most circles, optimism about human progress has waned and is almost nonexistent. The world seems an increasingly strange and dangerous place. In bioethics, doctor-assisted dying is legal in ever-more places, and choosing embryos for particular characteristics and editing their genes accordingly are practices on the horizon. One feels the need for scare quotes when speaking of scientific “advance.” There is wide acknowledgment of the harms of social media and “devices” in general. AI looms with simultaneous promise and anxiety. Our decade, the 2020s, feels quite distant from the hopeful mid-20th century.
Those same young catholic theologians articulated their difference from their elders who lived through Vatican II. For their generation, they said, the world is the problem and the church, for all its faults, is the only institution capable of countering the world.
Church people may differ on what the best public policy should be regarding particular social issues, particular technologies, particular wars, and so forth. But it is clear that, in this second quarter of the 21st century, we in the church carry a human vision that is at odds with much of the world.
We need to get used to being, more and more, an alternative to the world. Old language, such as is found in prayers that speak of the world in negative terms, has new resonance. The language of sin and our need to confess it has increasing importance. When the Episcopal Church produced its 1979 Book of Common Prayer, many penitential aspects were made optional. But they are there in the book, and they are important, and we may want to increase our use of them. Personally, after decades of skipping the prayer of confession at the beginning of Morning and Evening Prayer, I now almost always say it.
Indeed, the mere fact of admitting you are a sinner sets you apart from the world.
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Out & About. Sunday, June 14, I am to preach at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, at 9 and 11:15. Then at 5 p.m. at St. Matthew’s, the Good Books & Good Talk seminar will meet to discuss Tolstoy’s great fifty-page story, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Everyone is welcome to attend, and if you read the story you are welcome to talk. To find the seminar: Park in the covered apartment parking just south of the cathedral (church parking is clearly marked). When you walk out of the garage, you’ll be facing the cathedral close. The building to the right of the close is Garrett Hall. I’ll be at the door from about 4:45 to let people in.
Sunday, June 21, I am to preach at St. John the Apostle church in Pottsboro, one of our northmost congregations in the diocese of Dallas. The service is at 10 a.m.