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The Church is a Thing, Not an Idea
In An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, St. John Henry Newman distinguishes between “real” and “notional” assent and understanding. At the risk of vastly oversimplifying his argument, “notional” knowledge is the sort of knowledge we have of abstract concepts. In a notional way, I assent to the proposition that 2+2+4; I believe this to be true. We also have notional knowledge of many concrete realities that we haven’t directly experienced; for instance, my knowledge of Julius Caesar, and my assent to the reality of his existence, is notional.
We gain “real” knowledge through direct experience. I have real experience of my parents, and can give a real assent to their existence. We can also have a “real” knowledge of some concrete realities we haven’t directly experienced; for instance, Newman explained that he could have a “real” knowledge of a fire in London even when he was hundreds of miles away. This was possible for him because he had direct experience of London, and direct experience with fires, though not with this particular one.
Newman does not mean to say that notional knowledge and assent aren’t real, but rather that such knowledge and assent aren’t based on concrete experience. He goes on to explain that notional knowledge generally does not touch us as deeply as real knowledge.
Our knowledge of God can be either notional or real; Newman calls the notional knowledge of God “theological” and real knowledge of God “religious”. For our spiritual life to grow and develop properly, we need a real, religious experience of God. Our Faith isn’t an abstract proposition, but a living relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus wanted this relationship of faith to be a communal rather than a purely individual matter. This is the purpose of the Church: to bring us together in union with Christ as the mystical body.
As with our knowledge of God, our knowledge of the Church should be a “real” knowledge. The Church isn’t an idea or a list of rules. Nor is it the building down the street. The Church is a community to which one gives one’s life. Though the Church is spread across the world, it is also local and particular. William T. Cavanaugh’s book Being Consumed contains the following beautiful reflection on the local nature of the Church:
This universalization of the body of Christ, however, is never detached from the local and the particular, for the eucharistic community is essentially local, gathered around the altar in a particular time and place. Furthermore, the particular is of supreme importance because the Eucharist is not a mere sign that points to Christ; this particular piece of bread is the body of Christ . . . The catholicity of the church is not sustained by a cosmopolitan detachment from the particular . . . “Catholic” means a gathering rather than a spreading out, a unification of the many through attachment to the local eucharistic community. One becomes more catholic, more universal, the more one is tied to a particular community of Christians gathered around the altar.
Sacrosanctum concilium outlines the same idea:
41. The bishop is to be considered as the high priest of his flock, from whom the life in Christ of his faithful is in some way derived and dependent.
Therefore all should hold in great esteem the liturgical life of the diocese centered around the bishop, especially in his cathedral church; they must be convinced that the pre-eminent manifestation of the Church consists in the full active participation of all God’s holy people in these liturgical celebrations, especially in the same eucharist, in a single prayer, at one altar, at which there presides the bishop surrounded by his college of priests and by his ministers.
42. But because it is impossible for the bishop always and everywhere to preside over the whole flock in his Church, he cannot do other than establish lesser groupings of the faithful. Among these the parishes, set up locally under a pastor who takes the place of the bishop, are the most important: for in some manner they represent the visible Church constituted throughout the world.
If we are connected to the Church through the local Eucharistic community, then in a certain sense it is almost impossible to fully join the Catholic Church in the USA. It is almost impossible to gain a real, experiential knowledge that would enable us to give a real, as opposed to a notional, assent to the Church’s claim on us.
It is perfectly possible to have a loving relationship with Christ—he can be encountered everywhere. It is perfectly possible to enter one of the many church buildings, and receive life giving sacraments. In a sense, however, the Church can only be joined if that building contains a true community gathered around those sacraments, a community to which one can give one’s life. All too often, our church buildings contain merely a disconnected collection of individuals showing up to a “Mass stop”. Even if we participate in extra-liturgical activities, we tend to go our separate ways, living and working apart from one another.
This perhaps explains why some individuals join the Church only to leave it again. They’ve heard about the Church; they give a notional assent; but not finding the concrete reality, nominal assent can never become real and vivifying. Discussing this problem, the priests who host the “Catholic Stuff You Should Know” podcast said ‘there is nothing to bring them (converts) into”!
Newman does point out that it is possible to come to real knowledge, and therefore real assent, without direct physical experience. He explains that if someone tells him there’s a fire in London, he can get a real knowledge of it, in part because he’s experienced fires and cities before. In our case, however, this indirect route to real knowledge is very difficult. The Church is a kind of community, and most of us have never experienced a real community. Our so-called communities tend to be more voluntary and accidental collections of individuals with a high turnover rate; perhaps it isn’t surprising that this experience shapes many Americans’ participation in the Church.
