Varieties of Post-Secular Theology
Tomáš Halík and Pádraig Ó Tuama
For the past twenty years or so, sociologists, theologians, and others have increasingly come to describe the contemporary West as “post-secular.” Although encompassing a range of meanings, the term generally refers to the sense that, contrary to the expectations set by 20th-century theories of secularization, Western societies have not become completely secular in the sense of becoming shorn of religious belief and practice, although the secularization process has had a profound impact. Rather, in post-secular societies, many people have retained belief in God or spiritual beings, and others have adopted contemporary religious or spiritual beliefs and practices such as those associated with the New Age movement. Likewise, traditional religious groups have maintained some vitality, while the religious traditions of immigrant groups have contributed to greater religious diversity. Although still characterized by skepticism toward absolute religious truth claims and the “organized” aspects of religion, in the post-secular age, religious belief and practice remain present and continue to give meaning and purpose to people’s lives. Previously in the newsletter, I’ve written about the Belgian theologian Lieven Boeve, whom I think offers one of the most compelling theological responses to the post-secular phenomenon.
In the most recent volume of Theological Studies, Aden Cotterill (a Ramsay Postgraduate Scholar at the University of Cambridge) provides an even more extensive survey of the work of another European post-secular theologian, the Czech Tomáš Halík. In Cotterill’s telling, Halík insists that the Church must engage in dialogue with the skeptics and seekers outside the Church’s walls, not primarily to convert them, but rather to purify and deepen the Church’s faith.
In a recent episode of the Commonweal podcast, associate editor Griffin Oleynick interviewed Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama, who offers a form of post-secular theology quite distinct from that of Halík. Neither a member of the Church nor a seeker, Ó Tuama considers himself an “exile.” Raised in an intense form of charismatic Catholicism, Ó Tuama eventually left the Church he found could not accept him as a gay man. Rejecting membership in the Church and denying the divinity of Jesus, he nevertheless remains deeply shaped by the Catholic tradition and continues to think of himself as a theologian; he suggests that his exile from the institutional and doctrinal boundaries of the Church in some ways frees him to more deeply explore the riches of that tradition.
I had the occasion to briefly mention Halík in the context of his role in the synodal process, namely giving the opening address for the European Continental Assembly early last year. In this speech, he proposed the idea of a “kenotic ecclesiology” that envisions a Church willing to let go of certain trappings of the past in order to better live out the Gospel in the present. In his article, Cotterill provides a much more thorough overview of Halík’s theological work, although one he admits is limited to those works of Halík’s translated into English.
Cotterill distills Halík’s thinking into three key themes. The first is that the seekers and religious questioners of contemporary Western society should have a privileged place in the thinking of the Church. Halík’s point here is not so much that the Church should focus its evangelical efforts on reaching out to those who are secular but open to religious claims (akin to the “New Evangelization” associated especially with Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI), but rather that Christians themselves should adopt something of the stance of the seeker. What Halík means is that Christians too readily adopt “ready-made but often facile answers,” both in their own theological reasoning and their dialogue with others. Instead, they should return to the sense of faith as a “path of seeking and asking,” and a sense of God as a mystery.
The second theme identified by Cotterill is that contemporary atheism can paradoxically be of benefit to Christians. In particular, those atheists who offer critical responses to Christianity, or theism more generally, can help Christians rid themselves of idolatry, false conceptions of God that keep us from fully embracing the divine mystery.
The third theme, Halík’s call for what he terms a “little faith,” is related to the previous two. Halík contends that contemporary Christians have engaged in a quest for certainty that in the end is misguided. Faith is not the same as intellectual certainty, but rather trust in mystery. Interestingly, Halík is also cautious about contemporary expressions of religious enthusiasm (one thinks of the Charismatic Catholic movement, for example, or of World Youth Day celebrations) which seem to call forth “whooping and shouting” and proclamations of certainty that risk drowning out the still, small voice of God.
Cotterill notes, I think rightly, that much of Halík’s thinking as outlined here is a rearticulation of themes already developed by earlier theologians, perhaps most notably Karl Rahner, S.J. In some ways, Halík’s theology represents an adaptation of Rahnerian insights to a postmodern age. Cotterill argues, and here I also agree, that Halík’s most important move beyond Rahner is the role of pluralism in his thought. As Lieven Boeve has noted, for Rahner and other theologians of his generation, aside from ecumenical relations, the Christian’s dialogue partner was singular: “modern man,” the man of the secular world. The task of modern theology, according to Rahner, is to show how the longings of the modern person can be fulfilled, in fact are finally only realized, in Christianity. This is a grandiose claim!
