Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory: Political and Liturgical Theology in Dialogue

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ANAMNESIS AS DANGEROUS MEMORY Political and Liturgical Theology in Dialogue

A PUEBLO BOOK

The Liturgical Press Collegeville, Minnesota

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To my parents, Helen Beck Morrill and Henry Burnett Morrill, · ·with -.zove arLd honor of-t_~~ir irJ,an:y :y~ars· ~~service in the Russian Ort~odox and_. Rorndn ·catb_6lic.. Churches, respectively ..... - -.,· . .

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Contents Ackno ledgment Introduction

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Chapter 1: The Promise and Challenges in the Renewal of the Eucharistic Liturgy 1 The Council's Vision for the Liturgy in the Church Evaluating Post-Co!lciliar L~h!rs:ical Practice 5 An Invitation to Theological Inv~s-tj_gation _ 16

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Chapter 2: Johann -Bapti~t NJ;etz's Plishihg Group for permission to quote from Dialectic of Enlightenment py Max Horkheimer and Theodore . · · ~----.-- · · · ·' Adorno. .. "':.

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Oxf-ord Univer~ityPre~s~- 'rn~:i: and Methodist Publishing House for

U.S~/Canad!art arid \Vo~ld ·RigH.ts·; resp~-ctr~rely, £or quoting from Eucharist and Eschr/t6_logy by G~-9#r~y Wai~w~ight. - :· - - . ' . :- -_,-· -· .•

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Paulist Press -for ·permission._ l6 -'q uqte fro~- Followers of Christ by Johannes B. Metz © -1978 b_ y Burnes -~ -bates and Pa;ulist Press, and Sharing the Eucharistzc Bread by)((:lv~er Leon-Dufour, S.J. ©1987 by The Missionary SocietY·of _St:·Pauf th~ A-~ostl~\n the State of New York. Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press,_575 Scarsdale Road, Crestwood, NY l0707, for permission to quote from the books of Father Alexander 5chm.emann.

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Introduction

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t t at th turn f th tw nty-fir t c ntury that th hri tian d partm ntal and d n minati n, I lin , th 1 gic 1acad my, acr r 1nains pr occupi d with the question of m thod is to utt r a tntism. I u of theological methodology at pr ent ow their compl xity and p r i tence to two factors: (1) the Enlighterun nt' irr v r ible impact n all theoretical endeavors and (2) burg oning awar n s, now also irr versible, among theol gian th t th ir work' ad quacy, ven legititnacy, depends upon dir ct att nti n t a tu 1form of Chri tian practice. While Immanu l Kant op n th w y f r n c ary att ntion to the freedom of the human ubj t, th n uin phil phkal movenlents gave ri to a tran n ntal id , li m the t m j r chools" of , m t ppr pr.i, t . Although both Protestant and ath li th I in lud d , n inv, luable discovry and u of hi t r , i trc: n n ntcJ i li m imp d d critical attention to th hi t ric I ( ic: I, liti c I, emb di ) r ali ties of canrating inst ad out of ab tract notions of t 111porary human ubj t , "th person" and p ri n ." While Prot tant Nee-Orthodox theologians prophetically recogniz th duplicity of modem transcendentalism in oppre sive sociopolitical systems, I would argue that their foren\Ost figure, Karl Barth, remained mired in modernity by his insistenc that the one "real man" is Jesus Christ and that all other present, hi torical n1en ~' are merely "phenomenal."' Over the past few decades in North Atlantic countries two types of theology have emerged which look to the concrete circumstances and practices of contemporary Christians and wider society as primary sources for their theoretical work-liturgical theology and political theology. As Peter Fink explains, the current work of liturgical theology is to move ''beyond" the systematic sacramental theology initiated by Edward Schillebeeckx and Karl Rahner in the early tg6os. Both writers 11

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See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics ill/ 2, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1960) 41-4,75-6. 1

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abandon d the regnant scholastic view of sacraments as "objective realiti "and oriented the discipline in terms of "meaning in experiential cat gori ."Fink argues that the enterprise must continue to shift from acran1 ntal to liturgical theology so as to recover "the liturgical act itIf a th ologicallocus. " 2 As for political theology, Rebecca Chopp pl in th t its theological method interprets, protects, explains, and riti iz th narratives of Christian praxis, "the bringing together of action nd 1 flection, transformation and understanding," in a way that is ~~ fund rn ntally practical."3 Both theologies have inherited modern the1 y' a enda of freedom and human subjectivity while insisting, in di tin ti lanation of every event as repetition, that the Enlightenment upholds against mythic imagination, is the principle of myth itself." Max Horkh.eimer and Theodore W. Adomo, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (New York: ContinuUIIl, 1972) 9, 12.

