BkRev: Weigel's Evangelical Catholicism

George Weigel, Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st Century Church, New York, Basic Books, 2013, 291 pages

Who is George Weigel? The author, born 1951, is a lifetime Catholic. He studied in Catholic schools. He taught theology in a Catholic seminary. He has written seventeen books, beginning in the mid-1980s. All of the books are about Catholicism, the Catholic movement, or applications of Catholicism to subjects such as "just war" theory. 

George Weigel is not a recluse. After teaching, he became a scholar-in-residence at the World Without War Council of Greater Seattle, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the founding president of the James Madison Foundation, a chairman of Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a co-signer of the "[Protestant] Evangelicals and Catholics Together" document in 1994.[1] George Weigel is thus an activist, specifically an intellectual activist, one who applies the fundamental principles of his worldview to current problems.

To whom is Weigel writing in this book? In Evangelical Catholicism, Weigel writes to Catholics interested in reforming the Church to make the whole movement focused on identifying the message of Christ and then taking that message to the world. The Catholics he writes to, however, are not thoroughly educated in Catholicism. He explains his terms, especially those terms he draws from history. He educates as he proceeds. His instruction, however, is "in-line," that is, presented in small bites as he presents his main argument.

Most of all, Weigel is talking to intellectuals. In Ch. 11, he speaks about reforming professional intellectuals in the Church; examples are theologians teaching in seminaries and universities. However, Weigel's approach throughout the book is geared to intellectually inclined Catholics in all areas of the Church. It is they who will advocate reform and carry it through into action. Weigel is a strong supporter of the principle that ideas cause human actions. See, for example, pp. 173-174, for Weigel's brief discussion of the destructive effects of "bad theology" on even the most dedicated Catholics.

What is the purpose of the book? Weigel wants to reform the Catholic Church, that is, the whole movement of Catholics. He wants the Church to be focused on what Jesus asked his followers to do: Spread the "good news" (gospel) of Jesus to the entire world. To do that effectively, the Church must be evangelical, that is, geared for propagating the gospel. Changing the Church will require "deep" reform, which means reform at every level of the Church and down to fundamental principles of the Church.

What are the subject, theme, and structure of the book? Weigel is a writer's writer. His table of contents is not merely a listing of headings. It is an outline of the book, showing part, chapter, and section headings.

The overall structure of the book is simple. The book has two parts. The first part presents Weigel's view of the reform that the Catholic Church has been supporting for 125 years and is still undergoing, though haltingly and without clarity and consensus. (p. 2) The essence of the reform is reaching back to the time of Jesus, when he charged his followers with the duty of following his commands, including evangelism. In its reform, the Church should be guided by two values, Weigel says. The first is the truths which God revealed, and the second is the mission of spreading Christianity. (p. 92)

The second part of the book suggests ways for Catholics to reform the Church. Weigel offers reforms for each segment of the organized Catholic movement—from the pope down to the great mass of lay Catholics around the world. Weigel does not, however, begin with the top or bottom but with the middle of the hierarchy, the bishops. They, Weigel says (for example, pp. 70, 79, 111-112) are the individuals in the Church who are most directly responsible for the Church in each geographic area (a bishopric, also called diocese).

Weigel next presents reforms for: priests (administered by bishops), the liturgy (the ceremonial rituals), "consecrated" Catholics (nuns, monks, friars), "lay" Catholics, intellectuals, the various individuals who advocate the Church's "public policies," and the papacy (the pope, the College of Cardinals, and the Roman Curia, who are the advisors to the pope).

How does this book relate to the war between reason and mysticism in the USA today? In the perspective of this weblog, the important point about the book is that an experienced, popular, Catholic intellectual is providing a blueprint for improving the Catholic movement's ability to spread mysticism—in the forms of faith, revelation, and holy scripture. His blueprint is educational and orderly, making it the sort of document that can influence other mystics to take action to spread their ideas. His audience includes professional intellectuals, but he appeals mainly to nonprofessional intellectualizers who are transmitters of ideas to the broadest audience, the man in the street. 

Should advocates of reason read this book? I recommend this book only to a few readers, those who are activist advocates of reason and who want to complete their portrait of the Catholic movement—its history, its present state, and its ongoing trends—by looking closely at one influential Catholic intellectual's program of reform to make the Church more evangelical.

For a start on the history of the Catholic movement in the USA, see: Aug. 5, 2013, "BkRev: O'Toole's The Faithful, http://reasonversusmysticism.blogspot.com/2013/08/bkrev-otooles-faithful.html and March 30, 2013, "BkRev: Carroll's The New Faithful, http://reasonversusmysticism.blogspot.com/2013/03/bkrev-carrolls-new-faithful.html

For a start on the present state of the Catholic movement in the USA, see: Aug. 25, 2013, "BkRev: Shaw's American Church," http://reasonversusmysticism.blogspot.com/2013/08/bkrev-shaws-american-church.html

For a start on the ongoing trends of the Catholic movement around the world, and their effect on Catholicism in the USA, see: Sept. 25, 2013, "BkRev: The Future Church," http://reasonversusmysticism.blogspot.com/2013/09/bkrev-allens-future-church.html

Burgess Laughlin

Author of The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith, described here: http://www.reasonversusmysticism.com/

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Weigel.

BkRev: Allen's The Future Church

John L. Allen, Jr., The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church, New York, Crown Publishing (Random House), 2009, 469 pp.

In the USA today, I think, Catholicism is the most powerful advocate of supernaturalism and mysticism. Can a book written about the Catholic movement—by a Catholic, and for Catholics—possibly aid activists dedicated to promoting reason as one's only source of knowledge? This review answers.

What is the subject? The book is about the future of the Catholic Church, the social movement of individuals who support Catholicism as a religion. The author expects no major changes in Catholic doctrines. Instead, the book is partly a prediction about the future relations between potentially conflicting groups within the whole community of Catholics around the world. The book is also about predictions of the Church's relations with the world outside the Catholic community: seculars, Muslims, Jews, and non-Catholic Christians (especially Pentecostal Protestants). 

