Media
people know that conflict sells. “When it bleeds, it leads.” When you can show
video of people protesting, or quote someone disagreeing with an accepted idea,
viewers and readers perk up.
My
old theological textbook followed a medieval format that is supposed to go back
to Peter Abelard: “sic et non.” Pro
and con. Make a statement and then present arguments for the statement and
arguments against the statement. The opponents to the statement were the
“adversaries,” usually Protestants.
Our
textbooks were not exciting—the adversaries were often straw men. The textbook
authors didn’t want to make the other side look too appealing, or students
might get wrong ideas. Our seminary was physically isolated, in the cornfields
of southern Illinois. There were Protestants in southern Illinois, but we never
set foot off the property so we were in no danger of meeting any.
We
live in a vastly different environment today. We live with adversaries from
morning to night, beginning with members of our own families. How many devout
Catholic parents lament children who don’t go to church any more? And then
there are the media. We swim in world views that ignore religious traditions, a
business world that seems never to have heard of the Sermon on the Mount. The
Republican Party thinks that the center of the country, where religion still
survives, can overcome the coastal cultures that regard religion as your
grandparents’ fantasies. But what if the coastal cultures are the future?
They
are the future.
We
need to use our adversaries, not lament them.
We
should never state a religious belief without engaging with the people who
don’t accept that belief. I think that reading the Gospels makes my life
richer. What makes your life richer? What does a rich life look like?
Straw
men won’t work. We need to be talking directly with living adversaries, people
who have really different ways of looking at things from the ways we look at
them. Our goal isn’t to convert the adversaries. Our goal is to understand our
own beliefs better.
This
reminds me of the “rules for ecumenical dialog” that I first heard from the
Jesuit Gustav Weigel back in the early 1960s:
1.
I state my belief as clearly and honestly as I can.
2.
You state your belief as clearly and honestly as you can.
3.
Let the Holy Spirit determine the outcome.
Now
we can’t just walk up to people on the street and start talking religion. We
need a pretext to talk religion. We need a structure to make conversation
acceptable.
One
such structure is the PSR class, the “parish school of religion” that most
parishes use. Here is what we say as Catholics, and here is why we say it. Who
disagrees with it? Can we listen to people who disagree? Can we imagine what
they are thinking? Can we get one of them to come to the class and talk with us
about what they think?
There
have got to be other pretexts for talking religion. Let us get creative.
Catholicism
has a rich history of engaging with secular cultures. After a clumsy start
(Galileo) we have engaged with the sciences. We don’t need to protect each
other from dangerous ideas. We need to face dangerous ideas head on, trusting
that the Spirit will help us in the exchange.
I
have a sense that much of our religious instruction is boring. It’s boring
because it doesn’t make us use our intellectual muscles. It is grounded in
fear. It doesn’t capitalize on our adversaries.
Adversaries
are not enemies. They are people like us, trying to live rewarding lives just
like us, swamped by cultural demands and forces just like us. Sure, there are
some people with bad intentions among them, but there are people with bad
intentions among us. Even the evil adversary can become an ally—look at Saul of
Tarsus.
We
should welcome adversaries, and use them to deepen our understanding of what we
believe and live by.
