New Ethics for an Old Planet

As a member of the ethical reflection team of Terra Reversa, an environmental think tank in Flanders, I was present on Sunday May 18th, 2008, at a discussion panel on “New Ethics for an Old Planet: A debate about Sustainability and Justice”, held in the eldest building of Ghent, the Sint-Baafsabdij. The photgraph shows the main participants in the discussion panel: Alma De Walsche who is active in the periodical MO*, Jef Peeters who is a philosopher and responsible for the periodical Oikos, the Dutch environmental philosopher Koo van der Wal, Marian De Blonde from the University of Antwerpen, Annick De Witt from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Toon Vandevelde from the Centre for Ethics and Economy at the K.U.Leuven.

Koo van der Wal started by claiming that the modern society in which we live is inherently unsustainable: this is the consequence of our ways of thinking about the world and ourselves, from the operational types of rationality we favour, and from the fact that we equate well being with high material living conditions. This struck me as a very strong claim, as I am not used myself to so clearly linking the inherent unsustainability of our western societies (I would agree with that point) with “modernity”, but rather with perversions of modernity particularly on the level of how we organize our live together economically and how we see the relationship between politics and economics. Both Annick De Witt and Marian De Blonde gave their full support to Koo van der Wal’s approach, while at the same time pointing in the direction of some hopeful movements in our societies: many people begin to develop new worldviews and to situate themselves differently in the world, they think about their consumption habits and change them, they are increasingly aware of the rich-poor imbalances in our world and about the unevenness in the use of non renewable energy resources. At the core of all of this clearly stands the question: what kind of society do we want to live in and are we willing to make choices?

Marian De Blonde emphasized the importance of dreaming together – as a theologian I would refer to the eschatological vision and perspective. How do we imagine the future in such a way that that image and vision already begins to inform and to shape our actions in the present? This point was further emphasized in the debate. I feel that here lies a very important space for celebration, rites and liturgies, for sacraments: then, we play that future that is not yet and that represents a vision that is difficult to imagine in our world today … but that play is stimulating. It is as a kid that puts on the shoes of its parents: they are too big, but for one moment the kid imagines what it could mean to be an adult and that playful imagination changes its life.

Toon Vandevelde is a philosopher and an economist. The latter was very clear when he insisted on the importance of using all available economic tools to address the environmental issues: taxation or real cost calculations are crucial. He suggested three main dimensions for a new ethics today. (1) Ethics is not only about the people who live near to us, but also about people who are far away both in time and space: solidarity is compassion with people we don’t know because they are so far away. (2) Ethics is about setting and admitting limits, and that precisely today when it has become difficult to recognize real limits. (3) Ethics is about changing the time horizon of the actors involved. E.g. politicians in a democratic country are too often unwilling to take a large time horizon: they look only at the couple of years that separate them from the next elections – the long term view is beyond their horizon.

The debate with the public focused heavily on the role of economics in the environmental crises. I always feel here that the distinction should be made between “economic laws”, i.e. how variables relate in economic equations, ánd “the politics of how these laws are implemented and used”, i.e. how we flesh out the variables by making political decisions. This means, and I think all the members of the panel agreed on this point, that politics play a crucial role here, up to the point that some very clever politicians will hide their political motivations and goals behind the “inevitability of economic laws” which they have already manipulated precisely to fit their own interests.

I was also left, as a theologian and a Jesuit, with another impression: the need for common discernment – which means at least three things: (a) discerning together and so constructing a new social body; (b) the willingness to act technically and materially; (c) the openness to question motives and interests, consolations and desolations.

Those who are interested in some photographs, can visit the following website.

The complex heuristic processes of discernment in common as the context for the tensions between faith and science

Today’s half yearly meeting of the EVKT, the Flemish section of the European Society for Catholic Theology, ESCT, addressed the tensions between faith, theology and science. Taede Smedes and Jürgen François did the presentations and provoked the discussions that followed. This is, of course, a very complex topic. Some ideas came to my mind during our conversation.

