“Rain and the Rhinoceros” de Thomas Merton

Voici une intérvention que je n'ai pu réaliser. Je voudrais la partager de tout façon parce que Thomas Merton est peu connu dans le monde francophone. Je l'offre à l'occasion de la 50ième anniversaire de son décès. 

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Je vais vous présenter un petit mot sur la résistance non-violente contre le capitalisme extrême. Je parlerai d’une spiritualité capable de nous soutenir dans cette résistance. Le mot, non-violence, réfère à ce qu’on ne voit pas, ce qui sort de l’intérieur, ce qui est, au fond, la transcendance. Merton puise dans sa tradition monastique pour nous donner des suggestions surprenantes.

Il faut, cependant, établir des paramètres pour pouvoir comprendre ce que Merton nous dit. En premier lieu, chaque personne regarde le monde, comprend le monde, à partir de là où elle se trouve. Les riches comprennent le monde à partir de leur château et le pauvre à partir de son bidonville. Leurs compréhensions ne coïncident pas du tout. Quant à lui, Merton regarde le monde à partir d’une cabane éloignée de son monastère, de nuit, dans la pluie. Il est accompagné, dans sa solitude, par des écrits sur la solitude d’un ermite du 6^ième siècle appelé Philoxenos. La cabane est située au Kentucky où se trouvent, entre autres institutions, son monastère Trappiste, le Camp militaire Campbell qui assure la sauvegarde des installations nucléaires, et le Fort Knox, où est entassé l’or du gouvernement des États-Unis.

À cette époque, dans les années ’60, aux États-Unis, plusieurs personnes essayaient de mettre en place un mouvement catholique de résistance à la guerre du Vietnam. Ces personnes vont bientôt se réunir dans la cabane de Merton - déjà moine-ermite - pour une retraite. À ce moment-là le mot « résistance » est un mot important.

Entre temps, à New York, on vient de mettre en scène une pièce de théâtre appelé Rhinocéros. Originalement écrit en allemand pour parler du totalitarisme nazi, ce texte ests traduit et adapté, sans éviter des critiques, pour une audience américaine. Dans la pièce, les membres de ce peuple deviennent graduellement, une personne après l’autre, des rhinocéros, c’est-à-dire, des êtres super forts, violents et bêtes. Dans sa version originale, il s’agit du peuple allemand des années nazies. Pour la version de New York, il s’agit de l’Amérique capitaliste.

Ce soir-là, Merton se trouve émerveillé par la pluie, par les sons sur le toit et autour de la cabane. La pluie est gratuite, abondante, nourrissante, pleine de vie.  Merton trouve, dans le contraste entre la pluie et le rhinocéros, une image capable de nourrir la résistance. La pluie lui rappelle le pouvoir de la solitude, de l’intériorité dont Philoxenos fait l’éloge, une solitude que le rhinocéros ne peut pas connaître puisqu’il est trop occupé avec le délire d’avoir du « fun ». Merton trouve ironique la présence d’une lampe Colman qu’il a apportée pour éclairer la cabane. Sur la boite d’emballage de la lampe on pouvait lire ces mots : « Stretches days to give more fun » (Étirer la journée pour mieux s’amuser). On est donc devant les deux options : vivre la solitude ou avoir du fun.

S’amuser, c’est-à-dire se laisser intoxiqué par le plaisir sans se préoccuper de quoi que ce soit. C’est aussi, selon Merton, se donner l’idée que nous n’avons aucun besoin que nous ne puissions satisfaire immédiatement. Merton examine cette culture du fun et la met en contraste avec la solitude qui nous emmène à entrer à l’intériorité de soi pour trouver la force de vie qui nous libère de toute peur, de tout besoin. Pour Merton, c’est la pluie qui représente cette liberté, l’abondance et la gratuité, l’intériorité et la solitude dans laquelle nous sommes amenés à découvrir qui nous sommes et, ainsi, arriver à une vie intérieure.

