See the news article here.
Generally the first response to something like this is to invoke moral and social standards and then to yell “we’re being picked on” or “hate crime,” a term which I detest. The term “hate crime” is McLanguage, missing 90% of the content but capturing lots of attention–the intent of those who use it.
What’s really going on is much more complex, interesting……and serious. The culture in the US and most of Europe is post-Christian–has been for quite a while, but more openly now. Only the vestiges remain with many, maybe most, people. Enter the Christmas Catholic and the Ash Wednesday/Palm Sunday phenomenon; enter the political candidate who is nominally Christian but attempting to use it as a party platform while mis-quoting scripture and endorsing abortions.
Over and above all the grousing, the genuine response of Christians (and there are some remaining), the response thought about privately, is to wonder what, indeed if anything, delineates the boundaries of Christianity in this post-Christian world. We want to reach out, we have been told we must, but it’s strange to be used, charicatured and abused. Where is the “line of intrusion?” Is there one? What is complicity and when does it exist?
The Churches, in their grand tradition which spans centuries, have been public buildings free for all to enter as long as anyone can remember. It’s part of the Christian way, and has been for a great long time, to admit all comers. But then, all comers were steeped in the regard for the faith, and for social values such as peace and respect and they were willing to abide by (at least) cultural behaviors in the Church. This same dynamic was shown in the public forum–in matters of communication, social discourse, politics, family and so on. It’s what everyone has been used to. It’s what we expect as a people. But, as you can see in this news story and the lack of response socially, there is a period of erosion now. And it can be remarked, it’s everywhere now, not just in this story. This is just a particularly blatant instance of something often seen. Many Christians believe that the situation is “broken” but often are not able to tell “broken” in exactly what way or how long this has been going on; many non-Christians are mildy interested or mildly disapprove the rudeness; some non-Christians approve intrusions like this, especially if they have impressions of being intruded upon themselves (or told what to do) and are seeking revenge, of a sort.
To really understand what has happened, it’s necessary to look 2000 years back to the birth of the Church. In the first centuries after the Resurrection, Christianity was illegal in many places, including Rome and its colonies, where one could be punished with death for being a Christian. This only made the Church grow, for the “blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church,” as is often written. One must remember that pre-Christian Europe was a place of murder for sport, slavery, constant warfare and much hardship. Women, children, foreigners and others of low position were chattel. Pagan societies, then as now, tend to be run by the powerful at the expense of the less powerful, for obvious reasons. What compelling reason do they have to be otherwise? In such an atmosphere, a religion of rationality, peace and justice, with a strong emphasis on love as relationship to God and others, flourished. However, needless to say, our places of worship were not open to all comers without a good long look at who they were and what they were about. It was simply too dangerous. Old commentaries on the morality of “martyrdom” in various circumstances of volition exist to attest to these decisions, made on the part of the Christian community of Rome. And Christ himself who was martyred (although that is not the only significance of the cross) is our model, of course. Very old customs about house churches, burial practices and escorting catechumens out before the Eucharist date from this period.
Then came the legalization of Christianity and its miraculous spread throughout the world, but primarily in the fertile conversion fields of Europe. Christianity took hold in Europe and revolutionized the cultures and paradigms of Britian, Gaul and the Northern tribal lands, laying the foundations for social, political and material growth that has continued up to the present. The origins of Western government–the foundational pieces–were laid by the first Christian kings of Gaul, Britain, Spain and the Germanic lands and later elaborated under Christian rule. The foundations of science and art, which are now posited to be so inimical to faith, were laid in the most religious of ages, the 12th & 13th centuries! Even the limits of faith, invoked by many pragmatists and agnostics in this age, were formally written down by an errant Franciscan friar of the 12th century, William of Ockam, who found himself in a peck of trouble for using them rebelliously. (There truly is nothing new under the sun.) The phenomena brought about by these changes were so dynamic and wide-stretching that many people have forgotten their origin and have attributed these advances to themselves and perhaps to their own genetic stock or tribal culture–a horrendous mistake, one still being made by individuals and organizations (the UN, for one).
Parallel to all this, the Church grew and developed. Due to the legalization of Christianity, its widespread adoption by those seeking to initiate or restore order in Europe, and its essential character which held deep within it the seeds of truth which could drive development such as the world had never seen, it assumed a central position in culture. On top of the houses of martyrs, great public buildings–churches and basilicas–were taken over, decorated and built, first in Rome and the holy land, and then throughout the western world, and finally to the non-western world. The Church transformed from a sect in Rome and a few scattered colonies–tiny communities hiding their worship by necessity–into a public forum all were free to enter. Indeed, the oldest public churches are remodeled markets (ancient basilicas were a type of public building for shopping and public works) with doors open wide onto public squares. The essential questions around public and private worship, which had always been studied, were developed and probed. The face of the church in the public forum was developed. Out of this discipline has come the modern face of the Vatican in public affairs, and the notion of Christian citizenship and responsibility, as well as the public status of Churches in general community life of which we are all familiar, particularly in the west.
In the 16th century, the Protestant reformation attempted to strip away centuries of development (and some decadence) to return to the origins, but the question was, “How does one take the Church without taking the Church?” Protestants still struggle with this dynamic, when they are serious about history. The extent to which the reformation, and the ensuing anti-reformation, damaged the Church we will never know. However, the trajectory of development did change in a noticeable way, for better or ill. Protestantism did tend to privatize theology while publicizing evangelization and has gone offline politically to some degree.
400 years later–now–in the west, we have undergone a breakdown in culture of which most people are aware. There are many ideas about how long it has lasted and what has caused it, but even though many people are complicit in it and some even revel in it, few will dispute that it has happened. There are a wide variety of attitudes toward it, from “ho-hum” to genuine alarm. However, most people have fallen prey to regarding the advances of culture as social phenomena without religious origin and so they are confused. In the most blatant situations, modern westerners simply can’t understand why others “can’t behave,” not realizing what they have unconsciously “breathed” that others have not. Christians are confused as well, because even though some (but only some) are aware of the larger situation of the place of the Church in culture, they don’t know how to handle the ancient issues surrounding the place of the Church in the world, and they don’t know how to interact with those around them.
I am convinced that this situation of confusion stretches all the way to the top of the Church, in various degrees of depth and in various ways of exerting itself. We have never come to terms with some of these issues, it seems. Vatican II was exactly all about this struggle and that’s why we cannot reconcile it. The implementation of the council itself was very badly mangled in the 40 years afterward, and so has added much smoke to the situation but not much light. Pope Paul VI’s fears and posturings dealt most largely with these problems of the Church in the world but did little good. In fact, many believe they did much damage (ie Humanae Vitae). Perhaps, all this is part of the Christian struggle and we will never solve these problems. History says this is a real possibility seeing as how Christianity is as much about liberty of the individual soul as about peace and justice.
Confusion abounds, and what we currently have is a situation with the Church reaching out to the world, sometimes overreaching to the point of showing her knickers, while the world attributes its advances to some special “foo-foo dust” that they have concocted in a manner they know not how to duplicate. All this while staring in mixed consternation and amusement at Youtube and Ebay, simultaneously trying to avoid talk about impending clashes. We have division across the hierarchy and indeed, it’s even as if we don’t know how to start the discussion of what is wrong. Pope Benedict XVI is more certain of what is wrong, I believe, but he’s not really being heard and he’s not really saying so much.
Meanwhile, paganism in all its softer forms comes upon us. It is worthwhile to remember that paganism is a cruel mistress for all who are prey to her because of their lack of belief. She looks like a seductress but she has fangs which will appear soon enough. Every Christian with a sense of history knows that.
