Spe Salvi

I just finished reading the Pope’s new encyclical, Spe Salvi and, even as a lifelong protestant, I have to say that I’m quite impressed. In this letter, Benedict XVI (henceforth B16) boldly handles the difficult subject of Christian hope with impressive sharpness and enviable grace. This blog post will not come anywhere near doing it justice.

In the first page, B16 strongly asserts that hope is not simply a part of living a life in God. On the contrary, he claims, “To come to know God – the true God – means to receive hope” (§3). Hope, in his mind, is the center of Christian faith and it is from our hope that all else springs. He then goes on to elaborate on what he means by hope. Is this hope in the present? Hope in the future? His answer is that it is a little of both. Christian hope does involve a looking forward towards things to come, but it also involves a vision of the future in the present. “Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a “not yet”. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future” (§7)

Basically, the hope that we have for the future should not simply be confined to the future as something that we cannot grasp now. We hope that social injustice will be brought to an end and that suffering and death will be defeated, but this hope must (at least in part) materialize in the present if it is truly good news.

How do we learn and obtain this hope? His answer is threefold. First and foremost, prayer is essential. It is a communication between us and God, “something very personal, an encounter…” (§34) As well, he cites “action and suffering” as essential for the learning of hope. Action is understood as the ways that “we…strive to realize our lesser and greater hopes” (§35). Suffering, “like action…is a part of our human existence. Suffering stems partly from our finitude, and partly from the mass of sin which has accumulated over the course of history” (§36). Lastly, judgement is essential to our learning of hope. Our vision of God’s judgement, while sometimes terrifying, must be seen as “the decisive image of hope…an image that evokes responsibility” (§44).

There are, of course, some difficulties inherent in his arguments; however, the difficulties do not necessarily arise from him per se. Rather, these difficulties are naturally connected to the subject matter that he addresses. Namely, the topic of suffering…the age-old question of theodicy. If God is good, and all that God created is good, then why do we suffer? These are difficult questions with no sufficient answers.

I’m slightly concerned with the way that B16 addresses the issue of suffering as a means to learning hope. He is politically correct in his acknowledgment that we, as Christians, should work to alleviate suffering; however, he is less than optimistic that this can be accomplished this side of the eschaton. By naming suffering as one of the means by which we learn to hope, he implies quite powerfully that it is not going anywhere anytime soon. As well, this statement attempts to answer the theodicy question by saying something along the lines of “God allows suffering to bring about a greater good.” A classic view, but one that I ultimately find unconvincing and problematic.

I do not believe there to be a good answer to the theodicy problem, but I find the use of suffering as a means to a greater good to be dangerous. For starters, it legitimizes and romanticizes the suffering of millions (perhaps billions) of persons around the world. While I do not think that B16 is saying that God causes these persons to suffer or that we shouldn’t do anything about it, his conclusion does help to at least maintain the status quo.

As Christians, I think that we must be more optimistic about the possibility of social justice. Rather than say, “That is something that God will work out in the end,” we need to work harder for it in the present.  There are those like Reinhold Niebuhr who maintain that humanity is simply too corrupt, and others who hold that it is all God’s business and that all will eventually be well. True, our faith proclaims a hope that Christ will come soon, but the reality of the world begs us to take our present situation with more seriousness.

So Apparently I’m a Roman Catholic

I arrived home from the SBL conference in San Diego at around 5:00 this morning, and was anything but well rested. I always try to sleep on airplanes, but it is difficult when every person who comes by brushes against you and then taps you on the shoulder to apologize. Also, the person behind me liked to get out of her seat a lot and, every time she got up, she would use my seat as a stabilizer. It was not pleasant. But, that is not what this post is about. This post is about my apparent conversion to Catholicism.

This afternoon, when I awoke from my post-flight nap, I decided to waste time on the internet. I stumbled upon an online quiz that is supposed to inform you of your theological identity, based on your answers to 25 questions or so. Were they good questions? Some were. Can you properly label someone’s theological identity with a five minute quiz? No. Can you have fun taking the quiz and then writing about the results? Absolutely!

As you can see from the graphic at the end of this post, my top three categories are Roman Catholicism, neo-orthodoxy, and emergent/postmodern. My Wesleyan roots only show up fourth!!! I’m a little concerned with the emergent category, mostly because I tend to bristle at the very mention of emergent (non)theology. I’m also not completely sure I know what neo-orthodoxy is. However, the most fascinating thing to me was the fact that I am, apparently, 82% Catholic.

I am in graduate school at an extremely Catholic university and am constantly surrounded by Catholic peers who constantly question me on why I’m not Catholic. I personally feel that I do a fairly good job of defending myself against their inquiries. Why am I not Catholic? Well, I have a problem with Papal infallibility as well as some Catholic social teachings (required celibacy for priests, no women priests, etc.). Not small concerns, in my opinion.

So, this is the way I’m interpreting the results of my survey. I have been attending Episcopal churches for the better part of three years or so. I like the Episcopal Church because they think of themselves as good Catholics. Not in the sense that they are connected with Rome, but in the sense that they hung on to many things that the Catholics do well, and they let go of things that needed to be let go. So, with that in mind, I’m taking the 82% Catholic label and I’m going to take that as “you’re an Episcopal.” I figure the missing 18% is the Papal infallibility and the ordination requirements. What do you think? Sound like a plan?