As we have seen, Halík instead proposes a “little faith.” This involves embracing uncertainty and eschewing grandiose Christian claims about human nature or God’s workings in the world. As Cotterill explains, Halík adopts a kind of non-relativist “perspectivism,” recognizing that while we are in search of the truth, and indeed hold to the truth commitments of Christian belief, we must recognize the concrete realities of religious difference and that “we all look from our own particular limited perspective and fail to see the whole.”
Whereas Halík turns to the contemporary seeker and questioner as a locus theologicus, Ó Tuama himself represents a distinct but equally paradigmatic figure of the Western, post-secular world: someone who was a member of, and indeed deeply immersed in, the life of the Church, but who ultimately finds they cannot stay in the Church, even if sometimes they remain deeply shaped by the Church’s spirituality and practices.
In his interview with Oleynick, Ó Tuama claims that often members of the Church suffer from what he calls the “burden of belief”: when we cling to doctrinal correctness or elaborate conceptual systems, we tend to close ourselves off to the questioning and probing that builds intimacy with God or the figures (such as biblical characters or saints) whom we are contemplating. Ó Tuama states that it was only when he was free to study the four Gospels from a more literary angle, free from the burden of belief, that he was really able to exercise his curiosity about Jesus and come to know him. He poignantly remarks that he thinks about Jesus and the Gospels every day, which is certainly more than many Christians could say.
Like Halík, Ó Tuama considers the effects of contemporary pluralism, although he focuses more on increasing polarization than on difference considered in itself. He proposes what he calls a “spirituality of conflict,” which turns out to be a form of dialogue in which different sides honestly express their views and listen to the perspectives of others while trying to overcome the simplistic narratives they may hold regarding the others. For example, he notes that rather than focusing on the differences between groups, in a dialogue it can be transformative for the different sides to explore and share the disagreements within their own groups. He explains that this will make it more difficult for the opposing sides to hold on to simplistic views of each other, helping the participants to see one another as real people rather than as caricatures.
Interestingly, Ó Tuama’s “spirituality of conflict” is quite similar to the way Pope Francis understands dialogue, which I wrote about here, summarizing the work of fellow Substacker Sarah Carter. That makes it all the more striking then that Ó Tuama is skeptical of the synodal process and the Synod on Synodality, which have been understood as an ongoing “spiritual conversation” among members of the Church. Although providing an opportunity for more open dialogue, Ó Tuama argues that the synodal conversations are too bound by what is perceived to be traditional teaching to really be open and frank, and therefore to make spiritual progress. Again, in Ó Tuama’s view, belief gets in the way of a more authentic spirituality.
As a self-professed “exile” from the Church, it is not surprising that Ó Tuama is skeptical that belief, in the sense of adherence to credal or doctrinal tenets, can play a positive role in the spiritual life. Halík, on the other hand, who remains a “dweller” in the Church, retains some role for belief through his non-relativist perspectivism, even if he wants to challenge an overly confident sense of certainty or completeness in our doctrinal beliefs in favor of a greater appreciation of divine mystery. The question of how to make sense of belief or faith in a postmodern context is certainly one of the key tasks of post-secular theology.
One of the things I appreciate about Lieven Boeve’s theology is his insistence that the way we approach the postmodern realities of uncertainty, pluralism, and the encounter with the Other must be rooted in the Christian narrative itself rather than understood as characteristics of “the world” to which the Church must accommodate itself. We also see something of this in Halík’s work. For example, as Cottrill notes, Halík uses the character of Zacchaeus from the Gospel of Luke, a tax collector who climbs a tree to see Jesus, as the paradigm for today’s seekers. Halík argues that Jesus was particularly keen on reaching out to those like Zacchaeus who lived at the margins of faith.
Even Ó Tuama remains to some degree rooted in the Christian narrative. As I already noted, he admits to being profoundly shaped by the narratives of Jesus in the four Gospels. As the Commonweal interview also reveals, however, his spirituality is shaped by other sources, as well, including the Gnostic Gospel of Mary (although he suggests he is skeptical of certain Gnostic elements of the narrative). Even his identification as an “exile” has a certain narrative quality to it, a relationship to a community and the stories it tells about itself, even if that relationship is one of no longer belonging. Ó Tuama’s narrative, however, is largely self-constructed, and although in one sense we all are responsible for constructing a personal narrative that gives an account of our lives, Christian theologians must insist that this narrative be grounded in the communal narrative of faith, the narrative of the Church.
The close timing of Cotterill’s article on Halík and Ó Tuama’s interview with Commonweal struck me, particularly given the similar themes in their work, but also the quite different perspectives provided by a Catholic priest and theologian engaged in dialogue with a world shaped by doubt and uncertainty, on the one hand, and a man once deeply immersed in Catholic life but now alienated from it, on the other. Hopefully I’ve identified some fruitful themes in their work that has spurred your own theological reflection!
I think this might win the award for most diacritical marks in article of the newsletter, although the survey of Synod on Synodality participants from Eastern Europe might give it a run for its money.