A History Of Christianity Part 14

25.

Culture Wars (1960-Present) THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL: HALF A REVOLUTION.

In 1978, on my first visit to Rome, on the eve of the enthronement of the tragically short-lived Pope John Paul I, I stared with some astonishment at the flower-decked grave of Pope John XXIII in the crypt of St Peter's Basilica. His tomb was flanked by a pair of large bronze-effect wreaths, gifts from the late General Francisco Franco of Spain. They looked like two particularly sinister minders for this most cheerily informal of twentieth-century popes, and presumably had been in place since soon after the Pope's death in 1963. I would be interested to know to what Valley of the Fallen they have now been relegated. The possibility of embarra.s.sing memories around the tomb has otherwise ended, since the Pope himself has been reverently relocated to the customary sacred gla.s.s-fronted showcase, in the run-up to his being declared a saint.1 Although John XXIII enjoyed one of the shorter pontificates in the papacy's history, it had a transformative effect on Christianity far beyond the boundaries of the Roman Catholic Church. It negated everything that Although John XXIII enjoyed one of the shorter pontificates in the papacy's history, it had a transformative effect on Christianity far beyond the boundaries of the Roman Catholic Church. It negated everything that Caudillo Caudillo Franco had stood for - hence the glorious inappropriateness of those two bronzed wreaths. There was an unconscious symbolism about the clash of styles embodied in their presence which might make historians regret their disappearance. The last half-century of Christian experience has witnessed a war of cultures whose result still remains in doubt. Franco had stood for - hence the glorious inappropriateness of those two bronzed wreaths. There was an unconscious symbolism about the clash of styles embodied in their presence which might make historians regret their disappearance. The last half-century of Christian experience has witnessed a war of cultures whose result still remains in doubt.

Cardinal Roncalli, a former Vatican diplomat enjoying the honourable semi-retirement of the Patriarchate of Venice, was elected John XXIII in 1958 largely because he had few enemies, and because no one involved in the election thought that he could do much harm; he was seventy-six and it was (rightly) thought that he would not enjoy a long period in office. After the last exhausted years of Pius XII, it was sensible to look for a man of peace who would give the Church a chance to find a decisive leader to set an appropriate direction for the future. Certainly Roncalli had proved good at defusing conflict throughout his career, but that might have provided a hint that he was unlikely to perpetuate the embattled, adversarial style which had characterized the papacy since its trials in the French Revolution - one need only recall the combative, denunciatory language of the Syllabus of Errors Syllabus of Errors, or the frightened tirades against Modernism and Communism from Pius X and Pius XI.

