As Max Weber made clear, the Protestant Reformation will open up one of these two roads by erasing physically and symbolically the walls separating the world and the monastery and by extending the calling to perfection to all Christians living in the world through their professional calling. 'To be monks in the world,' this is the spirit of the Protestant ethic and of modern secular vocational asceticism. In Protestant countries, secularization will have from the beginning an anti-monastic and anti-popish, but not an anti-religious meaning, insofar as its rationale was precisely religious reformation, putting an end to the dualism between religion and world, making religion more secular and the saeculum more religious, bringing religion to the world and the world to religion. The Protestant Reformation brought down the monastery walls separating the religious and secular worlds, and opened the way for their mutual interpenetration. This marks particularly the Anglo-Saxon Protestant road of secularization. Secularization and the parallel modernization do not entail necessarily the decline of religion.
Catholic conceptions of holiness tend to strongly emphasise the ascetic nature of religion. Holiness, in this schema, is thought of an increasing devotion to God through prayers, self denial, sacrifice and asceticism, and is seen as synonymous with the ideal clerical life. The lay person, who wishes to seek holiness, aims to emulate the best practices of the clergy in their devotion to God. So, in a way, if a Catholic wants to become more deeply religious he does by following a model pioneered by the priests and monks. More prayer, more adoration, more Masses, more fasts, etc. And one of the interesting things about Catholicism is the fact that majority of the saints come from the ordained and relatively few from the laity. This state of affairs is more a reflection of the fact that the Church's has only one recognised mode of "holiness" and that the practices associated with this mode is is only practically attainable by those who deliberately pursue the consecrated/religious life. In effect, Catholics have one "mode" of holiness and its difficult to live the lay life and combine it with this modality.
This guy--of all people!--highlights the problem succinctly.
Yet, this would appear to be a "modern" innovation. It was accepted--in the Middle Ages-- that a certain type of holiness could be achieved through the profession of arms. i.e the knight. And that sanctity was possible through just action on the battlefield. But it does appear that Catholicism developed only a limited number of different modalities for achieving sanctity. By and large, sanctity in Catholicism was mainly achieved by following the model pioneered by religious ascetics.
One of the consequences of the Reformation was a rethinking of the nature of holiness. Protestantism vigorously attacked the distinction between the clergy and the laity. Under Protestantism, all who believed in Christ were "Priests" and this had the effect of opening up the possibility of sanctity to all believers in a way that Catholicism couldn't. Unlike Catholicism where sanctity was seen as being synonymous with self-denial, mortification and asceticism, the Protestant conception of holiness recognised that it could achieved through the sincere Christian expression of whatever office or rank a person held in life. Some would say that Protestantism clericised the laity but that conception mixes the habits of the clergy with life practices of the laity. I think it would be far better to say that Protestantism produced a "Civic Christianity" in place of the "Clerical Christianity" of Catholicism.
Protestant bankers, for instance, could be considered "priestly" if they executed their office with righteousness, honesty and integrity. Protestant workers were righteous in the sight of God if they did not attempt to defraud their employer and worked for him as if they were working for God. Protestant public servants would strive to be honest and incorruptible. The whole principle being that a Protestant's Christianity would infuse whatever task he was doing so that standing before God he would be able to claim that he was acting as God's faithful steward; be that a banker, a clerk, railroad worker or teacher. In the movie, Chariots of Fire, the Protestant, Eric Liddell, is able to transform his athleticism into a powerful expression of the Christian faith. Running and not ascetisicism is the mechanism of his sanctification.
What Protestantism effectively did is expand the modalities by which a Christian could achieve sanctity, opening it up to people who neither had the time, nor the inclination to pursue the "clerical" model. Whereas the secular, before, could afford to be a bit "dirty" since it wasn't holy, Protestantism cleaned it up. Protestantism infused Christianity into the secular domain in a way that Catholicism couldn't and suddenly it became a far more serious matter to be a corrupt businessman, judge or politician. And it's this type of Christianity which I believe was instrumental in the rapid social and economic advance of the Protestant countries following the Reformation.
