A few days ago, a friend asked what we really know about the historic Jesus of Nazareth. A good question.

All scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was an historical figure and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus.

Jesus (known as Yeshua in Hebrew) was a Galilean Hebrew who was born between 7 and 2 BCE and died around 30 CE. We say Jesus was born in the BCE era because a 6th-century monk, Dionysius Exiguus made a calculation error when designing our traditional calendar. He tried to set Year 1 CE as the exact birth year of Jesus. But he miscalculated historical records and misjudged when King Herod the Great had died.

Jesus’ mother Mary was known by her original Hebrew name which was Miriam. Based on first-century Hebrew customs, scholars commonly estimate that she was a young teenager, between 12 and 16 years old when she gave birth to Jesus.

Jesus’ father was Joseph (Yosef in Hebrew). Although our English translation of Matthew 13:55 refers to Jesus as “the carpenter’s son” and Mark 6:3 calls Jesus himself a carpenter, linguists note that the original Greek word used in the New Testament is tekton. A tekton does not just mean a person who only works with wood. It means a general builder, craftsman, or artisan, who worked with hard materials like stone, timber, and metal.

The New Testament names four brothers of Jesus: James, Joseph/Joses, Simon, and Jude. Plural sisters are mentioned in Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55-56, though they are not named or numbered. Most mainstream biblical scholars believe Jesus had biological brothers and sisters, most notably a brother named James, who was the primary leader of the early Hebrew-Christian community in Jerusalem. Those who uphold the perpetual virginity of Mary reject the idea of Jesus having biological siblings and maintain that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were cousins of Jesus. (A discussion for perhaps another time.)

Jesus lived only in Galilee and Judea. Ancient Galilee was a hilly, fertile region in northern Palestine bounded by the Sea of Galilee to the east and divided into Upper and Lower Galilee. It served as the primary backdrop for the ministry of Jesus. Ancient Judea was an historical mountainous corresponding to modern-day parts of Israel and the West Bank. Centered around Jerusalem, it served as the heartland of Hebrew culture, identity, and religion from the Iron Age through the Roman period.

Like people from Galilee back then, Jesus most likely had brown eyes, dark brown to black hair and olive-brown skin. Jesus spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and Greek.

Historical-Critical Understanding of the Gospels

Traditions about the life and meaning of Jesus are found in the four “canonical,” meaning officially recognized, Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John which gained widespread recognition as a distinct, authoritative collection around 180-200 CE. The process of formalizing the entire New Testament canon took place at the Council of Hippo in 393 CE.

The word “gospel” comes from the Anglo-Saxon term godspell meaning “good story,” a rendering of the Latin evangelium and the Greek euangelion, meaning “good news.” The Four Gospels proclaim the “good news” about Jesus Christ.

When reading and studying the Gospels, however, our approach should not be based on a literal interpretation of texts but on an historical-critical understanding. In the Gospel of Matthew, for example, we see two textual traditions that can be confusing. With all due respect, the final version of Matthew should have been critiqued by a good editor. We see a negative Matthew, in Matthew 22:1-14, who displays violence, vengeance, and calls for divine retribution on enemies. But we also see a positive Matthew in 5:1-11, who displays the highest possible Christian consciousness in the Sermon on the Mount.

An historical-critical understanding asks what the original text meant in the author’s mind, in its original language. Was the message factual, symbolic, or imagined? What was the intention of the author and the purpose of the text? And what influences affected the text before it achieved its final form.

The Gospels were written to inform and encourage believers and to call them to growth in their Christian faith. The Gospels, however, were not written to give us strict “history.” They have history, parables, metaphor, symbol, re-interpreted passages from the Greek (Septuagint) Hebrew Scriptures, and imagined scenarios for key events in the life of Jesus. The Septuagint is the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), created between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE in Alexandria, Egypt. Often abbreviated as LXX (the Roman numeral for 70), its name comes from a legend that 70 or 72 Hebrew scholars independently translated the text in 72 days.

Thinking about creative scenarios about the life of Jesus, the Infancy Narratives are a good example. Found in in Matthew, chapters 1 and 2, and Luke, chapters 1:5 to 2:52, they are certainly not fairy tales. But they are not strictly historical either. Most people today ignore the differences found in Jesus’ birth accounts in Matthew and Luke. They simply combine the accounts without noticing the differences. Many contemporary biblical scholars view the Infancy Narratives not as strict factual journalism but as theological compositions that arose roughly 80 to 90 years after the birth of Jesus. The Catholic priest and respected biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown (1928-1998) did not view the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke as straightforward historical reporting. In his landmark book The Birth of the Messiah (1977), he argued that the stories were heavily shaped by the specific theological goals of each evangelist rather than being precise historical records.

All four Gospels evolved from oral traditions, passed on from person to person and from place to place. More than one single person (i.e. Mark, Matthew, Luke, John) composed the final versions of the four Gospels as we have them today. The four canonical Gospels were given their current names around 160 to 185 CE, roughly a century after the texts were originally written.

Synoptics

Mark (written for a gentile Christian audience most probably in Rome) was the first Gospel written, sometime around the year 70 CE. The Gospel of Matthew (written for a Christian audience with a Hebrew background) and the Gospel of Luke (written for a gentile Christian audience) were composed, independently of one another, sometime in the 80s or 90s. Both used a written form of the Gospel of Mark as source material for their own narratives. In addition, because both Matthew and Luke contain a large amount of material in common that is not found in Mark, most scholars hold that the authors of Matthew and Luke also drew from a collection of Jesus’ sayings that they incorporated into their works. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke are called the “Synoptic Gospels” because they share a similar point of view, order of events, and wording. The word synoptic comes from Greek words that mean “to see together.”

John

The Gospel of John (written for a Hebrew Christian and gentile Christian audience) emerged from an independent literary tradition that is not directly connected to the Synoptic tradition. This explains the major differences between John and the Synoptics. John reached its final form around 90-110 CE. The community behind the Gospel of John was located in Ephesus within Asia Minor in modern-day Turkey, although it began with roots in Palestine.

Not Strictly History

Each time the Gospel narrators adapted their accounts to the needs, understanding, and cultural/religious backgrounds of their listeners.

As I said above, the Gospels were not written therefore to give us strict “history.” They have bits of history, parables, metaphor, symbol, re-interpreted passages from the Hebrew Scriptures, and imagined scenarios for key events in the life of Jesus. The Gospels were written to give the meaning of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, whom God raised from the dead.

Concluding Thoughts

In the Gospel of John, chapter 20 serves as that Gospel’s original conclusion. The epilogue of the Gospel of John is chapter 21, which adds post-resurrection appearances in Galilee and closes with the public restoration of Peter after his threefold denial. The Beloved Disciple, a bit to the annoyance of Peter, is identified as the eyewitness and author who testifies to the truth of the Gospel of John. Many biblical scholars argue that the author of the Gospel of John displayed a rivalry or tension between the “Beloved Disciple” and supporters of Peter, who was executed in Rome under Emperor Nero around 64 or 65 CE.

I have always liked the final lines in John chapter 20 and use them today to conclude this week’s reflection. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31)

Living that faith is our contemporary Christian challenge. And that challenge is very real today.

Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

 

 

Several people, many of them new readers of Another Voice, have asked me to explain the relationship between faith and religion. I have touched on this before but have added some new elements and suggestions.

