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World and Sacrament Foundations of the Political Theology of the Church Stephan Van Erp1

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World and Sacrament Foundations of the Political Theology of the Church Stephan Van Erp1 Louvain Studies 39 (2015-16): 102-120 doi: 10.2143/LS.39.2.3159731 © 2016 by Louvain Studies, all rights reserved World and Sacrament Foundations of the Political Theology of the Church Stephan van Erp1 Abstract. — Fundamental theology has undergone a radical change in recent dec- ades, which is best described by a shift from the epistemological to the political. In this article, the author describes the shared history of politics and theology, starting with the apologetics of the early church as it was connected to the politics of martyr- dom. This close connection of apologetics and political action can still be found in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. In modern theology however, apologetics became of a more epistemological nature, which constituted knowledge as the prime focus of fundamental theology. As a consequence, modern theologians have ignored an impor- tant aspect of apologetics: authority (of Scripture, tradition, and the magisterium). This has given way to fundamental theology losing some of its tasks to philosophy and religious studies, which, the author argues, suffer from similar fallacies as an epistemologically reductionist fundamental theology. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church developed in her documents since Rerum novarum (1991) an apologetics that was distinctively political, rather than epistemological. Therefore, the author of this article argues that contemporary fundamental theology should be revised, and include political theory and the Church’s social teaching as foundations for under- standing faith and revelation. He proposes to use insights from sacramental theology to pursue a politically orientated fundamental theology, in which the Church is not taken as a political instrument for social change – as is the case in many political and liberation theologies – but as a sign and instrument of God’s political ordering of the world towards his Kingdom. When Pope Francis visited the island of Lampedusa on July 8th 2013, he started his homily by voicing two questions: “Adam, where are you?” and “Cain, where is your brother?”2 These are the two questions that God asks at the dawn of human history in the Book of Genesis, one 1. This article is based on my inaugural lecture, held on October 8th 2015, at the occasion of my appointment as Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven. 2. Pope Francis, Celebration of Holy Mass at the Arena Sports Camp (Lampedusa, 8 July 2013), <https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/ papa-francesco_20130708_omelia-lampedusa.html> (last accessed 24 April 2016). 99085_Louv_Stud_2015-2016-2_02_vanErp.indd 102 4/08/16 12:00 WORLD AND SACRAMENT 103 about being lost and hiding in God’s own world – not being present to God and therefore not being accountable – and one about neglect and the lack of responsibility. In his homily for the people of Lampedusa, the pope added a third and similar question to these two: “Has anyone wept? Today, has anyone wept in our world?” and then he asked for forgiveness for what he described as “the globalization of indifference,” our culture of comfort in which we have become insensitive to the suf- fering of others. These questions, ancient and new, about sin and for- giveness have proven to be powerful instruments of the Church in the world of today. Some might think this is due to the personality and the charism of Pope Francis. This claim is not unfounded considering the impact he has had on believers and non-believers alike. No doubt his public performance strengthens the ruling conviction that individual authenticity makes belief believable, and that the test area of credibility should be the public sphere.3 In this article, I will demonstrate that the appeal of the pope’s public lament is much more than a matter of a convincing style, or a form of pastoral or merciful prudence. Credibility also presupposes a theology that can and should be critically explored if it does not want to be left to the dubious mercy of personal preference or public approval. I will claim that the pope’s questions and prayers in Lampedusa addressed to the world resonate with a theology that represents an ongoing development in the Church during the past century, but which has not gained much attention in fundamental theology. That development is best described as a refocus- ing on the political as a sign and instrument of becoming Church in the world. This, as I will explain, does not entail an ecclesiology with a double focus on Church and world, one that calls for a Church that communi- cates its messages to the public, or speaks out for the transformation of social and political structures. Instead, I will show that the political theol- ogy of the Church is a sacramental theology with the Eucharist at its heart, the celebration of God’s forgiveness, which has transformed the world and of which the Church is becoming sign and instrument. Pope Francis’ questions in Lampedusa are not only expressions of a call to act, but also of the call to allow oneself being confronted with human sinfulness: Is the Body of Christ, that has become present on “the altar of the world,”4 broken again in the refugees, the poor and the 3. Cf. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 473-504. 4. Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 8: <http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/special_features/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_ enc_20030417_ecclesia_eucharistia_en.html> (last accessed 24 April 2016). 99085_Louv_Stud_2015-2016-2_02_vanErp.indd 103 4/08/16 12:00 104 STEPHAN VAN ERP drowned? And who has the authority to heal it, and represent God’s power on earth? Besides moral questions, these are also questions for the field of fundamental theology. The credibility of the Christian faith is certainly challenged by these particular political situations, which lead to questions on the where and when of the loci theologici. In what follows, I will argue that to be believable at this moment of history, in the face of those who are persecuted and on the move, the Church needs to reformulate the foundations and implications of the political power of its Eucharistic heart, and the theology behind the performance of Pope Francis is an example of how this can be done. In the question why we did not weep, and in the tears that did follow, lies the start of this theo- logical project. I. Apologetics: From the Political to the Natural In the history of Christianity, the credible and the political have always gone hand in hand. Christian apologetics has been political from the very beginning in a variety of ways. In his Letters, Paul argues against an all too obedient dependence on the Mosaic Law in favour of human interdependency and vulnerability. In Pauline theology, these form the cornerstones of a rather more universal politics that, as the philosopher Alain Badiou has recently shown, refuses to submit to the order of the world, but argues for a new one instead.5 Similarly, the writer of Luke and Acts presented the Church as a messianic society of mutual charity, but instead of envisioning it as a universal ideal, it was developing as a community that sought good relationships with secular powers. The author of the gospel of John makes his politico-apologetic intention explicit when he writes that he “recorded [the signs that Jesus worked] so that [one] may believe that Jesus is the Christ” (John 20:31). Like Paul, the writer of John also claims that Christ’s redemptive power is universal, as it extends “not only to the Jewish nation but gathers together in unity the scattered children of God” (John 11:52) including the sheep not of Israel’s fold (John 10:16). This political universalism of the New Testament has informed the history of apologetics. Justin Martyr, one of the Apologists of the second century, was concerned with advocating civil toleration for Christians and urged the authorities to investigate more closely whether the Christian 5. Cf. his Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (Redwood City, CA: Stan- ford University Press, 2003). 99085_Louv_Stud_2015-2016-2_02_vanErp.indd 104 4/08/16 12:00 WORLD AND SACRAMENT 105 faith was indeed partisan such that it would lead to civil disobedience, and argued that this not necessarily need to be the case.6 Augustine, by contrast, praised the disobedience of the Christian martyrs, “whose blood, as he writes, watered the seeds of hope implanted in the world by Christ rising from the dead.”7 Augustine’s own political theology emerged from his polemic with pagan religion, and contends that the Kingdom of God is a present reality, an actual polity, even though the visible Church, according to him, is a corpus permixtum, a community of saints and sin- ners.8 Being a believer in Christ not only had the political consequence of persecution, it was also the adherence to the event of the resurrection that was itself regarded as inherently political, and as such also became a measure of the world that is, embodied by its faithful followers, and especially the martyrs. Thomas Aquinas reflects in his Summa contra gentiles, after dealing with natural reason in the first three books, on the Trinity, the Incarna- tion, the Sacraments and the Resurrection in book four, in which he appeals to the authority of revelation that he sees at work in the poverty and persecution of believers in the past. Thomas assumes that although certain aspects of the content of faith are not demonstrable through natural reason but are made known through divine revelation, these have also become manifest in the history of the Church and especially in the lives of the faithful.
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