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New Evangelization in Europe begins with Coming to Terms
with the Problem of Secularization! „Secularization“: A forgotten ecclesiastical
formative task or the enemy image of the Church? Issues
for discussion by Manfred Hanglberger When I read about secularization in Church pronouncements, my perception is that it is
always understood to mean "dissolution of faith" in the modern
world. This process of increasing secularization originated in Europe and is now spreading through the world's technical, economic and media networking into
most cultures of our earth. The Churches in Europe, the continent
of origin of this development, are urgently required to analyze and work up
this process comprehensively - as a very important service to the faith of the people on this continent, but also as a spiritual and mental service to humanity and
to the other religions. For
the other peoples are not
only beneficiaries of our technical achievements, but also sufferers
of an economic system often
disconnected from moral values
and a consumerist, non-religious
lifestyle, which no longer
addresses the fundamental
questions of human meaning
and is no longer able to answer them. Common Explanations for the Secularization Process • Rationalization provides better explanations of the world: • Rationalization enables a sense of
security and reduces dangers: • Rationalization enables a broad development of prosperity through technology: • Rationalization enables individualism
through security and prosperity: • Rationalization de-divines the authorities
and enables democratization: • Rationalization leads to more self-determination by breaking
with tradition: The Church was the Engine of
Science But it was by no means the case that the Church had always been against
rationalization and scientific
progress. Quite the contrary!
The Church promoted science in Europe in the Middle
Ages up to the early modern
period like no other organization. Even in the 16th century, the astronomers of the
Church were the best in the world. Therefore, until the beginning of the 18th century,
the directors of the imperial observatory
in China were always Jesuits from Europe. In 1582 the Church astronomers calculated the orbit of the earth around the sun for a calendar reform so precisely that the then introduced Gregorian calendar still has its
validity today. The Polar World Vision of Christianity The
Bible and christianity contain essential impulses for a rationalization,
that is, for a rational exploration and contemplation of the world. (More in detail: >>> ) - On the one hand there is
a scientific, objective view of the world. The world is
no longer seen divinely and is entrusted to human beings to shape it with responsibility. - But at the same time, the world is understood as a medium of God's self-communication, that is, a spiritual and symbolic view of the world, which is about developing
a deep sense of belonging
to the whole of the community of life of nature and
dealing with earthly things with a healthy love for
the world, living in relationship with God, the Creator of the world. - Both
world realities are (similar to christological
dogma), according to christian
belief, "undivided
and unmixed". How could it happen
that the scientific view of the world has detached itself from polarity with the spiritual view
and become independent? The Church has Succumbed to the Temptation of
Power In
order to understand this
spiritual historical process,
it is necessary
to consider the development
of the Church and society in the leading European countries of the 15th century
and the following period. The
Church had become immensely powerful politically,
economically, and culturally.
But nepotism, greed for money and abuse of
power triggered fierce criticism in some circles and numerous reform proposals. The early reformers (Joh. Hus, Savonarola, Hans Böhm)
could be destroyed by the
Church leaders of that time, but
with Luther and Zwingli, for example, they no longer succeeded. But the struggle for authority and retention
of power dragged on for centuries.
Since authority and power in the Church were based in spiritual terms essentially on the Bible and on Church doctrinal tradition, important circles in the Vatican were not prepared to react to new findings in astronomy (Galileo Galilei) with a spiritual confrontation in order to further
develop the understanding
of the Bible and Church doctrine.
They rather succumbed to the temptation of
power and showed the scientist the torture tools of
the Inquisition, thereby intimidating him and forcing him to revoke his research results. Abuse of power by the Church's
leadership destroyed the authority of the Church
and the faith as well The reckless action of the Church leadership against every critic, also the content of intimidation, paternalism and fear-mongering prevailing in the annunciation,
and the endless cruel confessional wars led to the fact
that the Church leadership lost
a lot of authority and many
believers began to think about God
and the world on their own. Abuse of power of the Church reinforced
the independent thinking of believers The less the Church leaders showed themselves accessible to rational argumentation and scientific evidence, the more
the authority of rational argument
grew, the more the recognition
of knowledge, education and provable
research grew. While in the first centuries
of this development most scientists were still believers, scientists later used their
research results as a means of emancipation against the Church's claims to power, e.g.
