David Bentley Hart was a name unfamiliar to me, and reading about him and listening to him being interviewed by Tyler Cowen I have the impression that I have been asleep at the switch. I was going to describe him, but the podcast's description is much better than anything I could do, so I will give you that, and then make some minor comments of my own, leading to what I hope is a discussion question. I will note that he is an (American) Anglican convert to Eastern Orthodoxy.
David Bentley Hart is an American writer, philosopher, religious scholar, critic, and theologian who has authored over 1,000 essays and 19 books, including a very well-known translation of the New Testament and several volumes of fiction.
In this conversation, Tyler and David discuss ways in which Orthodox Christianity is not so millenarian, how theological patience shapes the polities of Orthodox Christian nations, how Heidegger deepened his understanding of Christian Orthodoxy, who played left field for the Baltimore Orioles in 1970, the simplest way to explain how Orthodoxy diverges from Catholicism, the future of the American Orthodox Church, what he thinks of the Book of Mormon, whether theological arguments are ultimately based on reason or faith, what he makes of reincarnation and near-death experiences, gnosticism in movies and TV, why he dislikes Sarah Ruden’s translation of the New Testament, the most difficult word to translate, a tally of the 15+ languages he knows, what he’ll work on next, and more.
The transcript is here. The video of same is here. Podcasts come from various providers, but you can get one at the link on my sidebar.
He provides analysis that is opinion, such as his response to Tyler's question whether Orthodoxy might become just another American religion here, that it already has in many ways. The number of evangelicals and even fundamentalists coming into EO churches in America is already quite large, and they bring with them a set of Western assumptions that are unusual in its 2000 year history, with little understanding of patristic, scholastic, and philosophical schools of thought which are a diversity of approach less-often seen in America. (Pace, RCC.) But the only counterforce he sees here are those churches that have retained and even reasserted an entirely ethnic identity. He tips his hand that he does not like either approach, but does not say what he prefers.
He did have an interesting comment about Christendom Vs Christianity which I quote in full.
COWEN: Is the future of Christianity, as an institution, brighter or darker than it was, say, 20 years ago?
HART: Well, 20, I mean — [laughs]
COWEN: 30 years ago. A generation ago.
HART: 100 years ago. I don’t know. What would be brighter or darker? For me, what would be good? What would be bad? There are people I know, in fact, people near here in Notre Dame, who are all terrifically intent on trying to revive a dying Christendom, because they think that would be the revival of Christianity in the West. They ally themselves to these reactionary figures like Victor Orbán.
Whereas my ideal of what would be a brighter future for Christianity would be the final eclipse of that kind of conflation of Christianity with the interests of a particular civilization or culture or nation. I believe that’s a perfidious corruption. So, bright in what way? I would say that in many ways, the brightest future for Christianity may consist in the death of many of its institutions and of much of its cultural power.
Most of the people I follow in my little corner of the internet would tend strongly to a belief in the near-necessity of Christendom. If the culture that has protected Christianity for 1000 years, or 500, or at least during the North American experience goes down, then Christianity itself might be imperiled, or at least transformed so fully that our Christian great-grandchildren might have a faith that is nearly unrecognisable to us and live in conditions of fear and persecution. Stated that strongly, many would back off a bit and acknowledge that God has promised the perseverance of the Church until the end of days, and note that yes, the Church has seen worse before and survived. And yet still...their sympathies...
(I note that one can find something of both extremes from the writers over at JMSmith's The Orthosphere, on my sidebar.)
I occasionally note what the mission organisations keep telling us, that the center of the Church has long since moved from Europe to North America, and is now moving to Africa, SE Asia, Latin America, etc. But I ask Does Christendom now need to be a kernel of wheat that falls into the ground and dies, so that it does not remain only a single seed? Is it now the time for it to die and produce many seeds? (John 12:24)
2 comments:
Interesting. "Orthodoxy . . . unlike the Catholic Church, doesn’t have a protocol for receiving converts"
I wonder how many different versions of RCIA the Orthodox churches would need. I have only a passing familiarity with them, but suspect that it could take a long time to converge on something fair to all the spiritualities.
I used to read DBH at First Things, and then enjoyed a couple of his books. He's very good at reassuring educated Christians that their faith is respectable, but provides nothing whatsoever for hoi-palloi Christians who do not wear cardigan sweaters or read books. As I say, he's a delight for what you might call "arts-and-letters" Christians, but vulgar Christians are also sheep who need to be fed.
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