The superior socio-economic performance of these societies was an emergent phenomenon contingent upon their civic Christianity. Independence of action, high trust, low levels of dishonesty, honest and good public governance, personal freedom and private initiative worked synergistically in a way that was not possible in Catholic countries and produced a superior social, economic and political outcome. Catholic countries could only begin to approach such levels in the late 20th C. (which also resulted in a pseudo-Protestantisation of their countries). Uncritical Catholic fanboys may dismiss this view but when Clark liberated Rome and the Vatican from the Nazi's it was as an Episcopalian General commanding an army of soldiers from a country founded on Enlightened Protestant beliefs---formerly condemned by the Pope.< /irony> The Catholic world had no response. Catholic South America was twiddling its thumbs and France was useless.
As as side effect of this transformation of religious expression, Protestantism was able to achieve a degree of integralism that Catholic traditionalists could only dream about. Whereas in the Catholic model, there was in inbuilt duality between the secular and clerical/religious, any attempts and "evangelising" society within this model resulted in the state managed imposition of the clerical onto the secular which resulted in a pressure cooker situation.
On the other hand, Protestantism, with its much broader conception of holiness, did not demand the everyone assume a quasi-clerical lifestyle. This blurred the distinction between the secular and the religious and made a confessional state far easier to achieve as less was demanded by the state on the citizen. Therefore there was far less tension between the Church and the state. Compare the hostility of the Spanish secularists with that of the Nordic.
Despite all of it's faults--and there are many--it's increasingly my opinion that the emergence of Protestantism was a necessary event for the survival of Christianity. At it's birth, Modernity was around the corner, and its emergence provided the necessary vehicle by which Christianity could transition into it .
The great achievement of Protestantism is the leveling of the Christian community, the closing of the distance between God and man, but not everywhere. Calvin in Geneva was a monster. As was Cromwell. The great failure is that when every man is a priest, obedient only to the KJV, chaos ensues. It is claimed there are 30,000 Protestant sects, each of whom has its own truth, different from every other, and absolutely provable against every other. In effect, there is no such thing as Protestantism.
ReplyDeleteAs an ex Catholic, my sympathies lie with the Protestant impulse, but I have never found a Protestant sect I could take seriously. No doubt my bad
Just musing, but there is no “system” that works. Don’t misunderstand me, I believe in systems and this isn’t an argument before or against Catholicism or Protestantism, but there is no system that replaces personally drawing nigh to God.
ReplyDeleteThere is an impulse to create a system that guarantees success, that if we can just tweak the organizing principles properly we can run mans spiritual life on autopilot. Protestants and Catholics do this. But it doesn’t work because it can’t. A system can work if it’s layered in top of a personal movement towards God but you can’t put the cart before the horse. You doubly can’t try to mesh the world system with a Christian system or with personal walking with God. Trying to be at peace with a world that implacably is at war with you is not going to work.
Interestingly enough Opus Dei and Escriva were deeply concerned with the project of sanctifying every day life. There was a system but if the writings of Escriva accurately reflect the lived reality of Opus Dei the personal relationship with God was paramount. If I recall correctly it was even initially criticized as “Protestant”.
We still act like God isnt really involved. Catholics and protestants aggressively don’t understand each other. I don’t mean they disagree I mean they react against a caricature of each other not the reality. Debates between the two are frequently a wretched mess, often pitting a highly prepared crank from either side against an opponent that assumed Catholic or Protestant means “retard” and isn’t prepared. So each side can point to rhetorical champions and become hardened in opinions that may not be “honestly” come by.
To best understand each other we have to look at each sides best as well as it’s worst. I’m glad you’re writing about Protestantism, because just striking a pose like it’s so obviously wrong and can be safely ignored doesn’t jibe with the effects of Protestantism. Something serious went on here. Even if it’s “wrong”, God still used Balaam. Even if it’s a heresy, it’s not like a normal heresy clearly.
