One of the key issues of the Enlightenment that confronts people of faith is the largely successful project to relegate faith and religion to the private sphere. In doing so the ‘public square’ has been evacuated of the presence of the Church, the public profession of faith by the faithful and of public discourse on principles of faith, especially where ethics are concerned. Certainly there are some who speak out, the Pope for one, William Dean in the history of Australia and we cannot discount the influence of these prominent people. But I think it is the case that public political discussion is almost entirely on the subject of mundane civil politics, which is now overwhelmingly about economics.
Yet we sense a dissatisfaction with the uber-rationalism of neoliberal politics and its economics. Even philosophy, which has been no friend to faith, is beginning to doubt the claim of universal rationality suspecting there is something missing. So people like Thomas Nagel reject the material reductionism (that all of what takes place in the universe is able to be explained by biology and its foundational physics and chemistry), that has been a mainstay of atheists like Richard Dawkins.
It has been interesting then, in the last couple of weeks to receive invitations from Melbourne and Monash universities to public square events. The first, at Melbourne University Faculty of Business and Economics, was an event of the Cluster for Organization Society Markets (COSM). This group is interested in the relationship between the market and other spheres of political life – economics, finance, science, arts, music and, to my surprise, religion. COSM plans to conduct a research program on these relationships. The second, at Monash University Business and Economics, was a presentation by Ed Freeman, the founder of Stakeholder Theory – the best (in my view) account of community relationship with business going. His presentation was on the need for business to evolve a ‘new story’, to move away from the old paradigms of profit, production and growth and look to how the business adds value to the community.
In both emergent attitudes to business, economics and community relationship there is a clear opportunity for the viewpoint of the Church to be put. But is the Church the right institution to do this? Metz’ work on public theology distinguishes between anthropological Christianity and incarnational Christianity. The former focuses, obviously, on the human in the world and human institutions and preferences. It is bound in the Church and in this world. The trouble is anthropological Christians have a tendency, where not diverted by worldly idolatry, to become world deniers. Engagement in the public square is problematic for world-deniers, naturally. Metz says the alternative of incarnational Christianity has something to say to the world because it provides a vehicle for hope – in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the promise of his return – the hope of a future that lies outside the limits of the world, and which locates fulfilment outside the world. Eschatology.
Yet, in recognising the God-created-ness of the world, incarnational Christianity has a love for it and seeks to engage, and transform. However, in abandoning the anthropological I wonder if the institution of the Church, at least as we presently know it, has to be a casualty too? Certainly all the traits that make it inward looking must go. It must be prepared to make its claim on truth in terms the secular world can access – 1 Peter 3.15. It must expect to be a minority and yet in community and open to those who are not sharers of its particular faith. It must be bold and prepared to step outside the confines of its community and its buildings. It must make its truth claims boldly but respectfully of those who doubt them; it must not resile from making these claims even when ridiculed. It must never try to simplify faith in order to make it more palatable because that will leech out all its meaning and its beauty, what makes it compelling. Only a confident, well-argued and sophisticated faith will make the grade in this emerging public square.
References:
Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Oxford: Oxford, 2012.
Metz, Johann Baptist. Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology. Translated by J. Matthew Ashley. New York, NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992.