The Church and Revolution; From the French Revolution of 1789 to the Paris Riots of 1968; From Cuba to Southern Africa; From Vietnam to Latin America by François Houtart, André Rousseau (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 6~7 The struggle must be rooted in "spirituality," a life-style dominated and inspired by the Spirit of God and nourished by prayer and worship, a way of living '' before the Lord " in solidarity with all men. The touchstone of such spirituality is evangelical conversion to God and the neighbor-the radical transformation that leads us to think, feel, and live like Christ in relation to alienated people. A church so grounded will evangelize the world in a new sense which includes conscienticizing and politicizing-helping the exploited to become aware of their true personhood. Affirming the importance of dialogue between Christians and Marxists, the author calls on both to move beyond discussion to experiments in action. One misses in this perceptive interpretation any critical examination of the role of revolutionary violence from the standpoint of Christian ethics. Gutierrez rightly insists that Christians recognize the constant presence of " institutionalized violence, " and makes clear that those who condemn violence by the oppressed for the sake of justice must condemn equally the covert violence by which oppressors maintain injustice. But he nowhere examines the ethical pros and cons of violent activity, and l1e offers no guidelines for those who, committed to liberation, seek a sound harmonization of means and ends. He has proclaimed convincingly the gospel of liberation. We shall be still more in his debt if he can now go on to examine how Christians and the church should proceed in the difficult decisions required by liberating action. Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, D. C. S. PAUL ScHILLING The Church and Revolution; From the French Revolution of 1789 to the Paris Riots of 1968; From Cuba to Southern Africa; From Vietnam to Latin America. By FRAN<;:ms HouTART and ANDRE RoussEAU. Tr. by VIOLET NEVILE. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1971. Pp. 38~. $3.95. The subtitle of this work describes the scope but not the emphasis of the volume. Houtart and Rousseau spend more time analysing the church in France and revolutionary movements there (fully one-third of the bouk) than they expend on any church in a revolutionary situation. In addition, contrary to the impression that the subtitle might convey, the major orientation of the volume is not historical but sociological. Thus the authors' opening chapter offers a sociological approach to revolution, while the concluding chapter presents a "tentative sociological interpretation" of the role of the church (primarily the Roman Catholic Church) in revolution. Technically, the book is flawed. There are numerous misprints, and in 628 BOOK REVIEWS many instances the meaning of the text is unclear due to unhappy translations that leave pronouns and demonstrative adjectives pointing nowhere. The book has bibliographical footnotes but no index. The first element of Houtart and Rousseau's argument is that a postMarxist sociology of revolution must be developed in light of the fact that the historical situation has become enormously more complex since Marx developed his analysis. In such a situation revolution is not simply a takeover of the power of production but a takeover of power to determine the ends toward which production is geared. Revolution, therefore, challenges the orientations, values, and legitimations of an entire socia-political structure . The purpose of revolution is profoundly humanistic and utopian: so that society may " ' produce ' man and accomplish its own qualitative transformation . " (p. 15) The revolutionary challenge, in a post-Marxist world, may be directed against any socio-political system that dehumanizes man, whether it be socialist or capitalist. A second element of the argument it that, since the gospel is a gospel of liberation, the church should side with movements of liberation. But socio-historical analysis of various revolutionary movembents indicates that the church has consistently refused to identify with such movements, siding instead with conservative and even reactionary social forces. Thus the church has been regarded as an obstacle by revolutionaries and has, by implication, been untrue to the gospel entrusted to it. The church has resisted revolutionary movements for many reasons-some of them having to do with self-preservation and some with differing historical ideals. In modern times the church has decided that, as a transcendent reality, it ought to remain above politics. And so it has refused to identify with revolutionary movements. Houtart and Rousseau argue forcefully that no institution can be apolitical. Even political apathy, in current political science, is regarded as a tacit political position. Similarly, the claim to be above politics means that one is pragmatically content to let things be as they are; that is, it is a choice not to support change and a tacit affirmation of the political status quo. Thus willy-nilly the church has found itself aligned with socio-political regimes that obstruct human liberation. (The authors do note, however, that certain Third World churchmen have begun to reassess and to realign the church's commitments.) The third major element in Houtart and Rousseau's argument is a prescription for the church: it must become aware of its identification with oppressive socio-political structures. Essential to such awareness is hard-headed, competent scientific analysis of modern socio-political structures; such analysis will enable the church to verbalize concrete criticism rather than well-meaning, abstract admonitions which offend and instruct nobody and which potentially support everybody. Criticism by the church of oppressive socio-political structures does not necessarily entail support of violent revolution (although the authors do BOOK REVIEWS 6~9 not foreclose this option) . But criticism, insofar as it recognizes a distance between social reality and the gospel, does necessarily entail a commitment to revolutionary social change. The authors maintain that the church should exercise its critical function everywhere and always. Thus criticism of a capitalist economy would not mean that the church identifies with a socialist replacement. This action would politicize the faith all over again, this time in a different direction. The church, contend the authors, has no stake in any nystem: it " exists not 'in-itself' but for the parousia. " (p. 344) Thus the church is the revolution within revolutions that speaks to man the hope of a future reality in which all men will be definitively liberated. The authors ' final argument is that the church cannot do for society what it has not done for itself. Thus the church must reorganize itself and eliminate oppression within its own structures, so that it becomes a credible sign of the hope it speaks to society. One can appreciate the authors ' urgency: as they note, " it is impossible to live in today's world without being aware of the underlying thrust of social and cultural change of which the revolutionary movements are a sign. " (ix) The authors are confident that, if