(a) It is already a complex matter in itself to describe historically the ups and downs of these tensions. Obviously, the Enlightenment plays an important role. Taede raised the question whether people as William Paley, by emphasizing God’s activity as a stop gap, occupying the terrain left open by unresolved but fascinating scientific issues, did not sell out the Christian faith, by narrowing down its scope and relevance. It would be interesting to compare with Michael Buckley’s book At the Origins of Modern Atheism, where the author indicates that out of a sincere desire to inculturate into the new scientific approach to the world, theologians and philosophers conveniently forgot about the relational features of the Christian faith. I particularly liked Taede’s analysis of the Enlightenment efforts to reach out for a commonly accepted understanding of societal life, opposing the diversities brought about by the various theological and philosophical approaches. Personally, I would like to emphasize the importance of these diversities, even amongst the sciences and concerning the understanding of what is meant by science and scientific methods … at least on the condition that these diversities enter into conversations with one another, so as to allow new perspectives on reality to emerge.

(b) The importance of the phenomenon of emergence was rightly emphasized by Jürgen, and I would like to link it with Karl Rahner’s insistence on Selbstüberbietung (self-transcending), a term he introduced precisely in the context of discussions on the importance of theories of evolution and the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Phenomena of emergence arise when parts of a whole link together in various relationships, resulting in “something” that is more than the sum of the constitutive parts. As human beings we “emerge” out of our various molecular parts that relate to one another through complex relationships that can be defined at various levels of complexity. This approach is important when debating the tensions between natural evolution and divine intervention, when attempting to understand both of these tensional poles.

(c) This is one of the reasons why I personally like to insist on relational ontologies and metaphysics, as well as on the relational aspects of the Christian faith and commitments (creation, incarnation, ecclesiogenesis, Kingdom of God, Trinity, to name but the most obvious relational concepts of Christian theologies). In these contexts, diversity is valued as precisely the encounters and conversations that take place on the basis of the diversity and how diversity weaves interrelationships – diversity is a necessity for the approach to reality. Diversity here also means that the components themselves evolve, e.g. understandings of what should be considered matters or arguments scientific or theological also evolve. Therefore, I will prefer to speak in the plural: sciences and theologies, instead of science and theology. These conversations that arise in diversity also mean that human thinking consists of processes of discernment (and, I would like to stress, of discernment in common, that generates communities and allows them to emerge as new actors).

(d) Therefore, I like Taede’s stress on the constitutive difference between science and faith, as different perspectives on reality. I would immediately add: this constitutive difference defines conversations and encounters that are crucial for our understanding and the constitution of reality. The differences are not just there, as if science and faith would exist next to one another, without real interactions (battleships that keep out of their respective waters, so to say); they are constitutive for reality and for a correct understanding of both science and faith. At least so I understand Taede’s use of the word constitutive.

(e) Sciences and theologies are human activities, and it is not surprising that the issue of the place and role of human beings was raised. Undoubtedly, in our universe, in creation as Christian theologians would say, human beings play a special and unique role. I think one can approach this from a very evolutionary perspective – it seems to me that this is one of the aspects that Jürgen wanted to underline (to really understand God’s activities in the world in relation to our understandings of reality, we have to admit the autogenerative capacities of reality) – as if in its evolutionary heuristics the world “gives” itself a reflexive capacity so as to allow the emergence of new and deeper creative processes. Human beings emerge out of natural processes as very special beings in reality (beings capable of reflection, of enjoying beauty, etc.). Nature takes a risk in this process: human beings can forget about their origins in an evolutionary process and about their relationships to the world, out of which they emerge; they can start considering themselves as separate from the world, as over against the world, and, therefore, as rulers and despots over the world. This leads to catastrophes, as we well know today (genocides, environmental crisis, etc.). Therefore, although I am willing to speak of anthropocentrism, I will always qualify it as relational anthropocentrism. For theologians, this is an interesting place to start speaking about God, the Creator who is both immanent and transcendent in nature and in human beings, who says “yes” in the creative dynamisms of the world and in particular of human beings, who also sets limits precisely by being present in reality. The latter, Latin American liberation theologians expressed by the expression “La tierra es al Señor”, the earth belongs to the Lord. I am also convinced there is a good place here to start discussing ontology and the meaning of the word “matter”.

