But the point of this first contribution, as it affects civil society, is this: the presence of the Church, not as a clamorous interest group but as a community confident of its rootedness in something beyond the merely political, expresses a vision of human dignity and mutual human obligation which, because of its indifference to popular success or official legitimation, poses to every other community a special sort of challenge. ”˜Civil society’ is the recognized shorthand description for all those varieties of human association that rest on willing co-operation for the sake of social goods that belong to the whole group, not just to any individual or faction, and which are not created or wholly controlled by state authority. As such, their very existence presupposes persons who are able to take responsibility for themselves and to trust one another in this enterprise. The presence of the Christian community puts to civil society the question of where we look for the foundation of such confidence about responsibility and trustworthiness: does this set of assumptions about humanity rest on a fragile human agreement, on the decision of human beings to behave as if they were responsible, or on something deeper and less contingent, something to which any and every human society is finally answerable? Is the social creativity which civil society takes for granted part of a human ”˜birthright’?
The second major contribution made by the presence of the Church is what we might in shorthand call universalism ”“ not in the technical theological sense, but simply meaning the conviction that every human agent is involved in either creating or frustrating a common good that relates to the whole human race. In plainer terms, we cannot as Christians settle down with the conclusion that what is lastingly and truly good for any one individual or group is completely different from what is lastingly and truly good for any other. Justice is not local in an exclusive sense or limited by circumstances; there are no classes or subgroups of humanity who are entitled to less of God’s love; and so there are no classes entitled to lower levels of human respect or compassion or service. And since an important aspect of civil society is the assumption that human welfare is not achieved by utilitarian generalities imposed from above but requires active and particularized labour, the fact of the Christian community’ presence once again puts the question of how human society holds together the need for action appropriate to specific and local conditions with the lively awareness of what is due to all people everywhere. This is not only about a vision of universal human justice as we normally think of it, but also applies to how we act justly towards those who are not yet born ”“ how we create a just understanding of our relation to the environment.
In short, the significance of the Church for civil society is in keeping alive a concern both to honour and to justify the absolute and non-negotiable character of the human vision of responsibility and justice that is at work in all human association for the common good. It is about connecting the life of civil society with its deepest roots, acknowledged or not. The conviction of being answerable to God for how we serve and respect God’s human and non-human creation at the very least serves to ensure that the human search for shared welfare and responsible liberty will not be reduced to a matter of human consensus alone. And if the Church ”“ or any other community of faith ”“ asks of society the respect that will allow it to be itself, it does so not because it is anxious about its survival (which is in God’s hands), but because it asks the freedom to remind the society or societies in which it lives of their own vulnerability and their need to stay close to some fundamental questions about the nature of the humanity they seek to nourish. Such a request from Church to society will be heard and responded to, of course, only if the Church genuinely looks as though it were speaking for more than a self-protecting set of ”˜religious’ concerns; if it appears as concerned for something more than self-defence. To return to what was said earlier, it needs to establish its credentials as ”˜non-violent’ ”“ that is, as not contending against other kinds of human group for a share in ordinary political power. To put it in severely condensed form, the Church is most credible when least preoccupied with its security and most engaged with the human health of its environment; and to say ”˜credible’ here is not to say ”˜popular’, since engagement with this human health may run sharply against a prevailing consensus. Recent debates on euthanasia offer a case in point; and even here, it is surprisingly often claimed that the churches are concerned here only to sustain their control of human lives ”“ which sadly illustrates what all too many in our society have come to expect of the Church.
What a bunch of intellectual hooey. Not one word about the primary mission of the church to lead people to Jesus Christ. In fact, Ghandi is given more prominence than Christ.
If churches cannot convey the difference between “control over human lives” and being obedient children of God who desire to do their Father’s will, then they deserve to be empty.
Less attention needs to be paid to what the world says and thinks about us….they will never “get it” because their minds have been darkened. We need to set our minds and hearts on Christ and the things of His Kingdom.
Reading this demonstrates the reason the great cathedrals of England are largely empty, except for tourism and concerts, and why many church leaders are increasingly seen as irrelevant. The Archbishop of Canterbury is quickly resembling the UK’s monarchy.
what a gift to have such a humble, yet brilliant theologian in a leadership role at this moment in creation
contrast this with stuff that comes out of the mouth of mohler or dobson, who are simply an annex for a political party and a theology that is grounded in the head (rather than the soul)
As for the grounding of this, Bob, I’d say it owes more to the head than anything, which, here is not a bad thing — but the message embodied in his words speaks correction to both reasserters and reappraisers, I believe. It is very disengenuous (sp?) of you if you are claiming that there are no political ends on the reappraising side.
To me the beating heart of this passage is here:
The conviction of being answerable to God for how we serve and respect God’s human and non-human creation at the very least serves to ensure that the human search for shared welfare and responsible liberty will not be reduced to a matter of human consensus alone. And if the Church – or any other community of faith – asks of society the respect that will allow it to be itself, it does so not because it is anxious about its survival (which is in God’s hands), but because it asks the freedom to remind the society or societies in which it lives of their own vulnerability and their need to stay close to some fundamental questions about the nature of the humanity they seek to nourish.
just to clarify Sherry, I agree with you
Who is going to wade through sentences of 82 words or longer? RW has a reputation for profundity but quite often I think it is obscurity and atrociously bad writing style. By contrast, Ratzinger is a model of clarity. You may not agree with what he says but he’s usually clear.
RW needs a good editor. A few tips:
Try to keep the sentences down to 25 words or fewer.
Don’t start one theme in a sentence before diverting to discuss another.
Don’t fill up sentences saying what the issue is NOT, but what it is.
Have a lapidary sentence that says hard and clear what you think.
I agree that Dr. Williams prose is challenge, as is his thought, but I think that the effort is worth it, and he should not be dismissed so lightly. I think he is at his best when he writes on the theology of art and comments on the wide range of his reading of fiction. I was told that during his recent sabbatical he finished a manuscript on Dostoyevsky. My wife and i have been watching the Russian TV adaptation of “The Idiot,” a marvelous production you can rent on Netflix. I look forward to reading what Dr. Williams has to say about this profound novel.
BTW, one of the things the two theologians Benedict XVI and Rowan Williams have in common is an appreciation for the writings on the theology of art by the German RC theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. (I believe Ratzinger was a student of von Balthasar’s.)