The author’s understanding OF CHURCH and social mission
BASTIN ANITO
Introduction:
Book title : Church and social justice
Author :
George V. Lobo, S.J.
Publication : Gujarat
Sahitya Prakash
Length : x +170
Biography
Fr. Lobo was born in Mangalore on 5 th
October 1923. He joined the Society of Jesus in June 1945 and was ordained a
priest in November 1956. After obtaining his doctorate from Gregorian
University, Rome, he joined the staff of Vidyajayoti, Delhi, where he taught
for 19 years, and in 1980, he was transferred to the Papal seminary, Pune.
He was a prolific writer and lecturer,
as evidenced by his many written publications, and the courses and lectures he
gave all over India and abroad. His field of work was especially the renewal of
Moral Theology after Vatican II, the application of moral principles to
Christian and professional life, and the social teaching of the church. His
memory will be cherished by the many people whose lives he touched, and will
remain an inspiration for others to dedicate themselves to the service of the
church and of India.
Fr. George V. Lobo, S.J. passed away on
30th April 1993 during a train journey on his way back to Pune. By
the death of Fr. Lobo, the church in India has lost a competent moral
theologian, an able professor and a successful spiritual guide. May he rest in
the peace and joy of the Lord.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK
The church:
According
to author, the church is presented as means of salvation, its essential mission
being to lead men and women to salvation. In order to prove his standpoint, the
author has quoted the Vatican II document on the dogmatic constitution on the church
(lumen Gentium), no 5, “the church is to proclaim and to establish among all
peoples the kingdom of God.” Therefore, the church is not called upon to
propose an abstract doctrine, but orientations for active involvement in the
transformation of the world.
The mission of the church:
J. Moltmann says, “what we have to
learn … is not that the church has a mission. The mission does not come from
the church. It is from mission and in the light of this mission that the church
has to be understood.”[1] Therefore,
here the mission of the church is to promote human dignity, to defend human
rights and build just societies. It does not mean the church is leaving holy
ground and entering an unholy world that is alien to her. The ground on which
she sets foot to proclaim her social teaching is already holy ground, which was
effectively influenced by Christ’s redeeming grace. Therefore, the commitment
to social justice is integral to the church’s social mission.
The Latin American Bishops documents
of Medellin, 1968, emphasized the need of working for the liberation of the
poor as part of the church’s mission of evangelization. Here, the relationship
between evangelization and liberation as dialectical. Evangelization is
incomplete without liberation in the sense that liberation is incomplete
without evangelization. Evangelization includes liberation in a transformative
way. Therefore, the church evangelization means bringing the good news into all
the strata of humanity and through its influence transforming humanity and
making it new.
religion and politics:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “The world
was entering a time of ‘no religion at all’ and so Christianity must shed the
outer garb of religion. The future task of theology was to develop a religionless
interpretation of the Gospel”. [2] Here
religion and politics are two of the most important dimensions of human life.
Religion is the expression of man’s longing for ultimate meaning in life and
his striving towards transcendent destiny. It is concerned with the ultimate
values of the human person and society and the realization of the deepest human
aspirations. Politics is the way of organizing man’s secular life in order to
achieve the common good and thereby the conditions needed for realizing human
values in society. In some situation, it became an instrument of statecraft. The
earthly kingdom, instead of being a means of achieving the common good of human
society, became a means of oppression sanctioned by religion.
The author has proposed some points to
avoid such evil from religion like 1) the religion can play the role of
transformation by inspiration and service. 2) The religion cannot canonize any
political system. 3) The church must vigorously fulfill her prophetic role and
strive for justice and liberation. The church must be ready to face the
inevitable conflicts that these will provoke.4) the religion must project the
image of a truly religious community, and not merely of a philanthropic
organization or a mighty institutional structure. The more the religion sheds
worldliness, the more she will be able to help the world.