@SP - Your analysis might be enriched by considering Mormonism - which was like a second reformation. In Mormonism all men in good standing are priests. And the strictness of standard of 'holy' behaviour among average active (i.e. devout, and Temple recommended) Mormons is as high, maybe higher than among average Catholic ordained clergy.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting distinction from mainstream Protestanism is that Mormons made marriage and family procreation the very centre of their *theological* system - both for God and Man; wheras mainstream Protestants made no significant development of theology in this regard.
In my view a Catholic does not emulate the best practises of clergy but those of Christ Himself. A monk is a Catholic who is willing to do more in that direction, to dedicate himself more to His Presence than other people. He knows the world is the enemy of his quest so he leaves the world to live a monastic life. The monastery makes for more room to achieve this than any other way of life. Moreover, it gives him a shelter from the dangers of the world and a social status which makes his privilege a duty at the same time. A priest is in similar position. None of them chooses this life, it is a vocation.
ReplyDeleteI believe vocation plays a huge role in Catholic world. Or played. Not everybody is called to be a monk or priest. But everybody is called to do something distinct. Hence, there were estates and orders in the past. There are prayers in old books for proper fulfilling duties of one's order or estate. It belonged to the overall quest for holiness that every Catholic was required to seek. A priest was just one of the distinct vocations and not a measure of holiness. His personal holiness was to be emulated, not his priesthood which basically is 'merely' a power to administer sacraments.
Then the Protestants came to amend failures and shortcommings of the Church, I believe mostly in good faith, confused priesthood with general religious life and destroyed its dictinct character i.e. the first estate. Later liberals came and destroyed the second estate. I tend to believe that was the real turning point in destroying the West. It happened in Catholic and in Protestant societies more or less simultanously. So discussions who saved the Pope are beside the point as any other Catholic vs Protestant thing. If anything, I find the irony in this: the Pope was saved by the U.S., the new Emperor who fulfilled his duty to protect the Holy See as in the old days of Holy Roman Empire while pretending not to be an Emperor and recognizing no such duty. A hundred years forward since the new Emperor replaced the old one and made the world safe for democracy we can see how well is the Empire ruled.
Talk about socio-economic performance is also beside the point. Is Germany a Protestant or Catholic country? Is Bavaria economically worse than former Prussia? Japan is neither Catholic nor Protestant and yet successful modern society. The cultural landscape in many European countries is something Americans can only dream about and may achieve in 500 years if they are lucky. Wealth of Western countries is also a consequence of Industrial Revolution and I am not entirely sure that was a good thing either. Etc, etc, etc. I am tempted to say it is a Protestant thing to measure God's favour by economic success but it is probably more of Jewish heritage. Today overall state of former Catholic and Protestant countries is equally bad so it is simply false to claim that Protestantism achieved better results.
In summary, I don't think Church can't do anything to reconcile herself with modernity. What is now called Vatican II was a halfhearted attempt that failed. The former hardline of Vatican I was doomed as well. At least it was more manly. The only important question is this: is our Church the only true Church? I believe it is. Hence, I don't care too much how well her different flocks performed economically or who outcompeted them. It doesn't tell me anything about how many souls were saved. I disagree with those on the Right who primarily judge how efficient social technology the Church is.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think you may be interested in this.
ReplyDeletehttps://mereorthodoxy.com/categorizing-benedict-option-communities-christianity/
The article divides the involvement of Christianity with the world into three options. I list them in order of decreasing involvement:
- The "Illiberal Catholics" are, among others, the Middle Age Catholics, when the State was a Catholic state. The entire society was organized according to a confessional Catholic state. The Orthodox have traditionally adopted this model too. (I think the Muslim equivalent would be the theocratic Muslim state, but I am not an expert).
- The "Magisterial Protestants" separate Church and State by privatizing religiosity. The ordinary life is religious life because each individual is a priest and his vocation is his sacred duty. Secular activities are only a different way of worshipping God. ("Opus Dei", a Catholic movement, follows this philosophy, no doubt borrowed from the Protestants)
- The "Augustinian radicals" would be the current Catholics (and other denominations too), that consider the Church and the World as completely separated. Religious activities and secular activities are different. This produces the difference of religiosity between the clergy and the lay people that you describe in your post.
