E s s a y s

THE CHURCHES IN CIVIL SOCIETY

What does their role in civil society demand from the churches? This is a question that has preoccupied me in various contexts for many years. Amidst the political changes in my own country and in other countries of Central Eastern Europe I have often thought, spoken and written about the new challenges facing the churches in this period. Above all there was the need to redefine its social role in the new political, social and cultural context, to be aware of people's new needs, problems and questions. It was necessary to develop a different pastoral strategy and fix new priorities - not to focus solely on providing services to believers but also to reach out to the many "sympathisers" - of which they were many at that time - people seeking spiritual answers, who were only partly identified with the churches and Christian doctrine. In was necessary to break out of the narrow confines which the churches had been forced into by communist repression, to free ourselves from the mentality of "circular defence", to find allies and partners among all those who thought responsibly about the fundamental issues of society, and to be a calm and competent voice in public debate. However, in most of the post-communist countries, developments in the churches have taken a different direction: the prevailing trend has been to restore the conditions obtaining before the advent of communism; many Christians, including church representatives, have proved incapable of coping with the "culture shock" and a sense of fear about the problems implicit in life in a free society. This has all resulted in the situation in my country, the Czech Republic, in which the numbers of people identifying with the churches has fallen dramatically. The opinion now prevails that the churches have disappointed the hopes placed in them after the fall of communism and that they have become marginalised in society, and if you ask people what civil society expects of the churches, many will answer: nothing or almost nothing.

However, I do not intend to confine myself solely to the churches in the post-communist societies. In recent years, I have come to realise that the fall of communism was only one expression of a much profounder social and cultural revolution that involves the entire planet - the process of globalisation. The collapse of the communist empire altered not only the political map of our continent and the East-West geopolitical balance. With the dissolution of the "Second World", the so-called "First" and "Third Worlds" are confronted with the task of redefining their identity and mutual relations. Radical Islam strives to offer a common language to a large part of the former Third World and to the "Fourth World" - refugees, migrant workers, the socially weak and culturally exploited people, that island of poverty, frustration and anger amidst the rich Western world. It also seeks to impose on that enormous section of mankind an image of a common enemy: the West, which in their view is a synthesis of American capitalism, Christianity and "World Jewry". At the same time one encounters among many people in the West a tendency to demonise Islam as well as an attitude to the non- western world that is a combination of fear and contempt; it often strikes me that the West has not only has a poor understanding of others and an even poorer understanding of itself.

Does the West have a common language? Can the West, which for a long time defined itself negatively as anti-Communist, come up with a positive expression of its identity? It is becoming obvious that the process of European integration cannot consist solely of changes in economic and political structures. If Europe is to be become a single body - and not just a bureaucratically administered organisation - these changes must be accompanied by the creation of a "European awareness and self-awareness". That, however, is a spiritual and cultural process of growth. It will not happen as a mechanical "reflection" of events in the economic and political "base", as Marxism-Leninism imagined, nor can it be planned or directed by ideologues and managers from political or ecclesiastical secretariats. I have to admit that attempts to define the West with such simple slogans as "Christianity" or "Liberalism" strike me as ideological, fundamentalist and dubious. I have the impression that there is a boom in Christian conferences and colloquia on the subject of European integration, particularly this year. The churches are making known their intention not to stand aside from what is happening in Europe. This begs the question, of course, whether the Christian faith, which undoubtedly stood at the origin of the "European political and cultural project" many centuries ago can become that "common language" of the new Europe, and if so, to what extent? Europe is now multicoloured, and in most European countries the Christian churches are in decline. We frequently hear top church representatives in many European countries lamenting the fact that their environment is non-religious and unchristian.

I am of the view that the West's present situation should be characterised differently: Europe is not simply unchristian or non-religious, but nor is it religious in a Christian way. Christianity is not the religion of present-day Europe and European Christianity is no longer a religion.

However, to avoid any misunderstanding I hasten to add in what sense I am employing the term religion here. What I have in mind, is the old European concept of religion - religio , as it was used in Ancient Rome and documented from about the time of the Punic Wars and most clearly defined by Cicero. This ancient concept of religio as a collection of state-sanctioned symbols and rituals, has much in common with the modern concept of "civil religion" that has its origins in Rousseau. Essentially it is a matter of ritual contact with the "sacred foundations of society", the symbolic expression of a common identity, of what holds society together. It took several centuries before Christianity, which originally had a quite different form - it truly was a "path", a "life orientation", following Jesus Christ - assumed the form of a "religion" in the ancient sense and played that political role not only in Rome after Constantine but practically throughout the Middle Ages. On the threshold of the modern age, Christianity began to lose that role and in a certain sense science was to become the "religio" of the West. Christianity was assigned the status of a "philosophy of life" (Weltanschauung) and gradually came to be regarded as another ideology.