by attempting to question
the truth of the Bible and the existence
of God with scientific arguments. Overview of important historical events that challenged and thus encouraged independent, rational thinking in people: 1. „ Renaissance" (The "rebirth" of ancient Greek rational thinking that had developed
in the city-states of the time): The city-states in northern Italy had a similar
sociological structure
and, through their civic communication, promoted rational argumentation and the desacralization
of authority. 2. The suppression and fight against scientific knowledge (cosmology,
evolution) by the Church. 3. The suppression of justified criticism on the part
of the reformers by the Church leadership. 4. The staging of cruel and long-lasting religious
wars by those in charge
of the Christian denominations and their refusal to tread paths to peace through compromises. 5. The rigid adherence
to a literal understanding
of some biblical texts by the Church leadership, although biblical research had recognized their temporal conditionality. 6. The Church's refusal to recognize new social
value experiences such as human dignity and human rights, and
the fight against the achievements derived from them, such as
freedom of the press, freedom
of expression and democracy. 7. The attempt of the Church
leadership to enforce its
sexual morality (e.g. contraception) by any means possible. 8. The attempt of the Church, ruled by celibate men, to maintain its power structures by sacralizing the priesthood and rejecting women as priestesses. Dividing the World The
more the Church suppressed new historical
developments and scientific
findings and later - when it no longer
had the power to suppress
them - negated them, the more it lost authority and the more rational
arguments and scientific findings were used, especially by the media
and by certain social groups, to damage the authority of the Church and to emancipate themselves from its influence. Conversely, the Church then
declared the absolutization
of the rational worldview
to be the enemy. In
order to escape the criticism
of science, which was able to explain the world better and better, the Church declared itself no longer responsible for
"the world". Therefore everything "worldly",
everything "earthly"
and everything "material"
was devalued by it. The "religious",
the "heavenly" and "otherworldly" were considered the true, eternal and essential values that the believer should strive for. Believers were urged to flee the world and despise it. This
caused a split into an
"earthly world" to be avoided
and a "world beyond" to be sought. For this Bible texts were wrongly interpreted: "My kingdom is not of this
world" (John 18;36). The power-oriented
world of the Roman Empire of that time was equated with the world as creation! More
and more educated people found
it difficult to accept the separation of
reality into a scientifically
explorable world and a religious-spiritual
world of belief. The
Christian worldview, which
was increasingly characterized by contempt for
the world, then also lacked a positive theology of creation and history. This was communicated to the believers mainly through appropriate prayers and
songs. Social
progress was always interpreted negatively by the
Church leadership. A positive interpretation of salvation history no longer occurred. This changed only with Pope John
XXIII in 1963, who interpreted
the workers' movement, the women's
rights movement and the
end of the colonial era positively
(in the encyclical "Pacem
in Terris"). The increasing incompetence of the
Church in questions of the world and society became an invitation to the faithful not to become too preoccupied
with questions of earthly
life. The succinct but destructive statement of a faithful Church historian reads: "The popes of the 19th century
did not recognize the signs of the
times". (Georg Schwaiger in: „Geschichte der Päpste/History of the
popes“) Deficits of the Church’s World View are filled up by Ideologies that Acted Scientifically - with Devastating Effects People
emotionally need a meaningful sense of belonging to the world and they
need an interpretation of
time and history. If the official
organization, religion, which interpretes the sense of everything does not provide
this, people find
alternative meanings. Nationalism Fascism Fascism, too, with its racial fanaticism
developed to the extreme,
understood itself in the tradition of Social Darwinism as a scientifically founded theory of history and society. The idea of the
“master race” on the one hand and of the inferior
races and unworthy life on the other
not only sparked the Second World War, but
also justified genocide
and systematically implemented
euthanasia programs. Unimaginable fellow-human atrocities
and lack of compassion were to create progress for a better
humanity through the victory of the most viable people against the weaker ones. Communism Similar to fascism, communism understood itself as a scientific
analysis of society and its
interpretation of history. His claim to be a rational contemporary interpretation and an interpretation
of the meaning of human history mobilized
in many countries of the world, people who advocated for the goals of
a worldwide fair and classless
society. But communism has sacrificed human dignity and many human rights to its social goals. The
attractiveness of communism
was dissolved by the increasingly visible cruelty,
by the contempt for human beings
and the increasing backwardness
of those countries that saw themselves as the realization of communism. Capitalism The triumphant march among ideologies was started by capitalism. In the
Western industrialized countries, where it has
primarily originated, it has brought
unprecedented prosperity,
security and freedom of movement
to broad segments of the population. Its acceptance was probably also greatly increased in some
countries because they were able to mitigate the
negative effects of capitalism
on their populations through extensive social legislation. But for many poorer countries, and especially
for the ecology of the earth,
capitalism has become a form of exploitation
and endangerment that now threatens the entire basis of life on our earth for humans and animals. Capitalism indeed offers a pleasant life up to luxury, but no comprehensive sense of life.