This means that for most of us, the Christian life is out of reach, since the Christian life is fundamentally about participation in the Church. We can live “as Christians”, since that can be done anywhere. One can live as a Christian even in a concentration camp or on a desert island. We’re each personally responsible for our response to God’s Grace. Yet the “Christian life” remains out of reach for the isolated individual.
The essential nature of community for joining the Church may also explain why Christianity declines in wealthy countries and thrives in poor ones. Wealth is largely a means for avoiding the necessity of community life, as I address in this blog post.
What can be done about this? We have to enrich our faith, moving from nominal to real knowledge. We have to find others to gather with: as Jesus said, where two or three are gathered in his name, there he is in their midst. Such gathering must eventually move on to commitment, formal or informal, or one has not truly “joined” anything. And further, such gatherings should not be separate from the parish structure. There are various nominally Catholic groups that capitalize on the desire for community, and build themselves up at the expense of the local church. Even if, at present, the parish is merely an uncomfortable and empty shell, it provides the structure that assures our local community is really an instantiation of Christ’s body, a branch on the vine, not a lopped branch doomed to wither.
By building local community, we can renew the Church by being the Church, by making it once again an “ekklesia” or assembly, instead of merely a building.
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“Being Consumed” with William T. Cavanaugh
In this episode, Malcolm interviews Professor William T. Cavanaugh about his book on Christian economics, Being Consumed.
Background
Before we discussed the book, I asked Professor Cavanaugh to discuss his background. He talked about his academic background in theology and his time working as a lay volunteer in Chile under the Pinochet military dictatorship. His first book, Torture and Eucharist, was inspired by his experience in Chile. It describes torture as the “liturgy” of the military dictatorship, aimed at atomizing society, and the Eucharist as the Church’s liturgy, aimed at building up the body of Christ. He also discussed his work as director of The Center for World Catholicism & Intercultural Theology, a research center on the Church in the Global South. In particular, he mentioned how vibrant the Church is in some of the poorer countries of the Global South, and how just before the pandemic he visited the Catholic seminary of Enugu, Nigeria which has 855 men in formation.
Being Consumed
Economics as Moral Theology
Then we turned to discussing Being Consumed. The introduction contains the line “Some Christians may be tempted to assume that economics is a discipline autonomous from theology.” Historically, Christians saw economics as a branch of moral theology. In modern times, by contrast, economics has been treated as a separate science. This makes it easier for Christians to justify immoral economic behavior.
There shouldn’t be any area of our lives which is separate from our Faith. Our economic life, which has such a large impact on our relationships with one another, should definitely be informed by our Faith. In the Old Testament, God’s concern for economic justice is clear. Similarly, as described in the New Testament, the Early Church shared goods in common and cared for the poor.
What is a Free Market?
The first chapter of Being Consumed covers the concept of freedom as applied to the economy. Christians don’t have to oppose the idea of a free market. On the other hand, we should criticize the flawed concept of freedom held by many “free market” theorists. They tend to hold a purely negative view of freedom. A negative view of freedom focuses on an absence of external constraints. For this reason, free market apologists tend to see all economic exchanges as free unless one party directly coerces or deceives the other.
Negative freedom is a necessary component of true freedom. It is not, however, sufficient to make an action truly free. The Christian tradition contains an emphasis on positive freedom. Positive freedom is “freedom for”, as opposed to “freedom from”. During the podcast, Professor Cavanaugh used playing the piano to illustrate these two concepts. In a negative sense, someone is free to play the piano so long as nobody stops them. In a positive sense, only those who have learned to play the piano are really free to do so. Other people can bang on the keys, but are not actually free to play it.
Positive freedom applied to economics means that a truly free market should promote the dignity and well-being of all. Economic transactions that demean human dignity are not truly free.
Further, in judging the freedom of an economic exchange, we need to take into account disparities of power. In Being Consumed, the low wages of many sweatshop workers are used as an illustration of this point. If such workers don’t accept these low wages, they will starve. They aren’t really free in this situation. The multinational companies have a lot of power, and the workers have very little.
In some cases, the workers actually are coerced by a government which intervenes on the side of the corporations. Professor Cavanaugh said that a “free market” often means one in which corporations are free. For instance, the oppressive Pinochet regime supported a supposedly “free” market. Speaking of this situation, the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano said that “people were in prison so that prices could be free.”
