What Balthasar Said about St. Paul

The Irruption of Paul of Tarsus, According to von Balthasar
Thomas Bridges at La Perruque has posted two generous helpings from The Glory of the Lord: Volume One. I confess I had these passages in my head when I wrote my previous post, not wanting to dig out the Balthasar... and yes, this passage goes right along with the theme I've been hammering away at through Dawson, Ratzinger, and Balthasar.

I cannot resist repeating one snippet: 

The Pauline tradition, on the other hand, will mean the continued fostering of Paul’s view of revelation; but, on the other hand, it will also mean the ever-new and unforeseen vertical irruption of new charisms in the history of the Church. In this (discontinuous) tradition are to be found the great charisms of mission which suddenly visit and fructify the Church, the great conversions (from Augustine to Newman), the great visions which are ‘ineffable’ in themselves (2 Cor. 12.4) and yet are poured out over the Church in words inspired by the Spirit. [Glory of the Lord 1]

McDermott on Catholic Revivals

"Let's look first at Edwards's claim that revival is the engine of history. [...] All histories of the high and later Middle Ages show the overwhelming dominance of the church in its culture, much of which was driven by such 'revivals' as the Benedictine, Franciscan, and other monastic movements" (207). 

McDermott and Jonathan Edwards discover in history the same dynamic which Christopher Dawson named, and McDermott goes further in recognizing in monasticism the same impetus of renewal that revivals hope for. 

As a reminder, here are a couple of recent posts on this topic:

• "Cultural Renewal" - Dawson's six ages of renewal in Christianity
  
• "What is Apostolic Succession" - Joseph Ratzinger on ecclesial movements as the co-bearer (with the papacy) of the Church's apostolic task.
  

"A Bizarre Amalgamation of Scripture, Pietism, Entertainment, and Consumerism"

Over at Islam and Christianity, Abu Daoud poses the question:

OK people, tell me if this is way too harsh, maybe even venomous, or if it sounds more or less reasonable:

[E]vangelicalism is in many of its forms a contextualization that reacted against what was (at times, justifiably) perceived as ossified and lifeless ritual, the search for inner contact with God and the individualization and emotionalization of religion go hand in hand. Ritual was sublimated, but since humans need ritual to preserve a sense of identity, the local cultural symbols of America were drawn upon, thus arose a form of uniquely evangelical crypto-sacramentalism centered around a bizarre amalgamation of Scripture, pietism, entertainment, and consumerism.

And this is the comment I posted:

well... this is an interesting if mostly recent phenomenon: "a bizarre amalgamation of Scripture, pietism, entertainment, and consumerism". 

Christian pop music (mediocre imitations of secular sounds), low budget Christian TV (In Kansas, I get about 6 channels now via broadcast digital!), passion of Christ playsets (sold at Walmart), Christian theme parks — (as a Catholic, I'll tell you that Catholics have bought into this amalgam also). 

It seems to me that these bizarre cultural forms go back to Francis Schaeffer's rediscovery of culture and the dualism he proposed regarding culture based on evangelical principles and culture based on other principles.

Waking up to culture was a good and important move for evangelicals. However, the last 30+ years have filled the world with an ersatz Christian culture which offers believers a Christian brand of the same crap everybody else is selling. 

How can Christian culture be original and innovative? I'll say this: you don't become original by imitating everybody else and substituting Christian principles. Other evangelicals can discover an original Christian culture if they live like Schaeffer did — as a member of a hospitable community.

I don't want to be glib in that last statement, but I do want to highlight the necessity of a missionary life, a life of hospitality, in rediscovering Christian culture. Culture is at root the encounter between the fullness of our humanity with the verification of Christ's presence in the world. The shared life, a convivial life, a life of caritas — is an essential dimension of this humanity.