The World of Religions No. 43, September-October 2010 —
In his latest essay*, Jean-Pierre Denis, the editorial director of the Christian weekly La Vie , shows how, over the past few decades, the libertarian counterculture that emerged from May 1968 has become the dominant culture, while Christianity has become a peripheral counterculture. The analysis is pertinent, and the author eloquently argues for "a Christianity of objection" that is neither conquering nor defensive. Reading this work inspires me to reflect a few times, beginning with a question that will seem provocative to many readers, to say the least: has our world ever been Christian? That there was a so-called "Christian" culture, marked by the beliefs, symbols, and rituals of the Christian religion, is obvious. That this culture has deeply permeated our civilization, to the point that even when secularized, our societies remain steeped in an omnipresent Christian heritage—calendar, festivals, buildings, artistic heritage, popular expressions, etc.—is indisputable. But was what historians call "Christendom," the thousand-year period from the end of Antiquity to the Renaissance, which marked the conjunction of the Christian religion and European societies, ever Christian in its deepest sense, that is, faithful to the message of Christ? For Sören Kierkegaard, a fervent and tormented Christian thinker, "all of Christianity is nothing other than the effort of the human race to get back on its feet, to get rid of Christianity ." What the Danish philosopher pertinently underlines is that the message of Jesus is totally subversive of morality, power, and religion, since it places love and powerlessness above all else. So much so that Christians were quick to make it more in line with the human spirit by re-inscribing it within a framework of thought and traditional religious practices. The birth of this "Christian religion," and its incredible distortion from the 4th century in confusion with political power, is often the antithesis of the message from which it draws its inspiration. The Church is necessary as a community of disciples whose mission is to transmit the memory of Jesus and his presence through the only sacrament he instituted (the Eucharist), to spread his word, and above all to bear witness to it. But how can we recognize the Gospel message in canon law, pompous decorum, narrow moralism, the pyramidal ecclesiastical hierarchy, the multiplication of sacraments, the bloody fight against heresies, the hold of the clergy on society with all the excesses that this entails? Christianity is the sublime beauty of cathedrals, but it is also all of this. Noting the end of our Christian civilization, a father of the Second Vatican Council exclaimed: "Christendom is dead, long live Christianity!" » Paul Ricoeur, who told me this anecdote a few years before his death, added: "I would rather say: Christianity is dead, long live the Gospel!, since there has never been an authentically Christian society." Basically, does not the decline of the Christian religion constitute an opportunity for the message of Christ to be heard again? "You don't put new wine into old wineskins ," said Jesus. The profound crisis of the Christian churches is perhaps the prelude to a new renaissance of the living faith of the Gospels. A faith which, because it refers to love of one's neighbor as a sign of God's love, is not without a strong proximity to the secular humanism of human rights constituting the foundation of our modern values. And a faith which will also be a force of fierce resistance to the materialistic and mercantile impulses of an increasingly dehumanized world. A new face of Christianity can therefore emerge from the ruins of our "Christian civilization," for which believers attached to the gospel more than to Christian culture and tradition will have no nostalgia.
* Why Christianity is a scandal (Seuil, 2010).