 

Faith is an Experience:  In the Faith Experience people do have an experience of the Divine, often described under various names: God, Creator, Father, Mother, Allah, the Ground of Being, etc. To be open to the faith experience, we need quiet and reflective time. We are often so busy that we neglect simply being ourselves.

These days I resonate more and more with the words of Karl Rahner (1904-1984), the German Jesuit priest and theologian who was one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century: “I must confess to you in all honesty that for me God is and has always been absolute mystery. I do not understand what God is. No one can. We have intimations, and inklings. We make faltering attempts to put mystery into words. But there is no word for it, no sentence for it.”   

I also liked the U.S. feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936-2022), who stressed that God is not an external cosmic monarch, but the underlyin matrix of existence that grounds life, connection, and transformative renewal. She argued that traditional concepts of God have been distorted by patriarchy into an oppressive, male ruler separate from creation. Ruether was professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and later at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Although she remained a Catholic, her first book, The Church Against Itself (1967), criticized the doctrine of the church and the church’s views of sexuality and reproduction, and it got her rejected by Catholic institutions.

I like especially the current theological reflections of Ilia Delio (born 1955), a Franciscan sister and theologian in Washington DC, who views God not as an old man in the sky or an external ruler, but as the dynamic, absolute power of love and the evolving “sacred Whole” of the universe. God is the core energy driving cosmic evolution and is deeply intertwined with matter and human consciousness. Ilia Delio currently serves as Executive Director of the World Institute for Science, Religion and Culture (formerly the Center for Christogenesis) which she founded as an online educational resource, building upon the vision of Teilhard de Chardin and the integration of science, religion and technology today.

Some clarifications:

Belief is the attempt to put into words the meaning of our Faith Experience. Belief is really theology which is “faith seeking understanding.”

Religion is an attempt to interpret and systematize Belief. Any religion is a system of beliefs and practices that helps people understand and live their faith experience. Religion therefore gives people: rituals, ritual places, ritual leaders, sacred books, sacred places, sacred days and seasons, codes of morality and creedal statements of belief. Religion provides helpful aids – MEANS – that point people to the Divine. That is good and proper. But religion is not Faith. Sometimes religion gets distorted and very religious people can be very ungodly. And all religions go through a four-stage life cycle.

 

The Religion Life Cycle

 

• All religions begin with the charismatic foundational stage – for example, the primitive Christian community. Here men and women had such a vivid lived awareness of the Faith Experience that they had little need for institutional structure. They relied on do-it-self and charismatic ways of praying, speaking, and celebrating. Men and women, who were local leaders, presided at Eucharist. It all seemed so very natural and normal.
• Then when people started thinking and asking: “how do we safeguard what we have and how do we pass this on to the next generation?” the religion entered stage two. This is the stage of institutionalization: important statements like the Gospels are written down, set ways of praying like official sacramental rituals and gestures are established, and properly authorized leaders are established. Ordination was then created as a kind of quality control mechanism to make certain that the Christian leaders were competent and reliable. Ordination, please note, was not originally about power over people and not about sacramental power! Important to remember.
• After some time, the religion enters stage three. I call it the stage of self-focused short-sightedness. The institutional religion becomes so self-centered and so self-protective that it becomes less a means and path to the Divine and more and more the OBJECT itself of religious devotion. This stage comes close to idolatry. In stage three the religious institution and certain institutional leaders, become religious objects and are treated like IDOLS. People get so involved in acts of religious veneration that they miss or distort the Divine.
• When stage three happens, the only solution is reformation, which demands a serious effort to regain the vision and focus on the Divine – the spirit and life of stages one and two. We need to recapture the vigor and creative enthusiasm of stages one and two and create new structures and theological explanations to guide contemporary believers.

In the post-stage-three-reformation, we need to change our Christian environment.

We are there right now. I suggest six ways to change, improve, and move ahead.

(1) We must move from living in the past to engaging with the present and thinking creatively about tomorrow. This means moving well beyond, for example, antiquated understandings of human sexuality and gender, prejudice against women, and distorted biblical and historical understandings.

(2) We need ongoing education that moves people from boxed-in perspectives to open and developing theology. All doctrinal statements are provisional understandings. We are all learners. No one has all the truth. There is still much to learn and discover.

(3) We need to shift from self-protective bureaucratic hierarchies, whose vision is to protect and save the institution, to being supportive communities of faith. People forget that Jesus did not exercise power over people. He empowered people to take responsibility in living, learning, and caring for one another. Jesus did not control people through authoritarian decrees.

(4) We need to abandon religious arrogance and move into humble inter-church collaboration. No Christian and no Christian tradition can be regarded as superior to others and therefore act in a haughty or snobbish manner. Some Catholics still think they have all the truth. Some evangelicals think that way as well.

(5) We need to stop being energetic and proud temple-builders and start being traveling pilgrims. What do people today really need? An impressive and bigger cathedral or a roof overhead, a meal, health care, childcare, compassionate understanding, and a more secure and hopeful life. It is a values question.

(6) We must not focus on just schooling professionals but mentoring spiritual leaders. When it comes to Christian ministry, the mentality of the professional is often not enough. We need pastoral leaders and ministers who are much more than professionals. We need leaders who are men and women anchored in deep faith and who, as our fellow travelers, understand us and support our own faith development as compassionate and genuine spiritual guides.

And so, we can move ahead!

 

Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

 

I have been and still am a U.S. Catholic, born, baptized, and raised in SW Michigan. Although I currently live in Belgium, as a retired professor of religion and values in American society at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), I remain a committed and thoughtfully critical U.S. Catholic.

 

Actually, I became a critical Catholic in eighth grade at St. Mary’s School in Paw Paw, Michigan, when our local priest, Fr. Linus, visited our class. For some reason he went into a tirade about Protestants. Then asked how many of us had a Protestant parent. I raised my hand and said my dad was a Protestant. Fr. Linus then yelled at me and said: “Be careful because your dad belongs to a false religion.” I replied, without yelling, and said very firmly: “Fr. Linus you are wrong. My dad is a prayerful and wonderful Christian.” A couple of classmates applauded, and an irritated Fr. Linus left the room. Well…several years later, when I was a college student, I got a letter from Fr. Linus, sent to my parents’ address. It included his address at a retirement home and his phone number. He said he wanted to see me and asked me to call him. Home on summer vacation, I visited him. We had a delightful conversation, and he said “I have been thinking. I have been a terribly ignorant old priest. I hope you keep thinking and learning. Your Protestant dad is indeed a wonderful Christian…And may God bless you!” Fr. Linus also gave me a box of cigars.

 

So, I do indeed try to remain a thoughtful and learning Catholic, in a church that is now going through its own contemporary transitions.

 

Some statistics

 

The U.S. Catholic Church faces a long-term structural decline. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that the share of U.S. adults identifying as Catholic dropped from 24% in 2007 to roughly 19% today. Growing disconnects between official church teachings on social, sexual, and political issues and the views of modern American laypeople contribute to the disaffection. Vital markers of institutional health – such as infant baptisms, Catholic school enrollment, and sacramental marriages – have fallen, depending on the region, by roughly 30% to 50% since the early 2000s.

