At first sight the strands of thought I hope to bring together today might seem almost light years apart. I trust the true searchers and thinkers amongst you might bear with me.

My foundational proposition is that all the major religions, with the possible exception of Islam, seem to be in major difficulties prosecuting their ideas. The wider, educated world seems to becoming less and less convinced that religious beliefs have relevance today. The growth sector in belief seems to lie in those sectors of the population who are seeking fundamentalist-type answers in the face of rapid social, environmental and economic change. There seems a temptation in each of the major faith traditions to bolt down the burrow of fundamentalism in search of maintaining a following. It is easy to appeal to people's insecurities by offering simplistic answers and neat certitudes.

A major theme we have been exploring in the pages of Catholica, mainly courtesy of the commentaries of Tom McMahon, is the question of how the core symbols and sacraments within Western Catholicism seem to have lost traction as communication tools in our technological or scientific age. My own personal motivation in effectively devoting my entire life energy to the exploration we are engaged in here at Catholica stems from two questions: the first is the simple question of why the core ideas of Christianity — which effectively helped build Western civilisation — have lost traction so suddenly, and so steeply? At heart I'm interested in the question simply from the point of view of my interest in public communications — how ideas are transmitted through society, and through time. At the second level I am interested from the personal point of view of endeavouring to discern where truth resides in terms of my own happiness, fulfilment and what I would have once called "my salvation".

A question for religious believers...

I address this question to all people who are religious believers. In other words you believe there is some force outside our material, four dimensional world of length, breadth, depth and time, that created our material world and who/which gives it direction and some sense of ultimate meaning and who, or which, might be perceived as being the source of ultimate truth. The question is probably irrelevant to those, such as true atheists, who cannot accept that base faith proposition. (It's probably also irrelevant to those who believe they, or their Church, already has all the answers also! Wrack off, and go annoy someone else if you fit into that category. I'm not addressing any of this to you.)

The question is this: are our various religions ultimately seeking to give us access to that Divine insight and truth; or are they principally endeavouring to prove that they are "the truth" — or that they have some unique access to discerning the ultimate truths that explain the meaning of our lives and of creation?

Personally, one of the major reasons why I believe all of the major religions have lost traction as communicators to their constituencies is that we've all become busy trying to pretend that truth is found in our rituals and "sacraments" or "signs" rather than in the God, or Divine our sacraments and signs are supposed to be pointing us towards. It is so comforting to sing familiar songs, soak ourselves in ancient rituals, hang on to old superstitions and old wive's tales convincing ourselves that these "lead to truth" — and defending our icons, songs, language and sacraments against all comers that we alone have the "magic formula" that can access Divine insight and favour.

What is the Ultimate Truth we see? Is it Moral Law alone?

My base proposition is that Ultimate Truth is not simply Moral Law alone. Ultimate Truth are the truths that explain why Life and Creation is as it is — why Creation obeys certain laws; why human beings, non-sentient beings and even the simplest life forms behave in certain ways; how do we find wholeness, completeness, equilibrium, stability and peace in our lives? The Moral Laws that ought govern our behaviour are but one tiny part of that quest albeit an important part.

Three things have come together in my thinking to cause me to raise the questions or propositions I'm putting on the table in this editorial today. Firstly some ideas Dr Andrew Kania has been sharing with me over an extended period of time have intrigued me. They're to do with the different perspectives our Eastern brothers and sisters bring to this question of sacraments and symbols — the signposts we use "to point towards where the Divine, and Truth, resides". I'm not advocating that the Eastern mind has something that is superior to the Western mind. Far from it. In some respects I pick up a sense that ordinary Easterners are more behind the eight ball than ordinary Westerners. I do sense though, in ways that I cannot fully explain rationally, that there are some perspectives in the Eastern ways of looking at these big questions of theology and spirituality that we need to be paying attention to here in Western Christianity. In parting with our Eastern brothers and sisters a millenia or so ago some of our fat-headed, egotistical and bombastic leaders in the West might have sold us short. They disenfranchised us from some theological perspectives that have ultimately proved costly to Western Christianity. We need to be listening to, and dialoguing with, our brothers and sisters in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic sectors of Christianity — and not in a millenially-long extended game of trying to demonstrate "My God's bigger 'n your version of God".

Normally I would have just run Andrew Kania's commentary today alone. An email media release arrived yesterday from Archpriest Professor Lawrence Cross, a lecturer in the theological faculty at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne which I'd like to highlight and draw attention to. Here are a group of people endeavouring to open up this dialogue and discussion and precisely on this subject of the meaning of icons and sacraments. The ACU media release and some accompanying illustrations follows below. Dr Kania's commentary for today — which is the first of two parts that follows on from the commentary he wrote two week's ago reflecting on the place of Mary at the Resurrection can be found HERE.

A third, and both more radical and more ancient irritant...

Now there is a third irritant that has led me to write this editorial. It comes from a radically different direction, and harkens back a heck of a lot further in time, to any disagreements with our Eastern brothers and sisters.

