The Reason For This Blog

David Tracy once wrote that today we live in a world in which there are many different cultural “centers” (I would say common places) from which people think. Tracy goes on to describe that some people live in a pre-modern mindset, some in a modern mindset and others in a post-modern mindset. I accept post-modernity, but not a post-modernity that is relativistic. We are raised in and we do think through language and culture, but we still can accurately understand or inaccurately understand our world. Human beings also make decisions that are ultimately responsible or irresponsible.
I know and hold to the conviction that one of the most important truths for our world is the truth of progress (evolution). Many have written about this. Like David Tracy, I am a believing Catholic. My understanding and my living are sacramental. My spirituality is Ignatian. I seek to find God in all things—including in the history of humanity. When one studies the history of humanity, there is no doubt that we have changed and have developed methods for changing the world around us—technological progress, but there is a more fundamental and necessary form of change—spiritual progress. Spiritual progress is necessarily social and personal and, in this inter-cultural age, necessarily respectful of all humanistic religious traditions.
I am creating this blog because once again, in the USA, and in many places in the world, we are lapsing into a polarized understanding of religion and change. I have a deep respect for conservatives because they seek to pass on tradition in a world in which many have naively, narcissistically and destructively sought to overthrow traditions—the most awful examples being Nazism and Marxism which combined slaughtered hundreds of millions of people. Nevertheless, to conserve human rights, human dignity and the common good, religion needs to progress with technology and continually develop intelligent interpretations of tradition in light of social change.
For some conservative Christians, the world is just a shadow of the heavenly kingdom. Our task is then to escape from this inherently depraved realm. The end of time is thus understood as some form of destruction of the world (often through weapons of mass destruction) during which an elect is taken from this depravity and into heaven. While I respect how conservatives have encouraged people to maintain their relationship with Christ in the midst of a world which mocks religion at times, I do not accept their interpretation of the end-time. The eschaton—the word for end which is used in the Bible-- means end of time in the sense of the final phase of history. We are living in “these last days” and history as it was understood previously to Jesus of Nazareth has reached its end. Middle Eastern history and culture prior to Jesus, as well as European history and culture at that time, understood that culture was held together through intimidation, scapegoating, and collective violence. Jesus changed that. He resisted scapegoating (he reached out to scapegoats like lepers and prostitutes), did not use violence or intimidation to maintain social bonds (he forgave enemies) and accepted suffering rather than impose suffering on others (died on the cross). God raised him from the dead, revealed Jesus’ divinity and thus revealed that God’s kingdom breaks into human history through acts of love.
What Jesus brought about was spiritual and cultural progress. Many Christians have chosen to ignore his example and have committed acts of violence, especially against Jews. In those instances, they have fostered regress rather than progress. In today’s world, we have learned through our God given ability to reason that biological evolution has occurred and is occurring. For Christians, Jesus then is the most important moment in evolution for he ushered in the final phase of evolution—humanity’s task of cooperating with God in building God’s kingdom of harmony, justice and peace.