Liberation theology:
The purpose of theology is formation,
transformation, conservation, change. Theology does not mean to acquire
something but it is life experience. P. Freire explained in ‘Pedagogy of the
oppressed’, “education is the practice of freedom depending on political
decision to make persons fully alive in their concrete situation”. [3]There
are two approaches to doing theology, the first one is the deductive approach
and the second one is inductive approach. The deductive approach sets out from
scripture and church teachings. It insists on a systematic elaboration of
doctrine. The inductive approach is a spiritual reading of lived experience in
the light of the biblical faith. It insists on responsible involvement in
action in order to discover the true implications of the Christian faith for
today. C. Boff says, “It tries to articulate a reading of reality beginning
from the poor and with a concern for the liberation of the poor; to do this it
uses the humane social sciences, engages in theological meditation and calls
for pastoral action which helps the way of the oppressed. So, liberation
theology, developed from such grass roots reflection by the base communities of
the poor and oppressed. The author also affirms this view and says, “A new way
of theologizing is praxis- based and praxis – oriented.” At last, the author
proposed that the most fruitful effects of liberation theology are the
development of new liberation spirituality.
Critical evaluation:
ØThe
author presented his views very logically and systematically. The author has
quoted many documents regarding the church standpoint on social justice and he
referred some other eminent writer’s sayings to support his thoughts.
ØThis
book is the collection of the articles, which the author presented them in
various Indian and Asian seminars. Therefore, the author has brought out the
theme very well in Asian context.
ØThe
author gives a lucid explanation to introduce his ideas. I hope
that the readers cannot get bored up of reading this book because of the
coherent and simple language, which is used by the author in this book.
ØThe
author has particularly chosen the items, which deal with basic issues, so that
the purpose and mode of Christian involvement in the social and political life
of people in Asia might be clarified.
ØI
agree with the author’s view on liberation theology, because the author never
separates the liberation theology from spirituality. Instead of separating
them, the author combined these two elements and saying, “The liberation
theology is rooted by spirituality.”
Disagreement:
vI
do not agree with the author’s view on religion. He says, “ religion is the
expression of man’s longing for the ultimate meaning in life and his striving
towards his transcendent destiny.” This idea seems to be traditionalistic
approach. According to me, religion is the expression of one’s own searching
for human dignity.
vThe
author is depending only on the church documents, which seems to the handbook
for his work.
vThe
author says, “The church documents take more into account the situation in poor
countries”. I disagree with him in this view because, the church documents will
not bring any change in the world but it will throw some light to reflect on
the issues and also it is impossible the roman authorities to know all the
local situations. It is the task of the
local churches to apply this teaching, to reflect on the local situation in the
light of this teaching, and take effective measures to defend people when their
rights are violated.
[1]
George V. Lobo, Church and social justice,
(India : Gujarat Sathiya Prakash,1993), 3.
The
Reverend Raymond Edward Brown, S.S. (May 22, 1928 - August 8, 1998), was an
American Roman Catholic priest, a member of the Sulpician Fathers and a
prominent Biblical scholar of his era. He was regarded as a specialist concerning
the hypothetical ‘Johannine community’, which he speculated contributed to the
authorship of the Gospel of John, and he also wrote influential studies on the
birth and death of Jesus. Brown was professor emeritus at the Protestant Union
Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York, where he taught for 29 years. He was
the first Roman Catholic professor to gain tenure there, where he earned a
reputation as a superior lecturer.
Brown
was one of the first Roman Catholic scholars to apply historical-critical
analysis to the Bible. As Biblical criticism developed in the 19th century, the
Roman Catholic Church opposed this scholarship and essentially forbade it in
1893. In 1943, however, the Church issued guidelines by which Catholic scholars
could investigate the Bible historically. Brown called this encyclical the
"Magna Carta of biblical progress." Vatican II further supported
higher criticism, which, Brown felt, vindicated his approach.
Brown
remains controversial among traditionalist Catholics because of their claim
that he denied the inerrancy of the whole of Scripture and cast doubt on the
historical accuracy of numerous articles of the Catholic faith. Conservatives
were angered at his questioning of whether the virginal conception of Jesus
could be proven historically. He was regarded as occupying the center ground in
the field of biblical studies, opposing the literalism found among many
fundamentalist Christians while not carrying his conclusions as far as many
other scholars.[1]
Biography
Born
in New York, the son of Robert H. Brown and Loretta Brown, Raymond studied at
the Catholic University of America where he received a BA in 1948 and MA in
1949 as a Basselin scholar. In 1951 he joined the scholarly Society of
Saint-Sulpice following his STB from St. Mary's Seminary and University. In
1953 he was ordained a priest in the diocese of St. Augustine, Florida. He
earned a Ph.D. at the Johns Hopkins University where one of his advisors was
Professor William F. Albright.