 

Politics

 

Politically, U.S. Catholics overwhelmingly backed Democrats through the mid-20th century, culminating in JFK’s election in 1960, as the first Catholic U.S. president. About 80% of U.S. Catholics voted for John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963), who was also the youngest elected president at age 43.

 

After the 1960s, Catholic demographic changes, social movements, and evolving party platforms caused a multi-decade political realignment. Today, according to the Pew Research Center, a modest majority of U.S. Catholic registered voters, around 49%, identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, giving the GOP a slight advantage over the Democratic Party, which claims roughly 44% of Catholic support. However, the Catholic vote remains deeply divided along racial and ethnic lines. Roughly 60% of white Catholics lean Republican; but about 54% of Hispanic Catholics favor the Democratic Party. In 2024, 56% of all U.S. Catholics voted for Donald Trump.

 

Today most of the 270 active U.S. Catholic bishops share the Republican stance on issues like abortion, traditional man/woman marriage, and religious liberty. There are also 165 retired bishops. Leadership elections within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have regularly favored conservative figures, especially after the papacies of John Paul II (Pope from 1978 to 2005) and Benedict XVI (Pope from 2095 to 2013) in which most episcopal appointments featured very conservative men. The current president of the USCCB, Archbishop Paul Coakley is a good example. He aligns with traditional and conservative stances on major social and moral issues, including restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights and gender-affirming care in healthcare. But, he has also spoken out in strong support of humane treatment and policies for immigrant families.

 

Paul Stagg Coakley (born June 3, 1955) serves as the current Archbishop of Oklahoma City and he has been President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops since November 2025.

 

So much for some general U.S. Catholic background…

 

My current U.S. Catholic focus, however, is: (1) on U.S. Catholic involvement in U.S. Christian Nationalism, and (2) on the theological perspective of today’s young Catholic priests.

 

Christian nationalism

 

Christian nationalism is a political ideology that merges religious and national identities, seeking to make Christianity the dominant force in U.S. public policy, law, and cultural life. Critics and scholars note that it often promotes traditional social hierarchies, links national belonging to very specific racial or ethnic identities and challenges the U.S. constitutional separation of church and state.

 

According to the Public Religion Research Institute’s 2025 American Values Atlas, 32% of Americans qualify as Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers; and approximately 30% of white U.S. Catholics now qualify as Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers. Two prominent American Catholics associated with U.S. Christian nationalism are Vice President J.D. Vance (born 1984) and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (born 1950).

 

The blueprint for U.S. Christian nationalism is Project 2025 and its main author is the conservative Catholic Kevin Roberts (born 1974), the president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative political think tank in Washington DC. Christian nationalism is a political ideology that seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and U.S. constitutional democracy.

There are no prominent Catholic bishops who officially support or endorse Christian nationalism. The leadership of the U.S. Catholic Church explicitly rejects the ideology as contrary to church teaching. While some lay political figures and commentators who identify as Catholics express nationalist views, hierarchical leadership views the movement as incompatible with the Gospel. Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington (born 1957) and Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami (born 1950) have publicly stated that Christian nationalism confuses religious devotion with national identity and contradicts core theological teachings. Bishop John Stowe (born 1966) of Lexington, Kentucky, has publicly stressed that Christian nationalism is a dangerous distortion of the Christian faith that can only be overcome through compassion and love for all. He views it as a significant minority influence that corrupts Christianity in the name of Christ.

Young priests

Moving beyond Christian nationalism, as a contemporary American Catholic I am also interested in the theological persecutive of today’s young U.S. Catholic priests. For more than twenty years I taught and helped form Catholic seminarians, at The American College seminary at the Catholic University of Leuven. What I find so surprising today is that about 70% of U.S. priests ordained in 2010 or later describe their political views as conservative or very conservative, compared to les than 15% of priests ordained before 1975 who hold that position. 

These younger Catholic priests are far more uniform in holding traditional views on church teachings, such as maintaining that homosexual behavior is always a sin and upholding male-only priestly ordination. Many are also fond of the old-time Latin Mass.

These young priests are far more conservative than Catholics age 65 and older. Among priests ordained before 1975, more than 70% described themselves as theologically progressive.

It’s not difficult to explain where this young priestly conservatism has come from. After Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) was elected in 1978, seminaries became more conservative as John Paul appointed conservative bishops. He also appointed arch conservative Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (1927-2022) to head the Vatican doctrine office. Ratzinger cracked down on progressive theologians, chasing them out of seminaries.

Some contemporary bishops, however, are really trying to turn their seminaries around. Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger (born 1960) the Archbishop of Detroit, for example, has removed three Detroit seminary professors, who had publicly criticized Pope Francis and his teachings. But such reforms, if they happen, will only impact future generations of priests. Edward Weisenburger, by the way, is a friend and a graduate of The American College, Catholic University of Leuven.

Once again, the theological views of younger priests are out of sync with their priestly peers and with the general Catholic population. U.S. Catholics tend to favor progressive views on married priests, gay marriage, Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics and the use of contraceptives. As a result, in coming decades, Catholic clergy will be even more out of sync with lay Catholics than the clergy is today.

Some observers argue for ignoring the views of Catholics who aren’t in church most Sundays and are less conservative than Catholics who attend Mass weekly. Yet even 40% of weekly Mass attenders support the ordination of women, according to the Pew Research Center. In addition, more than half of weekly churchgoers favor allowing Catholics to use birth control (72%) and in vitro fertilization (71%), allowing unmarried couples who live together to go to Communion (59%) and allowing women to become deacons (54%).

Time will tell of course what will happen. Will Bishop Robert Francis Prevost, born in Chicago in 1955 and now Pope Leo XIV, move the U.S. Catholic Church forward? I believe he is a good man and I appreciate his public statement that he has “no fear” of the incumbent presidential administration. He clarified that his mission is to preach the Gospel and promote peace rather than engage in partisan politics or personal political debates.

In continuity with Pope Francis (1936-2025), Pope Leo XIV shares strong concerns about climate change, poverty, and caring for migrants. But he currently opposes women’s ordination and supports traditional Catholic teachings about sexuality and gender. Nevertheless, I believe positive change can happen and I remain optimistic.

Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

 

 

This week, I feel a strong need to return once again to some serious reflections about authoritarianism in very contemporary form.

Authoritarianism is a form of government in which all power rests with a single leader or a small ruling group. They feel no accountability to anyone but themselves.

Authoritarianism has always bothered me because it uses and abuses people. It destroys human freedom to think, act, and live. It manipulates people, puts problematic people in detention camps, and often simply destroys the “undesirables.”

The historical Jesus stressed that human greatness is based on compassion and service. His life story and teachings were used to motivate and guide people, to heal, support, and call to conversion. Some self-proclaimed “Christian leaders” today still do not understand Jesus and Jesus’ message. In fact, they oppose it.

In contemporary political and religious life, we are confronted with the creeping virus of authoritarianism that seeks to dominate and control – and often displace and destroy. A very unhealthy kind of leadership. Honesty and integrity are replaced by self-promoting deceit and dishonesty. And authoritarians make big money in the process.

Some symptoms of contemporary authoritarianism:

1. Ongoing efforts to intimidate and discredit the media. The distinction between information and misinformation disappears.

