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S1E9: Dawson, Culture & Catechesis Part 1 · Mentoring In Ministry

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  Welcome to the Mentoring in Ministry podcast. In each
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  episode, we approach various catechetical
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  topics from different perspectives.
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  Hello, this is Scott Sollom, professor of theology at
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  Franciscan University. I'm here with my
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  good friend and colleague, Professor Jim Gaston, professor
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  of humanities. Jim, thank you for
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  being with us. It's a pleasure.
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  It's a pleasure to be with you. I
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  look forward to this conversation.
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  Thank you.
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  So we're here to talk about the relationship between
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  catechesis and culture. And the reason
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  this relationship is so important and so worthy of our
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  discussion is because in order
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  to do excellent catechesis, in order to really be good at
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  evangelizing, a person needs to
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  take into account and understand the
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  culture and the role of culture in the process of
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  conversion. So there is a saying amongst catechists that we
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  teach people, not topics, which is,
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  of course, it's the same unchanging
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  truths, but they need to be conveyed in a manner,
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  in a language, in a method which makes sense to these
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  particular people, given what they
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  understand and how they perceive and receive knowledge and
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  truth. And so, of course, this
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  is even the very beginnings of understanding what
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  inculturation is and why it's important
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  for catechesis. But not only is catechesis
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  important and evangelization important for
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  the individual and taking inculturation
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  into account, it's also the goal of the church
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  to evangelize the whole culture, which is
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  to say the whole culture should be imbued,
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  is meant to be imbued with a certain reality of the
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  incarnation, the reality of God's presence,
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  so that perhaps ideally, and the real goal
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  is that culture itself can be, so to speak,
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  a material cause for the conversion of the
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  individual. So there's a number of ways, a
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  number of relationships between catechesis and culture, and
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  I've just touched on a couple
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  that we'll be looking at here shortly. In the meantime,
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  while we look at the relationship
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  of religion and culture in general and Christianity and
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  culture specifically, what we want to
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  do is inform our conversation, particularly
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  with the unique and really singular thought
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  of Christopher Dawson, which is your real area of
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  expertise. Can you let us know a little
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  bit about who Christopher Dawson is?
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  I'd be happy to, Scott, and thank you for
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  having me here. Your opening was excellent.
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  You touched upon a number of complex dimensions of life,
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  the faith, and culture. It's a very
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  interesting subject and one very important to the church,
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  as we know. I've been interested for
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  years in the thought of Christopher Dawson
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  because Dawson, who was an English scholar,
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  born in 1889, passed on about 1970s, Dawson had some
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  tremendous insights into the nature of culture,
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  the West, and the church, so much so that he in many ways
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  almost redefined for us a vision of
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  culture and a vision of the Roman Catholic Church. His
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  focus always was on the role of
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  religion and culture. Many of our viewers might, sitting
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  there, listening to this conversation,
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  say, " Well, that's not that novel. " Well, actually it is,
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  in a sense that one of Dawson's concerns was
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  that modernist scholars had forgotten or severely
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  underplayed the importance of religion to culture.
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  In its place, as we well know, we'll talk about, there is
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  the rise of a secular humanist vision of
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  man. Dawson was very concerned by the secular humanist
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  vision and he thought that the crisis
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  of the 20th century, the rise of totalitarianism,
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  materialism, all these various isms that we know
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  well that are part of modernism, he was very concerned that
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  at the root was his failure to
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  appreciate the importance of religion to culture and the
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  importance of Christianity to the West.
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  So he pretty much spent his life studying these issues. One
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  of the important things that he
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  conveyed to us is that if a culture loses its religion, it
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  loses its way of life. Religion is
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  not just something that's an add-on, so to speak, to a
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  culture. It is the essence of a culture. It's
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  that which gives it direction and meaning and impetus and
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  structure. So Dawson is very famous
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  and very well known because he simply brings us back to the
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  study of religion and its relationship
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  to culture and he brings us back to an appreciation of the
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  role of Christianity in the West.
