Public Theology and the Word of the Church in Pluralist Societies

In any current Church institution with an apostolate that is even minimally open to the social context, we find people whose origins and personal, existential situations are increasingly different and distant from what could be defined as the traditional ecclesial model. As much as some people may perhaps retain a measure of prejudice against what is religious-ecclesial, or even reject it, more and more often there prevails in the general perception a remoteness, a distance, a sense of not belonging.

This is a major challenge for the transmission of the faith, so much so that we are often left perplexed and paralyzed. As a Church we cannot limit ourselves to doing as we have always done, ignoring the difficulties and challenges, or enclosing ourselves in reserved spaces where we welcome only those who are already convinced. These are insufficient responses and they leave us unsatisfied. What is needed is an accurate analysis of the current situation, leading to coherent proposals.

We have often associated today’s problems of transmission of the faith with the process of secularization and the decrease of involvement in matters religious in our society. However, in this article we would like to suggest a different reading, one that focuses on another phenomenon present in our society, pluralism. There is no doubt that secularization exists and needs to be taken into account, but we believe that, as sociologist Peter Berger (1929-2017), has shown us, the problem is broader. According to Berger, the problem should be related more to the experience of pluralism, the new social situation in which there are different possible overarching doctrines or plausible structures.

This analysis of the situation should prompt us to look for new ways to speak the word of the Church in public and to reconsider how we present the faith. Our thesis is that public theology, as a theological current that starts from the recognition and acceptance of pluralism as a fact, can provide an appropriate and valid response in the present situation. In this light, we must investigate not only its foundations, but also the way in which it enriches the social discourse of the Church.

In this article we will first present Berger’s thesis, which considers pluralism as the main social phenomenon of our time. Then, we will see how this pluralism undermines the ethical paradigms that so far have been adequate for a discourse that aims to constitute moral references in society. From here we will move on to present the paradigm of public theology according to David Tracy. Before concluding, we will show how this paradigm – which has a distinctly speculative character – translates  into the moral sphere realized by David Hollenbach.

Pluralism as a feature of contemporary society

In his last book, The Many Altars of Modernity, Peter Berger reviewed his own intellectual journey. He acknowledged that he had been wrong, early in his career, in defending a theory of secularization. But at the same time he argued that secularization still had something to say.

Berger defines pluralism as “the coexistence of different worldviews and value systems in the same society.”[1] He affirms that it is not just one element among others that has contributed to secularization. This social fact, so present in contemporary global societies, is a key condition, a challenge that characterizes the presence of religions in society and that is independent of secularization. For him, secularization plays a decisive role because it can combine with religion in a more natural way than one might think. People analyze certain fields of reality by setting aside religious presuppositions as though God did not exist, but this does not prevent religion from occupying other spaces. Somehow, people are able to pass naturally from a secularized reading of reality on certain topics (for example, the technical-professional field) to a religious reading of other issues (such as questions about the meaning of life and happiness).

In the globalized world, societies are plural; they contain different visions of the world. The way to manage this plural reality cannot be through fundamentalism, nor through relativism. The first, in fact, generates conflicts in society, and the second makes it impossible to share on a common moral basis. Therefore pluralism requires from religions deeper insights, capable of understanding contemporary human societies, in order to learn to live together in its context. Pluralism, in Berger’s sense, implies that everyone must interact with everyone else. Contacts between different worldviews and religions multiply. This has a relativizing effect on religions, because suddenly the possibility of believing something different, or not believing, becomes a reality. Berger describes this effect through the idea of a multiplication of plausibility structures within society.

For the Austrian sociologist the change does not concern only the “what” of religion, but also the “how.” Religious belonging, which in the past was conceived as destiny, today takes place through a voluntary act. At the same time, the presence of pluralism obliges religions to entertain different relations from those hitherto existing with other religious institutions, and this immediately raises the question about the place of inter-religious dialogue.

What should be the ethical paradigm for the pluralist society?