2. Genuine truth becomes fake news….and the actual fake news becomes the to-be-accepted real news. As George Orwell (1903-1950) predicted years ago: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

3. Police surveillance and violence against ideological “enemies” is accepted as a contemporary and necessary public safety necessity. Today it is growing increasingly powerful.

4. Foreigners are arrested, families are torn apart, and children and adults are incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time in military camps. Some “undesirables” are simply eliminated.

5. Authoritarian followers justify their behavior with the scapegoat mechanism, introduced by René Girard (1923-2015) the French historian, and philosopher of social science. He spent most of his career at Stanford University. In 1972, he published Violence and the Sacred, a work that explained the scapegoat mechanism and fundamentally changed the study of collective violence. Girard wrote that when a group is in crisis, when tensions are rising and the group is at risk of tearing itself apart, the group converges on a single individual or minority group to place blame. All of the group’s anxiety, guilt, shame, and aggression are projected onto this target. The target is then punished, expelled, or destroyed. And the act of collective punishment temporarily restores order and unity to the group. Right now, we see the scapegoat mechanism being used against Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Authoritarian Followers

Authoritarian “leaders” can only succeed because authoritarian followers applaud and support them. Much more so than the average person, authoritarian followers go through life with impaired thinking. Their reasoning is often sloppy and based on prejudiced beliefs and a fierce dogmatism, that rejects evidence and logic.

So, what does one do?

• We must first of all acknowledge that authoritarian followers are extremely resistant to change. The more one learns about authoritarianism, the more one realizes how difficult it will be to reach people who are so ferociously aggressive and fiercely defensive.
• We need to educate and promote a balanced education which hands on authentic information, tells people where to find correct information, and gives people the skills to be well-informed critical thinkers.
• Our Christian communities, more than ever, must become, compassionate and supportive gatherings of multicultural, multi-ethnic, and all-gender, brothers and sisters.
• We need to courageously speak out and we need to help other people courageously speak out. If something is wrong or something untrue, people need to strongly and clearly state that it is wrong or untrue.
• Those who courageously speak out need the strong support of friends gathered around them. Going alone is increasingly difficult if not impossible in our cyber-linked world.
• We need to be on guard, as well, that we do not become promoters of polarization and vicious partisanship. We need to learn how to work together for the common good. As Jesus says in Matthew (chapter 12): “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

 

Jack

 

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

 

 

A recent Another Voice reader emailed me and wrote that he had always believed that church teachings are carved in stone and unchanging. After reading my post about ordination and early women presiding at Eucharist, he now suspects I have become a heretic. “How can age old doctrines change?” he asked.

I replied: (1) that I am not a heretic, (2) that I understand his question, and (3) I would really stress that all doctrinal statements are time-bound, because language and understandings are time-bound. Just as, I suggested by way of example, our medical knowledge and understandings are time-bound. If he had heart problems, I said, he would not go to a doctor whose medical expertise was still anchored in the nineteenth century.

All official theological teachings are time-bound and provisional until better expressions come along. They are anchored in Scripture, historical tradition, and contemporary theological reflection.

Theology is “faith seeking understanding”and good theology helps us understand and live our faith. Truly helpful theological understandings can end up as official church teachings (doctrines) when institutional leadership judges them useful guidelines for Christian life and belief.

Over the years I have focused on four ways to observe and listen to human experiences when formulating contemporary theological understandings.

 

1. Let theological knowledge draw from all forms of knowledge and human experience.

Other forms of knowledge and human experience, like literature, music, and art are crucial to the formation of our theological imagination. Sounds and symbols touch people deeply. They help us connect to the deeper dimensions of our life experiences.

Music, for instance, can open us to the infinite, linking body and spirit in powerful ways. Do you have some favorite “mystical music”? I would put the piano and cello composition, Spiegel im Spiegel, by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt on the top of my mystical music list.

How do we interpret our life journeys? Alonzo, a schoolteacher in the State of Indiana, and my paternal grandfather, died in the 1919 flu epidemic. Mary Ellen, his wife, had to raise, on her own, my dad and his four brothers. She did that remarkably well. Reflecting on her own, not always easy life, my grandmother once told me, when I was a teenager, that Jesus was her “traveling companion.” Today, John Alonzo, her last living grandson, would say he very much resonates with Grandma’s theology.

At times, old creedal doctrines, like the fourth century Nicene Creed, can seem so rigidly esoteric. It may have had an important place back then; but stressing today, for example, that Jesus is “consubstantial with the Father” seems a strange kind of theological language when compared to the Fourth Gospel where Jesus says so simply and profoundly: “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)

• Let theological insights spring as well from inter-religious dialogue.

By focusing on questions of human meaning, identity, and purpose in other religions, we can better understand the contexts in which belief arises and takes shape. We really should experience and explore the ways in which the human experience has been portrayed and celebrated in other religious cultures, art, and drama. 

I remember the unfortunate controversy at the Catholic bishops 2019 Amazon Synod in Rome. Between October 6 and October 27, 2019, bishops and representatives from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Venezuela, and Suriname gathered with Pope Francis in Rome.The focus was on the indigenous peoples of the Pan-Amazon region and their cultural and religious traditions. During the synod several statues, which Pope Francis confirmed were of the fertility goddess Pachamama, were featured in discussions and ceremonies.

Unfortunately, a few days after the synod a group of 100 Catholics accused Pope Francis of indulging in “sacrilegious and superstitious acts”and an angry ultra-right Catholic activist later stole the statues from their display in a church near the Vatican and threw them into the Tiber. (They were later recovered.) Respecting other cultures does not always come easy for static rigid Christians. That, however, is no reason to give up.

An understanding of Christian belief through a study of the texts, rituals, ethics, and teachings of other religious traditions can lead to a deeper understanding of one’s own religious tradition. The emergence of comparative inter-religion theology has been a very promising development in recent years. Comparing, for example, a Gospel text with a Buddhist or Hindu sutra or a passage from the Gita, can greatly stimulate theological thinking. God’s revelation is hardly limited to just the Hebrew-Christian tradition.

Peter C. Phan is a Vietnamese-born American Catholic theologian. I remember his presidential address to the Catholic Theological Society of America, meeting in New Orleans in June 2002. He began with a Hindu prayer, asking God to “Draw near us in friendship…”, and later observed: “If today we recognize that we can and should benefit from the worship and prayer of other religions for our own spiritual growth, then our way of doing theology, in response to this sign of our present times, must be different from that of our forebears.”

• Let the lived experience of impoverished and marginalized men, women and children be our touchstone for theological reflection.

Firsthand and humble learning from exposure to the difficult and painful lives of the poor, the marginalized, and suffering people can lead to a transformation of hearts and an opening of minds. They need compassionate care, service with no strings attached, and unquestioned support. And for all men, women, and children there must be a theology of hope. A transformation of hearts and minds can also open our eyes to the Sacred here and now.

Recall the response of Jesus to the righteous questioners in Matthew 25:37-40: “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” A credible theology explores and promotes the significance of this text for today’s believers. 

• Let the God-mystery stand as the horizon for all learning.

I would suggest that a contemplative attitude is absolutely essential for approaching the God-mystery. I remember chatting with my friend the Franciscan spiritual master, Richard Rohr who reminded me that without a contemplative mind, we are offering the world no broad seeing, no real alternative consciousness, and no new kind of humanity. “Jesus,” Richard said “was the first clear mystic in the West. We just were not prepared for his way of knowing and loving.” An enlightened contemporary theology of God must spring from the contemplative experience. In all our busyness, we need to take time to turn off the phone, stop doing, and start reflecting. We have been well-trained in DOING. We need remedial training in BEING.