I think early Christians were "Augustinian radicals". Since Rome was a pagan State with a hostile official religion, Christians had to separate themselves from the world. From Constantine on, the option preferred were "illiberal Catholic", that is a confessional State, (which is also the option preferred by the Orthodox Christianity, with its national churches)
Luther introduced the principle "each believer can interpret the Bible as the Holy Spirit allows him to". This could only end up with Protestantism divided in hundreds of sects. This division ended up producing separation of Church and State, because the state could not have one official sect when its citizens belonged to tens of sects. (I am simplifying this, but I don't want to bore you with details). This separation began in Protestant states and then it was transmitted to Catholic states.
This separation of Church and State prevented any version of Christianity from being the official religion. Since each State needs an official religion (which is the basis of the Law), the Enlightenment philosophy (liberty, equality, democracy) ended up being the official religion.
With a hostile official religion, Christians had to privatize their beliefs. Protestants did it with the model of "magisterial Protestants" while Catholics went back to the model of "Augustinian radicals".
@skyes.1
ReplyDeleteThe great failure is that when every man is a priest, obedient only to the KJV, chaos ensues.
Yes, as a general rule that is correct. But it's also a failure when a man fails to adapt due to circumstances. Catholic "inertia" in my opinion has been a major contributing factor in its ability to deal with modernity. The thing about Protestant "chaos" is that every now and then a good idea emerges which transforms Christianity. Take the abolition of slavery for instance. That was pushed by the Protestants. From a historical perspective, Protestantism can be considered the "Christian Ideas Laboratory." Lots of ideas get created there, some of them really dumb, but a few good ones establish themselves and become eventually incorporated into Catholicism. The Catholic "Lab" is virtually non existent due to the intellectual inertia of the Church.
@Hoyos
Just musing, but there is no “system” that works.
Yep, that's my opinion too. Rechristianisation won't be bought about through a better "organisation" of religion. This isn't a problem of managerialism.
A system can work if it’s layered in top of a personal movement towards God but you can’t put the cart before the horse.
That's true as well but there is another element involved here as well, and that's Grace. You can move to God all you want but you're not going to get there unless He moves to you as well. I think there's a good reason why God calls his people chosen and that's because He is actively choosing. What troubles me deeply is the withdrawal of Grace. A lot of the secularisation narratives totally ignore this dimension. It's as if God's opinion on the subject didn't matter.
because just striking a pose like it’s so obviously wrong and can be safely ignored doesn’t jibe with the effects of Protestantism. Something serious went on here.
Yep, agree again. From the vantage point of history we can see that despite its faults Protestantism produced a remarkable number of good things and this has to be reckoned with honestly. As a Catholic, I ask myself why we didn't develop these things "in house" but instead had to rely on others to do our spiritual development.
@SP. excellent point on grace, I may be over extending, but if it’s true that if you draw nigh to God, He will draw nigh to you, it may be assumed the problem is on our end. But yes that’s the paradox, interestingly enough Fr. Ripperger helped my understanding that free will and predestination are in a complex interplay. Pure Calvinistic determinism doesn’t jibe, but that being said, without the actions of God we are also powerless.
ReplyDeleteWe learned too much from the enemy when religious conservatives basically went all in on reasoning with the left as the way forward. I mean “pure” reason, as if we could argue our enemies into Heaven, like Christianity was a mere philosophy. We also became so afraid of personal leading by God, protestants too, that we banked hard in the other direction. There was a fear, rational enough, of becoming unmoored, you see it when people claim God led them to some heresy or madness. It’s another case of both and not either or. Sayers has it right in Creed or Chaos, you’ve got to have orthodoxy, I think it may be a God’s way of keeping us from reinventing the wheel. The problem only comes when you realize that there is no strict biblical answer for “should I, Hoyos, take this job, marry this girl, say this or that to somebody, etc.” it also explains the aspieness of many conservative Christians.