The new pope's ebullience and boundless curiosity, so disconcerting to churchmen conscious of papal protocol, was matched by a shrewd ability to get what he wanted. What he wanted did not coincide with the wish of prominent members of the Vatican's Curia to defend old certainties without much further discussion. Instead, to the horror of Curial officials, in 1959 he threw everything open to discussion by announcing his intention of calling a new council to the Vatican.2 The Vatican machine, resigned to the inevitable meeting, knew what to do in such circ.u.mstances: keep strict control of the agenda through the Holy Office (the more emollient term then preferred for the Roman Inquisition). The spirit would not simply be that of Vatican I but rather that of Trent, with its stern anathemas of ideas which no good Catholic should hold. As Cardinal Ottaviani of the Holy Office spelled out to the council in its early stages, 'You need to be aware that the style of councils is concise, clear, brief, and is not the same as for sermons, or for some bishop's pastoral letter, or even for the encyclicals of the Supreme Pontiff. The style proper to a council is the style that has been sanctioned by the practice of the ages.' The Vatican machine, resigned to the inevitable meeting, knew what to do in such circ.u.mstances: keep strict control of the agenda through the Holy Office (the more emollient term then preferred for the Roman Inquisition). The spirit would not simply be that of Vatican I but rather that of Trent, with its stern anathemas of ideas which no good Catholic should hold. As Cardinal Ottaviani of the Holy Office spelled out to the council in its early stages, 'You need to be aware that the style of councils is concise, clear, brief, and is not the same as for sermons, or for some bishop's pastoral letter, or even for the encyclicals of the Supreme Pontiff. The style proper to a council is the style that has been sanctioned by the practice of the ages.'3 There were three obstacles to this. One was Pope John's recall to Rome of a long-standing Vatican civil servant, Giovanni Battista Montini, who had been close to Pius XII until his broad sympathies brought him disfavour and decorous exile to the Archbishopric of Milan. Montini, now rewarded with the cardinal's hat denied him on his departure from Rome, knew how the Vatican worked, and he had good reason to find the outwitting of former colleagues a congenial task. Second was the arrival in 1962 of more than two thousand bishops in Rome, with Europe contributing less than half of their number. The bishops had been consecrated from within an ecclesiastical system paranoid about Modernism, but they brought with them a myriad of different practical experiences of what it was to be a Catholic in 1962. Third was the glare of publicity in which the council's proceedings took place. At Trent, the Holy Office had not faced the problem of journalists. Now the Vatican was forced to employ a press officer, although, with a disdainful symbolism, he was not actually given anywhere to sit during his attendance at the council's proceedings.4 This unprecedented gathering of Catholic leaders listened with fascination to a pope who in his inaugural address spoke excitedly of the providential guidance of the world's inhabitants to 'a new order of human relations.h.i.+ps', and, far from lecturing the world, criticized those 'prophets of misfortune' who viewed it as 'nothing but betrayal and ruination'. It was important actually to have heard the address, since the subsequent published Latin version was substantially bowdlerized.5 More remarkable still were invitations to and the palpable presence of Protestant observers, who would have run the risk of being burned at the stake if they had dared to set foot in Rome during the Council of Trent - and, as an afterthought, even some Catholic women, mostly nuns, were asked to attend. None of these invitees could vote, but their presence was a symbol that the Church was going to reach out beyond its traditional fortifications. All the defensive draft doc.u.ments so carefully prepared by the Curia were rejected and replaced with completely different texts. Two crucial agreed doc.u.ments have remained central to the council's legacy - they have provided a springboard for action to some Catholics, an obstacle course to others. More remarkable still were invitations to and the palpable presence of Protestant observers, who would have run the risk of being burned at the stake if they had dared to set foot in Rome during the Council of Trent - and, as an afterthought, even some Catholic women, mostly nuns, were asked to attend. None of these invitees could vote, but their presence was a symbol that the Church was going to reach out beyond its traditional fortifications. All the defensive draft doc.u.ments so carefully prepared by the Curia were rejected and replaced with completely different texts. Two crucial agreed doc.u.ments have remained central to the council's legacy - they have provided a springboard for action to some Catholics, an obstacle course to others.