Merton essaie de regarder ce qu’est la solitude évoquée par la pluie autour de la cabane ce soir-là. Pour la culture des rhinocéros, la richesse est la porte conduisant au fun, et s’amuser est le but de la vie. Mais, pour la pluie, ça marche tout autrement. La pluie ne cherche pas autre chose que d’être. La pluie existe. Elle n’a pas d’autre finalité. Ainsi, Philoxenos dit : « le vrai riche n’est pas celui qui possède beaucoup de choses mais plutôt celui que n’a besoin de rien ». En étant sans besoins, il est entièrement libre et, avec sa liberté, il n’a aucun besoin sauf exister en plein bonheur. Une telle attitude contredit toutes les valeurs de la culture contemporaine – sauf, dit Thomas, pour l’existentialisme et le théâtre de l’absurde ! C’est assez Zen.

Il y a bien sûr un problème avec la manière dans laquelle le contraste entre la solitude et le fait d’« avoir du fun » est présenté. Il faudrait préciser la différence entre les deux. Après tout, ce que Merton éprouve dans la solitude, représentée par la pluie, c’est le simple fait d’exister, « l’être ». On pourrait toujours dire qu’avoir du fun, c’est exactement un expérience d`être sans autre but. Alors, Merton nous donne quelques repères pour définir et mieux décrire le fait de« s’amuser », le fait d’avoir du fun, selon l’expression qu’il emploie. En premier lieu, c’est une expérience qui cherche surtout le plaisir – ce qui n’est pas toujours réalisé dans la solitude. De plus, c’est un plaisir qui ne se préoccupe pas des conséquences, ni de son impact sur soi-même et sur les autres. Donc, le « fun » dont il parle est moralement irresponsable.  La précision est importante.

Merton emprunte à Philoxenos une image pour parler de l’entrée dans la vie contemplative. En premier lieu il y a l’état du « non-né »(celui qui n’arrive pas à vivre) : être dans l’utérus avec tous ses membres mais incapable de les utiliser. Pourtant, c’est une étape nécessaire, celle d’être nourri passivement. Puis, il y a la naissance. Merton la voit comme une image de l’entrée dans la vie contemplative. On apprend à exercer son pouvoir de contempler. Pour Merton, en effet, la vie contemplative n’est pas du tout passive. Il y a une dimension absolument active dans l’exercice du pouvoir de contempler. En ce sens, c’est un virage de 180 degrés par rapport à l’idée populaire de la contemplation comme quelque chose de passif. Pour lui c’est un processus qui permet de calmer la conscience pour ainsi être attentif à la réalité. La vision de la vie monastique telle que vécue par Merton est très active ! Il découvre des enjeux profonds en lui-même, comme ceux qui se jouent aussi sur la scène mondiale et qui demandent une réponse.

Personnellement, à 78 ans, je suis beaucoup moins occupé avec toutes sortes d’activés externes. Je me trouve souvent des journées entières, même des semaines, à ne faire rien d’autre que de m’occuper de moi-même, de réfléchir, de lire, d’écrire (trop peu). C’est difficile à mettre ses sentiments et ses idées en ordre – surtout quand les années et les souvenirs s’accumulent. C’est difficile de ne pas se mesurer par ce qu’on fait, ou ce qu’on a fait. C’est un défi de simplement se laisser être, d’être devant la gratuité de la vie, de la nature et de Dieu, de l’amour.

On aurait pu nommer cet essai « Rain and Rhinoceritis » parce que c’est exactement en tant que souffrant d’une maladie profonde que Merton examine la société actuelle et sa culture du fun. Il faut dire, et Merton le reconnaît, que Ionesco, auteur original de la pièce de théâtre en question, n’avait pas aimé la traduction de cette pièce qui transforme la maladie de rhinocérite en recherche du fun au lieu de dénoncer le totalitarisme.  En contraste, peut-être avec Merton, on pourrait aujourd’hui se demander s’il y a une telle différence entre une société du fun et une société totalitaire.  En tout cas, Merton examine le côté fun, « s’amuser » comme nœud pour comprendre la société américaine. Pour Merton, se centrer sur le fait de s’amuser, c’est nier la réalité, se donner l’illusion qu’il n’y a aucun besoin qui ne peut pas être satisfait immédiatement – donc l’omnipotence !  Devant la vie, le résultat final, c’est le désespoir.

