Conversation: Can White American Evangelicalism be Saved?

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Some Things Can't Be Saved

When OUT means FREE

Diana Butler Bass

https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/some-things-cant-be-saved?r=45vbf&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

After reading this Substack essay, I engaged in the following conversation on FB:

BETH:
Bass writes, "Some things, I suppose, can be reformed. Maybe laws. Certain practices. Someone who has committed a crime. But not entrenched institutions, political parties, or religious movements."

Well, I think that may be Bass's hurt talking. I certainly agree with her that reform can be difficult, if not impossible, for SOME institutions, political parties or religious movements. But consider premodern, pre-Reformation Christianity: there were plenty of reformers before the Reformation.

Yes, they were mostly people on the margins, and some were indeed made "Non-Persons," like John Wyclif, John Hus, Peter Waldo and the Waldenses, Girolamo Savonarola and (for a time) Jacques Lefèvre d’Ètaples. But others successfully managed to reform their church "from the inside." It is telling, though, that their numbers shrank dramatically as the premodern, realist world shifted to the modern, nominalist world.

• St. Anthony (c. 250-356),

  Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzus,

  Macrina

  Pachomius (c. 285 or c. 292-346),

  St. Martin of Tours

  Jerome (c. 342-420).

  Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-c. 544).

  10th century

  The Cluniac Reform

  Dunstan (c. 909-998).

  11th century

  The Bishops of Canterbury: Lanfranc and Anselm,

  Bruno and the Carthusians 11th century

  Bernard of Tiron (1046-1117)

  Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153),

  Pope Leo IX

  Peter Damien (1007-1072)

  Pope Alexander II

  Gregory VII (Hildebrand) (c. 1023-1085).

  Urban II (c. 1088-1099)

  Innocent III (reigned (1198-1216) and Fourth Lateran Council

  12th century:

  The Cistercian Reform

  Peter Waldo and the Waldenses

  Francis of Assisi (1181 or 1182 to 1226).

  Clare of Assisi

  Dominic (c. 1170-1221),

  13th century

  The Mendicant Orders of the : Franciscans and DOminicans

  14th century

  Catherine of Siena (1347-1380),

  Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498).

  John Wyclif (c. 1320-1384).

  John Hus (c. 1373-1415),

  Geert Groote (1340 – 1384) and the Brethern of the Common Life

  15th century

  Jacques Lefèvre d’Ètaples (c. 1455-1536)

  Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466-1536),

  Ximénes de Cisneros (1436-1517
  
  

MY INTERLOCUTOR:

"Is there an explanation for the difference in the ability to reform between the premodern vs modern worlds as you describe them? IOW, were the differences in structures, politics, cultural/societal mores between these two eras that can help explain what you are perceiving?"


BETH:

Such a good question! I'm not trained in history or sociology or political science, but I do know a little about philosophy, so I'll respond as best I can from that perspective. I hope others will offer their insights.

For premodern people, the idea of participation is fundamental. For example, premodern Christians understood the Trinity in terms of the participation of three Persons in one Substance. . The sacramental system is based on the idea that God participates in the world, and that creatures can participate in God. Real relationships are possible because there is a point at which there can be contact.

Moreover, the premodern understanding of God balances his Intellect and his Will, so that creation reflects His ordering and goodness. Premodern Christians held that there are "universals" that are independent of our minds, but which are grounded in God's intellect, and that he invites us to explore. Human beings thus can think His thoughts after him. Those provide a "point of contact" between God and humans, and between humans and humans. Thus, dialogue is possible between those who need reforming, and those who are offering reform. To summarize: for premoderns, relationship is a vital aspect of life with God, with fellow humans, and with nature, even if it is more of an ideal than a reality. Love can be seen as the ultimate good.

The rejection of the concepts of participation and relationship picks up speed in the late middle ages. A metaphysical view called nominalism denies the reality of universals. Nominalism, plague and warfare spur an "every man for himself" attitude, propelling individualism, and the view that each individual is a discrete, atomistic particular. Community is no longer a matter of persons participating together in something greater than themselves; instead, the most one can hope for is a collection individuals whose desires seem to align at a certain point in time.

Modernism also presents new way of understanding God called voluntarism. In denying universals, it makes God's intellect no longer relevant. It's a short step to then holding that God is beyond reason; he is Will, and ours is not to reason why, ours is to do and die. God elects some for heaven, and elects others for hell. Reason and faith get severed, so people are faced with either/or choices: sola fides, or sola ratio? With each passing century, the separation grows: human beings become disconnected from God, from each other, and from the world. For many, individual freedom becomes the ultimate, overriding good. For others, good is relativized. There's a reason Sartre says "Hell is other people."

Now reform depends on there being some kind of real relationship between those who need reforming and those who are presenting the reform. By the time we get to the 16th century, the acids of nominalism have corroded Europe, and we get the battle of wills that is Luther vs. Leo X. Reform from "inside" becomes impossible, because the two cannot find any common basis for a relationship, to which to appeal in dialogue. Whenever dialogue fails, ad hominems begin, and things can escalate to violence. Lacking any shared point of contact, that which needs to be reformed and that which seeks to reform strike one another, and bounce off in different directions. The Reformation was followed by over 130 years of religious warfare in Europe.

We are the heirs of modernism and White American evangelicalism (WAE) is deeply tied to it. I believe that WAE is replaying the role of the Counter Reformation, but this time around we have scores of Pope Leos (as Kristin Kobe DuMetz has shown.) We also don't even have the memory of participation and real relations that Luther's followers had.

So I'm sorry to be pessimistic. Yes, there is a growing population of New Persons, but if their battle cry is simply "freedom, " I'm afraid that's not enough to keep the centrifugal forces of these new would-be Reformers united. "Welcome to the motley vagabond crew on the road to who-knows-where." Until that crew figures out the universals in which they participate and are seeking to instantiate, they will remain vagabonds, moving towards a nebulous end. They will not have the metaphysical and spiritual glue that is necessary either for community, much less a New Reformation.

What do you think?