Who is the author? John L. Allen, Jr. is a journalist who specializes in reporting about the Catholic movement in general and the Vatican in particular. He has written several books, including a biography of Pope Benedict XVI (now retired). Allen strives for objectivity, by which he means a factually accurate, "balanced" account of his subject, an account that states both the views of critics and the views of the subject himself.[1]

Allen (b. 1965) has been immersed in Catholicism all his life: in his early school, in his university studies (philosophy and religion), and in his work as a reporter for CNN, NPR, and others. He developed his ideas and practiced presenting them in a long series of "lectures, keynote speeches, workshops, and addresses" he gave in the two years prior to producing the book. (p. viii) This method of producing a book, first testing the presentation on a small scale, is similar to Leonard Peikoff's long preparation for his book, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out, which I reviewed here.

Who is the intended audience? Allen writes in this book to Catholics who want to understand the large movements around the world that are affecting the Catholic community. (p. 1)

What is the purpose? Allen says:

The aim of this book is to survey the most important currents shaping the Catholic Church today, and to look down the line at how they might play out during the rest of the twenty-first century. (p. 3) 

Some of the trends he examines are long-term changes occurring within the Church community; an example is the growing role of laymen, not clerics (priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes) in doing the non-sacred work of the Church (Ch. 5). Most of the other ten trends Allen identifies are long-term changes occurring outside the Church but call for response from Catholics; an example of an outside trend affecting Catholics is the spread of Islam (Ch. 3).

Allen defines a "trend" as a slow, impalpable, imponderable movement in culture, a movement that works below the surface of daily news events. (p. 3, citing historian Arnold J. Toynbee) He further defines "trend" in the next to the last chapter, "Trends That Aren't." There he names six criteria for designating a cultural change as a trend.

What is the theme? The main message of the book is that the ten trends that Allen identifies are happening now and they will turn the Church upside down. Allen says:

It's important to be clear at the onset about what this book is and what it's not. I'm a journalist, not a priest, theologian, or academic. My role is to document what's happening in Catholicism and provide context for it, not tell readers what to think. This book is therefore an exercise in description, not prescription. I'm not trying to argue that these trends are the way Catholicism ought to go, or the issues it ought to face. I'm saying instead that they accurately express the way Catholicism really is going, and the issues it really is facing. (p. 5)

Most of the book is descriptive. Some passages are prescriptive. For example, on pp. 446-452 Allen warns about the need of Catholics to consider four factors when they decide what to do in their activism. One example is his warning to not rely on Church hierarchy to solve world problems, such as pressure from Islam. Laymen, not clerics ("the hierarchy"), can take immediate and direct action. This "horizontal" solution has succeeded among pentecostal Protestants. (pp. 450-452)

What is the structure? Following the Introduction to the book, ten chapters identify trends the author sees in the Church now and expects to continue through this century. The author identifies a trend and projects its consequences. For example, the first chapter is "Trend One: A World Church." This trend began early in the 1900s, when only 25% of the world's Catholics lived outside of Europe and North America. Now 65% of the world's Catholics live outside Europe and North America. This trend has thus "turned Catholicism upside down," that is, caused a "revolution" in some aspect of the Church. As consequences of this trend, the Church as a whole is becoming more evangelical (focused on spreading the message of Jesus), more charismatic (emotional in rituals), and less intellectual.

Allen organizes each chapter into three sections. (p. 4) The first section is a general introduction to the trend. For the first chapter, "A World Church," the introduction includes imagining an election of a pope from Nigeria. The second section of each chapter is "What's Happening," which describes in detail the trend as it is now; Allen presents that section because he thinks that trends that are evident now and meet certain requirements will likely continue for decades into the future. The third section of each chapter, "What It Means," makes the predictions explicit. Allen is organized; he presents predictions in levels of likelihood: "Near Certain," "Probable," "Possible," and "Long-Shot." Allen says:

The arc of time under consideration here is the rest of the century, meaning roughly ninety years. Farther out than that, all bets are off. (p. 4)

The final chapter of the book is "a stand-alone summary of what impact the trends will have [on the Catholic movement] in the century to come." (p. 4) He summarizes his "descriptive terms for what Catholicism will actually look and feel like in this century." (p. 4) The terms characterizing the future Church are: "Global, Uncompromising, Pentecostal, and Extroverted." (pp. 4-5) "Pentecostal" here means that individual Catholics will be mainly concerned with (1) direct experience of God through the Holy Spirit (accompanied by singing, arm waving, and "speaking in tongues"), and with (2) taking direct action to politically and socially achieve religious goals—rather than relying on the Church hierarchy to plan and implement activities. ("Trend Ten: Pentecostalism," pp. 375-413)

What are defects of the book? Allen presents a mass of information to illustrate and substantiate his points. In a general way, he often names sources in the main text. Unfortunately he has no notes citing exact sources. At the end of the book, in "Suggestions for Further Reading," he presents a chapter-by-chapter list of documents to consult.  Though helpful, it is not an adequate substitute for notes. Being a journalist does not relieve the writer of specifying his sources.

The two-column, seven-page index is helpful but insufficient. It often does not include special terms such as "base ecclesial communities," which apparently means small groups of laymen who come together for one or more common Catholic purposes (Bible study, mutual support, local activism). 

What is the author's style? Allen writes clearly, though loosely and informally. He is organized in presenting his information. If he identifies a number of factors, he then numbers them as he presents them. He presents lists where lists are needed.

