"The Catholic story went like this." No, it didn't. [Ecumenical

And then there is David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, who upholds the ancient (nearly 400 years!) Baptist distrust of the Catholic Church—but not for the usual reasons, as demonstrated in his December 3rd column for the American Baptist Press:

The act of reflecting this week, in class, on the development of Catholic social ethics resonated in an unexpected way with the situation facing Christians today. It became clearer than ever to me that when Christians become cultural reactionaries, they doom the church to irrelevance.

The Catholic story went like this: After the Reformation, for centuries the Catholic Church postured itself in a defensive crouch. It missed the opportunity to respond to the challenge posed by the Reformation. It resisted creative engagement with modern science. It held onto a feudal-agrarian economic vision long after industrialization and capitalism. It resisted political liberalism and modern democratic movements. It resisted egalitarianism in gender relations. It resisted birth control and legal divorce. It resisted its own loss of political power and cultural hegemony. It resisted the separation of church and state.

In all of these matters, the Catholic Church dug in its heels and just said “no.”

Ah, the blasted, stubborn Catholic Church, always playing defense in an offensive world. Of course, half of what Gushee says is false and the other half elicits the fair reply, "So what?" (Nevermind that terms like "cultural reactionaries" and "defensive crouch" and "creative engagement" mean little if anything at all, being simply empty buzzwords with all the substantive content of a slightly stale, badly burnt marshmellows.)

For example, did the Catholic Church respond to the challenge of the Reformation? Yes, of course, and most people familiar with European history are at least vaguely aware of what is commonly called the "Counter-Reformation," which included (but was not limited to) the Council of Trent (1545-63). As historian Christopher Dawson noted in The Dividing of Christendom (Image, 1967), "this religious revival ... created the spiritual ideals and theological norms and ecclesiastical administration of modern Catholicism, and in the second place, it inspired the new forms of humanist or post-humanist culture, generally known as the Baroque, which became dominant in the 17th century" (p. 156). Dawson goes on to also mention the movement of Christian Humanism (featuring Erasmus), the growth of Italian mysticism (St. Philip Neri, among others), and the tradition of Spanish mysticism (St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross). Dawson argued that the cultural, social, and political greatness of the Spanish culture in the 16th century was due directly to "the Catholic revival" and "the new moral dynamism which it introduced into the ecclesiastical world," a revival featuring none other than St. Ignatius of Loyola. He further noted that the terms "Counter-Reformation" and "Baroque" have an undeserved "pejorative sense" among those who are wedded to the cult of "progress." The "Baroque culture represents the alliance of two traditions—the humanist tradition of the Renaissance and the tradition of medieval Catholicism as revived or restored by the Counter-Reformation" (p. 159). Without belaboring the point any further, we can see that the Catholic Church was not crouching, but creating; not failing to respond, but responding quite vigorously and positively. Meanwhile, the Baptists were...well, not yet in existence.

What of the alleged resisting of "creative engagement with modern science"? It appears that Gushee has drunk deeply from the well of Enlightenment waters, seemingly unaware that without the Catholic Church there wouldn't be such as a thing as "modern science." The number and influence of Catholic philosophers, scientists, astronomers, and such is large and hard to miss—unless, of course, you don't want facts to interfere with your pet theories and strained historical parallels. (Revealingly, many of Gushee's claims are identical to those tossed about by avowed and self-described secular humanists.)

"It held onto a feudal-agrarian economic vision long after industrialization and capitalism." Because, don't you know, it's so much better to die slaving in a factory for 15 hours a day than to have a piece of land of your own to till and work. One doesn't have to be a Luddite to recognize the many serious problems, both moral and cultural, created by the Industrial Revolution.

"It resisted political liberalism and modern democratic movements." This is a complicated subject, to put it mildly, considering how much scholarly (and polemical) ink has been spilled about what, exactly, constitutes "political liberalism" and "modern democracy." But it can be fairly pointed out that many Europeans of the late 1700s believed that the French Revolution, more than any other event, embodied those qualities. And yet the French Revolution was rooted in an atheistic skepticism that moved quickly to subsume the Catholic Church. So much for the separation of Church and State; during the French Revolution, there was no such separation as the State worked to either destroy or control the Church. And what did the "liberalism" and "democracy" of the Revolution lead to? The murder of tens of thousands and a succession of dictatorships.

"It resisted egalitarianism in gender relations." What, exactly, does this mean? Does Gushee not know that while the Baptists (indeed, all Protestants) did nothing to uphold and defend the dignity of women during the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity (I know, I know, that's not fair), the Catholic Church did do so (see, for example, the arguments of sociologist Rodney Stark, among others). As for more recent centuries, it has been shown that women in many Western societies lost freedoms and rights that they had enjoyed during the medieval era (see, for instance, Régine Pernoud's Women In the Days of the Cathedrals and Those Terrible Middle Ages!).

"It resisted its own loss of political power and cultural hegemony." My, this is indeed damning stuff: the Catholic Church sought to defend herself, her status, and her beliefs! Who does the Catholic Church think she is? The Church founded by Jesus Christ?! Doesn't she realize how important it is to bow low and grovel before the god of Modernity? Etc., etc.

"It resisted the separation of church and state." In part, of course, because the separation of church and state in modern times has almost always had the same result: the church controlled or even destroyed by the state. Duh.

