‘Stand Upright and Raise Your Head!’ Doing Theology in Dangerous Times

Abstract

‘Stand Upright and Raise Your Head!’: Doing Theology in Dangerous Times1 Michael Kirwan SJ and Jessica Hazrati Apocalyptic imagination The encouragement of Jesus to ‘raise our heads’ (Lk.21.28) is a call to hope, as we try to do theology in dangerous times: ‘dangerous’, as Paul reminds us, because these are the ‘end-times’. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek is more specific, as he names the ‘four horsemen of the apocalypse’: the worldwide ecological crisis, economic imbalances, the biogenetic revolution and exploding social divisions and ruptures.2 These are massive global threats, in the face of which evolution seems to have run its course. We have come to where we are by a long and arduous process of adaptation and development, but where do we go next? There is no obvious adaptive strategy which will enable our continuation as a species. What is needed is not some incremental adaptation – more of the same – but salvation: an intentional acceptance of the call to conversion, such as we find in the Bible, and in other faith traditions. Such a conversion, according to the cultural theorist René Girard, will require us to override, even reverse, our evolutionary programming.3 René Girard asserts in his later writings that it is not only fruitful but necessary to utilise an apocalyptic imagination. This can only be done, however, if we recognise the fundamental truth which the apocalyptic imagination uncovers: namely, the systemic pattern of human violence, which is in stark contrast to the absolute nonviolence of God. ‘Apocalyptic’ thinking offers comfort and hope to to those ‘within the fray’, the victims of injustice and persecution. However, it also tempts us to dualistic thinking: an uncompromising antagonism between church and world, between God’s elect and secular authority. A Manichean belief that the world is divided into angelic and demonic forces, equal and opposed forces of good and evil, light and darkness. Such a mindset leads us to self-righteousness. We can easily end up making God complicit with our resentment, by projecting our resentment onto God, through notions of divine vengeance, penal substitution, holy wars and so on. Studies • volume 107 • number 426 146 ‘Stand Upright and Raise Your Head!’: Doing Theology in Dangerous Times Girard’s reading of the apocalypse alerts us to this danger and proposes signposts by which we might discern true and false ways of reading texts and situations. It enables us to call out the many instances of ‘secular Manicheanism’– crudely put, polarised, tribal group-think – but we can only do this if at the same time we are challenging our own Manicheanism. A responsible apocalyptic imagination is, therefore, a call to conversion. It is so important that the church gives us a special season – dates, times – when we are summoned to devote ourselves to this difficult transformation. The call to arms of ‘Radical Orthodoxy’ In this light we can reassess the secular wordview which has elbowed religion and religious belief to the margins of modern thought and culture. As a description of our modern world, the secular ‘story’ is now seen to be seriously deficient, not least in assuming the inevitable disappearance of religion. A robust challenge to secularism appeared about twenty years ago, when theologians under the banner of ‘Radical Orthodoxy’ declared that ‘the logic of secularism is imploding’: ‘For several centuries now, secularism has been defining and constructing the world. It is a world in which the theological is either discredited or turned into a harmless leisure-time activity of private commitment. And yet in its early manifestations secular modernity exhibited anxiety concerning its own lack of ultimate ground: the scepticism of Descartes, the cynicism of Hobbes, the circularities of Spinoza all testify to this. Today the logic of secularism continues to implode. Speaking with a microphoned and digitally simulated voice, it proclaims its own lack of values and lack of meaning. In its cyberspaces and theme parks it promotes a materialism which is soulless, aggressive, nonchalant and nihilistic’.4 This opening paragraph of the Radical Orthodoxy volume is a call to arms. It urges believers generally and theologians in particular to overcome their humility and diffidence, and to push back on the cultural pressures which would...