How modern society has affected the self-understanding of the church?

Behind this reasoning is the belief that the interpretation of basic Christian themes is subject to certain developments and should be adapted to life in the modern world.

It is a serious and legitimate question, which is based on the observation that the Christian faith with its content and interpretations is constantly confronted with the worldly way of life and somehow reacts to it. When I talk about the secular way of life, I do not mean it pejoratively, but I understand by it any human activity that is not explicitly sacred.

At this moment, it is not important to deal with the development of a view on specific topics that are lively debates in the public space. Rather, it is important to understand the fundamental relationship between the church and the world that frames any further reasoning. It offers principles from which answers to contemporary controversial questions can later be derived.

The relationship of the church with the world

In general, the gospel is not a doctrine of the elect. In Scripture itself, we find a clear message that God wants everyone to be saved. The Gospel was not announced with the aim of keeping it in a narrow group of experts as some philosophical theory, but by the commission of Jesus, the disciples were to spread it wherever possible.

With this task and the dispersion of the apostles to different countries, the question arose of how to interpret the message of Jesus delivered in a specific language, in a specific time and space to people of a different nationality and culture.

Entering a different cultural environment with any thesis means knowing it well and choosing the means of communication that will be a bridge between the already known and new content with the potential to integrate all of this.

From a human point of view, the apostles could not rely only on the realities of the Palestinian environment and the Law of Moses when testifying about the resurrected Christ, because it was largely unknown to the majority of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire and adjacent territories.

From the beginning, Christianity appeared as a reasonable faith, the basic stimulus which is God’s revelation, but it does not contradict the requirements of human thinking.

In principle, there are only two options in such a situation. Either you will convince the listener to discard his previous way of life and culture and start from scratch, or you will come to the conviction that in every lifestyle there is a difference; which means accepting the good and building on it and rejecting the bad.

It is true that in some cases missionaries in past centuries resorted to the first solution, causing cultural damage and human suffering to the inhabitants. Fortunately, most have gone about it the other way from the start. It seems that the church, as not only a divine but also a human institution, was prone to distinguish more in a situation where it was in a minority position in society.

Ancient times are filled with the writings of many experts in the word of God, who are called church fathers. These theologians had lengthy polemics with the humanists of their time. Greek philosophy influenced the formation of Christian theology. Church fathers reacted to the stimuli that appeared as counter-arguments for the acceptance of Christianity.

Thanks to these apologies and polemics, we can state two things. From the beginning, Christianity appeared as a reasonable faith, the basic stimulus which is God’s revelation, but it does not contradict the requirements of human thinking.

The Church and the world influence each other.

At the same time, it became clear that Christianity and the world influence each other. In this case, modern philosophy speaks of the hermeneutic circle. This influence results from the basic experience of the presence of Christianity in the world, which, as a universal interpretation for understanding the origin, meaning and ultimate goal of man, is always embedded in the person of the individual in a concrete life situation, where it is to be realized and proven in cooperation with man and God’s grace.

How religious life is changing in our time.

The mutual interaction between the Christian faith and the world carries a certain dialectic. On the one hand, it is a necessity, because a Christian lives in this world, he cannot isolate himself or forcibly force others to accept the Christian faith; therefore, we expose the reflection of faith to constant confrontation and questioning, which someone can understand as confusion and threat.

On the other hand, there is a risk that the wrong integration of the Christian message with contemporary thinking can distort interpretations of the Christian faith. There are believers who believe that the threat of the distortion of the faith is such a great risk that it is not appropriate to expose the faith to confrontation with ideas that appear fundamentally bad or toxic. The inclination towards such an attitude may be more widespread in an environment where Christians are in the majority.

However, a look into the past, especially the first centuries, bears witness to the courage for polemics and confrontations. This approach carries with it certain risks, but in the end it makes the understanding of the Christian faith more mature.If we avoid the two extremes of uncritical acceptance of “the world” or outright rejection of it, we can embark on a path of differentiation and integration that can be mutually beneficial.

The meaning of the topic “church”

It is interesting that when Christianity ceased to be a unifying element of society, the importance of churches began to grow, because these communities are the de facto face of Christianity in front of secular society. Therefore, it does not matter what image the church gives of itself and how it understands itself.

For this reason, debates about the church and its meaning are increasingly coming to the fore. The Church becomes the main theme of the First and Second Vatican Councils. At the same time, a debate is taking place in various forms in the church environment, in which the place of the church in society, its approach to this topic so far and possible starting points for further thinking are being critically re-evaluated.

This discussion is of crucial importance, because the ability of the church to fulfill its mission, i.e. its missionary character, depends on the answers to these basic questions, because God wants all people to be saved.