(f) The hubris of anthropocentrism that doesn’t admit its relational embeddedness in the world (theologians will express this by claiming that creation is a gift) is connected, in some as yet not fully clarified ways, to the hubris of scientific rationality and of theism as exacerbated in the Enligthenment. If I understand him correctly, this is a point made by a philosopher who participated in the discussions – I would add to this also the subject or identity oriented perspectives that take subjects and identities as the core ontological building blocks to which are added (as by accidents) relations. To him, the real question now concerns the very understanding of thinking – not so much of science or theology – and the ways in which in those processes of thinking God enters into thinking. Epistemological issues are crucial here, as Martin Heidegger has emphasized: theism and scientific rationalism run loose when they are nothing more than the search to explain reasons and causes. It is time to rediscover – I continue to quote the philosopher – the importance of metaphysics in a way that could not be understood precisely by Martin Heidegger.

(g) One point of view expressed by Taede also struck me very much – I connected it with some of the concerns that Roger Burggraeve had voiced in his talk to which I referred a few days ago. In the tensions between faith and science, and in the understanding given to scientific rationality, political issues about how we build up and en-vision our societies and lives together, are also at stake. We are not just talking about the opposition between science and faith, the field is far greater and concerns issues of our lives together and of our understanding of who we ourselves are. Science and faith can only be understood in the context of that broader conversation in which our understanding of science and faith themselves is constantly redefined in heuristic processes of common discernment.

All of this resulted in a very fruitful discussion, although some of us may feel very frustrated in view of the task ahead. Personally, I think we should not as theologians allow ourselves to have the battlefield defined by those who see oppositions between science and faith, but we should point to the fruitful creativity and opportunities for emergence in the diversity between scientific and faith rationalities, including also those rationalities that express our concerns about how we desire or attempt to build up our societal life, or our lives together. These relational approaches to me are crucial today. All to often, we remain the prisoners of subject and identity oriented thought and perspectives.

Some loose ideas about interreligious conversations

Over the past days I have been reading a very interesting doctoral work on Christian theologies of religion by a doctoral student at our faculty of theology, K.U.Leuven, Frederik Glorieux. Some loose ends about interreligious conversations and dialogue kept me thinking. I just offer them here as incentives to further thinking. They would certainly merit some more precise theological thinking.

(1) In the case of the encounter of religions or of members of various religions, I prefer to speak about conversations than about dialogue. To me the word conversation is much more general and points much more clearly in the direction of community building, than the word dialogue which also seems to restrict itself to discussions and to reasoning. Moreover, it allows an easier plural, lending it a less abstract touch. Interreligious conversations are always contextual and amongst concrete people in concrete circumstances; they also involve more than discussions in words. Interreligious conversations, therefore, are always embedded in concrete histories. This is an element that strongly surfaces in Frederik’s work: the story of the theologian who reflects on the interactions between religions, has to be told.

(2) When we come to speak about truth in the context of interreligious conversations, we have to realize that truth here is relational. When Jesus of Nazareth claims “I am the way, the truth and the life”, he is speaking to people and the words “way”, “truth”, and “life” acquire their meaning precisely in the interaction between the interlocutors. The truth lies in the life of Jesus, the Christ, who meets us on our ways and amidst our histories. It is not some kind of abstract propositional claim, although, of course, we also need these claims, but we should never forget that their are histories and passions behind them, not only concepts.

(3) I like Karl Rahner’s idea of anonymous Christians, not in the sense that the measuring rod for the value of someone else’s religious convictions should be the Christian faith, but in the sense that the other, although not a Christian, should be treated in the conversations as a Christian, and that precisely because in the others, be they Christians or not, God reveals Godself to us and draws us into a human encounter that allows us to creatively, in the conversations, deepen our faith and our relationship to God (his is an economic trinitarian interaction, as appears clearly in the mystical experience of Egied Van Broeckhoven). Of course, we expect that the others would also give us this status of anonymity: anonymous Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, etc. We hope that members of other religions will treat us, Christians, as they would treat members of their own religions and this out of theological reasons. Therefore, I use the expression reciprocal anonymity. In all honesty, one can only hope that the recognition in anonymity is mutual, reciprocal: we cannot command this or even demand it from others. There may arise the pain of not been treated as one treats the others and this may lead to deep pain and suffering. But, of course, one cannot make one’s own attitude dependent upon whether or not the others grant us the status of anonymity that we attempt to give them. This leads to a kenotic position, out of which we are always tempted to move out.

(4) Conversations require engagement, commitment, incarnation, i.e. the willingness to enter them. In the conversations people come to share their lives, at all its levels: ideas, desires, fears, longings, material conditions, religious convictions, etc. So interreligious conversations are not merely an intellectual affair, and they will involve concrete life as well as processes of symbolisation so as to articulate the vision of shared life in community.