Can advocates of reason benefit from reading the book? A slow reading of this book is one course seculars can follow to learn about the Catholic Church: its past, its present, and its likely future. A non-Catholic reader encounters many new terms. Allen often defines special terms as he uses them; for example:

Inevitably, the global character of Catholicism will push it in the direction of what theologians call "inculturation," meaning expressing the faith differently according to the argot and customs of local cultures. Celebrating the Catholic Mass, for example, is a different experience in Nigeria than in India …. (p. 41)

The author's observations about and insights into the mystical Catholic movement might stimulate thinking about the nature of activism for reason. One example is Allen's reminder to readers that various, sometimes competing Christians (such as Catholics and Baptists) can cooperate on common goals without ever uniting organizationally. (p. 53) That might apply to pro-reason activists.

A second example is the author's term creative minorities. Allen borrows the term from historian Arnold Toynbee. It means "subgroups [of a movement] which, because of their passion and vision, exercise influence beyond their numbers. For that to work, these creative minorities must have a solid sense of their own identity and a strong sense of internal cohesion …." (p. 58)

Referring to a Catholic dictionary may aid the serious, pro-reason student who is not already familiar with Catholicism. One example is A Catholic Dictionary, by Donald Attwater; conservative Catholics prefer this. Another example, which I have not yet read, is John A. Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary. A third, an online source, is: http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/.

Would you recommend this book for pro-reason advocates? I would recommend a careful reading of this book to certain activists promoting reason in the USA today. First, it can be useful as a contrast. How do the barriers and opportunities for advocates of reason differ from the advocates of Catholicism in particular and Christianity in general? One example is the importance, for advocates of reason, of knowing the foundations of one's principles; fideists can take anything on faith (though they do have the problem of deciding which of many competing claims to take on faith). Second, the book can be useful as a comparison, that is, looking for similarities. Do all activists, but especially those advocating fundamental principles, face some common problems? An example is the problem of priorities: What tactical steps should the activist emphasize the most or do first?

I am enthusiastic enough about this book that I would like to lead a study group online, a study group devoted to reading and discussing this book in light of Leonard Peikoff's views on predictions in The DIM Hypothesis. The Catholic movement, overall, is a movement of misintegration, the position Dr. Peikoff predicts will dominate the USA within the next generation or two.

Burgess Laughlin

Author of The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith, described here. 

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Allen,_Jr.

BkRev: Shaw's American Church

Russell Shaw, American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2013 (paperback), 233 pages.

For pro-reason activists, is Russell Shaw's American Church worth reading? Shaw is a Catholic writing to Catholics, but his American Church unintentionally aids pro-reason activists in several ways. First, the book provides a profile of today's Catholic Church, possibly the most powerful voice for mysticism in the USA today. That profile enables pro-reason activists to better plan their strategies and tactics for promoting reason and for opposing mysticism. (By "pro-reason activist" I mean someone who concentrates on publicly advocating reason as the only means of knowledge; other activists—for example, advocates who support the right to choose an abortion—may be pro-reason but that is not what they invest most of their time in promoting.)

As a second benefit, the book reminds pro-reason readers that mystics inevitably encounter problems. To the extent that they are mystics in their lives, they are not observing and thinking about reality. Shaw notes occasionally in the book that many Catholics refuse to acknowledge the problems. Readers see, through Shaw's account, Catholics investing money and time into fruitless activities, that is, activities that do not help them achieve their communal purpose, which is to evangelize, which means to spread the words of Jesus. (p. vii)

A third benefit, also not intended by Shaw, is historical perspective. Pro-reason activists reading the book see that here too ideas cause actions in history. The evolving idea of Catholic "Americanism," implemented by leading U.S. Catholics through several generations, has brought the Church in the USA to its present low state, Shaw says. Here Americanism means the process of leading the Church to become "part of the dominant secular culture of the United States." (p. 24)

What is the subject of American Church? Its author says American Church:

is not a history of the Catholic Church in the United States. Rather, it is an attempt to sketch the process by which American Catholics have been assimilated into American culture during the past two centuries and to assess the impact cultural assimilation has had on Catholicism in the United States. (p. xiii)

"Americanization" is the subject of the book: its origin, its nature, its evolution, and its effects. Shaw traces the process from the mid-1800s to today, shows the destructive consequences, and sketches a path to correcting the problems. (p. 24)

Shaw further defines "Americanism," as it appeared among some Catholic intellectuals in the later 1800s: a movement believing at that time that (1) "the world was undergoing radical change"; (2)"America was at the cutting edge of change"; (3) "there was a fundamental and intrinsic compatibility between Catholicism and American culture"; and (4) "the Church in America had a God-given duty to show the rest of the Church, and especially the leadership in Rome, the way to the future as that path was then [in the late 1800s] being marked out in the United States." (p. 42)

US Catholics telling the papacy that America will define the future path of the worldwide Catholic Church provoked a reaction. In 1895, Pope Leo XIII (reigned 1878-1903) condemned Americanism, which he defined as including two ideas: the idea of church/state separation, and the idea that each individual Catholic can be guided by his own individual experience of the Holy Spirit, thus bypassing the Papacy. Both ideas contradicted Catholic doctrine. (pp. 44-48 and 50)

Better than Pope Leo or anyone else could have known at the time, the principal opinions condemned in [Pope Leo XIII's encyclical] Testem benevolentiae have by now become central elements in the ongoing debate about Catholic identity and the future of the Church in the United States. (p. 50)

Shaw shows repeatedly that history matters, though he does not make that lesson explicit.

Around 1900, the term "Americanism" came to also refer to modernism. (pp. 51-55) The principles of modernism relevant to a Catholic context are: (1) "immanentism—the idea that religion expresses a human need rather than conveys divine revelation"; and (2) religious evolution, the idea that there is no fixed truth coming from revelation in the ancient past. (p. 52) Modernism leads to relativism and individual subjectivism. (p. 53) Among the Church hierarchy, the association of Americanism with modernism doomed Americanism as an officially promoted Church doctrine, even in the USA. That idea nevertheless continued to affect American Catholics by leading them to adopt more and more elements of the secular culture around them. (pp. 57-58 and 68) Meanwhile, the secular culture was moving farther and farther from its Enlightenment beginning.

