Much popular reflection about the current state of the Roman Catholic Church frames the church's situation in terms of a tussle between two groups, variously named left and right, progressive and conservative, or liberal and restorationist.
Coverage of church affairs in the secular media seems dominated by this polarity and although it may be tempting to see the tension as a creation of the media, in truth it's far more than a media mirage. Catholics often speak about the greatest challenge facing their church as either one of updating, to make it more relevant in this age, or one of returning to the true identity that it abandoned in the early 1960s.
Yet it seems to me the polarity is the problem. When the church's place in the world is understood from the perspective of the restorationist-liberal divide, we are let down on two fronts. Firstly, both sides of the polarity rely on a shallow analysis of the cultural change that swept through Western society in the 1960s. Second, both sides underestimate the power of the gospel to transform this culture.
There are issues, then, of cultural analysis and of the relationship of the gospel to culture. I will discuss them briefly in turn.
Both liberals and restorationists believe that the church has adapted in response to the radical cultural change that has shaped the West since the '60s. Liberals evaluate this cultural change positively, highlighting the furtherance of human rights, the recognition of the equal dignity of women, the increasing emphasis on aid for poor nations, and many other developments. Restorationists evaluate the cultural change negatively, highlighting the decline of religious practice, the seeming failure of family life, and the many other signs of disintegration in contemporary Western culture.
Yet neither of these evaluations gives an adequate picture of the cultural shift; nor will a trade-off between the positive and negative evaluations give a fuller picture. The cultural change in the West over the last 40 years is much more subtle and complex than either of these positions allows.
In a sense, both positive and negative evaluations portray part of the picture. Much is admirable in the development of Western culture, the furtherance of human rights being a fine example. Much is also frightening in the West's cultural shift, for example when significant relationships like marriage are treated instrumentally — seen as there to be taken up or set aside as