In November of 2013, Peter Leithart published a controversial
article in First Things entitled “The
End of Protestantism.” The article lived up to its provocative title, proposing
in the opening lines that, “The Reformation isn’t over. But Protestantism is,
or should be.” Acknowledging the positive fruits and necessities of the Reform,
Leithart nevertheless proposes that Protestants need to “envision new ways of
being heirs to the Reformation”—a way rooted in positive theology as opposed to
the negative (or anti-Catholic) theology which has defined Protestantism for
the last few centuries. This would be achieved, muses Leithart, through a
return to the original catholicity of the reformers and a reform of the Reform,
thereby correcting the errors of contemporary and often non-liturgical
denominationalism.
Both exciting and precarious,
Leithart’s project offers new insights into ecumenical discussion.
Nevertheless, his project suffers the susceptibility of becoming an “in-house”
conversation within Protestantism, thereby leaving out one of the more
important players in western ecumenical dialogue—Rome. While most Roman
Catholics would laud Leithart’s attempts to “catholicize” Protestantism through
a critical and corrective analysis of the Protestant tradition, they would (and
do) simultaneously see his project in exactly the manner I have described it—an
in house dialogue on the “other” side of the Tiber. After all, how could the
Catholic Church, with her robust magisterium, correct herself in like manner?
Granted, in not doing so, frustrated Christians (including Leithart) deem her a
haughty obstacle to ecumenism. Yet if she were to do so, would not she be
guilty of a far greater haughtiness—the presumption that the present age trumps
all others, and, even worse, that present knowledge can override the Spirit
working in and through history? A critical (and perhaps corrective) analysis of
the past may be necessary to assuage the wound of division that threatens the
claims of the Church, yet that very same analysis could inevitably undermine
the credo which makes her the Church.
What is a Catholic theologian to do?
I. Essentialism, Relativism, and the Middle Distance
Two opposite and equally perilous positions threaten the
Catholic theologian examining ecclesiology. Some, on the one hand, purport a
Church in possession of all truth with a capital “T”—fully revealed, fully
understood, and fully transcending any historical context. On the other hand,
some suggest that the truth of the church changes constantly with history and
peoples, all ultimately being subject to revision. As Nicholas Lash writes in
his book Theology on the Way to Emmaus,
“The opinions with which we are presented in these matters are often
exceedingly stark: either unwarranted metaphysical assertion or unrestrained
relativism; either ‘absolute knowledge’ or ‘mere belief.’”
Lash proposes, in response to such impasses, a theory of
“middle distance”—looking neither from the peak of an all-transcendent mountain
(which is impossible) nor independently from amidst the thicket of the present
(which is absurd). Instead, the theologian must recognize his own subjectivity
and historical contingency, while simultaneously acknowledging the shoulders
upon which he stands. He must “transcend present circumstances sufficiently to
discover something of where we have come from,” all the while realizing his
inability to entirely transcend where we are. This position is undoubtedly
uncomfortable, disallowing the theologian to “pick a side” in the insufficient
and inappropriate “liberal/conservative Catholic” divide. Yet this balance is
necessary, for it simultaneously recognizes historical disconnect and what
Rowan Williams calls “the recognition that some sort of conversation is
possible across surprisingly wide gaps in context and understanding” (Why Study the Past, 29). This middle distance is only possible,
however, if the theologian embraces a disposition of ‘Perhaps.’
II. A Theology
of ‘Perhaps’
In the introduction to his acclaimed Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger posits that in every
person there exists a disconcerting but inevitable mix of faith and doubt.
Every thoughtful Christian asks, “But, perhaps it is false;” and every staunch
atheist likewise ponders, “But, perhaps it is true.” Nothing ex Cathedra can ever eliminate this
“perhaps”—in fact, this ‘perhaps’ keeps theologians employed. The ‘perhaps’ in
the heart of the believer calls the theologian, with the Church, to an
examination of conscience. If doctrine goes unheeded, ought the Church change
her teaching, or simply re-articulate her teaching in the language of the times?
Without this ‘perhaps,’ and thus without this question, all evangelization
becomes impossible, and theology devolves into contemporary politics—a shouting
match between two platforms.
The ‘perhaps’ of the believer also reminds the theologian of
his roots—that faith is not a list of tenets (a.k.a. a partisan platform) but a
relationship with a person—the person of Jesus Christ. Thus the purpose of
doctrine and dogma is the preservation and expression of the memory of this person—expressed first
and foremost in His own historical contingency, and subsequently in His
transcendence and enduring Presence as Lord of History. If all doctrine is,
therefore, the memory of the person of Jesus Christ, language of “revision” and
“change” becomes far less appealing. Instead, perhaps the words “rediscover”
and “develop” prove more adequate. The person of Jesus can never be altered,
yet how that Person is received through faith can be adapted according to
historical circumstances—so long as that
adaptation remains faithful to the person of Jesus in history.