Shaw does not fully unpack the historical package-deal of "secularity." In the early 1800s, the Enlightenment still heavily influenced secular culture of the USA. By the 1900s "secular" culture included large elements of "modernism," in the sense of anti-Enlightenment—that is, anti-reason—elements such as relativism and skepticism. Thus pro-reason advocates and conservative Catholics have a common enemy in modernism, but for radically opposed reasons. The three choices are reason, mysticism, and skepticism. Shaw does not discuss that trichotomy. His concern is only with the Church of mysticism against the  "secular" culture of philosophical skepticism (which rejects all knowledge, whether rational or revealed).

What are Shaw's qualifications for writing American Church? Shaw is a journalist and freelance writer. He is a competent writer. He explains peculiarly Catholic ideas clearly enough to show their long-term consequences in action. His historical narrative is the core of the book, but he stops at appropriate times to introduce required background information.

For 18 years, Shaw was director of media relations for two organizations. One was the National Conference of Catholic Bishops; the other was the United States Catholic Conference. Both formed in 1966; they combined in 2001 as the U. S. Catholic Conference (USCC).

Shaw has also written Nothing to Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church (2008). It examines the destructive role of secrecy practiced by leaders of the Catholic Church in the USA. Shaw holds that secrecy, especially by clerics (the priests, bishops, and others mystically "ordained" for their role), destroys the purpose of the Church, which is to establish a communion among believers in Christ. Clerical secrecy is only one element of the story of failures Shaw presents in American Church.

What is Shaw's purpose in writing his book? Shaw's long-term purpose is to change the direction of the Catholic Church in the USA. He thinks the main indicators show the Church is collapsing. He wants to convince other Catholics of that problem, and then offer them a way to restore the Church to its dual role of making its members holy and spreading the word of Jesus to non-Catholics. (pp. xiii, 2, 24, 194)

Is Shaw writing only to Catholics? Shaw writes to Catholics about Catholics of the past, present, and future. His choice of audience does not exclude others, even advocates of reason alone. Many Catholics know little about their own Church. Shaw explains the facts of what the Church is and does, and then shows the significance of those facts. An example is the story of Catholic intellectuals and evangelists, Isaac Hecker (1819-1888) and Orestes Brownston (1803-1876).

In their collaboration and also in their conflict, these two unusual men framed what remains the perennial question for Catholics in the United States: Can Catholics be both fully American and also faithfully Catholic? (p. 25)

Shaw then proceeds to substantiate that claim. (pp. 25-34) At the end of that segment, he shows the values involved, for Catholics. Further, Shaw, who worries about the future of the Church he loves, suggests that Hecker and Brownson's conflict might provide elements for a solution to the problems the Church faces today.

What is the theme of American Church? The theme has three parts: First, the Catholic Church in the USA is collapsing. Shaw says:

My own view is that the current situation of American Catholicism is alarming, with the future a matter of deep concern. The Mass attendance rate in the United States on any given Sunday … is now 30% or less nationwide; in the 1950s and 1960s it was around 75%. Similar sharp declines in participation in the rest of the Church's sacramental life have also taken place—baptisms, confirmations, and Catholic marriages are all down. Three Catholics out of four receive the sacrament of penance ("go to confession") less than once a year [instead of weekly]—or never.

Vocations ["callings"] to the priesthood and religious life [in monasteries and convents] have plummeted …. Poll results repeatedly show that the attitudes, values, and practices of many, possibly most, America Catholics—including attitudes toward the Church—mirror secular American attitudes, values, and behaviors rather than those of their Catholic tradition.

(pp. 22-23)

Second, the Church in the USA is failing because its main intellectual leaders accepted the idea of Americanism,  the idea, originating in the 1800s, holding that American secular culture is good and the Church should adapt to it. (pp. 42-45)

Third, the way to revive the Church in the USA (and around the world), Shaw says, is to reject secular culture and return to personal holiness, including Jesus's instruction to take his message to the world at large—evangelism. (pp. 201-202, 205-206, and 208-210)

Shaw sees some signs of a new, emerging Catholic subculture. He emphases that this new subculture might be good or bad, but it is in the process now of growing "organically." He wants a growth of such a subculture to be by design not by happenstance. (pp. 194-196) He says:

… the primary purpose of the subculture … should be to preserve, foster, and transmit the Catholic identity of Catholics .… (p. 199)

The new, arising subculture is a conservative Catholic subculture. (Shaw does not use the word "conservative.") Two example elements of the new subculture are: (1) older Catholic institutions, such as universities, publicly reclaiming their Catholic identity (p. 195); and (2) "Catholic social services" that are shrinking rather than submitting to secular government requirements (such as offering contraceptives) and resorting instead to more "personalized, deinstitutionalized charity." (p. 195)

What is the structure of American Church? The architect of the book is simple: an arc rising and then plummeting, as the subtitle suggests. Shaw traces the history of the Church from its scant beginnings in the early 1800s (Ch. 1), to its rise at its high point, when it was the largest denomination in the USA in the 1950s and early 1960s (Ch. 2), and then to its plunge today (Ch. 3). In the final chapter (Ch. 4), Shaw reviews the state of the Church now and recommends a program for reinvigorating the Church in the USA.

What flaws does the book have? Only one error stands out. Throughout the book, even in the Foreword by Archbishop Chaput (for example pp. xii, 10, 13, and 217), the author refers to the book by the title The Gibbons Legacy, which perhaps was the title of the original manuscript. The editors of the book should have changed the title before publication, to avoid confusing readers.

Does American Church offer special insights? American Church offers a few insights worth further thought by advocates of reason. Four examples follow. First, in a quoted passage on p. 12, Shaw rejects the error of attempting to influence events by morally compromising with them. Shaw illustrates the error by describing the disastrous results of the compromise-to-influence tactic that some Catholics employed in the early years of Adolf Hitler's rule over Germany.