A traditional historical response of the Catholic Church to pluralism has been natural law. The idea that there are universal moral principles, which human beings can understand through reason, is very persuasive in a context marked by pluralism.[2] In fact, natural law is part of the Catholic conception of ethics and the Magisterium of the Church, even if the Church acknowledges that not everyone, for various reasons, understands its principles.[3]

It must be acknowledged that moral argumentation from natural law today is very problematic and finds it  difficult to gain acceptance in society. We have already seen in Berger that pluralism implies a profound questioning of the possibility of arriving at shared judgments about customs that permit stable ways of life for today. The thesis of the moralist Marciano Vidal, who, while acknowledging the theoretical value of the paradigm of natural law, provocatively considers it inadequate for today’s public dialogue, has caused debate. He offers three reasons to explain this difficulty with natural law: the paths followed by morality today have departed from the traditional tenets of natural law; the natural law paradigm has great difficulty explaining the historicity and cultural pluralism of human beings; natural law is often perceived as the instrument used by confessional groups to surreptitiously impose their own morality on society.[4]

Today, the possibility of reaching a common definitional basis of natural law among the various social scenarios seems almost impossible. In any case, the very definition of this natural law would require an enormous effort to achieve dialogue between the various plausibility structures. An effort of this kind was addressed by the International Theological Commission in its 2009 document In Search of a Universal Ethic. In essence, we can think that public ethics – which, obviously, is not to be identified with the fullness of the Christian message – today must arise from a  dialogue between the different plausibility structures present in society.

As Berger points out, this includes religions, but also secularized perspectives. The objective would be to make oneself capable of participating in the public debate in order to introduce one’s own positions and, from there, to try to convince one’s interlocutors. Vidal affirms that Christian morality in a pluralist society must be a morality of meaning, not of norms. Thus the Church could take part in the pluralistic public debate in order to share with society its own sources of meaning, proposing them in the form of an invitation.

Public theology as a response to these challenges

In fact, this issue is not new. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States saw the rise of the question of how to intervene theologically in an essentially pluralistic society, starting from the fact that that nation considers pluralism as part of its identity. In the last 40 years North American pluralism has become richer and more diverse.  While in the past it was interwoven with Christian denominations and Judaism, today, thanks to migration, it has expanded to include the various monotheistic religions and other beliefs.

Public theology is the movement, born in the United States and now developed in other countries, which has sought to elaborate a theology from such pluralism. One could consider different paradigms proposed for such a theology,[5] but we will focus on that of David Tracy, which seems to us more convincing.

Tracy is an American priest; born in New York, he was educated in Rome at the Gregorian University, and then devoted himself to teaching mainly at the University of Chicago. His priestly ministry took place largely within the American academic world. In that context, he proposed a paradigm for a public theology that can participate in pluralistic social dialogue.

In his major work, The Analogical Imagination (1981), Tracy noted that pluralism posed a challenge to theology and he already had the vision to come to such an open recognition at the time. Pluralism seemed to present a choice: either to dissolve religion into a widespread social entity, or to reduce it to a mere private option, or finally to reject pluralism itself and hope that it would disappear from society. None of these alternatives seemed to him adequate for the reality of theology as discourse about God. On the contrary, Tracy wants to recognize pluralism as an essential element of modern society and an enrichment of it. At the same time, he considers it necessary to affirm the possibility of truth and of public criteria for finding it. Theology, since it deals with God and the fundamental questions of human beings, must be able to take part in this public search for truth.

The “strategy” – as he calls it – that Tracy adopts to develop a theology adapted to pluralism is essentially hermeneutical. For him, the truth and meaning of theology have an analogical status to that of art. Following Hans-Georg Gadamer, who saw in the “classics” the way in which truth is revealed in art, Tracy in turn speaks of religious classics. If the classics, as Gadamer says, are those works of the human spirit that offer us a truth about the human being, then religious texts and works can also be classics.[6] They can in fact be understood as “classics” that offer a truth about the human being to all those who want to grasp it, even if they do not share that faith.

Through the concept of the “classic” Tracy shows how religion is capable of addressing a message of truth to a pluralist society.  It can be found in the way proposed by Gadamer for the sciences of the spirit, and not as a scientific truth. Religions can contribute to such a search, without forcing anyone to adopt their faith, because their sources contain a message of truth about the human being.

Tracy also reflects on how such a conversation might develop. In this regard, he formulates the concept of “analogical imagination,” that is, the ability to see similarities in the differences between the message of faith and social and human reality, through the reciprocal critical interpretation – Tracy speaks here of “critical correlation” – of both messages.[7] This proposal of the American theologian shows how it is possible to pass from religious discourse to social discourse without artificially assimilating them, but allowing the religious word to address social reality without losing its own religious character. This way of understanding theology is called by Tracy  “public theology.”