In my opinion, the main power of religion (in the sense of "religio") resides in its ability to be the "common language" of a given civilisation. Christianity (Christian doctrine) has gradually become a "dead language", used, like Latin, only for ceremonial purposes or at congresses of experts. (This concept of a language could be compared to Michel Foucault's idea of a "regime of truth".) However, in the course of the 20th century modern science became so complex that it lost the ability to be the "common language" of Western civilisation. It is my feeling that in modern Western society, the social role of religion as religio is most likely played by the mass media. They increasingly influence ways of thinking and behaviour, mediating symbols and creating a network among people; for many they are the arbiters of truth: what is real and of importance is what can be seen on the television news.

During the period of the "crisis of ideologies" after the 1960s, Christianity too started in various places to extricate itself from the "philosophy of life" straitjacket: it was a time of increasing importance of social and critical praxis (in theology of liberation and political theology), a revival of spirituality (particularly mysticism), social ethics, ethics of science, etc. It would seem that these are areas in which Christianity could become part of public debate and thereby help create the "common language" of the future civilisation. I don't think we can realistically expect Christianity to become on its own the exclusive "common language" of the West, and once more assume the role of "religio" as in the Middle Ages.

Another point about the role of Christianity in civil society. I think the theme of this meeting is a very apt one: the "locus" of the church and its activity in Europe will no longer be the nation state but instead the open and abundant free market of ideas and activities, the meeting point for dialogue and competition between every possible social group and movement that we call "civil society".

For many years, whenever the role of the church and religion in public life was mentioned in the West, the almost automatic reaction was to trot out the empty phrase "separation of church and state", which almost no one questioned. That principle no doubt had its historical justification; we are all aware why and in what circumstances it came into being and the extent to which it protected political and civic freedom from the dangerous domination of a powerful church, as well as the freedom of the churches and religion from state interference.

It is my conviction, however, that there are many reasons why we can no longer accept this principle as a paradigm for understanding the relationship between religion and public life. This relationship is acquiring a new dynamic and operating at completely different levels. The churches have ceased to be the exclusive representatives of religion, in the same way that the state has ceased to exercise a monopoly in the political sphere. In the process of globalisation, the role of the nation states and traditional structures, such as political parties and trade unions, is diminished; more appropriate to the dynamic of civil society are the new social movements and civic initiatives, whose activity transcends national boundaries. In like manner, the role of ecclesiastical institutions is diminishing along with the barriers between denominations, and the dynamic of present-day religious life is articulated more in new religious movements and groups that are often of an ecumenical and international character. Although the media continues to record often formal meetings between heads of states and leading church figures, because they are undemanding events in journalistic terms, if we take a deeper look we see that the interest and activities of particularly the younger generation is focused elsewhere.

It is no accident that the "ecclesiastisation of faith" (Verkirchlichung), the creation of different denominations and emphasis on ecclesiastical (institutional) structures in the sphere of religion, arose at the same time as nationalism and the nation states, and both phenomena are profoundly interrelated; it was the beginning of the modern age and secularisation, which culminated in the demand for a strict division between church and state, as well as between politics and religion. The present global, post-modern and post-secular era has brought with it a new dynamic of religious and political life, which breaks out of its narrow confines and oversteps previous boundaries. In the era ushered in by the fall of the Berlin Wall, "separation" is a thing of the past.

The nation state, political parties and trade unions, as well as traditional church structures and denominational boundaries, are unlikely to disappear in the near future and it is pointless to deny their importance or even combat them: we simply need to realise that they are not as important as they once were and that their role is likely to diminish gradually. In particular, their role in socialisation has diminished: it is of less importance for self-identification that one is a social democrat or liberal democrat, catholic or protestant, or that one has the citizenship or passport of a particular country than it used to be in past generations, particularly in the nineteenth century.

It strikes me that whereas religious and social movements and groups once came into existence and functioned within the larger traditional structures of church and state and were regarded as their offshoots, and this was followed by an emancipatory phase when some of those movements revolted against the larger structures, nowadays there is scope for them to coexist peacefully. Many civic initiatives have no problem in co-operating with political parties and state bodies, while at the same time operating in a wider international sphere. I see a similar trend in the Catholic church, for instance, with the bishops' willingness to co-operate with various movements that can inject life into diocesan pastoral activity and also operate ecumenically and engage in lively interfaith activities, such as Focolare, San Egidio, etc. I see more frequent co-operation between the new religious movements and social movements as a logical development, both locally and internationally.

We mustn't ignore the fact that some of the new religious and social movements are prey to the temptations of sectarianism, messianism, exclusivity, etc. that have assailed almost all new phenomena in history - maybe for that very reason it would useful to initiate a dialogue with the traditional churches, which are repositories of historical experience.

If the church is to operate within civil society it is crucial for it to find a happy balance between an attitude of critical detachment towards the "spirit of this world" and the "spirit of the times" (Zeitgeist) - without which the churches would lose their identity and prophetic spark - and a closeness to the world, which is vital for mutual understanding and dialogue.