Prêter attention à la pluie, c’est entrer en résistance à la logique du rhinocéros, de Fort Knox et du Camp Campbell, c’est adopter une attitude d’être, contemplative, sans attendre plus. C’est chercher son vrai soi, et pas le soi dicté par la culture ambiante. Mais, il faut le dire, ceux et celles qui adoptent cette attitude critique vont vite trouver que la résistance au fun a aussi un prix et que ça peut être lourd. Cependant, Merton nous avertit que la petite mort de la solitude n’est rien à comparer avec la grande mort qui nous englobe.

Climate Change and the Rise of the Extreme Right

The title indicates, for me, the two major issues facing humanity in the next 50 years. They are not unrelated. Climate change has finally gained the attention of the general public and they demand action from their elected governments. Unfortunately, the political world is not in a position to take decisive action and this for many reasons, the principal one being that governments themselves are generally hogtied by the economic interests of multinational corporations who prefer to focus on the struggle for larger profits for their masters. In this sense, governments like the United States and Canada, to name the two closest to home, are fundamentally fascist, if by fascist one means an authoritarian government whose policies are dictated by a small group of business interests. Such governments present themselves in a language that appeals to the well-being of low-income workers. They offer programs to assist those suffering setbacks in the economic system. However, we would be mistaken to take the measures as a serious preoccupation with the well-being of the population  as a whole since the purpose of this political rhetoric is to pacify those sectors of the population that might tend to revolt against the conditions of life imposed on them: long hours, poor conditions, inadequate pay. 
 

So, in fact, we have governments that are deeply rooted in far-right philosophies of authoritarianism and the supremacy of the economy. They encourage, as the primary virtue of the citizen, the right to consume! Citizens are taken seriously as such to the extent that they consume. The Extreme Right is made up of groups who believe they are benefiting from this sort of authoritarian government without realizing that, since their members come from the less-economically benefited sectors of society, they are in fact victims of a fascist system. (Lower ranks of the military are also very present in this category.) Large corporations and government are satisfied to see the presence of such Extreme Right groups since they serve to divide ordinary citizens and weaken a grassroots opposition. They are “useful.” 

All of this plays out very well for the interests of the multinational economic interests in delaying an effective response to climate change. These interests know very well that climate change will deeply affect the capacity of humanity to survive on the planet. However, they leave that for another generation to deal with, confident that the people of their category will have ample resources to assure the survival of their 0.1 percent of the population (around 80 million people). These will be sufficient to guarantee a vibrant economy since the rest of the population are, in any case, “excess,” that is to say non-consumers.

This is not a happy picture I am painting and I do so to point out that we put our trust governments at our own peril. Obviously, it is better to have a government that listens seriously to its electors. But the solutions will not come from them since they are beholden to the grand masters of the current economy. Even though the Extreme-Right is a tiny minority, their role as a dividing force within the ranks of the general population is important and will grow to the extent that large sectors of the population are subjected to ever more precarious conditions. This tiny minority needs to be taken seriously since they voice the anger and frustration of a much larger section of the population which are directed to turn their anger against the most vulnerable minorities rather than the economic and political decision-makers.  Somehow or other the larger population needs to have a change of mind and heart that will lead to a greater cohesion and solidarity in facing the issues and in shaping grassroots movements for survival. It is extremely encouraging to see the multiplication of citizen-based movements throughout the world who are advancing powerfully and effectively to face the challenges of climate change.

Christianity and World Religions

Words are important and “religion” is a central word in our conversation. Religion is an extremely complex word with a complex history. Its modern usage as a reference to a set of beliefs and rituals to provide access to God begins really with the 17^th century but the origins of the word go back much earlier to the Romans. Even there, the usage is complex. For the Roman Empire, religion (religio) was what bound all the people together with the gods. In that, the Emperor, as summus pontifex (highest bridge builder, high priest) played a central role. For the Christians of the first three centuries to refer to their Way as religion would have been the height of blasphemy. The word never appears in the New Testament though the backdrop of religion as practiced by the Roman Empire is quite present. It was only after Constantine that Christians saw themselves as having a religion with the Pope as summus pontifex. In other words, the religion of the Empire was supplanted by the Christian religion. Basilicas were built, people were converted massively and Christianity became the established state religion and thus a major institution with considerable power in the Empire of the time. Outreach to the pagans led at this point to some pretty violent proceedings. 