Second, Shaw characterizes opponents of the Catholic Church—who sometimes are also opponents of reason, egoism, and capitalism. An example is his brief portrait of the "liberalism" of philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002). (pp. 200-201)

Third, admirers of Leonard Peikoff's The DIM Hypothesis (reviewed here on November 28, 2012) will recognize the value of this report by Shaw: "Recent converts to Catholicism not infrequently report that they were repelled by the growing depravity of the secular culture and [were] attracted to Catholicism as virtually the only serious response to it." (205)

Fourth, Shaw presents an idea that deserves further exploration. He calls it  "plausibility structure." It refers to the set of cultural, social, and political elements surrounding a religious person and reinforcing that person's values. The Catholic plausibility structure in the USA was at its strongest influence around 1950. Many Catholics at that time lived in Catholic neighborhoods; they walked to their church; their neighbors were mostly Catholic; the members of their social clubs were Catholics; their local politicians were Catholics; and their local priest watched over them. All of these elements of a Catholic's world shared and reinforced Catholic values.

This structure, however, began unraveling in the 1950s. With the growth of the national economy, young Catholics began moving out of old neighborhoods and into religiously mixed suburban areas. Catholics came to be like other Americans. More Catholics began exercising personal choice—for example, in using contraception and abortion—rather than automatically following Church doctrines.

Is there an opportunity here for pro-reason advocates? Would developing a strategy of breaking down plausibility structures advance genuinely secular culture?

In summary, Shaw's American Church is a worthwhile read for the few pro-reason activists specializing in the fight against mysticism in the USA. The book demonstrates the long chain of events involved in changing a culture.

Burgess Laughlin
Author of The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason versus Faith, here

BkRev: O'Toole's The Faithful

Four years ago I began this weblog with "Theme Questions" (Aug. 24, 2009). One of my guiding questions for this project has been: "Who are the main advocates of mysticism in our time (1960 to now)?" I have looked at a wide variety of forms of mysticism in the USA. I am able now to choose, for further study, a particular form of mysticism that I think is the most powerful combatant for mysticism in the war against reason—the most articulate intellectually, the most organized socially, and the richest fiscally. That movement is Catholicism. The book review below is the first of several posts focusing  on the Catholic movement, a movement that is the largest religious denomination in the USA, about 25% of religious adults.

James M. O'Toole, The Faithful: A History of Catholics in America, Cambridge (Mass.), Belknap Press (Harvard University Press), 2008, 376 pages.

SUBJECT AND THEME. To completely know what a thing is we should study how the thing came to be. In large part, describing the development of today's Catholic laity is the task of Catholic historian James M. O'Toole in writing The New Faithful: A History of Catholics in America. Through six periods, beginning with the colonial, he describes the ever-changing mass of laymen.

In O'Toole's terms, the laity of the Church are the 99% of the Catholic movement, the followers of the Church, the "sheep" guided by the priestly shepherds. (p. 3) The hierarchy are the 1% of the Church; they are the individuals—the priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes—who are mystically ordained to perform sacred tasks such as conducting a Mass, receiving a confession, and giving "last rites" to the dying. O'Toole discusses the hierarchy of the Church, as an institution within the Catholic movement, but only to the extent that the laity interact with them.

Because O'Toole focuses on the laity, he is writing an unconventional form of religious history. Most such books focus on a history of theology, the central institutions, or the most prominent members of the hierarchy. O'Toole profiles the masses. (pp. 2-3) He asks (pp. 4-6) three main questions about the Catholic community at each of the six phases of its history in the USA:

1. What is the size and structure of the Catholic community? This question covers points such as the number of priests relative to the number of laity; the number of Catholic schools; and the availability of Catholic charity. The first two points, I think, affect the dissemination of the Church's message on reason and mysticism. The last point involves motivation. The Church is an intensely social institution; it is a place where members can gather, share the company of like-minded individuals, and aid one another through charity.

2. What did Catholics emphasize as the core of being Catholic in dealing with this world and in preparing for the supernatural world? At each historical stage, did the laity stress individual spiritual growth, communal sacraments such as Mass, or "Catholic action," that is, organized efforts to change the social and political world around them?

3. What was the relationship between the American laity and the pope? The relationship has been a sort of "double helix." The laity in America has been changing, often independently of the popes, who were losing political power in Europe but gaining greater theological and personal influence within the Catholic world.

O'Toole is not writing an advertisement for the Catholic Church. He faces defects in the Church movement where he sees them. One example is a phase of the history of the papacy, a phase in which some popes rejected innovations.

Popes [in the early 1800s] were also steadily more enthusiastic in their denunciations of the "rejected innovators" of modern life. Gregory XVI even condemned the new technology of railroads, punning that these chemins de fer ("roads of iron") … were chemins d'enfer ("roads to hell"). … Possibly worse [than freedom of conscience in religion], he thought, was "that deadly freedom that cannot be sufficiently feared, the freedom of the press." (p. 89)

THE AUTHOR. At Boston College, a Catholic school, Professor O’Toole teaches courses in the history of American religion, particularly Catholicism. His special interests are the history of religious practice and popular devotional life.[1] O'Toole's own religious position appears to be the middle ground between the emotionalist and the intellectualist streams of Catholicism. I infer from reading his book that his own position is stated in his description of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), a Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence:

Here was a religion neither of extreme emotions—the screwed up faces and grimaces of enthusiastic revivals held little appeal—nor of so bloodless a rationalism that God disappeared altogether and faith became mere fiction. (p. 36)

STRUCTURE. For each of the six periods, O'Toole describes a particular individual who lived in that period and in some ways represents its Catholic culture. (p. 3) For example, Ch. 1, "The Priestless Church," begins by saying:

Roger Hanly lived with his wife and six children in Bristol, Maine, at the time of the American Revolution. … Roger and his brother Patrick had come there from Ireland about 1770, and they found community with other Irish families, the Kavanaughs and the Cottrills. They wanted to preserve their ancestral Catholic faith, but that was not easy. Much later, they were able to erect a small brick church ….  Building it was a genuine act of faith, maybe a foolhardy one, for it was rare that a priest wandered through the region to conduct any services. (p. 11)

O'Toole begins with the Hanly family, broadens to cover other Catholics in the colonies, and then shows the influence that the broader, non-Catholic society had on Catholics—for example, the secular virtue of independence that encouraged local Church supporters, rather than a distant Catholic hierarchy, to organize and fund their own local religious activities.

