The Return of Strong Religion

The wind has shifted. People want hard religion, not easy religion. They seek out communities that are demanding rather than permissive. They want truth-based ­theologies, not outlooks softened with talk of “meaning” and “welcome.” Dialogue, a buzzword for the Baby Boomers, is out. Emphasis falls on conviction and commitment.

Twenty years ago, while teaching theology at ­Creighton University, I had an experience that foretold this shift. I offered a course on apologetics: “Defending the Christian Faith.” We covered Thomas Aquinas’s presentation of the five arguments for the existence of God and John Henry Newman’s luminous sermons on faith and reason. I added a long chapter on Christology found in Karl Rahner’s Foundations of Christian Faith, an influential book in the years after Vatican II.

Rahner begins by arguing that the modern scientific view of evolution, when interpreted philosophically, leads to the expectation of the incarnation of the divine in material reality. He then shifts gears. In a longer section, he outlines what he calls “transcendental Christology.” Rahner uses his distinctive philosophical vocabulary to argue that any person who reflects on his condition as an embodied person with transcendent longings will arrive at the expectation that the divine will be present in the concrete life of a living person.

The ambition is striking. Rahner claims to show that the world, scientifically understood, suggests the concept of incarnation. Individual self-reflection points to the same conclusion. In a word, the external world and our inner lives lead to Christ.

Truth be told, most of my students got lost in the byways of Rahner’s tortuous prose. They hoped I would clarify the assignment or at least tell them what they had to know for the final exam. But one of my best students followed the arguments and rejected them outright. After class, he told me with disgust, “Why bother with this nonsense? It’s neither what science says, nor what Christianity teaches.” He was right, especially about Christianity. To say that Rahner finesses the question of Jesus’s bodily resurrection would be generous. 

The young man was a biology major. He had little interest in entertaining a “dialogue” between science and Christian doctrine, at least not at that stage in his life. He wanted to know what Christianity taught in its fullness, not how doctrine could be stage-managed toward something more easily believed. He knew himself to be a person of intelligence who could take responsibility for saying yes or no. He felt cheated by Rahner, who had denied him the difficulty of Christian belief, removing the scandal and stumbling blocks.

This student’s dismissal of Rahner was based on a correct intuition. Faith is in a certain sense heroic. Infused from above, it reaches beyond man’s natural capacities. Through faith, man seeks to attain the ­supernatural—and does so in an anticipatory fashion. Faith and reason are not opposed, but the former is fired by an ardency and sometimes a reckless ambition that the latter lacks. Newman made this point with characteristic eloquence: “Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.” Kierkegaard spoke of “the leap of faith.” To accept as true that which God has revealed is a bold venture of the intellect, not running counter to reason, but abandoning its cautious counsel and demands for proof.

The desire for heroic faith is rising. This increase in the demand for strong religion confounds most Baby Boomers. They came of age during a time when clergy sought “relevance.” In the 1950s, Paul Tillich reframed the gospel promise. Instead of forgiveness, which implies both our own guilt and God’s justice in punishing us, God offers acceptance. Catholicism after Vatican II sought to make Christianity more accessible, more “contemporary,” so that one need not leap, or if a leap is necessary, at least not too far.

At present, young people find such accommodations disappointing, as did my student. One reason the Latin Mass appeals is that its archaic language and elaborate rituals convey something distant, shrouded in mystery. Faith inaugurates a long, arduous journey to a remote destination, a journey that will require our every strength. Rigor does not dismay or discourage. It motivates and inspires.

Moreover, in the Latin Mass, space is clearly demarcated. An altar rail protects the sacred from violation—and it protects the profane from exposure to the burning flames of holiness. “Woe is me,” says the prophet ­Isaiah, “for I am a man of unclean lips.” Sacred objects are handled with care. These practices inculcate reverence; more importantly, they remind us that God is frightful. When the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds, they were “sore afraid,” as the old translation puts it. They must be reassured: “Be not afraid.” But we cannot receive that good counsel if we never entertain the truth that we have very good reasons to fear God’s presence.

A transcendent and demanding approach to faith does not require the liturgy in Latin. Conservative Protestantism emphasizes demanding belief. Decades ago, when I first visited a conservative Protestant congregation, I was struck by the fact that adults attended a one-hour class before church services. They studied a Bible passage together, and the pastor’s presentation was theologically rigorous. The message conveyed was clear: If you are serious about your faith, you must immerse yourself in the truths of the faith, which are found in scripture. And this immersion is not an exploration of how you “feel.” It’s an intellectually rigorous enterprise.

Around the same time, I read Hans Urs von Balthasar’s youthful manifesto, Razing the Bastions. Writing in the 1950s, Balthasar calls for the church to forsake her fortress mentality, throw open her doors, and bring the yeast of the gospel to the world. It’s an inspiring book, written with Balthasar’s characteristic brio. His vision is theologically correct. Christ calls us to be salt and light. But even then, years ago, I sensed a certain naiveté. Tearing down the walls that separate the church from the world risks weakening Christianity’s defenses against the world’s seductions. It also removes the outward signs of the church’s difference from the world, bleaching out the gospel’s supernatural claim upon our lives.

Last fall, Balthasar’s book came up in a conversation. A friend was upset by what he took to be the ­sectarian turn taken by many young people. They seem more interested in traditional rituals and the older scholastic theology than in contemporary forms and ideas. My friend reiterated Balthasar’s winsome rhetoric, saying, “Our vocation is to sanctify the world!” True, I replied, “But many young people recognize that perhaps our first task is to re-sanctify the church. We cannot give the world what we do not have.” He made reference to Razing the Bastions. “Yes, a wonderful book,” I acknowledged. I went on to note that if there’s a young theologian working today who is as passionate and brilliant as Hans Urs von Balthasar was, he’s likely to pen a new manifesto: Raising the Bastions.

Kneeling to receive the consecrated host, adopting traditional rites and religious symbols, studying St. Thomas, delving into finely argued Calvinistic debates, homeschooling your children, forming intentional communities—these are among the many signs of the return to strong religion. Raising the bastions will be marked by excesses and distortions, as was the project of razing them. But it’s what our age needs. The program outlined by Balthasar some eighty years ago served the needs of his time. Ours are different. There is a time to reap and a time to sow.