Evangelizing the Culture of Modernity, by Herve Carrier/Where Have You Gone, Michelangelo? by Thomas Day
Doyle, Dennis M
SAVE THE BABY & THE BATH WATER EVANGELIZING THE CULTURE OF MODERNITY Herve Carrier Orbis Books, $18.95,164 pp. WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, MICHELANGELO? The Loss of Soul in Catholic Culture Thomas...
...Day frequently raises the issue of multiculturalism...
...Among his many fine suggestions are to hire and pay good music directors, not to overshoot the abilities of the congregation, to use some simple chant here and there, and not to reject indiscriminately traditional and even Latin hymns...
...is heading fast in a bad direction...
...Moreover, he has two redeeming characteristics...
...This analysis reads almost as if it were Vatican IFs Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium etspes) revised for the 1990s...
...This represents what Schreiter calls an "adaptation" model of inculturation, which is a clear advance over pre- Vatican II approaches...
...Schreiter labels approaches like his own and Shorter's as "contextual," because one begins from within a particular culture...
...The author writes like the musician that he is, rarely stating a clear argument and following it through logically, but rather striking a few themes and then playing them with an intricate blending of repetition and variation...
...Where Have You Gone, Michelangelo...
...Two current books seek to reverse that trend...
...First, he can be self-deprecating...
...and violence, disorder, and destruction on a scale that leads some to believe that humankind stands on the brink of a new barbaric age...
...Day's new book is billed as a sequel of sorts, continuing his argument about how the liturgical renewal of the Catholic church in the U.S...
...Part of Day's message harmonizes well with the voice of Carrier...
...Day is a classic smart-alecky put-down artist armed with a rapid-fire delivery, something like a Don Rickles of the Catholic set...
...He argues that in spite of many flaws, openness has historically characterized Western culture...
...He writes: 22 "Over the centuries, the advances in theological reflection, biblical exegesis, the history of dogma, spiritual doctrines, conciliar and canonical formulations are due to a maturation of faith as it was lived in both the Eastern and Western churches, parts of the universal church...
...Neither wants a wholesale preservation of the past, but both warn against discarding lightly a heritage so strongly linked with a sense of the transcendent...
...ing more to say about architecture and church design, a deeper historical analysis of the current situation, a more balanced and at times even positive appreciation of the reformed liturgy, and a somewhat more respectful attitude toward people generally...
...Day gets it across with a mixture of erudition and schoolyard humor...
...Carrier himself is insistent upon what all cultures share: the transcendent nature of the human person, expressed in wondrous diversity...
...Where Rush Limbaugh targets the "liberals," Day goes after the "liturgical reformers" and the "aging hippies...
...However, Day is no conservative ideologue...
...Carrier acknowledges that his approach to non-Western culture is more sensitive to cultural diversity than positions the church has traditionally taken...
...Back then I knew dozens of kids who talked just like him...
...The Loss of Soul in Catholic Culture Thomas Day Crossroad, $19.95, 240 pp...
...if one is going to be truly sensitive about matters of culture, then interest in Western culture with its rich history should not decrease, but rather increase...
...one must be so firmly planted as to be able to hear what the saving message of Christ sounds like to people within a local situation...
...However, Carrier does not engage more radically inclusive Catholic writers such as Robert Schreiter (who edits the Orbis series in which this collection appears) or Ay 1 ward Shorter (who has been somewhat critical of John Paul II in these matters...
...He's likely to give the politically correct heart attacks, but I'm convinced that he really doesn't mean any harm...
...The following essays extend this discussion, giving some attention to the interplay between Western and non-Western cultures...
...For Shorter and Schreiter, the interchange of values and critiques is more mutual...
...crises in the family, workplace, and schools...
...JAMES R. KELLY is professor of sociology at Fordham University...
...Herve Carrier, long known for his writings in the sociology of religion, offers a collection of essays that reflect his work as the former secretary for the Pontifical Council on Culture...