The first, Lumen Gentium Lumen Gentium ('The Light of Peoples'), was a decree on the nature of the Church. This doc.u.ment was one of those which had been transformed from the first draft prepared under the direction of Cardinal Ottaviani, the original being openly criticized for its lack of coherence by Cardinal Montini, while a Belgian cardinal dramatically expressed his scorn for its 'triumphalism', 'clericalism' and 'juridicism'. ('The Light of Peoples'), was a decree on the nature of the Church. This doc.u.ment was one of those which had been transformed from the first draft prepared under the direction of Cardinal Ottaviani, the original being openly criticized for its lack of coherence by Cardinal Montini, while a Belgian cardinal dramatically expressed his scorn for its 'triumphalism', 'clericalism' and 'juridicism'.6 The utterly different doc.u.ment which emerged, complete with that new t.i.tle suggested by the great Belgian ec.u.menist Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens, represented a significant break with previous Roman Catholic statements in its careful choice of a verb: instead of a simple identification between the Church of Christ and the Church presided over by the pope, it stated that the Church 'subsisted in' the Roman Catholic Church. What did that say about other Churches - indeed, how does 'subsist in' differ from 'is'? The decree also made a fresh attempt to tackle that question of authority which had nearly destroyed Trent, and to which Vatican I had given a partial (and partisan ultramontane) answer. Its second chapter was ent.i.tled 'The People of G.o.d', all of whom, according to the Book of Revelation, Christ the High Priest had made 'a kingdom, priests, to his G.o.d and Father' (Revelation 1.6). The ordained priesthood 'forms and rules the priestly people', but the royal priesthood of the people was exercised in a whole variety of aspects of the Church's life, both liturgical and everyday in the world. What were the implications of this for episcopacy? The decree added the concept of 'collegiality' to papal primacy: a reaffirmation of the authority of other bishops alongside that of the Bishop of Rome - or a replacement for his authority? The decree's reaffirmation of papal infallibility did not suggest the latter interpretation. The utterly different doc.u.ment which emerged, complete with that new t.i.tle suggested by the great Belgian ec.u.menist Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens, represented a significant break with previous Roman Catholic statements in its careful choice of a verb: instead of a simple identification between the Church of Christ and the Church presided over by the pope, it stated that the Church 'subsisted in' the Roman Catholic Church. What did that say about other Churches - indeed, how does 'subsist in' differ from 'is'? The decree also made a fresh attempt to tackle that question of authority which had nearly destroyed Trent, and to which Vatican I had given a partial (and partisan ultramontane) answer. Its second chapter was ent.i.tled 'The People of G.o.d', all of whom, according to the Book of Revelation, Christ the High Priest had made 'a kingdom, priests, to his G.o.d and Father' (Revelation 1.6). The ordained priesthood 'forms and rules the priestly people', but the royal priesthood of the people was exercised in a whole variety of aspects of the Church's life, both liturgical and everyday in the world. What were the implications of this for episcopacy? The decree added the concept of 'collegiality' to papal primacy: a reaffirmation of the authority of other bishops alongside that of the Bishop of Rome - or a replacement for his authority? The decree's reaffirmation of papal infallibility did not suggest the latter interpretation.7 Cardinal Ottaviani observed with graveyard humour that the only 'collegial' act recorded in the Gospels was the flight of Jesus's disciples from the Garden of Gethsemane before his Pa.s.sion. Cardinal Ottaviani observed with graveyard humour that the only 'collegial' act recorded in the Gospels was the flight of Jesus's disciples from the Garden of Gethsemane before his Pa.s.sion.8 Then came Gaudium et Spes Gaudium et Spes ('Joy and Hope'), an attempt to place the Church in the context of the modern world: ('Joy and Hope'), an attempt to place the Church in the context of the modern world: [T]his Second Vatican Council, having probed more profoundly into the mystery of the Church, now addresses itself without hesitation, not only to the sons of the Church and to all who invoke the name of Christ, but to the whole of humanity. For the council yearns to explain to everyone how it conceives of the presence and activity of the Church in the world of today . . .

The People of G.o.d believes that it is led by the Lord's Spirit, Who fills the earth. Motivated by this faith, it labours to decipher authentic signs of G.o.d's presence and purpose in the happenings, needs and desires in which this People has a part along with other men of our age. For faith throws a new light on everything, manifests G.o.d's design for man's total vocation, and thus directs the mind to solutions which are fully human.

The whole statement breathed the happy confidence, already expressed in Pope John's opening address, that the Church need not fear opening discussions with those outside its boundaries, rather than lecturing them.

