The Case for Change
A few years ago, I visited a Greek Orthodox monastery in Arizona with my wife, sister and brother-in-law. It was a beautiful, tranquil place, an oasis in the desert. But in walking around the grounds, we noticed that the monks we past were not communicative. The only one who was worked in the monastery gift shop, and he was not particularly friendly.
In fact, when he rang up my purchase, he asked what religion I professed and when I answered, “Catholic,” he began to tell me why Catholicism is inferior to orthodoxy and how the Second Vatican Council – the gathering of Catholic bishops in Rome that aimed to reform many Catholic beliefs and practices – showed that Catholicism isn’t faithful to Christ’s message.
I couldn’t resist arguing but soon realized that it was useless and gave up. A couple of ideas occurred to me, however. First, the monks didn’t appear to prize Christ’s “law of love” above all else. Second, they aren’t the only religious people not to do so nor the only ones who cling to the past.
At Least As Reliable
The only things that are certain, according to the cliché, are death and taxes. But another certainty is at least as reliable: change.
That’s because without it, everything and everyone would cease to exist. Biological change is the most obvious, but virtually everything about us and our world, including religion, requires continual change. So why do we resist it as if it were a fatal disease?
Often it’s because we are presented with an agenda for change without knowing why the change is needed. That, in my opinion, accounts for much of the resistance to the changes brought about by the Vatican Council. But it happens in businesses and organizations, too. Employees, without having any input, are expected to embrace changes thought up by the executives.
Religion is especially resistant to change, probably because many are based on centuries of revelation and practice. It’s true that religions, if they are to maintain their identities, must guard the “deposit of faith,” as my church calls it. But that doesn’t preclude continual re-evaluation of the contents of that deposit.
It’s obvious that one’s grasp of religion is tied to a sense of history. My faith would be much harder had I not had at least a basic understanding of how my religion developed and how it has affected my church and me.
What has been lacking in the process of distinguishing between the essential and the peripheral in religion, it seems to me, is humility, plus the tendency to think that revelation stopped with the completion of the New Testament 1,900 years ago. There’s no reason to think God has stopped communicating with us, however.
And in reviewing what should be kept at any cost and what should be changed, we shouldn’t ignore all the ways humans, their institutions, societies and knowledge have changed. We can’t pretend that all this had little or no influence on what we profess.
Writing about seminary training of new priests in America Magazine recently, T. Howland Sanks, professor emeritus of theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in California, made this point.
An Agricultural World
“Much of (the church’s) teaching developed in an agricultural world in which children were an economic asset and necessity, when the majority of children died before the age of five and when the average life expectancy was less than 45 years. And much of the doctrine on authority in the church was developed in a world that took monarchy, hierarchy and patriarchy for granted.”
As for the composition of society, “People of another culture or religious tradition who once were thousands of miles and an ocean away are now right down the street,” Sanks writes. We pretty much still ignore the wisdom traditions of Asia and Africa while “much of our theology is still very geocentric and anthropomorphic.”
Just think how much we know about the universe compared to only 100 years ago. It’s mind-boggling. And people searching for God must take this into account. How does the contemporary view of the universe and its development affect one’s faith? (It has strengthened mine.)
The need for change in some things and not in others may be confusing for some people searching for God. But isn’t change necessary, and inevitable, in all areas of life, whether you’re a monk or not?