Now, all of this would be interesting and entertaining enough on its own, but there is more:

This is rich stuff. And I don't mean glittery gold rich. Gushee's hastily constructed straw man (the defensive, detached, and narrowminded Catholic Church) was first dismissed with a huff of condescension ("In all of these matters, the Catholic Church dug in its heels and just said 'no.'"), supposedly based on some sort of objective criteria ("when Christians become cultural reactionaries, they doom the church to irrelevance..."), but is now tossed rudely into the vacuum of relativism and radical individualism ("Everyone has to make their own judgment...), which is rooted, so to speak, in the thin air of "creative reflection" and "engagement with real people."

I'm very willing to grant that many Catholics—bishops, priests, laity—fail miserably in many ways, including failing to be witnesses to the Gospel, to engage in a Christ-like manner with the prevalent culture, and to do the difficult work of meeting modern man where he is at without compromising the Faith. But, honestly, is Gushee advocating anything more than simply raising the white flag and strapping oneself giddily to the mast of the Good Ship Modernity? Is he resorting to anything more than empty clichés and vague slogans employed in the service of sloppy polemics?

"Let us," Dorothy Sayers wrote a few decades ago, as she reflected on squishy, anemic forms of Christianity, "in Heaven's name, drag out the Divine Drama from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment heaped upon it, and set it on an open stage to startle the world into some sort of vigorous reaction. If the pious are the first to be shocked, so much the worse for the pious — others will enter the Kingdom of Heaven before them. If all men are offended because of Christ, let them be offended; but where is the sense of their being offended at something that is not Christ and is nothing like Him? We do Him singularly little honor by watering down till it could not offend a fly. Surely it is not the business of the Church to adapt Christ to men, but to adapt men to Christ. (Creed or Chaos?, 24-25).

The liberal, pseudo-orthodox Christian story goes like this: it mistakes accommodation for sophistication, it sacrifices historical fact on the altar of chronological snobbery, and it resorts to sophistry while avoiding real thinking. It gives lip service to theology while cutting political deals contrary to doctrine and dogma. It sells its soul while claiming to be spiritual; it nods to Scripture and tradition with its fingers crossed, its heart cold, and its mind closed. Sadly, many Catholics tell and live that story. As do, apparently, some Baptists.

Regarding the Catholic Church's relevance to political liberty,it is wise to consider this passage from "The History of Freedom in Christianity" by British Historian Lord Acton:

"Looking back over the space of 1,000 years, which we call the Middle Ages to get an estimate of the work they had done, if not towards perfection in their institutions, at least towards attaining the knowledge of political truth, this is what we find:—Representative government, which was unknown to the ancients, was almost universal. The methods of election were crude; but the principle that no tax was lawful that was not granted by the class that paid it; that is, that taxation was inseparable from representation, was recognized, not as the privilege of certain countries, but as the right of all. Not a prince in the world, said Philip de Commines, can levy a penny without the consent of the people. Slavery was almost everywhere extinct; and absolute power was deemed more intolerable and more criminal than slavery. The right of insurrection was not only admitted but defined, as a duty sanctified by religion. Even the principles of the Habeas Corpus Act, and the method of the Income Tax, were already known. The issue of ancient politics was an absolute state planted on slavery. The political produce of the middle ages was a system of states in which authority was restricted by the representation of powerful classes, by privileged associations, and by the acknowledgment of duties superior to those which are imposed by man.

As regards the realization in practice of what was seen to be good, there was almost everything to do. But the great problems of principle had been solved; and we come to the question: How did the sixteenth century husband the treasure which the Middle Ages had stored up? The most visible sign of the times was the decline of the religious influence that had reigned so long. Sixty years passed after the invention of printing, and 30,000 books had issued from European presses, before anybody undertook to print the Greek Testament. In the days when every state made the unity of faith its first care, it came to be thought that the rights of men, and the duties of neighbours and of rulers towards them varied according to their religion; and society did not acknowledge the same obligations to a Turk or a Jew, a pagan or a heretic, or a devil worshipper, as to an orthodox Christian. As the ascendency of religion grew weaker, this privilege of treating its enemies on exceptional principles was claimed by the state for its own benefit; and the idea that the ends of government justify the means employed, was worked into system by Machiavelli. He was an acute politician, sincerely anxious that the obstacles to the intelligent government of Italy should be swept away. It appeared to him that the most vexatious obstacle to intellect is conscience, and that the vigorous use of statecraft necessary for the success of difficult schemes would never be made if governments allowed themselves to be hampered by the precepts of the copy-book.

His audacious doctrine was avowed in the succeeding age, by men whose personal character otherwise stood high. They saw that in critical times good men have seldom strength for their goodness, and yield to those who have grasped the meaning of the maxim that you cannot make an omelette if you are afraid to break the eggs. They saw that public morality differs from private, because no government can turn the other cheek, or can admit that mercy is better than justice. And they could not define the difference, or draw the limits of exception; or tell what other standard for a nation’s acts there is than the judgment which heaven pronounces in this world by success.

Machiavelli’s teaching would hardly have stood the test of parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith. But it gave an immense impulse to absolutism by silencing the consciences of very religious kings, and made the good and the bad very much alike. Charles V offered 5,000 crowns for the murder of an enemy. Ferdinand I and Ferdinand II, Henry III and Lewis XIII, each caused his most powerful subject to be treacherously despatched. Elizabeth and Mary Stuart tried to do the same to each other. The way was paved for absolute monarchy to triumph over the spirit and institutions of a better age, not by isolated acts of wickedness, but by a studied philosophy of crime, and so thorough a perversion of the moral sense that the like of it had not been since the Stoics reformed the morality of paganism."

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