Concluding remarks: 

Religions are generally defined by belief and practice. “Orthodoxy” – a word one often hears from people in church leadership — is about correct beliefs and fidelity to official teaching. “Orthopraxy” – a word one rarely hears in church leadership — is about correct conduct.

Most church leaders are very strict about orthodoxy and insist on people adhering to official doctrines. In fact, however, those leaders are often putting the cart before the horse. Genuine Christianity is first of all about correct Christian behavior (orthopraxy). Here the example of the historic Jesus is so clear. In all he did, Jesus was the compassionate minister. He reminded his followers that the Law (orthodoxy) was created to serve people, but that people were not created to serve the Law. His primary focus was attending to the immediate needs of people, with love and compassion. And he says to us: “Go and do likewise.”

Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

 

Perspectives on ministry and the meaning of ordination have changed dramatically over the church’s long history. Change happens. But it is unfortunate that important realities can also get ignored and buried in the past. This is especially true, for example, about women in ministry.

After his death and resurrection, the men and women who were disciples of Jesus understood their role as one of ministry and service to others. Sent out to spread the Good News of the Way of Jesus, they were called “apostles” from the Greek word apóstolos, meaning “one who is sent out.”

In the earliest Christian communities, these male and female apostles held a variety of ministries; but ordained priesthood was not one of them. Contrary to what one occasionally hears, the historical Jesus did not ordain anyone at the Last Supper. In the medieval period, many ignorantly taught that he did. Many people today, like a couple of my bishop friends, still think that way. They believe that they have ‘apostolic succession’ which links them back to the Jesus-ordained apostles at the Last Supper. But historical theologians know today that ordination did not even exist in Jesus’ lifetime. ‘Apostolic succession’ is easily disproved yet it is still seen by some as one of the proof marks of the “true church.”

In his letters, Paul the Apostle (c.5 BCE-c.65 CE) mentions a variety of charismatic gifts which were ministries helping the local Christian community, even though those who exercised the ministries were not ordained in our sense of the word. For example, members, who could teach, had the ministry of teaching. Those who were good organizers had the ministry of administering community affairs. Those who had the gift of prophesy had the ministry of speaking out and telling the community what they needed to hear, as faithful followers in the Way of Jesus.

Many scholars are now in agreement that men and women who were heads of households presided at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist); and hosted the gatherings in homes. Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (1938), emerita professor of divinity at Harvard Divinity School is a good example. She is a pioneering feminist theologian whose work, In Memory of Her, highlights the role of women as leaders of house churches. Because the Eucharist was initially a meal celebrated in homes, scholars like Fiorenza argue that female heads of households would have naturally presided.

In Memory of Her by Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is a pivotal work in feminist theology that reexamines early Christian history through the lens of women’s experiences and contributions. First published in 1983 and updated in 1994 the book employs feminist critical hermeneutics and historical-theological methods to challenge traditional narratives that often marginalize women’s roles in Christianity. Schüssler Fiorenza argues that early Christian texts, largely written from a patriarchal perspective, have historically omitted or downplayed women’s activities and leadership, thereby distorting their contributions to the faith. She posits that the Jesus movement originated as a “discipleship of equals” and that the social structures of early Christian communities allowed for women’s leadership and participation.

As Christian communities developed, ministries and the ways of training and appointing ministers evolved to meet changing cultural conditions and changing social needs. Presbyters, from the Greek presbyteros (male) and presbytera (female) were community leaders. Supervisor overseers (later called bishops) from the Greek epískopos (male) and epískopa (female) had oversight and offered guidance in community affairs, and deacons, from the Greek diaconos (used for men and women) were helpers, entrusted with assisting people in the community by caring for widows, doing charitable work, catechizing, and assisting in baptisms.

The approval and blessing of the community for diverse ministries was shown by the laying on of hands. These ministries included community leadership, preaching, prophesy, healing, working miracles, speaking in tongues, and interpreting what was said in tongues (see 1 Corinthians 12:12-30, Ephesians 4:11-12, Romans 12:4-8; and 1 Corinthians 12:4-11). None of the early Christian men and women exercising these ministries were ordained.

Acts of Apostles, written between c. 90 and 110 CE, mentions the laying on of hands for presbyters, but here it was a form of blessing for those in ministry. In the Hebrew tradition, the laying on of hands was practiced when a father would impart a blessing to his children (see Genesis 48:14-15). We also see Jesus do this: He lays hands on children and blesses them.

In the first three centuries of Christianity, we have no direct evidence of what would later be called ‘an ordination ceremony.’ By the end of the third century, however, Christianity had a developing organizational structure headed by presbyters, supervisor-overseers (bishops), and deacons.

A big institutional change was introduced by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (272-337 CE) who at the First Council of Nicaea, in 325, gave Christianity an imperial institutional structure. By fusing pagan symbols, dates and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created a kind of hybrid imperial religion.

Constantine, who was Roman emperor from 306 to 337 CE, greatly institutionalized and militarized Christianity to use it as a unifying and controling force in his Roman Empire. Constantine was baptized on his deathbed in May 337, but scholars generally view his religious practice as a blend of personal beliefs and calculated political pragmatism. Throughout his life he had continued to use pagan symbols on his coinage and maintained elements of traditional Roman state religion.

Constantine’s Council of Nicaea established 20 canonical laws that explicitly regulated the ordination of priests and bishops to enforce institutional authority and maintain orthodox standards.

It is important to clarify, however, that ordination at this time was not about passing on some kind of ‘sacramental power.’ As the Belgian theologian Edward Schillebeeckx O.P. (1914-2009), often said about liturgical leadership in this period: “You led the liturgy because you were the leader of the people. You didn’t lead the liturgy because you were ordained to have the power of consecration.”

Schillebeeckx is still well known for his monumental book Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (Sheed and Ward, published in 1964 but updated in 1987.) I knew him well. He was my professor in Nijmegen and then a friend for many years, whom I visited regularly up until shortly before his death in 2009.

This week I was thinking about Prof. Schillebeeckx and a question I had asked him on one of my visits. I said, “what will we do with a shortage of priests and our need for Eucharist?” He looked at me, smiled, and said “We do not need ordained priests for Eucharist. Eucharist is the celebration of the community of faith. Christ is there because he lives in and with the community. He is not there because some fellow has sacramental power.”

Historically, ordination was originally understood as a blessing on the minister and an assurance to the community of faith that the ordained man or woman was competent, a genuine believer, and trustworthy. It was a form of ministerial quality control.

There is ample evidence that in the West women were ordained as deacons and abbesses well into the Middle Ages. Women continued to be ordained deacons in the East and were ordained to a variety of ministries. Many contemporary scholars agree with Gary Macy, professor emeritus of theology at Santa Clara University in California. Macy stresses that, during the first twelve hundred years of Christianity, women were also ordained as presbyters and bishops. I find the arguments in Macy’s book The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination (Oxford University Press, 2007)well-documented and convincing.

Looking at the history of ordination, it is especially noteworthy that, in the 12th century, known as the High Middle Ages, ordination changed from its earlier understanding as a blessing for different ministries in service for a specific community to a bestowal of sacramental power “to confect” (make it happen) the sacrament of the Lord’s body and blood.