@ Bruce
ReplyDeleteI'll have to read up on Mormonism.
.....maybe higher than among average Catholic ordained clergy.
In my experience the average Catholic priest is usually a good sort. But admittedly there are some very bad eggs.
@ Rpt
In my view a Catholic does not emulate the best practises of clergy but those of Christ Himself.
Hmmm, not sure there. I'm not sure that Christ is meant to be the universal model for all men. I think that we in attempting to gain holiness should not attempt to be Christ v2.0 rather we should be better versions of ourselves which are pleasing to Christ. I think this is a very important distinction to be made.
Talk about socio-economic performance is also beside the point.
No it's not. One of the recurring biblical themes is the blessings of prosperity among those who gain God's favour. I'm no "prosperity gospel" type of guy but I do recognise that:
a)Poverty is generally always seen as an evil.
b)And many meritorious corporeal works are contingent on having some wealth to distribute.
c)A fair amount of vice bought on by "necessity"is mitigated by wealth.
There's a lot to unpack in you comment which I can't deal with now but suffice to say that most of the countries that are rich at the moment have become so by copying "the Protestant method."
The only important question is this: is our Church the only true Church?
I would firstly say yes, but would qualify that by saying are there truth's outside the Catholic Church that should be incorporated into the Church? As for the sociological dimension of the Church, it has been charged by the Master to spread the faith, something it's miserably failing to do in the West at the moment. So understanding where it went wrong is important.
@Chent
I think early Christians were "Augustinian radicals".
Christians rapidly got integrated into Roman society despite being prosecuted and, despite the "apartness" of the ascetics, most Christians seemed to be neck deep in day to day affairs of the world. Still, there has always been a dangerous branch of Christianity which regarded the created world with disgust. Aquinas is an antidote to these guys, as latent in Augustine is a Manichaenism/Buddhist approach to the world and their view is definitely the wrong way to go and I think their despising of the world goes a long way to explaining their lack of success in dealing with it.
@Hoyos
ReplyDeleteHe will draw nigh to you, it may be assumed the problem is on our end.
I've occasionally run into people who want to believe but can't. They're not intellectually dishonest people but just those who can't make the final step. It's an interesting state of affairs. I mean why doesn't God flip the switch in these people and make their lives easier. I don't know.
I mean “pure” reason, as if we could argue our enemies into Heaven, like Christianity was a mere philosophy.
This was definitely a problem with some of the scholastic tradition.
We also became so afraid of personal leading by God, protestants too, that we banked hard in the other direction
I think that there are other factors at play here but that's for a different post.
>The Catholic "Lab" is virtually non existent due to the intellectual inertia of the Church
ReplyDeleteGoing by Alasdair MacIntrye's excellent book "God, the Philosophers, and Universities" , "intellectual inertia" was a problem up until the late 19th century, then came Newman and Leo XIII. Catholic intellectuals prior to the late 1800s, if not the 1950s, were trained in an atmosphere where, in Catholic seminaries and universities, secular and protestant authors like Kant or Hegel were permitted to be studied by a very small number of scholars in limited circumstances, and were otherwise prohibited. This simply hasn't been the case in the lifetime of anyone still living. Even a modern Thomist purist like Ed Feser was trained in a normal secular philosophy program, not a Manualist one (plus he's a layperson).
As for assimilating Protestant ideas, I think the problem is when this is taken at the surface-level-namely with regards to the liturgy. Its bonkers that a Confessional Lutheran service can be "higher church" than a Catholic Mass, the later which might more closely resemble Reformed Protestant or even Charismatic worship, depending on the parish.
@Anon
ReplyDeleteI'd say that Catholic intellectualism really started again in the early 20th C, despite much opposition of the institutional Church which was highly skeptical of it. And Certainly, post V2, there is much more freedom but there really hasn't been much in the way of original thinking since then. Surface level thinking there has been a plenty though and it's effects have been corrosive.