When I settled in Peru in 1980, Catholicism was the established state religion there. During my time there, a concordat was signed between the governments of Peru and the Vatican. At the same time, the Catholic Church was disestablished, although with privileges. During the time of Duplessis, in Quebec during the 1940s and 1950s, the Catholic Church was the established Church, at least in practice. The connection between “religion” and the state continues, then, right into our own day and with very significant impact for those who belong to a major Church. Moreover, this is not limited to Christianity. In Myanmar, Buddhism is protected by the State, with dire consequences for the Rohingyas. In India, Hinduism is protected and Islam can more properly be called an established religion in Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan. 

So, evoking the word “religion” is unavoidably linked to a question of privilege and establishment. I mentioned that the modern definition of religion really dates from the 17^th century. This is the time of colonization. It cannot be said enough that Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists and Confucians – we often forget about these latter in China – would not normally identify themselves as following a religion. Religion was a term imposed on them by colonizing powers in order to provide a framework for control and, often, repression. Hindi, in India, has no precise word corresponding to religion.

For the West, “religion” means an institutionalized set of beliefs and practices that has hierarchies of power and decision-making, that has rituals of initiation and communion with the divine, that has beliefs and disciplines and that can be controlled, managed. This institutionalized dimension of religion has important implications when it comes to determining how to relate to those outside its circle. The document in Vatican II on religious liberty, largely written by John Courtney Murray and inspired by the experience of the United States, marked a turning point in relations with Protestants in particular.  This document was part of the final push of the Council to address also the question of Jews and of non-Christian “religions.” 

On the other hand, at least today, “religion” clearly also refers to a very personal and cultural phenomenon of entering into communication and communion with the Other, with the Transcendent, who gives meaning and direction to the lives of those who belong to a specific circle. In the Abrahamic tradition it is a journey through life rooted in a covenant. In this sense it is a call to interiority, to an asceticism of life and a moral journey as well.  Thomas Aquinas, already in the 13^th century, defined religion as a virtue of devotion to and service of God.

Of all the world “religions,” Christianity, and in particular, the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Churches represent the most institutionalized expressions of religion.  

The Indigenous path is one of connection and communication with the divine, clearly outside institutional parameters. I don’t know of any Indigenous culture that identifies itself as “religious.” They see their ways as “spiritual,” much like Hindus and Buddhists might.

All of this raises a question about whom we are referring to and what is the ground we stand on when we ask about the place of world “religions” in Catholic theology. 

It would be nice if we could just agree on a proper definition for our purposes and then proceed. It would be nice if we could say that we are going to talk just about the “spiritual” dimension of our various traditions and leave aside the rest. It would also be tempting to just deal with the institutional differences. But, it is not so simple. The institutional dimensions, the belief and ritual systems and the spiritual journey are intimately intertwined in all dimensions in the existence of all these various traditions. We will constantly need to remind ourselves of the distinctions and variations of meaning we assign both to our own traditions and to that of others. We need to use the word “religion” with respect for its complexity. 

Finally, I would like to suggest, as a working principle, that the institutional dimension of religion is ultimately intended (although not always effective) as a support and guidance for the pathway or spiritual journey dimension of religion. This may be an important distinction for us as we proceed.

I suggest that we agree to swallow the complexity and try to be a clear as we can about what we are talking about at every stage. For example, when we say with the Catholic Church that “outside the Church there is no salvation,” we need to be clear about what dimension of religion we are talking about. When we, as Catholics says, that God wills the salvation of all humanity, indeed of all creation and that Jesus died for all, we need to be very careful how we frame this in the light of the documents of Vatican II. When we say, as some still do, that “pagan” practices are superstitions and idolatry, we need to be very clear about what we are saying and its implication of exclusion. 