This “perhaps”, however, does not negate the need for
dogma—quite the contrary. If the Church is to remain “the Church” in any real
sense of the term, then dogma must also remain dogma because the person of Jesus is a real, historical person who cannot
be “made to order” according to contemporary needs. Of course, the question
arises: who do we fundamentally preserve in “preserving Jesus”—the Jesus of the
Gospels, the “historical Jesus”? Ratzinger writes in his essay “Seven Theses on
Christology and the Hermeneutic of Faith”: “The center of the life and person
of Jesus is his constant communication with the Father.” The Sonship of Jesus,
which reveals his relationship to the Father and therefore his person and
nature, must be the heart of any Christology, and therefore any doctrine. Thus,
for example, the philosophical language of Chalcedon, far from imposing
paganism on the purity of the Gospels, in fact retrieved the very heart of the
Gospel and re-articulated that reality in
order to preserve that reality. The homoousias
so controversial in the fifth century successfully preserved the central
aspect of the person of Jesus: his Sonship in relation to the Father. Likewise,
any contemporary attempt to re-articulate doctrine must primarily seek to
re-articulate that Sonship of Jesus in order to preserve that Sonship.
III. Liturgy as Middle Distance
This simplification of the Christological question, however
helpful, does not resolve the dichotomy between classic “liberal” and
“conservative” archetypes, for both seek to preserve the Sonship of Jesus, with
the former deeming ancient language an obstacle to that preservation and the
latter deeming that same language essential to preservation. Yet Ratzinger
offers another criteria which may aid in mediation. He writes, “Since the
center of the person of Jesus is prayer, it is essential to participate in his
prayer if we are to know and understand him.” The gap between history and dogma
is first and foremost bridged through a hermeneutic of prayer—the lex orandi, the encounter between Jesus
Christ and the disciple. This prayer precedes all conciliar creeds, for the
creed renders explicit what the faithful know implicitly in prayer. This
prayer, however, is not merely the private prayer of the individual, but that
prayer bound to and inseparable from the prayer of the Church: the liturgy.
When the Church prays “Do this in memory of me,” the whole mystery of the
person of Jesus Christ becomes present in bread and wine, and the faithful
encounter the totality of revelation in a single moment. If ever there were an acceptable
“essentialism”—a moment which transcends the historically contingent thicket of
the present—this is it. In the liturgy, the believer encounters the Person of
Jesus Christ preserved in the maternal memory of the Church; and sent from this
source, the believer seeks to relay this Person to the world. This is the
mission of the Catholic theologian in every age.
IV. The Future of Ecumenism
What aspects of this memory, then,
can be corrected or refreshed? Peter Leithart has proposed that Protestantism
has forgotten its catholic roots, and therefore needs a new reformation; and it
should be no surprise, given where our inquiry has led, that his solution
emphasizes liturgical reform. This, perhaps, proves the greatest virtue or vice
of Leithart’s project. Perhaps he desires to move toward a common Protestant
liturgy—one which recognizes the centrality of the Eucharist as the reformers
themselves did. Thus perhaps he hopes that, common liturgy “in hand,” a
Protestantism of common and catholic substance can then begin productive
dialogues with Rome, as has been the case for years between Rome and
Constantinople.
Yet the question remains, as was
posed in the introduction: can the Catholic theologian “move toward the center”
to the same degree? We are now equipped to rephrase the question: to what
degree can the liturgy “move toward the center”? Indeed, while the Roman
Catholic Church can adapt liturgy to cultural practices and norms, as evidenced
beautifully in, for example, the Anglican Ordinariate, she cannot adapt the
very heart of the liturgy—the relationship between the Father and the Son
revealed in the Eucharistic mystery. And lest one mistake this mystery for an
independent constant in the field of liturgical experimentation, the Catholic
Church also cannot sever this essential mystery from the history to which it is
bound. Just as an event remembered cannot be separated from the faculty of
memory, so too the Person remembered in the liturgy cannot be separated from
the faculty preserving that memory—the Petrine
office, the creed, and the communion
of saints.
This conclusion undoubtedly frustrates ecumenical efforts on
every side. Yet this conclusion does not render the Catholic immune from
penitential history—a fortressed elite patiently waiting for others to forge
the Tiber. Though they can never repent of the chair of Peter, the Real
Presence in the Eucharist, or the credo which
affirms their prayer (to do so would be to repent of Jesus Christ himself),
Catholic theologians must nevertheless place their hands into the wounds of the
divided Body of Christ, realizing, as Thomas did, that we are as responsible as
they. With this realization, the Catholic theologian must look for ways to
integrate Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and others into the large and eclectic body
which is the Catholic Church. They must seek to incorporate the richness of the
Protestant tradition within the embracing colonnade of St. Peter’s. They must
not wait, dwelling in the illusion of a Promised Land (as, perhaps, was previously the case), but rather must “put out
into the deep” as a fellow ship in via.
The Catholic theologian can never aband
on his own ship—as Leithart and others
perhaps hope—yet he also can never abandon other ships to their own devices.
Rather, he must seek to bring the myriad vessels of Protestantism under a
single captain, to journey together toward the eschaton with Peter at the helm.
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