In his proposal, social reality influences our approach to religious and Christian sources, because it is the context in which we interpret them. On the other hand, religious sources influence our reading of social reality because their  discernment is illuminated by our experience of faith. The two poles – social reality and Christian revelation – influence each other in a hermeneutical and critical way.

Although at first Tracy had in mind mainly the participation of theology in the social debates of the United States in the 1980s, his paradigm of public theology can also be considered in interreligious dialogue. Religious pluralism is a fundamental element of pluralism, which is why there is an intimate connection between public theology and interreligious dialogue, which has gradually gained importance over the years.[8] The model of the analogical imagination, which allows us to find similarities in the difference between the Christian faith and society, also allows us to find them between the Christian faith and the other beliefs present in a pluralist society. In the case of the encounter between religious traditions, this imagination is understood by the American theologian as the cut and thrust of a conversation. Tracy’s paradigm has the virtue of opening the Christian faith to the religious other while preserving its essential identity core.[9]

In fact, this paradigm, on the interreligious side, has been very fruitful. At a time when the theology of religions was besieged by very strong theological suspicions, Tracy managed to inspire a new model of approach to interreligious dialogue: “comparative theology,” an approach developed by the North American Jesuit Francis Clooney.[10] The perspective opened up by this comparative theology on interreligious dialogue has not yet led to a complete synthetic vision of the theology of religions, but is committed to comparing religions that, though different from each other, suggest parallels. This theological model better preserves the identity of each interlocutor in interreligious dialogue, which is a very important and difficult element in that context.

From public theology to moral theology

This paradigm of Tracy’s has been used as a basis for developing a contemporary moral theology by authors such as the Jesuit David Hollenbach.[11] Hollenbach, who taught at Boston College and is now at Georgetown University, has reflected in moral theology on the most burning contemporary social issues, such as nuclear war, the common good in pluralistic societies and the rights of refugees.[12] He himself openly states that his theological basis rests on the thought of Tracy.[13]

Hollenbach applies Tracy’s ideas to the relationship between the sources of Christian morality: Scripture, tradition, natural reason, and experience. For him these sources are in a continuous relation to each other, in a hermeneutical circle. He understands this relation between the sources of morality as a way of applying in concrete terms the ideas of analogical imagination and critical correlation expressed by Tracy.

This idea of a hermeneutical relationship between the sources of morality leads him to speak of a synthetic reasoning in morality, a reflexive method oriented to an analysis of the real situation.[14] Such a view gives rise to a study at once theological and focused on reality, which thus allows Christian morality to be developed by following social activity and customs. Hollenbach proposes as a model for this synthetic reasoning the arguments  used by John Courtney Murray for the drafting of the declaration Dignitatis Humanae of the Second Vatican Council. This author arrived at the affirmation of religious freedom through a synthesis of theological, political, juridical and ethical perspectives on the subject.

Hollenbach’s primary writings are from the 1990s. Since then, a new generation of moral theologians has continued this approach of public theology in morality. Among this new generation one can perceive a stronger presence denouncing injustice in theological discourse, and an emphasis closer to that of liberation theology.[15] The perspective adopted by this new generation of moral theologians dedicated to public theology allows us to understand how Tracy’s paradigm probably lacked more critical thinking about social reality, since he emphasized participation in the public debate on ethics. These new theologians highlight the need to formulate a stronger social approach to  denunciation than Tracy had thought appropriate. At the same time, elsewhere in the United States the idea of a public theology as a response to pluralism has been well received, and public theologies are now being developed in various countries around the world.[16]

Conclusion

The phenomenon of pluralism in societies is increasingly evident. As for secularization, without denying its importance and influence, Berger has shown us that it is part of a broader movement marked above all by the encounter, in the same society, of increasingly diverse plausibility structures, which in themselves include secular values.

The importance of pluralism is not a new intuition.  We have seen how other authors, starting with theologians, have long recognized its growing influence in societies. Pluralism, the fact that people of different religions and convictions meet regularly, and the very possibility of changing religion or abandoning one’s own more easily oblige religious traditions to dialogue among themselves and with society in order to build life together.