Augustine spoke of two sources of revelation, of God’s communication of self to us: the book of creation and the book of the scriptures. We who belong to the monotheistic religions (Jews, Christians, Muslims) are often called “peoples of the book.”

Of course, we are more conscious today that the book of the scriptures is set within the book of creation since human words, events and writing are all part of God’s creation. In the scriptures we find God speaking through events of nature: volcanic eruptions, floods, parting waters, famine and disease, storms on the sea, sowing the seed and reaping the harvest, through political events like battles and voyages, through dreams. These are often set in the form of stories and parables. There are also rituals that evoke and commemorate all these events. Moreover, at times, certain prophets proclaim the word of God as a warning to the people who have wandered from the covenant that God has proclaimed between himself and them. In fact, God never speaks outside the context of creation; it is through the natural that God reveals the Word.

From the viewpoint of the receiver of the word, there is therefore the natural events of life, whether something extraordinary like a battle or bread falling from the skies or something quite ordinary like seeing a broken jar lying at the side of the road. This natural moment takes on a special character for the person who is attentive in faith to God’s speaking and, through the encounter, reveals a deeper dimension that speaks God’s word. Jeremiah raises the question whether one can always be confident of the word that is spoken. When it is God who speaks we can be certain but since we are imperfect hearers, we can doubt. The doubt is not whether God speaks but whether we have listened correctly.

The fact that God speaks through the events of our lives, means that God always speaks from within the limitations of human perception and language. God however is not limited. God is totally other. Yet God limits himself to our framework of communication. Moreover, we have no way to speak of our experience of God’s revelation except through the context of creation, of human language. Because God’s word is mysterious (utterly filled with light to the point of blinding us), we are aware that our attempts to express it fall short. The most adequate human language for expressing God’s word is analogy expressed in ritual, story, analogy. This sort of language leaves open the possibility of discovering deeper understanding. This is true of God’s word as embodied in the scriptures and also of the doctrines, rituals and wisdom shared today in our faith communities. Speculative theology attempts to draw out a rational understanding of doctrines but can never replace the analogies which ground them. 

All of this will become significant when we come to the incarnation of the Word in Jesus and the elevation of Jesus as Christ the Lord after the resurrection. 

Historically the Christological doctrine developed before that of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity wasn’t entirely complete before around the 8^th century. Ultimately, the emphasis here is on the unicity of God and the distinction between Father and Son.

First of all, Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, is a monotheistic religion at least in Christian eyes. The Jews of course have great difficulty with the divinity of Christ. They see this as creating two gods. Islam also has difficulty seeing Christianity as monotheistic. It is extremely important, in today’s world, for us to continue to insist that God is One. There is only one God.

Therefore, when we speak of Trinity, we are talking of a reality that is interior to one God and in no way divisive of the unicity of God. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. But, there is only one God. More than that, it is a doctrine of the Catholic Church that all actions God directs to the exterior (creation in particular and also salvation/liberation) are actions of all three persons of the Trinity. This is the doctrine. And already it is full of analogies: Father, Son, Spirit. Doctrines posit statements of faith, not theology.  Almost always they are rooted in analogies. Analogies are always somewhat ambiguous: they are and are not entirely representations of the reality. The Father is father, but not quite like your or my father. The Son is son but not quite like you or I are sons. God is one and three but the references to numbers is also analogous since we are speaking of the divine, who manages to embody and escape all that. 

Again, doctrines do not posit any explanation. They are statements of faith. The Church never endorses a particular theology - other than to say, Nihil Obstat. The doctrine about Christ says that Jesus incarnates the Second Person of the Trinity, or more accurately, is the only begotten Son of God. The doctrine says that there are three persons in one God. These are doctrinal statements of faith, not systematic theology. When Bernard Lonergan speaks of a stage of theology called doctrine, he is pointing to the effort to determine exactly what the Church has said and how and when. This is different from systematic theology, which offers rational explanations to help us understand those doctrinal statements of faith. In some way, I suppose it could be said that doctrine operates on the basis of truth and systematic theology on the basis of verified hypotheses: Does it adequately explain the doctrine?