(5) I have often been wondering, and all the more so after the ending of the Advanced Masterprogramme in Conflict and Sustainable Peace that I was responsible for together with my colleague Luc Reychler from the faculty of social sciences, K.U.Leuven, whether there could not be developed a promising and creative approach to interreligious conversations from the perspective of conflict transformation towards sustainable peace. In such an approach, we will stress the importance of a vision of a shared future for all the participants in the conversations, as well as the creative power of such conversations in allowing new insights and ways of common life to emerge out of the encounters. What is really liberating in such encounters is not that one of us is right and the other wrong, but rather that we develop ways to live together in a sustainable and dignified way.

(6) The experiences of suffering - although it is precisely against suffering that we move – contain creative energies that can be tapped into. The willingness to do so, i.e. not to trap experiences of suffering into sterile and never-ending processes of victimisation, requires trust in one another and the faith in a vision that suffering can be overcome by relying on the foundational togetherness of people in all their differences.

These are but some small ideas and thoughts.  They certainly need further development, but maybe they can be helpful.

Theo-logical Leadership

I have started reading an interesting little book by Joseph S. Nye Jr.: The Powers to Lead (Oxford University Press, 2008). Nye is well known in the field of conflict and peace research for – amongst other things – the distinction between hard and soft powers. In this new book he attempts to study and present the relationships between leadership and power, taking into account precisely the tension between soft and hard power.

While reading this book, I start reflecting on “theo-logical leadership”. That expression, to me, does not mean the search for theologians who would enjoy a leadership position in the community of theologians. It refers, rather, to the question: what does leadership mean from a theological point of view, taking into account that I am speaking as Christian theologian? If we want to define leadership from a Christian theological perspective, what are the features of the concept that strike us? How do we define the web of “theo-logical leadership” and what are its anchor points?

As Christian theologians know, this is a far from unimportant issue. Leadership and how it has to be understood is a bone of contention in ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. It is a key topic in ecclesiology – i.e. how Christians think about the Church – and it is profoundly related to tradition and revelation – leadership is, therefore, closely associated with mission and ordination. These are theological and pastoral issues. There is more. Today, when globalisation points to the worldwide interconnectedness of people and when challenges – such as the environmental crisis or the millennium goals – are global and multifaceted, religious and church leadership are increasingly looked for and taken into account. I want to start thinking about this in this post … that means, of course, that I will be exploring avenues and ideas, that I initiate a heuristic process, the result of which I do not know at this point. In this post, I merely want to point to some of the anchor points, some of the key dimensions, of what I have called “theo-logical leadership”, leadership as understood in a logic that refers to God.

(1) Theological leadership refers to the capacity to connect people in the shared effort of community building in view of the Kingdom of God. Obviously, this indicates “authority” in a double sense: as received from the already existing community which, for its continuation and for its growth, needs forms of leadership; and as arising in individuals or groups of individuals who enjoy the charism or grace of leadership. When speaking about “the Kingdom of God”, I also want to indicate two perspectives: that leadership is connected to a vision as it is received from God but always concretely enacted by people; and that it is a crucial element for what we could consider the core of the Christian message and gospel: community building or ecclesiogenesis, which requires leadership, indeed, as the capacity to initiate and sustain common apostolic discernment.

(2) Theological leadership embodies God’s commitment to the world in the incarnation. This kind of leadership rallies people to engage into the world, particularly there where the suffering is at its height – on the lines of a preferential alliance and option with the poor. Theological leadership means serving the world, as God is serving the world.

(3) Theological leadership means governance along the line of God’s immanent and economic trinitarian relationships. This kind of leadership is about weaving interconnectedness as God weaves interconnectedness. What does it mean to live the trinitarian relationships between us? I feel very inspired at this level by the mystical diaries of the Flemish Jesuit worker priest Egied Van Broeckhoven.

(4) Theological leadership also means saying “yes” or “no” as God says “yes” or “no”. How do we encourage people, but how can we also in a critical way question their behavior, their attitudes, their convictions and thoughts, their prejudices? Here, processes of discernment are required, and theological leadership refers also to the ability to accompany such processes.