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person's] souJ." 16 The need to conform in these syste~, s~ as t~ be personally successful in them, depletes people's imagmations, Lll- . hibits dreams for the future, and ultimately threatens the loss of the1r subjectivity and freedom. The ethos of control and technical manipulation has depleted people's openness to mystery and t~ whatever or whomever does not succumb to the solution of calculating reason or its attendant sociocultural conventions. In its now nearly universal economic form, the exchange mentality inherent to market capitalism integrally influences not only political institutions but also "reaches the foundations of our spiritual life," to the effect that "everything now appears to be exchangeable, and interchangeable, even interpersonal relationships and life commitments." 17 The strains upon interpersonal and social relations overlap. Frus trations, especially economic hardships, in the face o f the inadmi ible limit of the instrumentaJ reason of technology, the ma rket, and political bureaucracies g ive rise at times to hateful fanatid m, for w hich Auschwitz 4 stands as the perduring and hilunting witM .• M~e tz, nonetheless, rocognaus positiv " mo\~ •mcnts ovc:r the past few decades when!in peopl arv I ing c nfid-.~ ln the evolutionary world view: "We are becom ing C'\·er mo~ con..CK"ious of the dangers and antagonisms that arise.? \vhcn technological a nd economic processes are left to their own nature.... ,. The evidence includes the strain upon and even breakdown of legal and social sy terns~ the deterioration of urban centers~ threatened a nd metimes ruined eco logical env ironments~ increased turmoil in the nations of the southern hemisphere, genetic manipuJation, and unresolved issues concerning computer technology and ad,•anced communication capabilities. Such evidence has caused peopJe to question the ''neutrality" that has been afforded technological and / or economic projects and decisions under the rubric of the "scientific." This growing array of problems points to the fundamental concern for the future of humanity and, specifically, the freedom and subjectivity of every person. Anonymous progress is no longer accepted but, rather, is questioned in terms of whose Metz, Faitll in History and Society, 170. Elsewhere, Metz discusses how Nietzsche's philosophy exposed this mythical totality that tacitly pervades modernity. See Metz, A Pa.ssicm for God, 78--81, 172-3. 11 Metz, A Passion for God, t66. 1s See Metz, The Emergent Owrrh, 17-33; and Metz, A Passion for God, 39. 19 Metz, Faith in History and Society, too. 1 (\

progress is being affirmed and at what cost to the freedom of othn human subjectsTo scrutinize .instrumentaJ rationality thus is to strike at the heart of the evolutionary world view. The possibility of change requires some other logic than one based on calcuiation:

;{The question of the future of our technological dvil:iza tion is a question not primarily of technology, but of the control and application of technology and economico-tedmological processes; a problem not primarily of means but of ends, and of the establishment of priorities and preferences. This means, however~ that it is primarily a political and fundamentally a social problem."'lD Jn order for politics to have a mediating influence on technology and economics, politics itseU cannot imply be the instrumentalist business of sheer planning. Politics needs a form of rnson and imagination wruch resists absorptwn into the technological process. Metz, strongly influenced by the work of Theodore Adorno, locates such moraJ imagination in · the ~of suH ring accumulated in history.',, This fonn of political c · brings to awareness the reality which the evolutionary logic of modem society suppressesthe senseless suffering inflicted upon peop in the name of human progress. Even a •tra · of such sulfmng prov any technological, economic, or political tem' leoJogjcal claims to justification to be lies, indeed, myths.!! Social and politicaJ consciousness is necessarily historical consciousness, the remembrance of those who have suffered and died as victims of human efforts to dominate over nature and/ or human beings. To remember ex:plicidy the 1osers" of history is a negative awareness which demands that their suffering not be in vain but, rather, that it motivate efforts to build a future that is characterized by

Ibid., 101. For a parallel passage.. see Metz, The Emergrnt Church, 6o-L n M~ Faith in History and Society, ~0522 "The slightest trace of senseless suffering in the world of human experience gives the lie to all affi:rmative ontology and all teleology and is dearly revealed as a modem mythology.· Ibid, 1o8. To this s1alement Metz appends an endnote, referring the reader to Adorno's criticism of an ontologization of suffering'' in Negatitle Dia/.edics. Ibid, n8, n. 5· See Theodore W. Adorno, Negatiw DiDlectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Cantin~ 1973). 19

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freedom and the vanquishing of such suffering. This memory of and motivation by suffering constitutes the "essential dynamics of history." 23 The definite memory of suffering, therefore, is dangerous in its capacities both (1) to render a critique of the evolutionary world view 2 and (2) to stimulate human imagination for social-political action. -' Through critical theory's assessment of the threatened s ituation of the world and its negative dialectics of suffering in history Metz constructs the hermeneutical key for unlocking the powerful message of Christianity from the modem manacles of privatized religion and institutional power structures. Metz interprets the gospel as the " dan25 gerous memoryH of Jesus Christ, the memoria fesu Clrristi. The importance of this insight for Metz cannot be unders tated, for he considers it basic and "central" to his entire theological project: "Christianity does not introduce God subsequently as a kind of 'stop-gap' into this conflict about the future; instead, it tries to keep alive the

Metz, Fnitlt in History and Socitty. a • See ibid., 117. See also Johann Bapll....t lru. ommunicating a Dangerous Memory," Commrmicallll$ D o.mgtTOu>: Mnnory. cd. Fred Lawrence (Atlanta: Scholars Pre , 1l it is this effort to recover the definite and urgent content of ChristianifYs early apocalyptic tradition that reveals the monumentaJ change in Metz's approach to eschatology. In his earlier work, Metz wrote of the "eschatological proviso" of Christian faith which asserts a critical attitude toward "the

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When one b 'gins, how 'Vl'l', to pn!SH M ' l Z with the qu