This reality of pluralism suggests a different way of approaching theological study and working for social transformation, starting from religions. Ways must be found to enter into dialogue with others in society in order to seek together appropriate ethical projects. Recent theological reflection offers us theological insights that take into account such a social and global context. Tracy’s paradigm of public theology, explored in the moral sphere by Hollenbach, translates into a very convincing insight. Tracy offers us a conception of theology and the way in which revelation and society are related. Authors like Hollenbach have effectively applied this theological paradigm to formulate a contribution from the Church on key issues in the world and contemporary society. These authors show us a likely way to develop social moral theology in the increasingly plural world of the future.

What can be the applications of these ideas to the daily life and mission of the Church and to the effort to transmit the faith? In order to take this step, public theology offers us some keys: the identification and the acceptance of pluralism as a social fact; the recognition of the epistemological limits of faith in explaining social reality; the understanding of the difficulties that exist in society in accepting the word of the Church on a given topic without objections; the need to offer the religious message in a social environment as a suggestion and not an imposition; the hermeneutic view of faith as a way to put faith and society in dialogue. These are attitudes and understandings of reality that can be assumed by any pastor or catechist, and can help each individual in the formulation of their own understanding  of faith.

Thus public theology can not only provide a valid response to an academic reading of the current socio-religious situation, but can also constitute a way of being Church and speaking as Church in any circumstances: a way that understands and assumes more fully the social and cultural situation in which we move today.

DOI: La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 6, no.12 art. 10, 1222: 10.32009/22072446.1222.10

[1].      P. L. Berger, “Pluralism, the coexistence  of different worldviews and value systems in the same society”, in Id., The Many Altars of Modernity. Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist Age, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 2014, IX.

[2].      Cf. J. L. Martínez – J. M. Caamaño, “Ley natural y ética universal. Aproximación al documento de la Comisión Teológica Internacional de 2009”, in Revista de Fomento Social 278 (2015) 173-203.

[3].      “The exercise of freedom implies reference to a natural moral law, universal in character, which precedes and unites all rights and duties” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 140). “In the diversity of cultures, the natural law binds men together, imposing common principles. However much its application requires adaptation to the multiplicity of conditions of life, according to places, times and circumstances, it is immutable” (ibid., No. 141).

[4].      Cf. M. Vidal, “Come intervenire, da una prospettiva di fede, nel dialogo etico mondiale?”, in Concilium 49 (2013/4) 167-179.

[5].      Cf. G. Villagrán, Teología pública. Una voz para la Iglesia en sociedades plurales, Madrid, PPC, 2016, 44f.

[6].      Cf. D. Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism, New York, Crossroads, 1991, XII.

[7].      Cf. ibid., XII.

[8].      Cf. ibid., 449.

[9]  .    For Tracy’s more precise position on interreligious dialogue, cf. D. Tracy, Dialogue with the Other: The Interreligious Dialogue, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1990.

[10].    Cf. F. X. Clooney, Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders, Malden, MA, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

[11].    Other moralists inspired by public theology are, for example, the  brothers Michael and Kennet Himes: cf. M. J. Himes – K. R. Himes, Fullness of Faith: The Public Significance of Theology, Mahwah, NJ, Paulist Press, 1993.

[12].    Cf. G. Villagrán, “Iglesia y vida pública en David Hollenbach. Aproximación a su método en teología moral”, in Theologica Xavierana 177 (2014) 241-266.

[13].    Cf. D. Hollenbach, The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics, Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 2003, 163-165.

[14].    Cf. Id., Justice, Peace, and Human Rights: American Catholic Social Ethics in a Pluralistic World, New York, Crossroad, 1988, 12f.

[15].    Cf. K. E. Heyer, Kinship across borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration, Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 2012.

[16].    Some examples of public theologies in other countries are: F. Wilfred, Asian Public Theology: Critical Concerns in Challenging Times, Delhi, Ispck, 2010; E. Jacobsen, “Models of Public Theology”, in International Journal of Public Theology 6 (2012) 7-22; H. Bedford-Strohm, “Contextuality and Intercontextuality in Public Theology – Introductory Perspectives”, in H. Bedford-Strohm – F. Höhne – T. Reitmeier (eds), Contextuality and Intercontextuality in Public Theology, Münster, Lit Verlag, 2013, 5-9.