These are merely four ideas. They seem important to me, but there is certainly more to be said. I hope to explore these matters further in the coming days.

Google Ads and Scientology

A reader of my blog has signaled that while consulting my blog (through the blog search feature that Google offers) an advertisement appears for the Scientology Church. “Google Ads” seems to be generating this publicity for an organisation that I do not support nor want to make publicity for. I do not recommend my readers to follow the link to Scientology Church and if the advertisement appears on your pages, please rest convinced that it is none of my doing.

Celebrating Roger Burggraeve

Roger Burggraeve is one of my colleagues at the K.U.Leuven Faculty of Theology, a Salesian professor of moral theology who retires this year after a long and fruitful academic career and committed pastoral service, e.g. in the Salesian centre “Eigentijdse Jeugd” in Groot-Bijgaarden near Brussels. Roger has been working intensively on the thought of the Jewish French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and it does not come as a surprise that in his honor an international conference was organized in Leuven during the past week under the title Responsibility, God and Society: Theological Ethics in Dialogue. I was very fortunate to participate in the last day of this conference, this morning, when the Flemish scientific and pastoral community honored him. The theme of the morning was “kenosis”, and first a talk was given by a colleague from Kampen in the Netherlands, Renée van Riessen, precisely on comparing the understanding of kenosis in Jewish and Christian perspectives. As a specialist in Levinas’ thought, she used his writings to make her point that Jews probably more than Christians emphasize human ethical responsibility because of God’s kenotic zimzum movement in creation, where God allows the emergence of a space where God is not. I must admit that I was not convinced that Renée van Riessen fully grasped the encounter tension involved in the interplay of transcendence and immanence, so typical for Christianity. Using Barth as a sparring partner with Levinas is, of course, already limiting oneself to a very specific and outspoken Christian tradition. Nevertheless, something very important comes to the surface here: are Christians not easily prone to evade their responsibility by referring to an intervening God?

R. Burggraeve’s contribution, a talk on Am I My Brother’s Keeper? On the Meaning and Depth of Our Responsibility, was brilliant. Roger clearly acknowledged the roots of his thought in Levinas’ work: some thirty years ago Levinas was giving a conference precisely in the same room where we were all seated now, and its topic was humility and kenosis, using biblical references to Cain (Gen 4,9) and to Abraham in conversation with the God who wants to destroy Sodom for its inhuman evil, its crimes against humanity (Gen 18). One feels how Roger’s thought is connected with a deep and very human appropriation of biblical texts, an appropriation that is born out of a concern for shedding light on the concrete life of concrete human beings who are caught up in ambiguous processes and histories of growth. It is wonderful to see how much Roger’s own life is involved in this processes … one senses how the effort to understand the biblical texts has gone the joyful and costly path through his own life.

In Roger’s talk the fundamental issue was about a choice: what kind of society and community do we want to live in? Do we want the coldness of the world of Cain, where nobody cares for his or her brothers or sisters (and where, supposedly, God would then care for each one of us separately), or do we want a world in which as Abraham does we plead with God for our fellow human beings, even when they are evildoers? Indeed, in the case of the story of Abraham and God at Sodom, the starting point is the anger of a God who revolts against the evil done by the people of Sodom. The situation is so harsh, that God wants to go and see, and that he takes a decision to destroy the city of Sodom: its people are really committing crimes against humanity: God is full of rage when confronted with that kind of evil. This is unacceptable to God. Although God is a bit afraid to do so (Roger suggests that God already suspects that Abraham may disagree), he consults with his friend Abraham. The latter responds: “How can you, God, risk to kill innocent and righteous people while destroying the city of Sodom? Is such an anger justified, that to eradicate evil you’re willing to sacrifice some innocent people?” Of course, Abraham’s counter proposal is as excessive as God’s plan: “Even if there are only a few righteous people, should you not because of them save also the evil ones?” It reminds me of the excessive claim of apocatastasis: the belief that everything and all (even the devil) will be saved and end up in heaven … indeed, everyone is loved by someone else … if someone ends up in hell, this means that also those who love this evil person end up in hell, as their love cannot be complete … Does belief in apocatastasis not mean, however, that we do not take evil serious?