For a long time my own personal theological perspectives have been changing. I think that comes through in my own writing and questioning. In the past week or so I have begun reading a book that has finally started to cause some matters to gel in a way I've not know before. The book is by that very radical Christian thinker and writer, Bishop John Selby Spong. His ideas in this book "Jesus for the Non Religious" though are radical in the sense probably that nobody has thought of doing this before but they are almost ultra-conservative in that they take our thinking back to the very roots of Christianity. I'm still only about two-thirds the way through his book — although I have the benefit of a number of lengthy conversation with my wife who read the whole book a week ago. Could I give this brief introduction to what it is all about:

Spong's base argument seems to be that Scripture has become literalised out of it's original meaning. It's original meaning can really only be accessed through an understanding of Jewish liturgy as it was understood and celebrated at the time of Christ. The Gospels were not written as history. He argues they were written as Jewish liturgy. Christianity was celebrated within the Jewish synagogue for the first seven or eight decades — not in Christian 'churches'. The Gospels are not presenting a literal account of the life of Jesus. They are attempting to present an understanding of the effect this person who was perceived to be "one with God" had on his early followers. They used liturgical language to do that, not journalism or the literary forms used by historians and novelists. Even today much of our theology (understanding of God and the relationship God calls humankind and each individual into) and our Christology is derived from endeavouring to put a literalist, rather than liturgical understanding, on the stories and parables related in the New Testament.

For a long time I have been coming to similar conclusions to those he comes to regarding such things as miracles and the literalness of how we read the Jesus story. Rather than coming to these conclusions though through theological study I've come to them through my understanding of modern science and the new information that seems to be being injected into Creation through that channel. Re-reading the Jesus story though through the lens of Jewish liturgy casts everything in an entirely new light. Given the long historical antipathy within Christianity to Judaism it is hardly surprising that nobody has thought of doing this before — or until perhaps the last hundred years had the means by which to do it. In fact I don't think Spong himself is the ultimate author or originator of this. He's building on a body of research coming from biblical scholarship and the greater cooperation between Christianity and Judaism of the last 50-100 years and so ultimately others might be the one's who end up getting the credit for the real work. Spong will be more remembered as the one who popularised it or brought it down to a less academic and more accessible level.

To wrap this introduction up: what I am basically arguing here is that I believe it would be to our great benefit in all of these great faith traditions if we all climbed down off our high horses for a little while and started listening to one another a little more openly — Western listening to Eastern, Eastern to Western, both to our Jewish forebears, and all of us also to the messages that are being communicated through secular scientific insights that do have a great bearing on our theological and Christological insights.

Brian Coyne
Editor

ACU Media Release

Two Universities, Two Churches, Two Languages

An unusual and significant ecumenical event occurred on Monday April 27 at ACU in Melbourne. In an event hosted by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Mr Chris Sheargold, clerics from the Orthodox Churches, Eastern Rite Catholic Churches and the Latin Rite Catholic Church, as well as academics from ACU and the University of Melbourne, all gathered to launch a book published in Russia and in Russian. The book was Spirit and Fire by Dr. Joseph Leach and the Very Reverend Professor Lawrence Cross.

Spirit and Fire explores the nature of the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments) in the Byzantine Church and both authors describe it as a gift of love to the Russian Church. In formally launching the book, Very Rev Archpriest, Dr Michael Protopopov OAM, Dean of the Russian Orthodox Church for Victoria and Southern Australia, spoke of how the book's sacramental view of the world was a valuable insight in a society dominated by secular materialism. He praised the authors for going back to the early church fathers and for their lyric language. This is praise indeed from a Russian Orthodox Priest for a book written by a Latin Rite Catholic and a priest of the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church to explain the nature of Russian sacramental life to the Russians themselves! It is an appreciation, moreover, that has also been expressed by high ranking officials within the Moscow Patriarchate.

Pictured at the launch (from left): Joseph Leach, Lawrence Cross, Pauline Allen and Michael Protopopov

In launching the book, the Very Rev Dr Michael Protopopov commented that he would like to see a similar book written in English. As it happened, just before the launch two advance copies of the English companion book, Image, Symbol and Mystery, arrived from America and were available for order. This book seeks to explain the Eastern Christian understanding of the sacraments to Western Christians. The guest speaker, Professor Pauline Allen FAHA, Director of the Centre for Early Christian Studies at ACU, spoke of the even-handedness of the books and how the different views of the churches were discussed without playing the "blame game". She also commented on the unusual nature of the collaboration between the two authors. Dr. Leach lectures within the Engineering School at the University of Melbourne while Prof. Cross is from the School of Theology and Philosophy at ACU. She explained that they were brought together by their mutual love of the Icons of the Eastern Church: Icons which are both used and beautifully explained within the books.

Perhaps it is only a multicultural, immigrant society such as Australia which could produce such a gathering and such a book — a book which is a gift of love from two Australian Catholic academics to the Russian Orthodox Church. Perhaps in a society such as this old grievances can be seen in a new context and Catholics and Orthodox can gather in love to discover how much they share, how closely they are joined in the Spirit. Perhaps it is this context that gives these books their international significance.

We welcome comments in the forum from members, or as Letters to the Editor from Catholica subscribers, expressing your views on this commentary.

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