The new medieval understanding was that the ordained person belonged to a higher social level in the church. The classless and egalitarian church of early Christianity simply disappeared. How well I remember the words of a now deceased bishop friend. He congratulated me when I got my doctorate in theology but then added with a smile: “I have no doctorate, but I have ‘sacramental power.’ You do not. You can say and teach wonderful things. But in a minute, I can say the words of institution and bingo Jesus is there on the altar!”

History is important. Today we need to remember and live the reality that Christ is present and active in the community of faith. That is the fundamental ‘Real Presence.’

We read in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Jesus promises his real presence whenever his followers gather together. In John 15:5 we read: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”

This is our Christian belief. It motivates and sustains us.

• Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

For many years, I have been actively involved in Catholic Church reform movements, advocating for a church that accepts men and women as equals, that is not run by an authoritarian old-boys club, and that is LGBTQ supportive. I write and lecture as well about the dangers of rigid fundamentalisms and advocate for an historical-critical understanding of Sacred Scripture.

That being said, my focus this week is on the need for spirituality.

Some people equate spirituality with religion, but the two are different. Religion is the medium not the message. Healthy religion should promote spirituality; but it does not always happen. A lot of contemporary people, like the “nones,” are, in fact, turned off by institutional religion and proclaim that they are “spiritual but not religious.” People hungry and thirsty for spirituality are searching for satisfying and solid nourishment. Too often, in many churches, they are finding the cupboards bare or the food unsavory.

Over the years, a number of friends and former students have gone on pilgrimage to the shrine of the Apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. There they found a satisfying sense of spirituality that changed their lives. But many people can really do it closer to home.

In Chapter 7 of John’s Gospel, Jesus cries out: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink.’’ (John 7:37-38) Jesus’ call is significant. People do thirst for more. Thirst for justice, for truth, and for compassion. They thirst for the Divine.

Spirituality connects people to the Divine. To the depth of Reality. It provides peace and harmony in our lives. Spirituality goes to the very essence of what Christianity is all about. Spirituality is not something added on top of our Christian life.

Spirituality should be our way of life: in LIVED awareness of the Divine Presence: the Sacred, the Ground of Being, Emmanuel, God with us. There are many ways to describe the depth of Reality, just like there are many ways to describe what it means to love someone and to be loved. Some of the old images of God may no longer speak to contemporary people; but God has not abandoned us. And we should not abandon God. We simply need to reflect on better ways of conceptualizing and speaking about our experience of the Divine.

I still remember the observation by Dag Hammarskjold (1901-1961), former Secretary General of the UN: “God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason.”

As I have stressed before but stress again, our communities of faith – like our schools, study groups, and our parishes — should be centers of excellence where people speak courageously about their awareness of the Divine Presence through personal shared faith stories, through drama, music, and art. And through deep reflection. We should invite and welcome the questioners and the seekers. We need to listen to young people at the start of their adult lives and to older people, confronting their life transitions.

But people, far too often, get busy and ignore what is really important in their lives. My old friend Fr. Richard Rohr (also born in 1943) said it very well in his book Breathing Under Water:

“Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego, control power, money, pleasure, and security. Then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else. They are often given a bogus version of the Gospel, some fast-food religion, without any deep transformation of the self; and the result has been the spiritual disaster of “Christian” countries that tend to be as consumer-oriented, proud, warlike, racist, class conscious, and addictive as everybody else — and often more so.”

Regardless of our place in the human journey, the Gospels remind us that God lives and walks with all women and men: all races, all nationalities. God is not focused on gender or sexual orientation. Matthew 25 is very clear: “’Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”

Christian spirituality is committed to the search for truth within a healthy multicultural and multi-religious pluralism. It involves both intellectual inquiry and personal introspection to discern facts from falsehoods and to understand one’s own beliefs. 

What to do:

• Develop personal spiritual practices. Engage in daily reflection, finding time to meditate or praying to understand your thoughts and feelings.
• Practice mindfulness, finding spiritual experiences in your daily life.
• Make a habit of recognizing and appreciating the good things in your life to boost feelings of hope and kindness.
• Develop a sense of purpose by reflecting on the meaning of your life and what you believe is right and wrong. And then act accordingly.

Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

 

As I get into a new season for Another Voice, I would like to review what we mean by the historical-critical method. I find it especially appropriate today as we are confronted with facts and deliberately fabricated “phoney facts” and misinterpretations.

The historical-critical method, also known as higher criticism, investigates the origins and nature of ancient texts in order to understand the world behind the text. While often discussed in terms of Hebrew and Christian writings from ancient times, historical criticism has also been applied to other religious writings from various parts of the world and various periods of history.

Being an historical-critical observer applies to secular documents as well of course. In these days especially to political documents, where AI generated texts and phoney documents promote ignorance, hatred, and racism. Abuses are rampant. But my point today is not about politics but theology.

The primary goal of the historical-critical method is to discover a text’s original meaning in its original historical context. The next stage is to explore the text’s contemporary meaning.

Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. (1940 – 2014), who served as professor of New Testament and chair of the Biblical Studies department at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, formerly known as Weston Jesuit School of Theology, helpfully defined biblical historical criticism as “the effort at using scientific criteria, historical and literary, and human reason to understand and explain, as objectively as possible, the meaning intended by the biblical writers.”

All biblical texts contain a variety of literary forms such as history, symbolism, folklore, and presumed or imagined historical scenarios. The Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke are good examples. They are certainly not fairytales. But they are not strictly historical either. The Infancy Narratives do not attempt to give us a precise historical account of Jesus’ birth, but rather to answer the theological question about Jesus’ identity as Son of God and Son of Humanity.

One legacy of biblical criticism in U.S. American culture was the fundamentalist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. Fundamentalism in the USA began, at least partly, as a response to the biblical criticism of the nineteenth century. Some fundamentalists believed that historical-critical believers had invented an entirely new religion “completely at odds with the Christian faith.” There were also conservative Protestants who accepted biblical criticism. This too is part of biblical criticism’s legacy.

In terms of my own Roman Catholic Christian tradition, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Roman Catholic theology avoided biblical criticism because of its reliance on rationalism, preferring instead to engage in traditional exegesis which was based on the narrow-focused works of the “Church Fathers.” The Catholic Church then showed strong opposition to biblical criticism during that period. Frequent political revolutions, bitter opposition to new perspectives in the Church, and the expulsion of religious orders from France and Germany, made the Catholic Church suspicious of any new intellectual currents.

The Roman Catholic dogmatic constitution Dei Filius (“Son of God”), approved by the First Vatican Council in 1871, in fact, rejected biblical criticism. It stressed that the Bible was written by God and that it was inerrant. But that began to change in the final decades of the nineteenth century when, for example, the French Dominican Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855–1938) established a school in Jerusalem called the École prátique d’études biblique, which became the École Biblique, to encourage study of the Bible using the historical-critical method.

At the same time, my alma mater the Catholic University of Leuven was exploring the historical-critical methodology that would become its hallmark. A major step was taken in 1889 with the creation of a Leuven course entitled “Critical History of the Old Testament” by Albin Van Hoonacker (1857 – 1933). This course was an early attempt to apply the historical-critical method to biblical texts. At a time when the historical-critical exploration of the Bible among Catholics was still highly controversial, Van Hoonacker became the first professor to teach an historical-critical understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.