...For Carrier, it is precisely the openness to human transcendence that makes possible the incarnation of the gospel in any society...
...23...
...After a masterly introductory essay exploring the impact of Vatican II on the question of culture, Carrier gets to his main topic: an analysis of the modern first-world culture that needs to be re-evangelized...
...DENNIS M. DOYLE teaches ecclesiology at the University of Dayton, and is the author of The Church Emerging from Vatican H (TwentyThird Publications...
...AVERY DULLES, S.J., professor of theology at Fordham University, is the author of many books including Models of Revelation (1983), and The Craft of Theology (1992...
...The church of the future will continue to grow out of the same roots and the same common stem that link it historically to its beginnings...
...He is not opposed to savoring cultural diversity, but he believes strongly that the treasures of Western culture should be included in such endeavors, especially for Catholics who trace much of their ethnic heritage to Europe...
...PATRICK H. McNAMARA teaches in the sociology department at the University of New Mexico...
...Carrier communicates this in the dignified tone of a distinguished scholar...
...Modern culture, for all of its real advantages, has also brought with it unprecedented forms of alienation, disillusionment, fear, anxiety, and depersonalization...
...In place of the unchecked global development that many at the council anticipated, one finds widespread economic injustice...
...I do not mean to suggest that Carrier's position is diametrically opposed to the more inclusive models...
...Carrier stresses the Vatican II position that any cultural phenomena compatible with the gospel must be preserved, fostered, and elevated to a new level...
...Schreiter and Shorter pay more attention to the authentically religious dimensions already existing within a culture and are eager to concede the corrupting elements of Western culture historically associated with the gospel...
...For them, it is not enough to consider extrinsically whether local marriage arrangements, ritual customs, reverence for ancestors, and practices of healing and exorcism might be adapted within cultural frameworks historically associated with the gospel...
...Carrier couples the enthusiastic hope of that document with a realistic assessment of the limitations and failures of contemporary societies...
...Rather, it is mainly a question of where one sets the balance...
...Still, Carrier maintains an optimism regarding fundamental human capacities and an appreciation of the real advantages brought about by science, technology, medicine, and social communications...
...Although Carrier, too, sees evangelization as a two-way dialogue, there is no question as to which dialogue partner remains ever on top...
...Day grew up in my native Philadelphia, and if I surmise correctly, he attended grammar school there in the fifties...
...Western culture's fragmentation is also a major focus of the latest offering of Thomas Day, who achieved fame and some notoriety with his Why Catholics Can't Sing (Crossroad) of three years ago...
...Drawing heavily upon the writings of John Paul II, he expresses what amounts to a quasi-official Catholic view of inculturation...
...Schreiter and Shorter, however, though surely distinguishable from each other, both advocate a full immersion within the context of a given culture as necessary for the gospel to be heard and to take root...
...For all of my ambivalence about his sarcasm, Day's presentation will probably get his important message out to an unusually large audience...
...Second, he is often on target with many of his criticisms...
...an excessive individualism ironically producing a mass culture of standardized tastes...
...Day hopes that a few simple prescriptions might turn the tide...
...Yet now we are in danger of losing that sense of the transcendent...
...According to Carrier, the solution lies not in abandoning Western culture, but in engaging the deepest and most authentic elements of all cultures— including that of the West...
...differs from Why Catholics Can't Sing by havREVIEWERS SUZANNE KEEN, a frequent Commonweal contributor, teaches English at Yale University...
...Nor is he the elitist snob that some people think...
...Dennis M. Doyle 'estern civilization has borne the brunt of much criticism in recent years, particularly in works intended to promote multiculturalism...
...One of his favorite techniques is to relate anecdotes about some unnamed individual or hypothetical group that capture what he thinks is wrong with liturgy today, and then to blast away with sarcasm and wisecracks...
Vol. 121 • March 1994 • No. 5