As for Newman, he really is a great example of "Good Protestantism" being incorporated into Catholicism, with the impact of his thought only really making its mark in V2. Newman came from the Protestant tradition and he really is a "Protestant Catholic." His thoughts on conscience were from outside the "Catholic tradition" as were his thoughts on the laity.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBC: Mormonism...all men in good standing are priests. And the strictness of standard of 'holy' behaviour among average active (i.e. devout, and Temple recommended) Mormons is as high, maybe higher than among average Catholic ordained clergy.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good point.
BC: Mormons made marriage and family procreation the very centre of their *theological* system - both for God and Man
Yep. But I think you place too much emphasis on theology and not enough on practical culture (Mormons are American, and have adapted that modern work ethic into a family-based way of life. They did this by controlling feminism (remember, they embraced multi-wives, and this history did them some cultural good on the feminism front).
RC have utterly failed here, with priests becoming de-facto "fathers" for semi-single mothers in matriarchal cultures (Irish, Italian, Spanish, Native, Black) and tries to exploit intact father-led families rather than support & grow them.
The most devastating thing for CR family today is feminism, female-led divorce, female consumerism, female obesity, and of course female-led BC. Yet women are sacred objects in America so priests cannot preach to them even as the ship sinks.
SP: Protestantism was a necessary event for the survival of Christianity.
Like Mormonism, Prots are so far off the historical Christian reservation (Eucharist, Bishops, Priests, Sacraments) I don't think you can consider Christianity "surviving" with Prots. The reality is most moderns (RC or otherwise) are not capable of accepting Christ in word and deed. So a small core go RC, those who believe but want BC go EO, those who left Jesus in Jn 6 are Prots, and so on. Jesus takes what he can get, but this doesn't change the truth of the Church at all, just reiterates the weakness of man.
@MK
ReplyDeleteThe most devastating thing for CR family today is feminism, female-led divorce, female consumerism, female obesity, and of course female-led BC. Yet women are sacred objects in America so priests cannot preach to them even as the ship sinks.
I think that the bigger problem for Catholicism is its equation of femininity and masculinity with moral virtues instead of physical and behavioural traits.
Prots are so far off the historical Christian reservation
With 32K versions of it, some of them are bound to be right. I think its a mistake to think that ALL religious truth subsists in the Catholic Church. In my opinion the Catholic Church is the truest of the Churches but that not to say there are other truths in other Christian denominations. The Chruch's modern conception of Conscience is more a product of Protestantism than Catholicism.
I totally agree that humans can approach God outside of the RCC, even outside Christ. I just wouldn't say anyone is saving Christianity w/o Eucharist/Priests/Sacraments. Such a religion is merely a religion Christ didn't found and one one historical Christians (from Ignatius to Aquinas) wouldn't recognize as such.
ReplyDelete@MK
ReplyDeleteI just wouldn't say anyone is saving Christianity w/o Eucharist/Priests/Sacraments.
Agree.
However, it's interesting to note the Comments made by Father Lasarte at the last Synod which highlighted the growth of faith in the absence of clergy in various parts of the world. Don't get me wrong the clerical office is important but God's grace may triumph in the absence of a clergy. This is what I think may be at play in some of the Protestant Churches, despite their disconnection from the clergy.
Hi - I've recently been digging about in your blog after reading the article that Aaron Renn sent out in his Substack, about Christian Buddhism (or do I mean Buddhist Christianity?)
ReplyDeleteYou don't seem to be blogging that much at the moment but I wondered if you had any further thoughts about how the Christian Buddhism phenomenon might tie in with the different strands of Catholicism you identify elsewhere. I get the sense from this post that you feel Protestantism has been a better vehicle for the kind of Christianity exemplified by e.g. De Gaulle and Charles Peguy than Catholicism, and that Catholicism's next stage should be to make that kind of Christianity its own and counteract its own internal Buddhists. As a Catholic myself I'd be curious to know what you think that might look like.