Finding Unity in a Fractured World

Many writers refer to our world as “post-Christian” but we know that can’t be true because Jesus promised to be with us “always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). If by post-Christian, however, those writers mean that the tenets of Christianity no longer principally inform our culture, then they may be onto something.

With deepening political divisions, Christians are being pulled to the Left and to the Right of the political spectrum and, considering the length of time scripture has been with us, we may well wonder why.  Are not the laws laid down by the Lord the ones we should follow? In Scripture, when asked about the lawfulness of paying tribute or tax to the government, Jesus replied, “Show me a denarius; whose image and name does it bear?” They replied, “Caesar’s,” So he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (Luke 20:24-25). Thus, the effect of our form of government and the philosophies and politics that surround it, place us in a delicate position as believers, especially in a post-Christian world.

What of important social issues? Do we lean to the Left or lean to the Right? This is an important question because we have a complex social structure in which to navigate in order to make decisions like these. It’s easy enough for Catholics to say “just follow Church teaching and everything will be fine.”

In a post-Christian world, however, this isn’t so easy, other things, worldly things that blind our ability to even know Church teaching surround us and press upon us.

Two major cultural worldviews, or paradigms, plague us – postmodernism, a philosophical paradigm, and progressivism, a political paradigm, both of which are pernicious and contrary to both our religious beliefs and our way of government. However, we must deal with them as they may well affect us unwittingly and interfere with our Christian decision-making. In order to recognize and understand these paradigms, we need to look at their various elements.

Postmodernism is one of those things that, as a philosophy, eventually affect every aspect of our lives. This idea began as far back as 1870 as a comment about the new art of the day that challenged the status quo. Since then, postmodernism has flowed through religion, art, architecture, literature, politics, and even theology and science. Each of these is a grand narrative, a meta-narrative, or a story of our culture.

The philosophical purpose of postmodernism is to question these meta-narratives and therefore throw question upon their validity leaving a trail of chaos.

The five main elements of postmodernism are:

1. Relativism – all values are relative to culture and nowadays to feelings; there are no absolute truths.
2. Secularization – removing the source of absolute truth from the public arena.
3. Deliberate irrationality – to directly oppose Enlightenment rationality.
4. Subjective emotionalism – truth is not rendered by objective means but by emotions, or feelings.
5. Malignant narcissism – the curse of individualism run amok.

Recognizing these elements in daily life helps us to avoid them and hopefully lead others away from them, too. If we engage in these elements, we will find ourselves far away from our religious beliefs and probably in the same chaos as we see every day.

The reason why we need to understand progressivism is because it is a prevailing political system and its design, coming from old communist and socialist philosophies, is to bring down our democratic-republican form of government. Here are the elements:

1. Human beings are noble simply because they are human beings (and because progressives are human beings).
2. Human beings are perfectible in a Nietzschean manner.
3. The government is the only agency that can accomplish perfectibility through legislation and regulation, i.e. by force.

In both the case of postmodernism and progressivism, we have a secular humanism that will not admit to any higher truth. We need to step away from both paradigms and embrace Church social teaching. The Church social doctrine is first based upon the abiding principle of the imago Dei, the Image of God which defines all human beings come and from which all human dignity is derived. The principles of Church social doctrine, thus, are directed toward this end:

1. The common good.
2. The universal destination of goods.
3. Solidarity
4. Subsidiarity
5. Participation

The common good is related directly to human dignity; all social actions must be directed toward that end. The universal destination of good is similar in that all the goods of the earth are created for the imago Dei and the rest of creation and all must have access to them. Solidarity brings us into proximity of one another – particularly with the poor – as imago Dei. Subsidiarity means that significant actions should take place at the level closest to the imago Dei and not in a faraway place like Washington, D.C. Finally, participation is the hallmark of both representative government and the relationships between human beings.

Neither postmodernism nor progressivism can bring unity to the world as can Church social teaching. If we understand our religious beliefs, we can become instrumental in alleviating strife, raising spirits, and mitigate poverty of both body and soul.