The Social Mortgage on Private Property
The Church does accept the legitimacy of private property. In part, this acceptance is a concession to a fallen world. It also stems from a realization of the social benefits that can come from private ownership. The Church does not, however, recognize private property as absolute. Rather, the Church teaches the universal destination of human goods. This means that private property is only legitimate insofar as it serves the common good. Professor Cavanaugh mentioned St. John Paul II’s teaching on the “social mortgage”:
It is necessary to state once more the characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine: the goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. Private property, in fact, is under a “social mortgage,” which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods.
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, VI, 42This emphasis on the social purpose of ownership goes all the way back to the Old Testament. The New Testament reiterates this teaching and raises it to a higher level.
Use Value instead of Exchange Value
One of the problems with our current economy is an excessive focus on exchange value. The ultimate purpose of the economy is providing for human needs. Use value is a measure of this kind of fulfillment. Exchange value, on the other hand, is a measure of the salability of an item. A focus on exchange value leads to commodification. Commodities are not seen as useful, but merely as saleable. This can lead to bizarre consequences. Among other examples, I mentioned that at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, many farmers ended up plowing under their crops. The farm operations were designed to sell exclusively to the restaurant trade. With this market opportunity temporarily unavailable, the food had no value as a commodity. At the same time, many people were going hungry. The use value of the food was as high as ever, but due to a focus on exchange value it was unable to be used.
Professor Cavanaugh pointed out that this emphasis on exchange value leads to the proliferation of advertising. We are shown shiny images of things that can be quickly shipped to our doorstep. They arrive in packages with a smile on them. What we don’t see is the conditions under which they are made. Products become more important than the people. This is fundamentally incoherent, since products are designed to serve human beings.
Detachment
Christians are supposed to be detached from the world. Our modern economy also promotes a kind of detachment. We tend not to be attached to any particular thing. Unlike those in more thrifty cultures, we’re constantly throwing things away and replacing them with the next thing. Christian detachment is supposed to leave us free to become attached to God and attentive to the needs of others. The modern “detachment”, however, leaves us attached to the very process of consumption itself.
The Eucharist as Anti-Consumptive in Being Consumed
Professor Cavanaugh said that he has sometimes been criticized for saying that the Eucharist “does things” apart from the disposition of those receiving. It is of course true that things can be misused, and the Eucharist is no exception. The Eucharist can be, and often is, seen as a merely individual, consumptive experience. Parishes can become “Mass stops” where we go to “get our sacraments.”
The reality of the Eucharist, however, is deeply anti-consumptive. In our current economy, we consume things, thereby taking them into our possession. Our consumption of the Eucharist, however, is the opposite. In the Eucharist, we are taken up into a larger whole. We become part of the body of Christ, which includes all those who receive the Eucharist with us.
Chapter 4 of Being Consumed includes the following line: “Those of us who partake of the Eucharist while ignoring the hungry may be eating and drinking our own damnation.” This is extremely important. We need a holism of life, a certain kind of “Eucharistic Coherence.” We can’t partake in the sacrament of unity and then spend the rest of week exploiting and abusing our brothers and sisters in Christ.
This connection between serving others and partaking in the Eucharist goes back to the Early Church, as seen in the teaching of Basil the Great and John Chrysostom. It goes even further back to St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. We can’t fall into the modern temptation to separate our lives into watertight compartments.
Practical Responses to the Message of Being Consumed
Professor Cavanaugh suggests that in reclaiming our economic lives, we should focus on our problematic detachment from three different aspects of our economy: detachment from production, from producers, and from products.
- To combat our detachment from production, we should take back up the practice of making things for ourselves, even if on a small scale.
- To combat our detachment from producers, we should consider the impact of our economic decisions on others, particularly those who make our goods.
- To combat our detachment from products, we should avoid advertising as much as we can. We should cultivate satisfaction with what we have, instead of searching for the latest model.
Conclusion
Being Consumed is a great examination of the Christian view of economic activity, and is accessible to those without a specialized background. I highly recommend it; we were only able to cover a few of the many concepts discussed in the book. And I’m very grateful to Professor Cavanaugh for joining the discussion.
Header Image: Book Cover image courtesy of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Amazon warehouse image from D K, CC BY-NC 2.0
Building Christian Community as a Means of Evangelization