The Church has stated, over time, that the Trinity is made up of three persons: Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. However, right from the start we are back to analogy. There are several words here that must be taken analogically and not literally. They are called persons. But, they are not quite persons like human persons. There is an analogy, but there are also differences. I don’t want to go into any precise descriptions of the difference between the two. Surely, we don’t think that the Father became so in begetting the Son in the same way my father begot me! It is an analogy. Yet it is not a metaphor. There is some real semblance between what is the normal usage of the word and this, its analogical usage. The same is true for the Holy Spirit. And, the whole traditional theology of the trinity, derived largely from Athanasius, is a piece of systematic theology that helps us (in the best of cases) understand how it could be that one God is, in some respect, three. I should add that, in order to explain the internal nature of the three persons of the Trinity, the basic reference is not so much to family as to the generation of Word and Love. We can come back to that later. 

I do not question either the doctrine (dogma in fact) or the theology. But, I do want to point out the distinction between a statement of doctrine and a theological explanation of that statement.

The distinction between doctrine and theology is true also of the incarnation. We say that Jesus is one person (a divine person in fact, the Son of the Father, the Word of God) with two natures (Council of Calcedon). This is doctrine and it is full of analogous terms: person, son word, nature. However, the explanation of how this works is a matter for speculative theology. The doctrine of Nicea (that Jesus is divine) is a statement of faith; the theology is not. The series of analogies - son, word, person, nature - are taken from human experience, stated in the doctrine and then given a theological explanation subsequently. The theological explanation is not a matter of faith but an attempt to help us understand the doctrine, which is a requirement. 

Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, the second person of the Trinity. This is who he is as a person. He is not a human person; he is a divine person with two natures.

So, then, we come to the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. Who suffered, died and rose? Jesus died. Did God die?  Jesus died and rose. Jesus who was both divine (by nature) and human (by nature). However, Jesus could only die in his human nature. It is not in the nature of God, the second (or any) person of the Trinity to die – or rise again. Jesus, the divine person died as human but not as divine.

This is similar to the explanation of the consciousness of Christ in Bernard Lonergan’s Christology. Jesus was a divine person (ens, being) with two natures. Did Jesus then know everything that God knows? Yes, as a divine person (ens) but not in his human nature. In that he was like every other human being who had to learn. So, God died on the Cross, as Mary can claim to be Mother of God. God died on the cross in the human nature of Jesus. But the distinctions still have to be maintained. God did not die as God but as human in Jesus. There is only one ens or being: that of God.

Jesus died for the salvation/liberation of the whole world, all peoples – according to the writings of Paul and confirmed by Church teaching throughout its history. But the salvation/liberation of the whole world could take place not because of the human nature of Jesus but because of the union of that human nature with the divine nature of the person who is the Word in the Trinity. Moreover, that divine nature does not suffer the same limitation as the human nature of Jesus. The power of the Word is divine, extensive and enduring. 

The final step is to consider what Christology might mean for a statement that affirms the traditional doctrine that Jesus died and rose to save all mankind and that it is only through the church (the community of believers) that we can be “saved” while going on to say that the divine Word through the agency of the Holy Spirit can inspire men and women who have not been baptized. (By the way, the wording of a theology, or of a doctrinal statement, is obviously limited to the capacity of human language. That is why analogy is so helpful because it points, in some way, beyond the words. Our faith is faith in someone, in the Word, not words.)

You will remember that when Peter went to visit the home of Cornelius, he encountered a group of people on whom the Spirit of God fell as in Pentecost (Acts 10. See also Peter’s vision and visit in Acts 11). This was before Peter baptized them. Thus, the Spirit works in us before baptism, that is before our formal entry into the Church. We are made holy before baptism while technically still outside the Church. In adult catechumens, faith is present before baptism. Thus, the statement that we cannot be saved outside the church/Church, needs to be somewhat qualified. God does give faith before entry into the Church. Obviously in this case, the process led to affirmation of faith in Christ. But, the principle remains that baptism is not a sine qua non for the saving action of God. 

Jesus, who died on the cross is also the Divine Word whose action extends throughout all creation with God’s own freedom to act. While, in his human nature, Jesus saving act is limited to those whom he is able to reach through direct contact, the same is not true of his divine nature.

