In 1979 Karl Rahner, the most important theologian of the twentieth century (in my humble opinion) lectured that we are at a completely new moment in the history of the Church. Rahner noted that there are three epochs in the life of the church. The first and shortest period of church history was that of Jewish Christianity, a time during which the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was proclaimed in Israel and to its people. The church’s second great epoch was initiated by the Council of Jerusalem when they eliminated circumcision for Gentile Christians, thereby giving birth to a Christianity that began to grow in the soil of Greco-Roman civilization. Consider for a moment the many other endings that also took place when converts were no longer required to practice circumcision: the Jewish Sabbath was abolished, new canonical writings were accepted, the church’s center moved from Jerusalem to Rome and modifications were made in moral doctrine. These developments represent a decisive break with the past, a new beginning.
During the years that fall between the birth of what might be referred to as Gentile Christianity and the present, an evolution took place. Christianity became increasingly identified with European culture. While Paul and the early church made the entire world the focus of the their attention, this universality has been difficult to discern for much of the church’s history. For nearly 2,000 years the church has appeared to be tightly bound to European civilization and exported as such by its colonial missionaries. The evangelizing church was reluctant to offer anything other than a religion embedded in the European languages, cultures and civilizations that it considered superior. Gothic Cathedrals with pipe organs were built in Africa!
We are now at a new moment, as momentous as the change described in the Acts of the Apostles — and just as traumatic. Teasing out the truth of the gospel from its European accretions is painstaking work — but necessary. Just look at the demographics: By the end of the 20th century only 300 million of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics were European and North American, approximately 33 percent. The overwhelming majority, 750 million people, lived in Asia, Africa and Latin America. According to some estimates in five years or so, only one Catholic in five will be non-Hispanic Caucasian. This shift in one century is the most rapid and sweeping demographic transformation ever to occur in the long history of the Roman Catholic Church.
For Rahner, at this new moment in the Church a new kind of leadership is needed. Truly effective religious leaders must first and foremost be men and women in love with God, deeply rooted in the values of the gospel they are called to proclaim. How else can they speak convincingly about the spiritual meaning of events in the ever-changing world that surrounds them? Equally important is an ability to dialogue with many diverse groups and to be at home with differences of opinion. Such leaders are committed to building unity in the midst of significant diversity. They are marked by a strong desire to make things better, and an equally strong desire to implement the changes that are necessary if the church and its people are to move forward, regardless of the resistance they encounter. Skilled in human relationships and sensitive to the feelings of others, these men and women are transparent in their interactions, open and thoughtful in their manner of listening, mutually respectful in their exchanges with others.
Of course this big picture impacts St. James as well. Have we found the right “vocabulary” to share the gospel in ways that contemporary people can hear? We cannot simply keep repeating catechism answers that no longer make sense but must find images and themes that speak the gospel today. We have to have the courage to imitate the earliest Christians and “not to place a burden beyond the necessities.”