Brown
was appointed in 1972 to the Pontifical Biblical Commission and again in 1996.
He was the Auburn Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies at the Protestant
Union Theological Seminary in New York where he taught from 1971 to 1990, when
he became professor emeritus. He served as president of the Catholic Biblical
Association, the Society of Biblical Literature (1976-7) and the Society of New
Testament Studies (1986-7). He was a Roman Catholic priest in the diocese of
Baltimore, Maryland. Widely regarded as one of America's preeminent biblical
scholars, Brown was awarded 24 honorary doctoral degrees by universities in the
USA and Europe, many from Protestant institutions.
He
died at St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park, California. Cardinal Mahony hailed
him as "the most distinguished and renowned Catholic biblical scholar to
emerge in this country ever" and his death, the cardinal said, was "a
great loss to the Church."[2]
Scholarly
views
Brown
was one of the first Catholic scholars in the United States to use the
historical-critical method to study the Bible.In 1943, reversing the approach
that had existed since Providentisimus. Deus fifty years earlier, the
encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu expressed approval of historical-critical methods.
For Brown, this was a "Magna Carta for biblical progress”. In 1965, at the
Second Vatican Council, the Church moved further in this direction, adopting
the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, instead of the
conservative schema "On the Sources of Revelation" that originally
had been submitted. While it stated that Scripture teaches, "solidly,
faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred
writings for the sake of salvation," Brown points out the ambiguity of
this statement, which opened the way for a new interpretation of inerrancy by
shifting from a literal interpretation of the text towards a focus on "the
extent to which it conforms to the salvific purpose of God". He saw this
as the Church 'turning the corner' on inerrancy, while adopting a face-saving
wording: "the Roman Catholic Church does not change her official stance in
a blunt way. Past statements are not rejected but are requoted with praise and
then reinterpreted at the same time. ... What was really going on was an
attempt gracefully to retain what was salvageable from the past and to move in
a new direction at the same time". While the document cited the two
earlier encyclicals, it was clear to observers that much had changed. The
Second Vatican Council, one scholar observed, “raised biblical exegesis from
the status of second-class citizenship to which it had been reduced among
Catholics by an overreaction to the Protestant claim for its autonomy”.[3]
Summary of the book:
Raymond E. Brown was
perhaps the greatest Johannine scholar of the twenty-first century. In this
book, Brown endeavored not only to reconstruct the history of Johannine
community in the first century but also, by implication, attempted to give us
an account on the formation of the Christian faith. He approached the matter
predominantly from the perspectives of the Gospel of John and the Johannine
Epistles. I suggest that both the Gospels of John and Epistles of John, and
Luke-Acts are necessary to reconstruct the origins of Christianity. So these
documents are invaluable tools to help us discover how everything had started.
At any rate, this notion is a matter of considerable discussion among New
Testament scholars, so let us go back to Brown.
As
I mentioned above, Brown’s basic purpose in this volume is to find out how the
Johannine community had emerged throughout its history. He did through a
successful investigation of both the Gospel of John and Epistles of John. By
the way, the hypothesis Brown employed in this work is questionable by many
reputable Johannine scholars, but he has strong arguments.
INTRODUCTION: Problem and Method in Discerning Johannine Ecclesiology
The
introduction deposits Brown’s plan for the book. He hopes to study the history
of the Johannine community by treading primarily the Gospel of John, then, John’s
Epistles on various different levels. By taking this approach, Brown assures us
that both the story of Jesus and the Johannine community could be accessed and
reconstructed. Brown’s method here is parallel to that of Bultmann’s and
Wellhausen’s; the latter contended that chiefly the four Gospels inform us
about the context of the church in which they were written, and only in
secondary about the life of Jesus which is primary sources. By applying this
principle, Brown approaches the matter by employing various reading levels and
adopting four different phases:
Phase
One, “the pre-Gospel era, involved the origins of the community, and its
relation to mid-first century Judaism.” The composition of the fourth Gospel
occurred prior to the expulsion of Johannine Christians from the synagogues
(John 9:22; 16:2). The basis of this incident related to what “they were claiming
about Jesus”.[4]
Phase
Two, “involved the life-situation of the Johannine community at the time
the Gospel was written.” Brown maintains the traditional date for the writing
of John, A.D. 90. However, he accentuates that the main writing of John took
place during that year, not the final product. Another difficulty in the Gospel
is the continuous presence and echo of “Jews”. Brown also believes within the
Johannine community there existed the insistence on a high Christology, “made
all the more intense by the hard struggles with the ‘Jews.’”