Readers will see not only a tapestry of Catholics in the USA changing as the generations pass, but also particular revealing threads. One thread, for example, is the author's mention, at each stage, the size of the Catholic population—from less than 1% before the Revolution to about 2% fifty years later, in 1830; a steady rise to about 25% in the mid-twentieth century; and then stagnation. Since then US born Catholics have been declining in number as some Catholics have fewer children and other Catholics leave the Church. So far, Catholic immigrants have barely compensated for those losses.

Another highlighted thread in the tapestry is the stature of the papacy. The papacy declined in its political strength after the French Revolution, but its role within the Catholic Church has grown, in part by appealing not merely through the bishops but directly to Catholic laymen in mass communications. (pp. 44-49, as one example)

In his typically understated manner, O'Toole also makes clear that one of the characteristics of Catholicism distinguishing it from most Protestants was Catholic emphasis on "churchifying," that is, regularly participating in or observing rituals. Mystics of this type are thus as concerned with orthopraxy ("correct practice") as they are about orthodoxy ("correct beliefs, teachings"). The central practice remains the Mass, particularly the Eucharist, in which an ordained priest—that is, someone specially designated through the mysticism of tradition—performs a supernatural act: Bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. (pp. 177-178, but also  the many listings under "Mass" in the index.)

Thus, though O'Toole is not writing a history of ideas, a careful reader throughout the book sees the footprints of the supernaturalism, mysticism, altruism, and statism that are the fundamental principles of Catholicism.

AUDIENCE. O'Toole is a skillful narrator. He writes to readers—Catholic or not—who want to understand both the enduring nature and the evolving nature of Catholicism in the USA. Non-Catholics can learn the basic elements of Catholicism from reading this book. O'Toole casually explains Catholic terms as he progresses. For example:

Observance of Lent, for instance, the period of forty days immediately before Easter in the spring, had for centuries emphasized penitence and self-denial, and Catholics paid particular attention to dietary practices during those weeks. Some foods were prohibited, and Catholics were urged to limit their intake of all food and drink as a reminder of the sufferings of Jesus during his last days on earth. (p. 23)

CONCLUSION. Pro-reason readers who want a clearer understanding of contemporary society in the USA, including the Catholic quarter, will benefit from a careful reading of O'Toole's The Faithful. Pro-reason activists who want to learn from the activist techniques of their Catholic opponents will see a range of successes and failures employed by the largest mystical movement in the USA. Pro-reason activists who are specializing in tracking and confronting the Catholic Church itself will find an informative start here.

Burgess Laughlin

Author of The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith, described here.

[1] For an academic profile of Professor O'Toole: http://www.bc.edu/schools/cas/history/faculty/alphabetical/otoole_james.html.

BkRev: Rubenstein's Aristotle's Children

Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages, Orlando, Harcourt, 2003, 368 pages.

The usual reason to write a book review is to bring a book to readers' attention. The usual review either encourages readers to buy it it or discourages them if the reviewer thinks readers are hearing unjustly positive views elsewhere. Sometimes book reviews are useful for other purposes. In the following brief review, one of my purposes is to show that the author uses his book of history to support his side in the today's war between reason and mysticism. His book is an example of indirect activism.

(I have used my own books, The Aristotle Adventure and The Power and the Glory, for activism, though to support the reason side of the war.)

SUBJECT OF ARISTOTLE'S CHILDREN. Often the title of a book is a "hook" that catches readers' attention. The subtitle is the part that follows a colon or appears in smaller type; it states the subject. That is the case for my book, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith. That is not the case for Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages.

Rubenstein's book is partly about the influence of Aristotle's philosophy on intellectuals in the religious cultures of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. However, the book is mostly about the conflicts that arose in the Middle Ages when Christian intellectuals tried to "integrate" Aristotle's philosophy of this natural world with their Christian ethics based mystically in supernaturalism. (Admirers of philosopher Leonard Peikoff's book, The DIM Hypothesis, reviewed here, will recognize the medieval attempt at "integration" as M, misintegration.)

Conflicts, as well as the failed attempts to "resolve" the conflicts, are the dominant subject of the book. That is a natural choice of subject for the author, Richard E. Rubenstein. He was a professor of "conflict resolution," at George Mason University, at the time of the publication of the book, 2003.

The subject is important, Rubenstein says, because in the Latin-reading culture of the Middle Ages Aristotle's philosophy "forever altered the way we think about nature, society, and even about God." (p. ix) Rubenstein says further that

[t]he Aristotelian Revolution transformed Western thinking and set our culture on a path of scientific inquiry that it has followed ever since the Middle Ages. The confrontation between faith and reason that turned the medieval universities into ideological battlegrounds continues to this day in societies around the globe. (pp. ix-x)

Why study this medieval conflict today? We should study it, Professor Rubenstein says, because "the concerns of these medieval thinkers resonate so sonorously with ours." (p. xi); and the underlying conflict of reason vs. faith is emerging again in our own time. (p. 11)

In Aristotle's Children, Rubenstein is mainly a storyteller. He relies on the scholarly research of academics (as I did in The Aristotle Adventure). He uses a story-teller's techniques. He begins with a puzzle: The central medieval conflict over Aristotle's influence was not mainly between the Church and outside Aristotelians, but a conflict within the Church, with the Church leadership generally calling for inclusion of Aristotle's works in the course of university studies. (p. 7) Why did the Church leadership—unlike religious leaders among Muslims and Jews—do so?

