‘Prayer as a Political Problem’: A Little Christendom
A review of ‘Prayer as a Political Problem’, by Jean Daniélou; Cluny Media, 2020.
It is probably too soon to say for sure that a religious revival is underway, (though I did rather impetuously claim as much last year). Certainly, there are signs that something has changed. Young men in particular, especially the post-woke, as it were, are turning towards Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam to satisfy their need for identity, beauty and meaning. Thinkers on the post-liberal right and left, be they Patrick Deneen or John Milbank, have called for the re-sacralisation of public life. Then there is the growth and spread of what Tom Holland argues are Christian heresies in disguise: climate apocalypticism, woke politics, hyper-nationalism, techno-utopianism. All have their rituals and taboos, their apostates and salvation myths.
Is anyone surprised? We did not need the Toronto professor John Vervaeke to tell us there was a ‘meaning crisis’, mainly because it is bleeding obvious. Falling trust in institutions, rising deaths of despair, plunging participation in civil and religious life, surging loneliness … We human beings need meaning, reader; and the denatured, denuded, disenchanted, and mechanical worldview being sold to us is about as charming as pearls on a corpse. Frankly, some of the findings of the quantum scientists are so paradoxical as to make the mechanistic view of the universe look somewhat quaint.
We did not need the Toronto professor John Vervaeke to tell us there was a ‘meaning crisis’, namely because it is bleeding obvious.
In any case, it was against this backdrop that I read Jean Daniélou, S.J.’s slim 1967 book Prayer as a Political Problem, for Father Jean’s concern is with maintaining a Christian presence in a secular, and increasingly secular world. He begins by asserting that prayer is not just a private act but a public good, and one essential to human flourishing. A society, he claims, must support the practice of prayer, or at least not inhibit it. One that fails to also fails in its most basic role. This is his central argument, and in the ensuing 130-or-so pages he aims to set out why this is.
For Daniélou, Christianity struggles without Christendom. That is to say that in the absence of a social framework that upholds Christian values, the private practice of Christianity is bound to dwindle. Personal faith, in other words, struggles to survive if it does not take place within a faith community. He sees that Christian societies may be declining, but says there must remain some Christian flavour to whatever remains. And it is up chiefly to the Church to ensure this. In the latter parts of the book Daniélou explores the many and varied ways in which the Church can engage with modernity. He calls for it to take a more active role in the realms of technology, art and dialogue with other faiths; in doing so, he argues, the Church can continue to play a crucial role in society and encourage a respect for the spiritual life.
He sees that Christian societies may be declining, but says there must remain some Christian flavour to whatever remains.
Perhaps it is otiose to say, given the name of the book, but Daniélou’s thesis is that the spiritual and political worlds are not, or should not be, distinct. Religion (from the Latin religare, ‘to bind’) is by definition public. The individualisation of religion threatens faith and the wellbeing of the group. Yet he is not calling for a return to a bygone era. On the contrary, Daniélou, like Teilhard de Chardin, lauds the development of science and technology, and urges the Church to engage with contemporary issues. He sees no contradiction between science and religion, and indeed seems to suggest that the former needs the latter to serve the common good. Nor does he see a problem with what he calls ‘sociological Christianity’, that is, cultural expressions of the faith. These may be superficial; but they can act as entry points to richer, deeper, more sincere religious engagement. He calls this, as it were, ‘Christanity-lite’ a ‘thin Christendom’.
There is something rather sweet about this modest entreaty to preserve a cultural form of Christianity. The question whether any human society can last for long in the absence of a coherent background of meaning (or, to put it Nietzsche’s away, following the death of God) is not something with which he concerns himself, which is a pity, really, for I would have been interested to hear his take. If he does put forward an opinion, he frames it in more positive terms, asserting that ‘the essence of civilisation [is] to allow man to reach his full development, and that this development applies also to the religious dimension.’ We could put it more plainly and say that man is a religious animal, whether we like it or not; and to the extent that the whole point of civilisation (that easily definable word) is to enable us to flourish, civilisation must support religious belief. Whether that is true I leave up to you to decide.