Phase
Three, involved “the life-situation in the now-divided Johannine
communities at the time the Epistles were written”. Brown appeals to 1 John
2:19 to describe the tragic division occurred between the Gospel and the
Epistles, which he explains in this term, “… the struggle is between two groups
of Johannine disciples who are interpreting the Gospel in opposite ways, in
matter of Christology, ethics, and Pneumatology. The fears and pessimism of the
author of the Epistles suggest that the secessionists are having the greater
numerical success ( I John 4:5), and the author is trying to bolster his
adherents against further inroads of false teachers (2:27; II John 10-11). The
author feels that it is “the last hour” ( 23; I John 2:18)
Phase
Four, “saw the dissolution of the two Johannine groups after the Epistles
were written. The great departure happened between the secessionists and the
conservation side of the Johannine community. So they disfellowshipped among
themselves, and were no longer in community. According to Brown, it was the
secessionists’ initiation to divide because of their misuse of the Fourth Gospel.
As a result, there arose publicly various sects or groups in the second century
inclining toward, Docetism, Gnosticism, Cerinthianism, and Monanism.
PHASE ONE: Before the Gospel –Johannine Community Origins
Brown’s
argument is basic but profound. He contends that in the early period of the
life of the church consisted of Jews whose belief could be labeled as both “low
Christology” and “higher Christology.” By “low Christology,” “involves the
application to Jesus of titles derived from OT or inter-testamental
expectations (titles that do not in themselves imply divinity, whereas, “high
Christology,” “involves an appreciation of Jesus that moves him into the sphere
of divinity, as expressed, for instance, in a more exalted use of Lord and Son
of God, as well as the designation “God.” In other words, some Jews highly
regarded Jesus as divine, while others rejected his divine nature.
Brown
sees both continuity and discontinuity of this notion transmitted in other
Jewish churches associated with the apostles.
Concerning John the Baptist-
According
to Brown, when the Gospel of John was written the Johannine community engaged
in a furious contention with followers of John the Baptist claiming his
Messianic status by rejecting Jesus. To fix the problem, Brown notes that the
Fourth Gospel presents John Baptist’s role in 1:20 “I am not the Messiah”; and
in 3:28: “I am not the Messiah but am sent before him.”
On the Role of the Beloved Disciple
The
Beloved Disciple is a mysterious historical figure appearing only in the Gospel
of John and was the hero of the Johannine community. At his death, he was
idealized by the people of the community. The Fourth Gospel clearly identifies
him as “the Disciple whom Jesus loved”. Nonetheless, Brown agrees that the
Beloved Disciple was an “outsider to the group of best-known disciples”.[5]
PHASE
TWO: When the Gospel Was Written- Johannine Relations to Others
Brown
describes the presence of various groups of in the Gospel. The world, the Jews,
and the adherents of John the Baptist are categorized as “non-believers
detectable in the Gospel.” The latter were individuals who made no pretense of
believing in Jesus. The Crypto-Christians (Christian Jews within the Synagogues),
the Jewish Christian Churches of inadequate faith, and the Christians of
apostolic churches are rightly known as “Christians detectable in the Gospel.”
These individuals expressed explicit faith in Jesus.
PHASE
THREE: When the Epistles Were Written—Johannine Internal Struggles
Brown
argues the Second and Third Letters of John were written by the same man, whose
name was (or calls himself) “the presbyter.” The evidence is that relatively
the same doctrinal and moral issues are discussed in I and in II John and that
“both II and III John are concerned with the acceptance of traveling teachers
interlocks the Epistles and makes it likely that all three have come from the
same phase of Johannine history.”
Eventually
Brown would discuss what he termed “The Intra-Johannine Schism.” By referring
to the secessionists, the group that deviated from the true Johannine Gospel,
Brown insists that the secessionists who subscribed to the docetic theology,
the denial the reality of Jesus’ humanity, were not the main opponents as
traditionally conceived. “The adversaries were not detectably outsiders to the
Johannine community but the offspring of Johannine thought itself, justifying
their positions by the Johannine Gospel and its implications,” [6].Brown argues . Various
areas of theology were subject to dispute in the Johannine community, chiefly
the main points of conflict were Christology, ethics, eschatology, and
pneumatology. From an ethical point of view, it is important to note that the
secessionists claimed, 1) intimacy with God and sinlessness, 2) that they gave
no salfvific importance to ethical behavior, 3) that they were accused for not
loving the brethren.