This kind of questions is typical for Roger and his way of thinking moral theology and moral growth: human beings have to answer questions in a complex and complicated world, where evil and good, joy and despair intermingle. Such “discernment” is a real conversation with God in such a way that it is a conversation with ourselves, with people around us and with the world in which we live. Roger went on and looked at the double attitude of Abraham in the conversation with God: on the one side he is well aware that he belongs to an ambiguous world, that he is mortal and vulnerable, but on the other side, he is not afraid to address God directly, to disagree with God and to challenge God. This is what Cain does not do: he does not present his grief to God, he does not sue God for injustice in receiving Abel’s but not his offerings. Then, this source of injustice can work in him, up to the point of enabling him to kill his brother and so to destroy his deep connectedness with his brother. The friendship of Abraham with God – an adult friendship in which Abraham can and has to be his real self, even if that means disagreeing with God and speaking out against him on behalf of fellow human beings – guarantees Abraham’s connectedness with the world and his fellow human beings.

Roger emphasizes that deep ontological connectedness that is also a theological statement and reality. I know this is life giving theology. I hope Roger will continue to work on these lines, to publish, and to commit enthusiastically to human beings who grow in their discernment processes, in the tension between the “meilleur humain possible” and the “humain souhaitable”, in the tension between the best we can do and the vision that throws us always beyond even that best.

Addition on 080920: The original Flemish version of Roger’s talk, “‘Ben ik dan de hoeder van mijn broeder?’ Over de ziel en reikwijdte van onze verantwoordelijkheid”, has been published in Collationes: Tijdschrift voor Theologie en Pastoraal 38(2008):3, 239-261.

Should we forget about the invisible hand?

The New York Review of Books‘ most recent issue of May 15, 2008, publishes an interview with George Soros on the current financial crisis. Obviously, Soros is not very happy with the current USA administration’s handling of the war on terror and of the current financial crisis triggered by the implosion of the subprime housing market. When describing the seriousness of the current economic crisis, Soros claims that the current crisis could have been avoided had we recognized “that the system, as it currently operates, is built on false premises. Unfortunately, we have an idea of market fundamentalism, which is now the dominant ideology, holding that markets are self-correcting; and this is false because it’s generally the intervention of the authorities that saves the markets when they get into trouble”. Authorities and regulators carry a great burden of responsibility: “Each time, it’s the authorities that bail out the market, or organize companies to do so. So the regulators have precedents they should be aware of. But somehow this idea that markets tend to equilibrium and that deviations are random has gained acceptance and all of these fancy instruments for investment have been built on them”.

I am not an economist and find the interconnection of economic science and economic reality extremely difficult, as I have the impression that, sometimes, to cover up our self-interest, we ideologically use the claim that economic reality as it is, is unavoidable: it is the unfolding of a set of laws that economic scientists discover and analyze. This seems to take the politics out of socio-economic life, or better to cunningly hide the real politics of egoism, greed and power that are going on and that decide how laws will be used – that could work out in different ways, if the political courage and will were there to shape our economic relationships and to curb our egoism. That seems to me to be the sense of Soros’ plea for more balanced regulation: “Now, we should not go back to a very highly regulated economy because the regulators are imperfect. They’re only human and what is worse, they are bureaucratic. So you have to find the right kind of balance between allowing the markets to do their work, while recognizing that they are imperfect. You need authorities that keep the market under scrutiny and some degree of control”. Obviously, in the unfolding subprime housing crisis, authorities have not done what they should have done, and they have covered this up by ideologically and onesidedly referring to the free market dynamics. I wonder why that is so? What have been the interests behind this neglect of the authorities?

I may be wrong in what I am about to claim now – particularly since in the interview the expression of “invisible hand” is not used and probably consciously so – but I have the impression that Soros is telling here that the idea of the “invisible hand” in market economics should be looked at with a certain degree of suspicion … Is not this idea of the self regulating market (as by an invisible hand) a cunning or clever way to cover up one’s greed and hunger for power, as it provides the strong and powerful people with the possibility to be the wielders of the invisible hand? And this is not a mere question of allowing a sense of initiative and creativity to prevail over against bureaucratic regulation … in fact, we know all too well, that creativity and a sense of initiative without power or wealth, may lead to frustration. Pleading for creativity is not enough. For creativity to really result in effects and changes, it needs to be empowered to do so. What kind of people are encouraged to be creative in our societies? Those who are concerned with the common good, or those who look merely for their own promotion and power, be it at the expense of others, less powerful people.