On 18 November 1893, Pope Leo XIII, pope from 1878 to 1903, promulgated the encyclical letter Providentissimus Deus (“The most provident God”). That letter gave the first formal authorization for the use of historical-critical methods in biblical scholarship.

The Catholic biblical situation changed greatly, however, after Pope Leo’s death and the election of Pope Pius X in 1903. A very staunch traditionalist, Pius X, who was pope from 1903 to 1914, saw biblical criticism as part of what he saw as a growing and destructive “modernist” tendency in the Church.

Pius X, therefore, became a strong promoter of medieval Thomistc theology. (He also issued a papal directive, a motu proprio, that banned women from singing in church choirs.) The École Biblique was shut down and Lagrange was called back to France.

But fortunately, in 1943, the Catholic intellectual lights came back on. Pope Pius XII, pope from 1939 to 1958, issued the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu (“Inspired by the Holy Spirit”) in September 1943. It sanctioned historical criticism and opened a new epoch in Catholic critical biblical scholarship.

Twenty-two years later, the dogmatic constitution Dei verbum (“Word of God”), approved by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1965 further promoted biblical criticism. Pope Paul VI was pope from 1963 to 1968.

Raymond E. Brown (1928 – 1998), Joseph A. Fitzmyer (1920 -2016), and Roland E. Murphy (1917 – 2002) were the most famous U.S. Catholic scholars to apply biblical criticism and the historical-critical method in analyzing the Bible. Together, they authored The Jerome Biblical Commentary in 1968 and The New Jerome Biblical Commentary in 1990.The latest version, The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century was published in 2022, edited by John J. Collins, Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid OP, and Donald Senior CP (1940 – 2022).

 

Being critical observers and critical researchers we move ahead. We respect the past but understand it better.

We observe, we judge, and we act today. We move forward toward tomorrow.

 

• Jack

Thinking about the Fourth of July, in just a couple of days, I re-read the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Adopted on July 4, 1776, by the Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence, was written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, who later became the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Interestingly, Jefferson, born in 1743, died on July 4, 1826, as did the second U.S. president, John Adams, born in 1735. The prominent U.S. lawyer Daniel Webster (1782-1852) delivered a two-hour eulogy for Jefferson and Adams on August 2, 1826  in Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall, insisting that the fact both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the nation’s 50th birthday was “proof” from on high that the country, and its benefactors, are under the care of Divine Providence.

The Declaration of Independence stresses the principles on which the U.S. Government and American identity are based. The sixteenth U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), called it “a rebuke and a stumbling-block to tyranny and oppression.” The July 4^th Declaration proclaims that all people are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It also asserts that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed and that the people have the right to alter or abolish a government that becomes destructive of these ends.

The Declaration of Independence, is not an explicitly Christian document but it does reflect a belief in God, the “Creator,” and natural rights, influenced by Enlightenment thought. The document’s emphasis on natural rights, derived from the Creator, played a crucial role in shaping the American understanding of religious freedom, and the separation of church and state. Right from the beginning, the United States had a variety of religious traditions: Protestant Christian, Catholic Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and indigenous religious traditions, which emphasized a connection to the spirit world

A couple of days ago, after re-reading my notes about religious practice at the time of the Declaration of Independence, my thoughts turned to contemporary religion in the United States. The non-partisan Pew Research Center, in Washington DC, reports that the Christian share of the U.S. population, after years of decline, has been relatively stable since 2019. And the religiously unaffiliated population, after rising rapidly for decades, has leveled off – at least temporarily.

 At present, 62% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Christians: 40% are Protestant, 19% are Catholic, and 3% are other Christians. But 29% are religiously unaffiliated: 5% are atheist, 6% are agnostic, and 19% identify religiously as “nothing in particular.” Additionally, 7% belong to religions other than Christianity: 2% are Jewish, and 1% each are Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu.

As many readers of my blog know, my professional area of research for many years has been “Religion and Values in American Society.” I remain an American observer and researcher. Right now, my observation and that of many colleagues is that there are strong indications that we may see, very soon, significant declines in the religiousness of the American public. Young U.S. adults, even those who once had a highly religious upbringing, are far less religious than older adults. In general, Americans consider religion important but are divided about its role in society. Less than half of all adults now say religion is important in their lives, down from majorities who felt that way in earlier studies. Just 44% in a new poll say they pray daily, also down from majorities in prior polls. While most contemporary Americans continue to say they believe in a God or a universal spirit, the share who say they are certain one exists has dropped from 71% in 2007 to 54% now.

While the overall change in religious views has happened in similar ways across key demographic groups, there are differences in how it is being played out in people’s socio-cultural orientation. Among people who call themselves “liberal,” just 37% now identify as Christian, down from 62% in 2007. But 54% of today’s liberals are more likely to say they have no religion than to consider themselves Christian. Among “conservatives,” by contrast, the share who are Christian has declined just 7 points to 82%.

Americans’ degree of religious engagement is also closely tied to their political identity. The most religiously engaged people are more likely to consider themselves Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while those with little religious engagement are more likely to be Democrats or Democratic-leaning. As has long been the case, White voters are much more likely than those in other racial and ethnic groups to associate with the Republican Party. Black voters continue to associate with the Democratic Party, although the extent of the Democratic advantage among this group has fallen off over the last few years. About six-in-ten Latino voters (61%) are Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party. The relationship between partisanship and voters’ religious affiliation continues to be strong – especially when it comes to whether they belong to any organized religion at all. Protestants mostly align with the Republican Party.

The GOP, however, now has a modest advantage among Catholics. About half of Catholic voters identify as Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party, compared with 44% who identify as Democrats or lean Democratic. In the 2024 presidential election, Catholic voters split 56% to 41% in favor of the Republican candidate. Today, among U.S. Catholics to the left of the ideological center, there is optimism that Pope Leo XIV will carry on Pope Francis’ outreach to poor and marginalized people, including migrants, and provide a counterweight to policies of the current presidential administration, which they find distressing. U.S. Catholics on the right, however, hope Pope Leo, like his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI, will strongly uphold traditional Catholic doctrine, by which they mean opposition to abortion, opposition to same-sex marriage, and opposition to women’s ordination.

It is especially noteworthy that today’s incumbent U.S. president is building a new far-right religious movement. The old religious right is gone. Members of the U.S. religious right in the 1980s and 1990s were political because of their theology. Members of the current new religious right are working in the opposite direction. They are constructing a new “theology” that fits their far-right politics. Take, for example, the defense by contemporary far-right evangelical leaders of the incumbent president’s sexual transgressions. They say his transgressions are excusable because he is a messianic figure, sent not to save souls but to save America. Their viewpoint makes no coherent religious sense but clearly fits their political sense. Some U.S. Catholic leaders appear to support this perspective as well. In December 2024, for example, the then Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the soon to be back in the White House president-elect “takes his Christian faith seriously.” Cardinal Dolan has been one of the U.S. President’s supporters for a long time and maintains a friendly relationship with him in his private life.