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  So it seems key that one of the ingredients, so to speak,
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  for Dawson's understanding of culture
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  is that man himself is a religious being. Man himself has a
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  certain capacity for the transcendent
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  and in this way man, of course, thirsts for God and is
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  seeking God. And if that's not tended to,
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  if you, so to speak, flatten man to a secular humanist
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  level, remove that religious dimension,
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  essentially you're removing the heart of man, you're
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  removing the heart of culture and therefore it
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  really can collapse on itself. One of the interesting
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  things you just touched on is that
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  he was quite prophetic and looking forward to, I mean,
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  really unfortunately prescient,
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  looking forward to what was going to happen given the
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  weight of modernism and so much so that it was
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  1929 that he wrote this book, Progress and Religion. What
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  was it about Christopher Dawson's
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  educational philosophy? What did he see particularly about
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  religion and its handing on its
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  communication in his educational philosophy that made him
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  so prophetic, so really accurate in what
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  actually did in fact, of course, play out throughout the
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  20th century? It's a great question and we have
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  to remind ourselves all these questions and answers are
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  very complex. Culture and the church,
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  the incarnation are great mysteries and they're very
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  complex and we struggle to try and discern
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  and figure that all out. But Dawson's concern was that the
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  20th century was in a serious crisis
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  that was multifaceted and he thought that this crisis was
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  due to the failure of the West to
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  continue its Christian vision and that it had replaced that
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  Christian vision with all types
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  of materialistic visions of things and he was very
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  concerned with the thought that the rise
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  of modern education had become exceedingly specialized,
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  scientifically, materialistically
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  focused. In a sense, the leadership class of the West,
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  which was directing in one way or another the
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  development of modern Western culture, had been malformed
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  by the educational vision and system of
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  the West and this is why education plays such an important
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  role in Dawson's broad sweeping thought
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  and one of the reasons why we're here talking about him
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  today. So in that sense, it's a
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  malformation of the mind that Dawson's concerned with and
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  he wants to try and figure out an
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  alternative way to form an educational experience which
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  will bring man back to a sound and rational
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  understanding of reality and the answer to that was his
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  emphasis and clarification of the importance
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  of culture both for man and for a basis or at least a key
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  element in the educational thought
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  process. One of the things that you're saying that really
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  strikes me is Dawson had a holistic
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  view of man and a holistic view of culture. There's many
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  parts, many movements all of which
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  way bring to bear a certain education, a
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  certain formation, a certain, if you will,
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  discipleship for the human person who's not meant to be
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  simply intellectually aware of facts but
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  rather immersed in an actual way of life and it strikes me
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  that Dawson was very keen on a very,
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  what seems to be an obvious fact perhaps for us and not so
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  much for the modernist or even
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  postmodernist which is at the center of culture is cult, is
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  the religiosity and on the one hand
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  where modernists want to take away man's religiosity. In
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  fact, of course, they view it as shackles,
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  it's something that limits man. If we want to have
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  progress, we need to get rid of religion
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  whereas for Dawson, it's quite the opposite. That religion
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  was going to be the actual and
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  absolute necessary catalyst, the prime mover, if you will,
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  of God's grace through the human
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  person which will then, of course, inform culture so that
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  culture can become a certain milieu in
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  which God's life can then be lived. Of course, along with
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  the 20th century difficulties in
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  education, there are some parallel movements in catechesis
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  in particular, not the least of which
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  is perhaps the understanding that man himself without God's
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  grace can come to a certain knowledge
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  of who he is and who God is, that there's a certain overly
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  optimistic anthropology, epistemology,
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  particularly that man by his own movements, by his own
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  reflection and experience can come to
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  arrive at a certain knowledge. Therefore, catechesis, the
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  transmitting of divine revelation
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  that a person can have conversion seems to be minimized in
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  circles of catechetics even while
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  in general the educational philosophy seem to flatline man
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  and make him less than a transcendent
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  being capable and having a certain spiritual capacity.
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  Let's touch back on this when we come
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  back from our break and we'll look more specifically at the
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  relationship of Dawson's thought on culture
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  and the relationship it has with catechesis specifically.
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  Thank you for listening to this
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  episode of Mentoring in Ministry. You can also find us on
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  Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @ the
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  Catechetical Institute or join our online community of
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  catechists at franciscanathome.com/
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  guild. Link to all of those in the show notes. This
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  podcast is an outreach of Franciscan
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  University of Steubenville's Catechetical Institute.