Rediscovering Catholicism

For Easter, my local parish participated in the recent push to distribute Matthew Kelly's Rediscover Catholicism. The copies of the book were given out free thanks to generous donations from parishoners.

I'm chipping away at it, so I think I'll be posting some mini-responses in the next few weeks.

The chipping is not due to the density of the book. It isn't exactly Benedict's Introduction to Christianity, which gets very deep into modern philosophy very quickly. Pretty much anyone reading this blog could zip through Kelly's text in a few days, if not sooner.

I applaud what Kelly is attempting to do -- nothing less than recharging a Catholic populace at a time when we feel pretty low about ourselves. He's very forthcoming and timely about anxiety over the abuse of children and its cover-up--and it that regard, he's much more direct and head-on regarding the issues that the average Catholic is dealing with. It might even be persuasive to someone who is teetering on the edge of their faith or who has even fallen.

I have to admit, though, that I don't think I'm the target audience. Some of his analogies and examples are a little sentimental for my tastes.

Worse, however, is the sloppy copy-editing.

Now, I know I really shouldn't point that finger. I've probably as many typos in this blog post as Rediscover Catholicism has in the whole book. It's just a shame and a little embarassing that the book has such errors. It makes the whole project seems hasty and cheap...like a blog post rather than a book. (I post these things pretty much as first drafts and wait for the readers to copy edit in the comment boxes...)

Anyway, that's a minor point...although it should be a word of warning to anyone about to invest significant warning in gratis apologetics.

The book starts out with a prologue in which Kelly allegorizes Catholic theology in the form of an apocalyptic disaster movie -- essentially cribbing off of the Charlton Heston movie Omega Man and throwing in a dash of Saving Private Ryan. The point, however, is to make you see the Crucifixion from the Father's perspective rather than ours. It's a bit sensational, but it's attention grabbing. I think I might have been too cynical reading it because I kept wanting to deconstruct the allegory. Again, not the target audience.

In the first section of the book, Kelly makes a strong solid case for reasons why we should be proud of our Catholic heritage - universal education, institutionalized medicine, widespread food for the hungry - almost all of the social justice issues that Western Civilization tries to address have been undeniably advanced by the Catholic Church. Kelly notes, however, that we never remind ourselves of this narrative; we allow ourselves to be weighed down and blinded by the secular narratives of corruption and abuse.

Although it is a bit overgeneralized, this is a strogn opening and will most likely reinvigorate a concerned or doubting Catholic.

The second section tackles "personal philosophy." While I agree with the overall thrust of this section, I'm a little nervous about it. Kelly argues there are three widespread "personal philosophies" in our society that hinder our ability to appreciate and live our Catholicism: individualism, hedonism, and minimalism. I'm completely onboard with his description and critique of hedonism. Guilty as charged there, anyway. His analysis of individualism and minimalism, I'm a little less convinced by.

By individualism, I think Kelly means a complete and total preoccupation with self -- egocentrism is perhaps a better word. As part of a general definition, he argues that individualism asks the question: "What's in it for me?" He describes this question as if it is a bad thing. Four hundred years ago, I'd probably agree with him. Medieval and Renaissance political theories were rooted in ideas opposed to individualism. The subject was supposed to always submit himself to the greater good -- for country, God, and king. The assumption was that if people started asking, "What's in it for me?" society would collapse into chaos; mankind would devolve into a primitive state where life was brutish and short. The outrageousness of the American experiment has been that it proved just the opposite. Individual self-interest, rather than being a breeding ground for chaos, turned out to be a pretty good foundation for a country -- it's the principle behind our right to pursue happiness. "What's in it for me?" is a pretty good life philosophy since it forces one to perform a constant cost-benefit analysis before making decisions. For the most part, the personal cost of evil generally outweighs the benefits; the personal benefits of doing good outweigh the costs. Thus, self-interested parties generally work together or at least stay out of each other's ways.

Individualism is also a philosophy that preserves us from becoming a socialist collective that forces individuals to make choices in the name of greater goods. Individualism is supposed to respect the individual's ability to make rational choices on their own; and most people seem to have figured out that what benefits the whole benefits themselves.