So much else tumbled open in conciliar statements, much of it discovered earlier by the separated Protestant brethren of the Western Church: the value of vernacular liturgy, an adventurous engagement with the previous two centuries of biblical scholars.h.i.+p, an openness to ec.u.menism, an affirmation of the ministry of laypeople. There was also open apology to the Jewish people for their sufferings at the hands of Christians in Nostra aetate Nostra aetate ('In our age'), which in its final draft bluntly dismissed the traditional Christian idea that the Jewish people had committed deicide - the killing of G.o.d. One bishop amidst the crowds who found the whole proceedings thoroughly uncongenial and dismayingly chaotic, and whose vote was consistently in the small minority against such statements as ('In our age'), which in its final draft bluntly dismissed the traditional Christian idea that the Jewish people had committed deicide - the killing of G.o.d. One bishop amidst the crowds who found the whole proceedings thoroughly uncongenial and dismayingly chaotic, and whose vote was consistently in the small minority against such statements as Gaudium et Spes Gaudium et Spes, was a Pole who during the council's sessions became Archbishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtya. Also expressing his private disapproval of what he saw as the facile sunniness of Gaudium et Spes Gaudium et Spes was one of the attendant German theologians, Professor Josef Ratzinger. was one of the attendant German theologians, Professor Josef Ratzinger.9 By the time these crucial doc.u.ments were agreed and promulgated by the papacy, John XXIII was dead. Even before the council had opened he had been diagnosed with cancer. He was to live only a few months more as the revolutionary programme unfolded, but the momentum which he had fostered brought a swift election of Cardinal Montini as Pope Paul VI and a resumption of the council's sittings. Pope Paul was determined to maintain the pace of change, but as he pressed on with the reforms, and later conscientiously implemented them, he repeatedly displayed a quality which his impish predecessor had once characterized as 'un po' amletico' - 'a bit like Hamlet'.10 The man who had seemed so exceptionally open to change in the Vatican of Pius XII now agonized about how far change should go. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pontiff had doubts about the collegiality of all bishops, and in order to win the consent of a conservative minority to The man who had seemed so exceptionally open to change in the Vatican of Pius XII now agonized about how far change should go. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pontiff had doubts about the collegiality of all bishops, and in order to win the consent of a conservative minority to Lumen Gentium Lumen Gentium, he accepted 'Prefatory notes' (Nota praevia) added to it, which spelled out in scholastic language the limits which the main text could place on collegiality.

On his own initiative, the Pope in his closing speech to the council proclaimed Mary as Mother of the Church, after pleas from Polish bishops for an even stronger t.i.tle for Mary, Mediatrix Mediatrix. His action contrasted with the fact that the idea of Mary as Mother of the Church had been relegated to some polite murmurs in Lumen Gentium Lumen Gentium. The Pope may have been swayed by the fact that the council's vote on the conservative proposal to consecrate the world to Mary was the most contentious and closely fought of any major decision within it. Nevertheless, the outcome was a reminder that Paul VI was not necessarily going to hold formal const.i.tutional consultations before major public statements, even those made outside the criteria for infallibility set by Vatican I. Among those dismayed by any such Marian proclamation was Augustin Bea, the German cardinal who headed the Vatican's ec.u.menical Secretariat for Unity; he could easily see that the move was not calculated to win over Protestants or even necessarily the Orthodox.11 Motherhood, fatherhood and the family in a more general sense were to prove the preoccupations most disruptive to the revolutionary programme of Vatican II, because it was above all in matters of s.e.xuality that the Pope drew back from the strong tide of pleas for change in the Church's practice. There was a wide expectation among those present that realities revealed by mission in Africa and provoked by ec.u.menical contacts elsewhere would lead to a relaxation of the Roman Church's insistence on universal celibacy for the clergy; instead Paul reaffirmed the celibacy rule. It was the beginning of a steady decline in vocations to the priesthood in the northern hemisphere, and a steady loss of priests from ministry to enter marriages. Throughout much of the rest of the world, in cultures where celibacy had never been valued, the papal rulings on this matter were frankly ignored, and in these settings, significantly, vocations continued to flourish. Even more damaging was the Pope's unmodified stand against artificial birth control: this provoked the greatest internal challenge to papal authority in the Western Church's history since Martin Luther's protests over the theology of salvation.