The meaning of life is praised as the enjoying of pleasure, aesthetics, variety and prestige, however, the questions of transience, suffering, death and a comprehensive meaning are excluded and suppressed. Thus capitalism became a tremendous seduction, which promises boundless prosperity for a minority of
the world’s population on
short term, but threatens to destroy the foundations of life on planet
Earth in a foreseeable future. The historical understanding of capitalism is the vision of unlimited growth in prosperity and comfort of life. Its
scientific character refers to the sub-areas of life
that are researched and improved if this
is profitable for the researchers and the economy. Whatever is
not economically profitable, gets out of sight. Therefore, in capitalism,
man is largely reduced to those needs whose satisfaction
promises economic profit. The Church as the Beneficiary of the smarter Ideologies of History, which Behave "Scientifically". After
the catastrophe of the Second World War and the collapse of fascism, many people again turned to the churches as a shelter of a moral order. Communism
had long since become a frightening enemy image because of its realization in the Soviet
empire and in China. The Catholic Church in Germany, which
had still advocated for the restoration
of the monarchy after the First World War, had meanwhile converted to democracy. In the Church, “human dignity” and “human rights” used to be not respected terms, but have now
become its central value concepts. In
the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the Catholic Church succeeded in showing the ways out of the dead ends
of the previous centuries.
(More detailed: >>> ) However, many of these paths were
not followed. The Main Problem
of Europe, "Secularization without
Spiritual Reference", has not
been solved The main problem of Europe, that is to say
“secularization”, which is now expanding
into many countries around the world, has not been consistently
analyzed and dealt with. Thus, the Church leadership has
still not yet done its
urgent homework related to the secularization problem. Accordingly, many of our prayers are outdated. (prayer crisis: >>> ) Even for the question
of the understanding of authority and the practice of authority there is no contemporary doctrine of faith. The church's power structures are correspondingly problematic. The Church's Offer for Salvation in a World Characterized by Capitalism Since many people in capitalism have internalized the reduction
of human existence to those
needs the satisfaction of
which promise economic
profit, they are often uninterested in the salvation offer of the Christian faith. Moreover, the search of young people for their own originality and in their balancing act between detachment from parents and a
lasting bond with parents, presents
an important opportunity
to offer assistance contained in the Christian image of man and in some aspects of Christian spirituality.
(example: >>> ) Unfortunately, in the Church, there
is no doctrine of faith in polarity with a scientific understanding of the
emotional merry-go-round often experienced by young people in particular and
for a responsible handling
of it; because the psychological insights of psychic
repressions and projections,
which essentially cause our human conflicts, do not occur in Christian
thinking. It is similarly negative for the church
if, in the area of the scientific
worldview, it does not offer
a contemporary doctrine
of faith about man's need for redemption on the background of the insights of the evolution of all living things. (More in detail >>> ) That is why the partly completely outdated offer of the Church is more
repulsive than attractive
for most young people! (2) Other than
that, it is necessary to perceive people's situations of
suffering and to offer both practical (scientifically based) and
spiritual help - as corresponds
to a polar Christian worldview. If, for example, in
Europe many people in the family and in other areas of human relations experience the strongest emotional pain and powerlessness, it is very negative for the reputation of the Church and the Christian faith, if the Church does not have
to offer a contemporary doctrine of faith and a contemporary culture of prayer
to this area of suffering.
Of course, reforms in this area which would only be an adaptation to values already practiced in society, will not make the Church to be
the "salt of the earth"
and the "light on the mountain", but will only remove
annoyances and blockades.
The Church can rather regain
a positive impact by coming to terms with secularization in the proclamation
and practical realization
of a polar view of the
world and of life. Proposals to Work up the Secularization
Problem: 1. The
Church would have to research and describe the historical development of the
one-sided rationalization
of secularization - and thereby
confess its guilt for having abused its power. 2. The
Church would have to
formulate the rightly understood
secularization mandate, which
is laid down in the Bible and in the Church's doctrinal tradition, in a generally understandable way, concretize it for the various areas of life, proclaim it and put it into practice. 3. The
Church would have to show
in which areas it has already
succeeded in positively realizing the secularization
mission: 4. The
Church would have to remedy the deficits of its secularization mandate
But also such fundamental questions would have to be clarified, for example, how we can imagine the need for redemption of man on
the background of the knowledge of the evolution of
all living things. (More detailed: >>> )
5. Adapt spiritual texts 6. Understanding of
authority and structures within
the Church 7. Spiritual
reappraisal through
"Church days of mourning” Since the "secularization problem" has arisen in Europe and the whole of Europe is burdened by it in a very dramatic way, this problem should be dealt with by an European Synod. It would be irresponsible
and a betrayal of the Christian faith
and the Christian mandate to shape the world, if this problem
was not finally and fundamentally be tackled. Manfred Hanglberger (www.hanglberger-manfred.de ) Translated by: Ingeborg Schmutte LINK: https://hanglberger-manfred.de/en-secularization.htm Other texts in English >>> |
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Säkularisierungsimpulse in AT und NT und in Konzilstexten: >>> Die Säkularisierungsproblematik graphisch dargestellt: >>> Zehn notwendige Schritte für eine zeitgemäße Glaubens- und Kirchenreform: >>> |