I'm not trying to sound like a squishy liberal here. People are fallen by nature. We'll do evil things and abuse power when we get it. My point is that we are more prone to abuse power when we see others as collectives to be exploited rather than individuals deserving equality. I think Kelly shares this view, but the prose of his text (at least in the section on individualism) does not quite acknowledge the benefits of an individualist society. What Kelly is describing is a selfishness that only seeks immediate gratification for the self regardless of costs to others or even future cost to the self. Perhaps that's why he follows it up with hedonism.

Really, perhaps excessive "entitlement" would have been a better term -- the idea that we are entitled to rights that might not actually exist and that we can demand others surrender their freedoms because our rights trump theirs. One example he gives is of a school that banned religious language because of an individual atheist. He said the individual's rights were outweighing those of the others.

I'm not sure that's really a problem, as such. My individual right to property should outweigh the claims of others to take my property--especially others who have formed a collective.

The problem is not with individual's having rights, but with particular rights that we allow individuals to have. Individuals do not have a right to silence other individuals.

And, of course, one of the pillars of Christianity is ultimately self-interested. We desire Christ because we know he is our ultimate happiness. We do this for the promise of experiencing the infinite beauty of God, no? If we didn't hope in the rewards of Heaven (rewards that we do not deserve), then why even bother doing this at all? Why help others to get to Heaven if it is impossibly barred to you? A person who obeyed a god without any possibility of personal reward would be even more foolish than someone who obeyed a god that didn't exist. At least the latter has some sense of self-dignity; the former is just a disposable chattel slave.

And we certainly don't desire to be with God for God's sake.

Heaven is the ultimate answer to the question, "What's in it for me?"

As for minimalism, he describes it as a philosophy of "how little do I have to do to get by." It's obvious how this philosophy is lethal from a religious standpoint, but I still question whether minimalism is in and of itself a dangerous philosophy. Perhaps he is using it in some philosophical sense that escapes me.

Perhaps what makes me nervous about this approach is More's Utopia. Granted, More can be very satirical in Utopia, so I tread on thin ice, but what is most attractive about More's vision is its minimalism. Utopian society is entirely based on the principle of figuring out how little work can one do to get by. The sparrows do not reap nor sow...

Here, I think Kelly's gripe is less with minimalism than cowardice and sloth...possibly even a weakness of surrendering ourselves completely to something or an excessive guardedness. Perhaps passivity is a better word. Our tax-heavy emerging welfare state encourages us to let the government take care of social justice issues. We should just sit back and watch more TV.

My assumption is that Kelly wanted to use terms like "individualism" and "minimalism" because they are philosophical terms and he wanted to write a section on "personal philosophy." He was trying to find philosophical terms to describe the way Catholics have begun to cower in the corners of their houses instead of taking arms against a sea of troubles.

But is it really that Catholics simply have an aversion to interacting with other people and don't want to get more involved than they have to?

Or are their more insidious philosophies afoot -- things like political correctness? If we are individualists and minimalists in the sense that Kelly describes, it seems more likely to me that it is because society has made us embarassed to act as Catholics. It's not that we value individualism; it's that social pressures alienate us. It's not that we value minimalism; it's that society has made it very clear that it doesn't want us sticking around any longer than we have to.

We are passively reacting to society's complaints that our faith breaches its etiquette, rather than saying to heck with society and taking action on our own.

Oh, jeez, now I sound like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People...which tells me that it's time to wrap up this post.

Comments

[angelicid.livejournal.com]

I, too, got a free copy of Kelly's book, only at FOCUS Conference years ago. I read it, and I was entirely unimpressed until I got to the latter part that talks about practical applications for the faith (or something like that). That section reached me much more than any of his theory did.

[Peter Terp]

I'm glad to hear that it gets better. I read another twenty pages or so and mean to say something about them later.

I think another reason it might not be working for us is that Kelly appears to be a professional motivational speaker (according to a blurb in the back of the book, at least). I'll talk more about this in my next post on the text, but I think part of his rhetoric draws from his other career rather than from a theological background. I can see why someone might take this approach -- for a secularized audience, a more secularized approach might be in order.

To someone like you, however, who was at a FOCUS conference (they have a low-resolution advertisement in the back of the book as well), his theory probably seems oversimplified and puts you in the awkward position of feeling as though you have to correct a person you otherwise agree with.

That is, we applaud what he is trying to do, and we might even agree with his conclusions, but we find the basis of his argument to be fraught with peril.