Soros’ interview, to me, introduces a profound criticism on the “invisible hand” approach in market economies. He seems to want the reintroduction of politics in the game.

The compassionate dolls of Françoise Bosteels

Guest to the Forum for Liberation Theologies (Faculty of Theology, K.U.Leuven) on May 8th, 2008, was Françoise Bosteels, a Belgian religious sister who has been working in India for the past 30 years. Her commitment to a life shared with the poor in the villages and to formation, as well as her love for dolls and her sharp qualities of observation of people and of the webs of pain and injustice in which they are caught up, have stimulated her to make dolls picturing scenes of daily life in India as well as of shocking injustices and suffering. The dolls allow her to enter into a deep conversation with her public and stimulate people to touch their own pain and to even creatively attempt to express in dolls or other art expressions their life experiences. She has published photographs of the dolls accompanied by poems of many friends in two fascinating and stimulating books: The Dolls Speak and Through the Needle’s Eye: Everyday Life of Everyday People. In response to her own spiritual development she is now working on evangelical doll scenes, which will be published soon in a third volume.

The theological importance and qualities of Françoise’s creations have been recognized both by EATWOT theologians (EATWOT = Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians) and the ITA, the Indian Theological Association, to which she belongs along with Samuel Rayan, an Indian Jesuit theologian and great admirer of Françoise.

Françoise’s presentation of her work, using and commenting on photographs of her dolls, is a moving experience. One is drawn into (re-)discovering one’s own compassionate depth, the fact that one can be touched by what happens to fellow human beings. It is as if the dolls in their simplicity, beauty and vulnerability break through the defense mechanisms that we construct shielding us off our own feelings of compassion, as we now that they entail responsibility and challenges, to which we are afraid to commit. So, out of fear to commit, we hide away from the compassion that lies at the core of our being human. Françoise’s dolls do not allow us this evasive movement: they unleash our compassion and so our deepest humanity. This gives a sense of consolation and responsibility.

From a theological point of view, particularly from the perspective of a liberation theologian or a theologian who takes at heart Cardinal Joseph Cardijn’s “see-judge-act”, this liberation of our compassionate heart is crucial. Her dolls go beyond the unleashing of compassion. By situating the dolls in plots, by provoking people into narrating the stories connected to the dolls – something they can only do out of their own experiences – a process of analysis of the enslaving structures of injustice takes off. Compassion and analysis constitute “seeing” and Françoise does a wonderful job on that. The fact that she now will also reach out into the depths of the gospel, using exactly the same dolls, opens the activity of judgment by connecting the gospel stories to the real life stories of people. Françoise acts on our lives, confronts us and ultimately invites us to action, by making our own dolls – workshops for making dolls took place in Bolivia while she was visiting and seem to begin also in India – and discovering in their plots our own change oriented action.

One Indian participant to the Forum said: “your presentation and your dolls make me feel homesick” and another of his fellow countrymen admitted: “is it not remarkable that you, a Belgian woman, breaks open our compassion in the midst of a situation that we claim to have known so well?”. Participants were profoundly touched and I can only hope that Françoise’s work will grow and allow people to discover the hopegiving and energizing perspectives of their own life plots.

Those of you who would like to look at some photographs of this meeting of the Forum for Liberation Theologies can consult this webpage.

Study Day on Creation Theology

Last Monday the research unit of systematic theology, at the faculty of theology, K.U.Leuven, organized a (flemish) so called LOGOS study day on creation. Main speakers were the protestant theologian Dorothea Erbele-Küster – who spoke about the metaphor of “giving birth” as used in the Bible to characterize the God-Creator -, Herwi Rikhof – who provided an overview of the core elements of the concept of creation by referring to paintings and to the thought of Thomas Aquinas -, and myself – who attempted to unfold some of the main dimensions of the concept of creation in today’s context of globalization and the crisis of the environment. My own main emphases concern the trinitarian and incarnational dimensions of the idea of creation, as well as its eschatological perspective in the vision of the Kingdom and its ecclesiological articulation. Whereas it is very important, in a Christian perspective, to emphasize the transcendence of the Creator, I also want to point to the relational characteristics of creation. The word “creation”, indeed, refers to a web of relations: of the Creator with creation as a whole and in its individual creatures, of creatures as part of the whole of creation and between one another, and of human beings with God, with other creatures and with the whole of creation. Creation, in line with the incarnation, means moving into the world out of love so as to encounter God in it and help the world to encounter God. I am very much helped in this by the mystical diary of Egied van Broeckhoven, a Jesuit priest worker, who died at young age of an accident on the workplace. He describes his incarnational experiences and how he enters into God’s economic trinitarian life precisely in the encounter with other human beings. My key concept for all of this is “fundamental alliance” (lotsverbondenheid): creation refers to our interconnectedness in a mutual alliance that precedes our (ethical) decisions to enter into alliance. The fundamental alliance with the whole of creation is God’s gift to creation.