On May 1, 2025, the incumbent U.S. president announced that he was setting up a presidential commission on religious liberty: “The Religious Liberty Commission.” I find it noteworty that five of the members are conservative Catholic bishops: Cardinal Timothy Dolan; Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota; Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco; Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois; and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort-Wayne-South Bend, Indiana. According to Melissa Deckman, a political scientist and CEO of Washington DC’s Public Religion Research Institute, the Religious Liberty Commission caters to Christian nationalist groups who “see their loss of dominance as persecution.”

The Religious Liberty Commission also says that the separation of church and state concept is a legal error. What the new U.S. religious right is building in fact has more in common with the ancient pagan religion of the Roman Imperial Cult than the evangelical revivals of an earlier America. The Roman Imperial Cult stressed that emperors and some members of their families held divinely sanctioned authority. Their focus was on imperial power. Today’s MAGA supporters have declared a religious war, not just against secularism or progressive forms of religion, but against traditional religion that refuses to serve their radical nationalistic power goal to “Make America Great.” They are not advocating a new theocracy, but a new religion of nationalism and national identity disguised in the trappings of a religious movement, that stresses strong loyalty, shared beliefs, and a sense of superior white supremacy based on a judgmental “us vs. them” perspective. How well I remember, by way of example, the current president’s speech to Americans on June 21, 2025, about the U.S. bombing of sites in Iran. He said: “And I want to just thank everybody and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God…”

 

Happy Fourth of July! The key socio-political issues we need to think about and promote in the coming months are indeed: Honesty, Historical Truthfulness, and Humanity.

• Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Voice is back. I look forward to traveling with you again. And I suspect it will be quite a year in many ways.

This summer, relaxing close to the Belgian North Sea coast, my wife and I have been enjoying some peaceful days to rest and reflect. And…This week we celebrate out fifty-sixth wedding anniversary.

While on vacation, I have also been reflecting about my personal evolution as a Catholic “historical theologian.” I have now been teaching about religion, ethics, and historical theology for more than fifty-seven years. Getting older, I was thinking this week about what Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) allegedly wrote to a friend in 1942: “People like you and I do not grow old no matter how long we live. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”

I remember growing up as a pious Catholic kid in southern Michigan, who was very much afraid of the God of threat and punishment, the God who watches me and judges, the God who takes sides and causes victories and defeats, and the God who responds to appeasement and sacrificial offerings. I believed and feared that I would suffer eternal punishment in hell for missing Mass on a single Sunday or eating meat on a day of abstinence, or my great fear: committing an adolescent sexual sin. I was encouraged to “go to confession” every week, because God was the Supreme Judge who demands that everything in our lives be in good order. There were so many things I had to avoid “under pain of mortal sin.”

Gradually I began to grow up. Fortunately, I had healthy guidance from some very good high school teachers and college professors at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. (I was never ordained a priest but became what they called back then “a lay theolgian.”) I began to realize that God does not exist in some far-off place, watching, and judging me. God is in the here and now. I began to understand God as the empowering energy of everything and as philosopher Paul Tillich (1888 – 1965) said the “ground of being.” I began to understand that God is love and when we love we are actively living in God. There we find salvation.

As one grows up, he or she realizes that perspective is important. Scientists have determined that the universe came into being 13.8 billion years ago. We humans are a very recent development; and it was only a moment ago that Jesus lived on Earth. But Jesus still lives and shows us how to be human. My perspective on Jesus changed thanks especially to Professor Gustave Thils (1909 – 2000) at the Catholic University of Leuven and Professor Edward Schillebeeckx (1914 – 2009) at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, today’s Radboud University. Both men encouraged me and strongly supported my wish to become an historical theologian.

More growth: I remember when Richard McBrien (1936 – 2015), longtime professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, wrote that it seems more difficult to say something original about Jesus’ resurrection. Edward Schillebeeckx in his book Jesus: An experiment in Christology (Dutch ed. 1974), had argued that we should not imagine that the belief of the disciples that Jesus had risen was caused by an empty tomb and the resurrection appearances. He proposed instead that a belief in the resurrection was grounded in “the new orientation of living which this Jesus has brought about in their lives and was not rendered meaningless by his death – quite the opposite.”

Frankly, considering what one reads in the New Testament, it is often difficult to distinguish between what should be taken word for word and what is to be understood as metaphor in the post-resurrection accounts. As Christians we accept Jesus as the ultimate life-giver, the very Word of God, realizing that we are called not only to believe, but to imitate. In John’s Gospel, chapter 12, we read “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in the one who sent me. And whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.” Indeed, but for many people today belief is easier than imitation.

As a Catholic historical theologian, one of my concerns over the years has been a correct portrayal of the mother of Jesus. It is not that easy. When person or an event seems larger than life, people turn to poetry, creative imagination, symbolism, and figurative speech. That has certainly been the case with Mary. And so we have the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception thanks to Bishop Augustine of Hippo’s (354 -430) concept of Original Sin, the notion that all human beings are born in a sinful condition inherited from Adam and Eve and passed on through sexual intercourse. But Mary, because she was the Mother of Jesus, the church taught, had to be exempted from Original Sin. Mary therefore had a no-original-sin Immaculate Conception.

Mary’s Immaculate Conception, one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, was debated by medieval theologians. It was not defined as a dogma until 1854 by Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) in the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus.

Today of course we realize that the story of Adam and Eve is ancient biblical mythology. There were no historic people called Adam and Eve, no Garden of Eden, no tempting snake, and no angry and punishing God. And no Augustinian Original Sin.

So what do we do with Mary’s Immaculate Conception? One could also ask the same question about Mary’s Assumption up above the clouds into heaven. Catholic dogma states that at the end of her earthly life, the Virgin Mary was taken body and soul into heavenly glory. Pope Pius XII (1876-1958) officially declared this an infallible truth of the faith in 1950.

 And of course there is Mary’s perpetual virginity. The brothers of Jesus are named in the New Testament as James, Joses, Simon, and Jude. The Greek word translated as “brothers” is adelphoí, which literally means “from the same womb.” Jesus’ unnamed sisters are mentioned as well in Mark and Matthew. The church doctrine about Mary’s perpetual virginity, however, was first officially proclaimed at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 CE which proclaimed her “ever virgin.” Then at the Lateran Synod of 649 CE Pope Martin I (c. 590 – 655) emphasized the threefold character of her perpetual virginity: before, during, and after the birth of Jesus.

Anchored in our Christian tradition we can and we should continue to grow in our knowledge and understandings about past people and events. Mary was probably about thirteen years old when she and her husband, traditionally called “Joseph,” gave birth to Jesus. She deserves great respect and veneration for being a loving, wise, and supportive mother throughout Jesus’ life from birth to his crucifixion and death on the cross. Her son James was leader of the Christian community in Jerusalem. About her other children we know nothing. Over the centuries, Christians have certainly found the Mother of Jesus a supportive Lady of Sorrows, Lady of Consolation, and Mother of Perpetual Help. Her faith in the loving and powerful presence of God was her strength, her wisdom, and her lifeline. It is our faith as well.

I recommend the recent book, CONTROVERSIAL: And What Do You Think of Original Sin? The author is my friend William G. Joseph. Drawing on his extensive background in ministry, theology, philosophy, and modern biology, his work explores the intersection of faith and the theory of evolution. 

And so we go on, people of faith, knowing that life brings sun and cool breezes as well as occasional storms but confident that the creative and life-giving Spirit is with us every step of the way.

Jack