It is clear from John that the key criterion for recognizing the presence of God’s Spirit at work is agape (love). (Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.) We know that billions of people throughout the world and throughout history have lived exemplary lives, filled with self-sacrificing love that cannot be named other than being lives of agape. Agape is the work of the Holy Spirit; it is the work of the Trinity; it is the primary sign and core reality of living in the saving grace of the Risen Christ.

We also know that for many – the majority – of these people, the motivating factor in their life of agape has been their participation in religious traditions of their culture: Hindu, Islam, Buddhist, Indigenous or other. These systems of belief and ritual have nourished them in developing lives of agape. It seems to me not too broad a leap to affirm that these traditions have been paths to agape for them, paths leading them to God. God is love, God is agape. The church, the community of believers, the mystical body of Christ can be found wherever agape is found.

God established a covenant with Adam and Noah, then with Abraham, then with Moses and further on with David. Finally, we have the New Covenant offered us in Jesus. When God establishes a covenant, as the people slowly learned, God never retires it; it is an everlasting covenant. This is true for Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. Those covenants remain. “I have not come to abolish the Law…” It is true for the covenant offered through Jesus. The question, for me, at this point is also whether there could be further covenants. God might establish a covenant with peoples in Africa, Asia, Latin America. Where would Jesus fit in?

I am speaking from a Christian perspective. I am trying to understand their experience out of my own tradition and put words to it. I am attempting a speculative theology based in part on the doctrines of Catholicism and the challenges of a grasp of the history and contemporary situation of humanity. I am trying, in the spirit of Gaudium et spes from the Second Vatican Council, to discern the Signs of the Times, the ways in which the Spirit of God moves not just in the Church but throughout the world.

My suggestion is that God indeed could and does act in shaping and inspiring traditions other than Christian and not just as a stopgap measure before everyone joins the Church. (After 2000 years, I think it fairly safe to say that a world in which everyone was Catholic is highly improbable, without prejudice to what may happen at the Parousia.  I would argue that God works primarily in the “world” (God’s nascent and largely hidden kingdom) and that it is largely the role of the Church to bear witness to that transforming action.

All the covenants (including those with non-Christian religions) go in the same direction and issue from the same source. They are all covenants of fidelity and of agape. And it is hard for me to believe, based on the words of scripture, that God withholds that offer of covenant to anyone, to any people, ever, anywhere. 

In some way I guess my position is somewhat akin to that of Karl Rahner though I don’t like the phrase “anonymous Christian.” I find it patronizing and colonializing. Nevertheless, that God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, is free to work outside the framework of our Catholic institution and doctrinal framework seems to me unavoidable. 

If I am even close to having a slight grasp of truth here, I believe the challenge is enormous for Christians to rethink their whole place in God’s scheme of things. I have no doubt, as a Catholic, in saying that Jesus died for all and that Jesus calls us, above all, to a life of agape such as he himself lived it. But, I am adding that that life of agape is available beyond the boundaries of what we know as the Roman Catholic Church or even of those baptized as Christians. And I am saying that other religious traditions can be, for at least some who live within the framework of those traditions, paths to God. I am saying that the mystical body of Christ is present throughout time and in all nations and religious traditions and that we should be careful not to tread too heavily on Christ’s body.[1]

 

There an interesting collection of contributions in this sense from representatives from about twenty traditions in a book entitled Toward a Global Theology. The question asked of each contributor was: Do you think it is possible to have a common theology? In other words, can we speak of the same God and say something together. I think it is generally much easier for those outside the Christian tradition to accept that our Christian tradition is a way to God than for us to accept theirs.[2]

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[1] I just finished listening to a televised news conference in Ottawa in which a survivor of a residential school told of being raised to be a Catholic and said that she was taught that indigenous traditions were devil worship. There is a famous poster that was used widely by the Oblates in their residential schools to this effect. I think it is called the Lacombe poster.

[2] I have an interesting collection of contributions in this sense from representatives from about twenty traditions in a book entitled Toward a Global Theology that my little Dunamis Publications put out about 10 years ago. I have a whole box of them in my closet!