The Second Vatican Council. The Church and the World two incompatible realites?

There were several attempts to find a new perspective. From authors who asked themselves questions, sometimes offered cautious, sometimes extreme solutions, and scared the leadership of the Catholic Church so much that it called them modernists and sometimes unnecessarily cracked down on them, through gifted individuals like Cardinal Newman or Pierre Rousellot to the Dominican and Jesuit schools , whose main protagonists, especially from the French environment, tend to be referred to by the term “new theology”.

We are once again witnessing a paradox. The environment of France, which was a real laboratory of secularization within Europe, with formally the strictest approach to the Catholic Church, generated a number of theologians and scholars who significantly contributed to the renewal of Catholic theology and the formation of a new line for defining the relationship between the Christian faith and society in the aforementioned hermeneutic circle.

This whole renewal is marked by a return to the sources, which in practice means new translations of the Holy Scriptures from the original languages ​​and a rereading of the works of the church fathers, which in the end will prove to be crucial. Thus, the issue of dialogue, which Pope Paul VI raised for the first time in modern times, comes to the fore. in the middle of the Second Vatican Council in the famous encyclical Ecclesiam suam . Its revolutionary nature lies not only in raising the topic and establishing dialogue as the main pastoral tool, but in defining the circles where it should be applied: Christian churches, other religions, secular culture and within the Catholic Church itself.

The Holy Spirit will teach us everything.

If we ask whether the church does not go too far in reflecting on the mentioned topics and risks losing a correct understanding of the true faith, the history of the first millennium testifies that dialogue with confrontation is possible and that the benefits outweigh the losses. It is not only this practical experience of the past, but also God’s word that provides reason for courage.

The Son of God himself says that he remains with us until the end of the world in the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to teach us and remind us of everything that Jesus gave us. The Church is a divine institution, so the Holy Spirit is the guarantor of the preservation of the true faith.

From his presence is derived the pneumatological principle “sensus fidei”, which says that the church as a whole cannot err in its faith precisely because of the presence of God’s Spirit, which gives believers, through the universal priesthood received in the sacrament of baptism, the ability to distinguish true from false faith.

All these considerations lead to the conclusion that the thesis “modern society has affected the church’s self-understanding” is not an admission to the liberalization of the Christian faith or an argument for rejecting the Second Vatican Council due to the subsequent decline of faith in the Euro-Atlantic area, but a fact that follows from the very message of Jesus and of his requirements for future disciples. Rather, this thesis affirms that the mutual interaction between the Christian faith and the world has made the Christian faith more intelligible thanks to the church’s renewed self-understanding.

Mosaic of images of the church.

The basic self-understanding of the church is based on the Holy Scriptures and Tradition, especially from the New Testament. When reading the Old Testament texts, the church fathers find foreshadows of this community founded by Jesus. God’s revelation in Scripture and Tradition offers many images of the church, which together help to understand what the church really is. Throughout history, some have become more important than others depending on their interaction with society. However, none of them are exclusive.

Rather, it seems that their multiplicity is advantageous, because it allows highlighting those characteristics of the church community that appear to be the most important at the given historical moment. It is not unusual for one model to be outdone by another. It is not his denial, rather the image of the church comes to the fore, which makes it more comprehensible with regard to its historical tasks and especially the task of conveying the gospel message to each individual.

The ability of the church to create a community of people as a network of informal personal relationships is a strong benefit for the contemporary person, for which he gets into a closer relationship with the church.

In modern ecclesiology, it is possible to see the development from the so-called from the pyramidal model after the Council of Trent to the emphasis on the church as Christ’s mysterious body to the model of the People of God preferred by the Second Vatican Council to the current dominant ecclesiology of communion. The tendency to emphasize communion as a community in the self-understanding of the church today is not accidental. Rather, it appears as an intuitive response to the individual’s current requirements.

Postmodern philosophers often characterize our epoch as individualistic and see a person who lacks roots in the form of a stable family or other community in which he would feel secure. As we are social creatures, excessive individualization does not suit us and we are looking for a network of informal, more personal relationships. That is why today the church is often referred to as a community of communities, and the ability of the church to create a community of people as a network of informal personal relationships is a strong benefit for contemporary people, for which they come into closer contact and a relationship with the church.

We live in a modern society. My modern way of life, which includes everything possible, affects the experience of my faith. The reverse is also true. The power of my faith corrects and regulates my life in modern society so that it does not prevent me from growing in faith and at the same time does not isolate me from contemporary life. This applies to the individual as well as to the church. Modern society has influenced the church, not in the sense of reformatting its core or goals, but in helping it to inculcate itself into every environment in order to effectively proclaim the gospel while remaining faithful to its Founder.