EDITORIALS:
O'Gara, James
'GOD INVENTED US' The Appeal for Theological Affirmation, issued in Hartford at the end of January by an ecumenical committee of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant (predominantly Lutheran)...
...In general, we do not care for the negative, Syllabus of Errors approach to theological discussion...
...Nor does the affirmation that "God raised Jesus from the dead" commit the signers to a belief in the empty tomb or any particular interpretation of what "resurrection" is...
...but we do not interpret the Appeal as a retreat from either creative theologizing or political action...
...For this and more we speak a prayerful thanks...
...But the most significant aspect of the Appeal is that these leaders, several of whom have outstanding reputations for their commitment to social justice, found this statement necessary at this time...
...The Appeal affirms: "We did not invent God...
...Meanwhile the church must determine its own agenda, based on its own perception of God's will...
...Screen), Gerald Weales (Stage), Michael Murray (TV), Saul Maloff and Mark Taylor (Literary), and Frank Getlein (Cultural Affairs...
...of Yale, Avery Dulles, S.J., of the new Washington-based Woodstock Center, Father Gerard Sloyan of Temple and Lutheran Professor Robert Wilken of Notre Dame, and organized as a series of thirteen "superficially attractive," "false" but "pervasive" themes followed by brief paragraphs of contrary affirmation, the statement is inspired and held together by the conviction that: "Today an apparent loss of a sense of the transcendent is undermining the Church's ability to address with clarity and courage the urgent tasks to which God calls it in the world...
...MAISIE WARD The death of Maisie Ward terminates the long and fruitful career of a singular woman, but only in the most literal of senses does it bring to an end the influences of her life...
...Focusing on the narrow but fundamental question of God's relationship to his creation, it is an attempt to "draw the line" on a few key issues of belief at a time when too much religious discussion seems to be slipping into either irrational and anti-intellectual fundamentalism or an uncritical embrace of a secular humanism...
...the lives touched, the causes assisted, from the restoration of literary shrines in one part of the world to relief of hunger in another...
...If the distinction between religious and human goals and experience is lost, the authors fear, God will become no more than a projection of human aspirations...
...Powers will write in every second issue, joining company with our other regular columnists, Abigail McCarthy and Michael Novak (General), Sisyphus (Washington), Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...God invented us...
...On social action the Appeal rejects both that exaggerated emphasis on God's transcendence that allows some to "withdraw into religious privatism or individualism" and also the utopianism that encourages others to expect that imperfect human beings can create a perfect society, or that the struggle for a better humanity can somehow bring about the Kingdom of God...
...Maisie Ward will be remembered and revisited through her books and other writings so long as civilized man places a value on those individuals and human concerns to which she devoted so much intellectual, spiritual and physical energy...
...This week marks the start of a new column in these pages, one devoted to the press, and conducted by Thomas Powers, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1971, author of The War at Home, and a previous contributor to this magazine...
...Nor do the authors specify who their adversaries are, or attempt to deal with some of the more divisive doctrinal questions raised indirectly in the text: Is God so "transcendent" as to exclude the suggestion by some process theologians, who connect human history and the divine life, that God interacts with and changes with the world...
...We hope it means a clearing of the decks for tougher battles, a return to the essential point from which more difficult dialogues may spring, and a notice to an increasingly materialistic and selfish dominant culture that the church is not just a joiner but a judge...
...Nor should all religions be viewed as "equally valid," for to ignore contradictions sacrifices truth and obscures the meaning of Christian faith...
...Commonweal is especially grateful to Maisie Ward, for the magazine has benefited in numerous respects by her existence...
...The document is also remarkable in that it enunciates the shared convictions of a varied group of moderate-liberal religious leaders, some of whom have been accused of veering close to some of the positions the Appeal rejects...
...Drawn up at the initiative of Pastor Richard J. Neuhaus and religious sociologist Peter Berger of Worldview, reshaped in discussions with men like William Sloan Coffin, Jr...
...Maisie Ward left her mark on places and people, and all are the better for it...
...and salvation will be no more than the perfection of the human community...
...She appeared frequently in these pages from 1934-1971...
...Nor is there any affirmation of or reference to the "divinity" of Christ...
...Watergate only underlined the importance of the press in a democratic society and the need for constant scrutiny as to how well it is playing its role...
...GOD INVENTED US' The Appeal for Theological Affirmation, issued in Hartford at the end of January by an ecumenical committee of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant (predominantly Lutheran) theologians, is one of the more interesting, remarkable and historically significant religious statements since the effulgence of popular theology that accompanied the crest of Vatican II...
...Her studies of Chesterton and the Brownings assure this by themselves...
...The statement is interesting for what it is not...
...But there are also the long shelves of books that carry the Sheed & Ward publishing imprint...
...Jesus will seem simply a reflection of cultural notions of human excellence...
...It is not a creed, because the signers, with all their differences, already share a creed...
...And we must worship God because he is, not just to promote our own "self-realization...
...she shared with us and the rest of Western Christendom her remarkable husband...
...she provided us with an editor at one period in our history...
Vol. 101 • February 1975 • No. 14