This was the morning programme. In the afternoon there were several workshops on various philosophical, scientific and theological perspectives on creation. I myself concentrated on two workshops concerned with the environmental challenges. Tine Ternest, from the network justice and peace in Flanders, spoke about movements towards an Eco-Church – how can parishes calculate and improve their ecological footprint -, while Peter Tom Jones, an engineer at K.U.Leuven, and his wife Vicky De Meyere used the concept of “verbondenheid” – interconnectedness and alliance – as an ethical answer to today’s environmental crisis. Also with these contribution I was struck how much today’s challenge for creation theology is ecclesiological: how do we, in view of the vision of the Kingdom of God, which acts as a sacramental attractor, build sustainable and life giving communities that include all?

Photographs of the study day can be found on this webpage.

Great Dreams and Depth

There is a wonderful little YouTube fragment providing an interview with the new Jesuit general superior, Fr. Adolfo Nicolás. He speaks about the necessity for Jesuits – but I think it is true for all of us – to dream “great” dreams and to do things “in depth”. “Great dreams” are dreams that involve us, dreams to which we actively commit, that move us into action. “In depth” refers to going beyond the job or the duty we have to do, by unveiling deeper and empowering dimensions of reality. These are two profound dimensions for theology.

Great dreams refers to eschatological visions. Such visions are not unattainably distant utopias, but rather future attractors that move us into action now out of the relationship with God. We discover and explore the content of such visions by committing to them, by acting out of the desire to see them realized. In this we trust our relationship with God. I have no idea of the precise content of the eschatological vision of the Kingdom of God – when I think of the community and the communion it seems to presuppose and when I look at the world in which I live, I despair. Can I imagine to sit at the same table with people I can’t stand, drinking a coffee with them and looking with great humor at our antagonisms. Just imagining this – on the authority of the God who promises this communion of the Kingdom – makes me aware of the fact that maybe I have to look differently at my relationships with the people I can’t stand … Do I want this? “Great” dreams are dreams that urge me to change profoundly my life styles, my attitudes, my actions. The energy to do so arises out of the relationship with God, as it embodies itself concretely in the world in which I live. Eschatology is about the challenging concreteness of such visions that we prefer to consider unattainable but that we know we have to face on the ground of our friendship with God.

Exploring reality in depth indicates that there is a stimulating and empowering strength emerging out of the willingness to look at reality in the way God looks at it and in the way God looks at us through reality. Looking at the world with the eyes of someone else always reveals unsuspected depths: how can it be that you love a person that I try to avoid as much as possible? what qualities do you see that I don’t see, can’t see, or don’t want to see? It is a quite refreshing and sometimes unsettling experience to look at things and people as God, their Creator, looks at them, to discover potentialities and beauty in the limits and ugliness that we project on others. It is also quite an experience to open up to God’s voice and look as it comes to us through the others, to discover how in the others God encourages and calls us. In these ways – looking at things and people as God looks at them, and becoming aware of God’s voice addressing us through the others – we discover the divine life at the core of reality and how God brings us into deep community with all of reality. Ignatius Loyola would say: we are becoming “friends in the Lord”.

Adolfo Nicolás speaks a consoling language: don’t capitulate to the frustrations of unfulfilled dreams and wounded expectations, don’t give in for a moment to the impression that reality is superficial and fleeting. Rather, dig deep to discover the divine spark in yourself and the world, and, then, confidently, dream great and trust the God who dreams and commit to these dreams right in this our world.

I know this may sound a bit “preachy”, but at the same time theology is about pointing in the direction of depth and great dreams, particularly in a time when we risk to lose heart because reality in all its complexity seems so threatening and disheartening.