Throughout the book, Rubenstein makes a case for his answer:

Rather than choose between the new learning and the old religion, the popes and scholars of the High Middle Ages tried to modernize the Church by reconciling faith and reason. (p. xi)

STRUCTURE OF ARISTOTLE'S CHILDREN. In structure, as well as content, this book is a history, as both the author's own statement (p. 2) and a reading of the chapter subheadings in Table of Contents show. Unfortunately, in the Table of Contents the author does not supply dates to make the progression clear. I have added them here: Aristotle's philosophy of this world and Aristotle rediscovered (Ch. 1); how Aristotle was lost in the ancient world and found again (Ch. 2); Peter Abelard and the revival of reason in the 1100s (Ch. 3); Aristotle among the West European heretics in the 1100s and 1200s (Ch. 4); Aristotle and the friars who debated the heretics (Ch. 5); friars debating friars at the University of Paris in the 1200s (Ch. 6); William of Ockham's divorce of faith and reason in the 1300s (Ch. 7); and the emergence of modern science in the 1500s and 1600s, resulting in today's split between reason and faith (Ch. 8).

THEME OF ARISTOTLE'S CHILDREN. The Aristotelian Revolution erupted in Latin-reading Western Europe in the late 1100s and early 1200s when Aristotle's philosophy overall became available for the first time in Latin texts, thanks to translations from Greek and Arabic sources. Part of the theme of the book is that in the 1300s, a century after the Aristotelian Revolution, "faith and reason were already headed toward the conflict-ridden separation that has characterized their relations ever since." (p. xii)

Rubenstein sees here an opportunity for modern culture: We can learn from the medieval attempt at synthesis of faith and reason that preceded the split. Perhaps we can apply some form of synthesis of faith and reason to our own time. (See Ch. 8, but especially pp. 272-273, 281, 292, 293, and 296-298.)

Today "we have much to learn from their [the Aristotelians'] vision of science infused by ethics [coming from religion] and a religion unafraid of reason." Tying together science (reason) and religious ethics (faith) can lead to "a more humane and integrated global future." (p. xii) In essence that is the theme of the book: To solve the many conflicts of religion versus secularity, such as the conflicts over homosexuality and abortion, modern world culture must integrate religion and science by integrating faith and reason.

What is mythical is the idea that faith and reason have always been implacable enemies—an idea that implies that any other relationship between them is impossible. (p. 273)

Reason could transform the earth, if only science and technology were inspired and guided by a new global morality. Faith would expand and mature, if only the world's religions addressed themselves to long-term trends in society and nature, and helped to create that global morality. (p. 298)

So, a "global morality"—that would be developed, I note, in a consensus among the Taliban in Afghanistan, Christian nationalists in the USA, the orthodox in Israel, Hindu nationalists in India, and others—would "guide" reason everywhere around the world. Knowingly or not, Rubenstein is, in his own multi-cultural way, echoing Pope John Paul II (1920-2005), who in his 1998 encyclical letter (to bishops), Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason), called for faith and reason to work together, with faith providing the guidance, that is, the ethics. The assumptions of both Rubenstein and John Paul II are that reason cannot create ethics (our guide to action in this life) and ethics can come only from God through revelation to religious people. (Philosopher Ayn Rand's 1961 essay, "The Objectivist Ethics," has developed the foundation of an ethics using reason alone—here.)

CONCLUSION. Rubenstein's call for "integration" of reason and faith is support for mysticism. Reason and mysticism are opposites. Any attempt to reconcile them gives mysticism respect it has not earned. Rubenstein does not object. "Resolving" conflict is his goal. His book, Aristotle's Children, though informative historically, argues for mysticism.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith, described here

Sam Harris on Reason and Mysticism

The May 18, 2013 review of Sam Harris's book, The End of Faith, here, shows that Harris rejects religion because it relies on faith. By "faith," Harris means the acceptance of fundamental principles based on supposed historical authority, not on evidence that we can examine and debate today. Harris offers two alternatives to faith. This post examines those alternatives, drawing again from The End of Faith.

REASON. We need fundamental principles to guide us in living our lives. If, as Harris says, we should not rely on fundamental principles acquired through faith, how should we develop those principles? Harris has a two-part answer. First is reason. In a manner typical of his style, Harris offers no concise, rigorous definition of that concept. He does provide many cognitive elements which he apparently thinks the concept subsumes, though he does not say so explicitly.

For example, Harris says we should observe (p. 76), search for evidence (p. 15), and reject ideas that are not based on evidence. (p. 25) "Our beliefs should be representations of the world." (p. 58) We should exercise "commonsense judgments" (p. 75). We should experiment, at least in the sciences (p. 76). We should ratiocinate (p. 76), as well as engage in "discursive reasoning" and "rational discourse" (p. 25) We should critique and discuss our principles, as paths to progress. Religion is not open to progress. (p. 22) "Whatever is true now should be discoverable now, and describable in terms that are not an outright affront to the rest of what we know about the world." (p. 22) Harris also sees that one's ideas must be logically consistent; he says our ideas must not contradict one another, but then he adds: "at least locally." (p. 53) "By recourse to intuitions of truth and falsity, logical necessity and contradiction, human beings are able to knot together private visions of the world that largely cohere." (p. 51)

Most of those cognitive elements, with the exceptions of "commonsense judgments" and "intuition," are referents of the concept "reason" objectively formed. So, Harris has basically the right elements—looking at the world and thinking about it—for forming the concept of reason.

Confusingly, Harris sometimes uses the term "reason" ("rational") to mean merely syllogistic consistency: "In fact, even the most extreme expressions of faith [such as "Jehovah's Witnesses refusing blood transfusions"] are often perfectly rational, given the requisite beliefs." (p. 69) "Which beliefs one takes to be foundational will dictate what seems reasonable at any given moment." (p. 69) And: "Given what Islamists believe, it is perfectly rational for them to strangle modernity wherever they can lay hold of it." (p. 136) Harris does not grasp that reason is present only when objectivity is present, that is, when we form ideas logically from sense-perception of reality. For Harris, a link missing from the cognitive chain that connects observation to our most fundamental principles is a theory of concept formation. He has no way to account for logically building concepts of objects in reality (such as "dog" or "chair") and then building higher and higher level abstractions. We will see how he fills this cognitive gap.

