Communication and Lonergan, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup
Tekippe, Terry J.
FUSING FAITH & RHETORIC COMMUNICATION AND LONERGAN Common Ground for Forging the New Age Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup, eds. Sheed and Ward, $22.95, 377 pp. Terry J. Tekippe his book...
...Again, "Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth...
...In the end, no one can well stand outside and criticize: for the attempt of the Lonergan movement to communicate with the academy is but a subset of the problem every believing Christian faces today in communicating with a sometimes hostile, but more often indifferent, culture, n 25...
...Farrell and Paul Soukup introduce Lonergan's work and the study in the Preface...
...Where theologians once served the church, they have increasingly become "free agents," burdened with the responsibility of devising a strategy to save the world...
...Lonergan, however, is a Catholic theologian...
...More realistically, however, it will probably appeal mostly to those already interested in Lonergan's thought or, perhaps in lesser degree, to those following recent developments in rhetoric...
...and the heart of Lonergan's project is precisely "the meaning of meaning...
...The project of building the future cannot be done within the ecclesial communion itself, but must be done openly within the entire human community of cultures and religions," Mueller writes...
...but the church has always aimed at a world mission, and has almost two millennia of experience in communicating with other cultures...
...What is interesting to observe is how the authors attempt to bridge that gap...
...Hence there is a gap between religious conversion and the academy's secular biases...
...The volume is dedicated to Walter Ong, who initiated the two editors into their own interest in rhetoric...
...The last two essays, by Sierra-Gutierrez and Mueller, basing themselves on Doran's work, verge in this direction...
...Though Mueller affirms that only God can save, there still seems to be something slightly Pelagian here...
...My own sense is that conversion and repentance are crucial to the process of learning Lonergan's foundational language precisely because the languages of liberalism and nihilism are so dominant in our culture...
...By choosing communications, or rhetoric, as a theme, the editors hope to offer a fresh approach to Lonergan's work, and at the same time make a contribution to the newfound interest in rhetoric...
...A second strategy is to focus on what believers and nonbelievers have in common...
...28:18...
...Carla Mae Streeter applies Lonergan to preaching—another form of persuasive rhetoric...
...It also may be noted that Jesus already envisioned a worldwide strategy...
...Lawrence makes a particularly notable effort to enter into the preoccupations of deconstructionists and postmodernists...
...all kinds of strategies of communication need to be tried...
...go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations" (Matt...
...As Catholics used to appeal to natural law, so Mueller, like Doran, points to a "metaphysical" human capacity for understanding...
...Farrell outdoes himself here, relating the Lonergan insights in the language of Eric Voegelin, Plato, and contemporary psychologists like Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, Jung, and Thomas Patrick Malone and Patrick Thomas Malone, a father-son team...
...Frederick Crowe surveys Lonergan's contributions on "communications," from the inter-Trinitarian life to transcultural situations...
...A more radical possibility would be to adopt the program of the world, and express it in Christian terms...
...I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold...
...On the other hand, the richness of that thought is almost totally unknown outside a small circle of theologians and philosophers...
...But the language will be religious: the symbols of the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ...
...There shall be one flock then, one shepherd" (John 10:16...
...In many ways this is a splendid piece of work, a model of how this kind of broadening communication should be attempted...
...in a sense, then, we are all "literary historians...
...This volume may be highly recommended to all deconstructionists and postmodern thinkers...
...Thoroughly understand what it is to understand," Lonergan wrote, "and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding...
...Theology has a wider, inclusive responsibility for cultural problems as a new challenge," according to Mueller...
...The above comments are offered more as observations than criticism...
...In this volume, John Campbell "situates Lonergan's thought in the context of rhetorical theory...
...Would that every attempt were as polished and authoritative as this...
...The world the authors would communicate with is especially the world of the academy...
...To return to the initial problem, Loner24 gan offers an answer in his dialectic...
...Unlike all other studies, rhetoric, or the study of speaking and writing, Thomas Farrell points out, concentrates not on content, but on process...
...That is not far from the original Enlightenment project: having put aside sectarian disputes, to create a kingdom of reason...
...The problem is pressing, the gap is huge...
...The program is to create a new world culture...
...But that world, represented in the lateEnlightenment university, is one in which God has largely disappeared...
...The question: How can'the import of Lonergan's fundamental work be communicated to a sometimes hostile, but more often indifferent, world...
...A glossary, an extensive annotated bibliography, and an index complete the volume...
...A Foreword by Robert Doran identifies the "common ground" Lonergan provides for a contemporary communication...
...Lawrence comes closest to this...
...Geoffrey Williams "argues that any act of communication is a manifestation of literary history...
...Given the protean nature of Lonergan's work, it is not difficult to show its significance to communication and rhetoric...
...Farrell shows that a writer, in a Lonerganian mode, must appropriate his own intellectual processes...
...It also has the limitations almost endemic to this sort of collection: the pieces don't always mesh...
...Another approach is to express the Christian viewpoint in other languages...
...Most articles make fresh attempts to communicate briefly the gist of Lonergan's work, which seems at once repetitious, and yet probably too elliptical to help those not already familiar with the language...
...If, as Lonergan says, theology mediates between a religion and a culture, then there is something here for everyone: the culture will recognize its program, and religion will recognize its language...
...At the same time, theology has recognized that it cannot concern itself exclusively with ecclesial problems...
...I must lead them, too, and they shall hear my voice...
...Terry J. Tekippe his book confronts a situation well known within the Lonergan movement: On the one hand, the brilliant contributions to twentieth-century thought of the late Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan could ground "the new age envisioned in the Christian Scriptures...
...In the last analysis, any rhetorical expression attempts to convey a meaning...
...The answer this volume offers is: by focusing on "communication...
...Of course, the new situation of the "global village" does require fresh thinking and tactics...
...Farrell, Crowe, Hugo Meynell, and Frederick Lawrence each contributes two essays, while John Campbell, Streeter, William Rehg, Williams, Francisco Sierra-Gutierrez, and J. J. Mueller have a single entry...
...Lonergan exhibits the same priority of process over content...
...One strategy is simply to call for conversion...
...In Mueller's formulation, however, the church seems to recede into the background...
Vol. 121 • September 1994 • No. 16