Christians will open their eyes, with help of The Church and Revolution, they will support revolutionary social change. The authors' confidence hinges upon the conviction that Christianity is a " proclamation of man's total liberation. " (ix) Certainly this could not mean liberation, I would hasten to add, in a socio-political sense alone: otherwise one could not be both oppressed and Christian. Yet total liberation must include socio-political structures: otherwise one could be both a Christian and an oppressor. The latter intolerable position, according to the authors, has in fact been that of the church. Ignoring man's concreteness, his being-in-the-world, the church has treated him as a duality whose ills are " soul " ills and whose liberation is therefore solely spiritual. Thus to describe the mission of the church in terms of socio-political liberation is not to describe it exhaustively but simply to redress a tragic imbalance. The strength of the authors' approach is that they do not propose the opposite imbalance: they accord salvific power to no socio-political system. Yet, the authors have not answered all the questions they raise. They think the church should not be politicized. They want the church to be critical of all socio-political structures. And yet they want the church to support revolution. It is difficult to understand how the church could support revolution without making political commitments. It is also difficult to understand how the church could support revolution and still exercise its critical function. Revolution, whether non-violent or violent, demands deep commitment, rigorous discipline, and uniform conviction. No revolution could tolerate serious internal criticism and remain viable. Yet, from the critical perspective of a Christian theology of history, one 630 BOOK REVIEWS would have ask if the rational models upon which revolutionary progress is founded could include the paradox of the Cross. Would there be any room in revolutionary ideology for a doctrine of grace? If room were found, the tension between freedom and grace would be screwed up to an intolerable tightness-at least, so it would seem to the revolutionary. To put it another way: revolution confronts the church with a dilemma: either the church supports revolution concretely and loses its transcendent character or it maintains its transcendent character and loses the revolution. The authors are trying to find a middle ground from which neither transcendence nor revolution is lost. The " critical " position, they would say, is midway between absorbing identification with any political system and lofty abstraction from any political position. Most crucially, they could argue that the critical position is a concrete position that does justice both to the transcendent dimension of the church's proclamation and to the immanent dimension of the church as institution. In other words, the critical position allows the church to be political with integrity: true to its dialectical proclamation of now and not-yet, of present but future reality, of liberation that is real but incomplete; in short, to paraphrase the Epistle to Diognetus, the church can be really in the world but not of the world. My difficulty with this finely balanced position is that, if I were a revolutionary, I would say that tranferring the transcendent" pie" from the sky to the end of the road is no more than a conceptual shift that lets the church "cop out" when the shooting starts. Transcendence, conceived of in contemporary political theology as temporal rather than spatial, " future " rather than "above, " is still transcendence. As a revolutionary, I would not trust the church. The question-how does the church concretely support revolution-is not answered adequately in this book. But when one translates the question one is less likely to be impatient with Houtart and Rousseau for not having resolved it. The question translates to: if there is to be human freedom, how can there be grace?; or, if the secular order is autonomous, how can it relate to the sacred?; or if there is human striving, how can the existence of a God not rob it of meaning? The best answers to such questions have not destroyed the complexity of the questions before answering them. The importance of the book rests not upon the answers that it attempts but upon the questions that it raises. By providing hard-headed sociopolitical analysis Houtart and Rousseau recall the church from illusory political abstinence and confront it with the modern context of its paradoxical existence. Much work needs to be done; yet enough has been done " to have persuaded some people to continue their struggle for man's liberation now and in the future within the framework of the Church. " (p. 845) I recommend this competent and provocative book to all who are BOOK REVIEWS 631 concerned either with the Third World or with the role of the church in the modern world. Lebanon Valley CoUege Annville, Pa. DoNALD E. BYRNE JR. The Return of Magic. By DAVID FARREN. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. Pp. 128. $4.95. The Behavioral Theory in Psychology has made a great deal of human needs in explaining the adjustive responses of the human organism and psyche to various stimuli. It appears that David Farren (pseudonym) sees The Return of Magic in our society as just such an adjustive response. Perhaps magic can fill a human need for modem man where both science and religion are falling short. Magic adds a dimension of subjectivity to the cold logical approach of science, making room for the warmth of imagination and will, in its view of reality. To religious faith magic adds a certitude. It purports to understand the universe though a systematic causality, different from that of science, by which the magician can command the forces of nature. Mr. Farren tells quite honestly of his rejection of faith after a strong commitment to Catholicism evidenced by ten years in the Jesuit Order. It is only after marriage that he found out that his new spouse was a genetic witch, as distinguished from a cultural witch of the Sybil Leek ilk. Particularly fascinating is the account of her initiation to witchcraft through a strange sequence of experiences which led to a diagnosis of schizophrenia and a stay in a sanitarium for the mentally ill. Generally the author displays a refreshing honesty and openness to other points of view, even stimulating the reader to religion, interest in the science of parapsychology, or commitment to magic. These parallel three suggested interpretations of magic as supernatural, paranormal, or natural. It has become quite common, if not even fashionable, in this twentiethcentury Western world to undergo crises of faith; this is the logical consequence of an existential philosophy and psychology which focuses on the subject in an isolated milieu of feelings, relationships, and often loneliness. Those who see faith as not only satisfying a human need but also giving insight into the truth-of a real God who gives meaning to our satellite existence-frequently wonder about the thought processes of a crisis of faith. The Return of Magic will provide considerable understanding at least of one such case. National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception WMhington, D. C. JoHN J. NICoLA ...