PHASE
FOUR: After the Epistles –Johannine Dissolution
The
“last hour” in the Johannine Epistles is a reference to the split between the
conservative side in the Johannine community and the secessionists. As I
previously noted above, the secessionists were no longer in communion with the
more conservative side of the Johannine community. Brown remarks “the adherents
of the author of I John in the early second century seem to have gradually
merged with what Ignatius of Antioch calls “ the church catholic,” as exhibited
by the growing acceptance of the Johannine Christology of the preexistence of
the Word”.[7]
“There
is a subtle mélange of history and theology in John. The Fourth Gospel is
clearly less historical and more theological than the Synoptic in attributing
all this Christology to the first few days of Jesus’ ministry; yet the Fourth
Gospel may be more factual historically in describing the first followers of Jesus
as former disciples of John the Baptist and in having them called in the Jordan
valley rather than at the Lake of Galilee”.[8]
Support
Brown has been described as “the premier
Johannine scholar in the English-speaking world.” Terrence T. Prendergast
stated that “for nearly 40 years Father Brown caught the entire church up
into the excitement and new possibilities of scriptural scholarship."
Much of Brown's work was given a Nihil obstat and an Imprimatur (the
"nihil obstat" is a statement by an official reviewer, appointed
by a bishop, that "nothing stands in the way" of a book being
given an imprimatur; the "imprimatur," which must normally be
issued by a bishop of the diocese of publication, is the official
endorsement — "let it be printed" — that a book contains nothing
damaging to Catholic faith and morals). Brown was the expert appointed to
review and provide the nihil obstat for The New Jerome Biblical
Commentary, the standard basic reference book for Catholic Biblical
studies, of which he was one of the editors and to which he himself
contributed, as did dozens of other Catholic scholars. The biblical
scholar Ben Witherington dedicated his book The Jesus Quest to Brown
(along with John P. Meier).
Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI,
who has written presenting the infancy narratives and John’s Gospel as
historically reliable, was personally complimentary of Brown and his
scholarship, and has been quoted as saying he "would be very happy if
we had many exegetes like Father Brown".[9]
Criticism
Brown's work was controversial among
traditionalists who objected to the elements of his work that they
regarded as casting doubt on the historical accuracy of numerous articles
of the Catholic faith.[2] His critics included Cardinal Lawrence Shehan
and Father Richard W. Gilsdorf, who described Brown's work as "a
major contribution to the befogged wasteland of an 'American Church'
progressively alienated from its divinely constituted center.”
Other writers, critical of historical
Christian claims about Jesus, have criticized Brown for excessive caution,
for what they saw as his unwillingness to acknowledge the radical
implications of the critical methods he was using. Literary critic Frank
Kermode, in his review of The Birth of the Messiah, accused Brown of being
too eager to secure the imprimatur of the Roman Catholic Church; Jesus
scholar Géza Vermes has described Brown as "the primary example of
the position of having your cake and eating it."
Msgr. George A. Kelly in his book. The
New Biblical Theorists (1983), looks carefully at the work of the late
Sulpician priest Fr. Raymond Brown as the most prominent member of a whole
school of post-Vatican-II Catholic exegetes committed to critical methods.
He shows Fr. Brown and his "school" to be rather far from being
in compliance with the requirements for sound Catholic exegesis laid down
by Vatican II.[10]
Fr. Brown’s most vociferous critics
included Cardinal Lawrence Shehan and Father Richard W. Gilsdorf, who
described Brown’s work as “a major contribution to the befogged wasteland
of an ‘American Church’ progressively alienated from its divinely
constituted center.”
Bibliography
BOOK:
Raymond E. Brown. The Community of the Beloved Disciple London: Paulist Press, 1979.
2)King Henry
V..Published on September 10, 1998, Access date 15-2-2013, available from http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=525. html; Internet.
3)Sungenis
Robert A. published on April 9, 2010. Access date 30-01-2013. Available from http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/188247910
. html; Internet.
[10] Henry V. King, Published on September
10, 1998, Access date 15-2-2013, available from http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=525. html; Internet.