MYSTICISM. Besides his truncated, unintegrated version of "reason," Harris offers a second alternative to faith: a certain other type of mysticism. Some background information is required. For Harris, "spiritual" and "mystical" are synonyms. (p. 40) Harris defines "spirituality" as "the cultivation of happiness directly, through precise refinements of attention," that is, "meditation." (p. 192) Mystical experiences are experiences of "meaningfulness, selflessness, and heightened emotion that surpass our narrow identities as 'selves' and escape our current understanding of the mind and brain." (pp. 39-40)

There is no denying that most of us have emotional and spiritual needs that are now addressed—however obliquely and at a terrible price—by mainstream religion. And these are needs that a mere understanding of our world, scientific or otherwise, will never fulfill. There is clearly a sacred dimension to our existence, and coming to terms with it could well be the highest purpose of human life. But we will find that it requires no faith in untestable propositions—Jesus was born of a virgin; the Koran is the word of God—for us to do this. (p. 16)

If our highest purpose requires understanding a "sacred dimension" of our world, but neither faith nor science (which is an application of reason) will provide that understanding, then where will it come from? Harris's answer is "empirical mysticism." (p. 215)

For millennia, contemplatives have known that ordinary people can divest themselves of the feeling that they call 'I' and thereby relinquish the sense that they are separate from the rest of the universe. This phenomenon, which has been reported by practitioners in many spiritual traditions, is supported by a wealth of evidence—neuroscientific, philosophical, and introspective. Such experiences are 'spiritual' or 'mystical', for want of better words, in that they are relatively rare (unnecessarily so), significant (in that they cover genuine facts about the world), and personally transformative. They also reveal a far deeper connection between ourselves and the rest of the universe than is suggested by the ordinary confines of our subjectivity. (pp. 40-41)

The claims of mystics are neurologically quite astute. No human being has ever experienced an objective world, or even a world at all. You are, at this moment, having a visionary experience. The world that you see and hear is nothing more than a modification of your consciousness, the physical status of which remains a mystery. (p. 41)

What then is mysticism? As usual, Harris defines his terms obliquely.

Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reasons for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world can be analyzed with concepts (this is science), or it can be experienced free of concepts (this is mysticism). (p. 221, emphasis added)

A mystical state thus is a state of consciousness, that is, a state of awareness. Awareness of what? Of "the world," but without thinking about it. Thus mysticism is some sort of direct apprehension of the world, without concepts, without thoughts, without reasoning. That conclusion is confirmed by Harris in statements such as:

There is something to realize about the nature of consciousness, and its realization does not entail thinking new thoughts. (p. 218)

Now we live in ignorance of the freedom and simplicity of consciousness, prior to the arising of thought. (p. 219)

Mysticism, as Harris conceives it, is thus preconceptual consciousness, which, the reader may realize, is the consciousness of an animal.

"My debt to a variety of contemplative traditions that have their origin in India will be obvious to many readers," Harris notes. "The esoteric teachings of Buddhism . . . and Hinduism . . . have done much to determine my view of our spiritual possibilities." (n. 12, Ch. 7, on p. 293)

Harris supports two other forms of mysticism (defined objectively here), though he does not call them that. First is self-evidency. Harris sometimes claims certain insights are "self-evident," even when they are complex and abstract. (See p. 31 for an example.) (For a brief discussion of rational and mystical uses of the term "self-evidency," see: aristotleadventure.blogspot.com/search/label/self-evidency.)

Harris's second additional form of mysticism is intuition.

Whatever its stigma, 'intuition' is a term that we simply cannot do without, because it denotes the most basic constituent of our faculty of understanding. . . . When we can break our knowledge of a thing down no further, the irreducible leap that remains is intuitively taken. Thus, the traditional opposition between reason and intuition is a false one: reason is itself intuitive to the core, as any judgment that a proposition is 'reasonable' or 'logical' relies on intuition to find its feet. (p. 183)

Intuition is thus the same as claiming "It is obvious." (p. 184) (See other discussions here and here.) Harris says: 

How the loom of cognition first begins weaving is still a mystery, but there seems little doubt that we come hardwired with a variety of proto-linguistic, proto-doxastic (from the Greek doxa, 'belief') capacities that enable us to begin interpreting the tumult of the senses as regularities in the environment and in ourselves. (p. 248, n. 14 of Ch. 2, from p. 58)

RELATION OF REASON AND MYSTICISM. The advocates of the major Abrahamic religions often say they support reason and faith, each in its own domain, but usually relying on faith to "establish" such notions as the existence of another world, a god, and the god's ethical rules. Harris rejects the notion of peace between reason and faith as "delusional." (p. 16) What then is Harris's view of the relationship of reason and mysticism as he has defined these concepts (if he has)?

"We cannot live by reason alone," Harris states. (p. 43) To handle the greatest stresses in life—such as losing a loved one or facing an incurable fatal disease—we need something that will give us "an abiding sense of the sacred." (p. 43) Harris says, however, that we do not need to be irrational in order to have that sense of the sacred. "On the contrary, I hope to show that spirituality [which Harris says is synonymous with mysticism] can be—indeed, must be—deeply rational, even as it elucidates the limits of reason." (p. 43)

In conclusion, Sam Harris is indeed an opponent of faith, in the form of religion, but also an advocate of other forms of mysticism, alongside a form of "reason" so limited that we must "intuit" the ethical principles that serve as our guides in life. Adding his reductionism and determinism (not discussed here) to the mixture, one can say that he is not an advocate of reason.

Burgess Laughlin

Author of The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith at http://www.reasonversusmysticism.com/