The technology of contraception had been transformed in the late nineteenth century. Now it was possible easily and cheaply to separate heteros.e.xual intercourse from pregnancy, and Europeans and North Americans had not been slow to exploit the possibility. How would theologians react? The Anglican Communion was remarkably quick in coming to terms with the new situation: the change can be monitored by rapid s.h.i.+fts in the statements formulated by the bishops attending Lambeth Conferences. In 1908 they called on Christians 'to discountenance the use of all artificial means of restriction as demoralizing to character and hostile to national welfare', as well as being 'repugnant to Christian morality'. In 1920 they still expressed grave concern at the spread of 'theories and practices hostile to the family', and the teaching which 'encourages married people in the deliberate cultivation of s.e.xual union as an end in itself', but they declined to lay down rules to meet every case; in 1930 they declared that 'each couple must decide for themselves, as in the sight of G.o.d, after the most careful and conscientious thought, and, if perplexed in mind, after taking competent advice, both medical and spiritual'.12 Much had happened in the world since the Anglican bishops had made their measured recommendations, and the council was meeting amid a cultural revolution in s.e.xual mores in the West of the 1960s which would have astonished them. Would Roman Catholic moral teaching nevertheless follow the same trajectory as the Anglicans? A strong hint to the contrary came from the moment in 1964 when, in another example of his personal initiative, Paul VI announced that he was ending discussion on the subject before the forthcoming Third Session of the council met. Yet in 1968, it looked as if Roman Catholic teaching would indeed change. A commission of experts on natural law - including laypeople, even women - was about to publish a report on birth control after five years of deliberations, concluding that there was no good argument for banning contraceptive devices. Alarmed by the direction that the commission's thoughts had taken, Pope Paul enlarged the commission and changed the criteria for those ent.i.tled to vote, with the aim of overturning the finding; instead, it was reinforced. So the Pope finally ignored the work and issued his own statement in 1968: the encyclical Humanae vitae Humanae vitae ('Of Human life'), which gave no place for artificial contraception in Catholic family life. ('Of Human life'), which gave no place for artificial contraception in Catholic family life.13 To his astonishment and dismay, the case was not closed when Rome had spoken. There were open and angry protests both lay and clerical all over the northern Catholic world, and worse still, demographics soon revealed that millions of Catholic laity paid no attention to the papal ban. They have gone on rejecting it, the first time that the Catholic faithful have ever so consistently scorned a major papal p.r.o.nouncement intended to structure their lives. To his astonishment and dismay, the case was not closed when Rome had spoken. There were open and angry protests both lay and clerical all over the northern Catholic world, and worse still, demographics soon revealed that millions of Catholic laity paid no attention to the papal ban. They have gone on rejecting it, the first time that the Catholic faithful have ever so consistently scorned a major papal p.r.o.nouncement intended to structure their lives.

The long-drawn-out battle over contraception cast a permanent shadow over Paul VI's pontificate through the 1970s. There was so much that was positive in this humane and private man's exercise of his leaders.h.i.+p: notably generous ec.u.menical acts, such as the agreement with the Oec.u.menical Patriarch in 1965 to end the excommunications mutually proclaimed by East and West in 1054 (see p. 374), and a notably warm meeting with the endearingly saintly Archbishop Michael Ramsey of Canterbury in 1966, when the Pope presented the Anglican Primate with his own bishop's ring. Pope Paul travelled the world as no previous pope had done, and he cautiously opened dialogue with the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe, while reducing the temperature of Rome's relations with General Franco's regime to unprecedented iciness - it is reliably reported that Franco during the last year of his life came close to excommunication.14 Around the Pope, often way beyond his control, Catholics seized on the raft of reforms and recommendations made by Vatican II and implemented them in a mult.i.tude of different forms. Around the Pope, often way beyond his control, Catholics seized on the raft of reforms and recommendations made by Vatican II and implemented them in a mult.i.tude of different forms.

Apart from the furore on contraception, nothing in the life of the Church was so universally disruptive as the changes made to public wors.h.i.+p. These were an expression of the council's wish to stress the priesthood of all people in active partic.i.p.ation in wors.h.i.+p, and to encourage them to do more in the liturgy than hymn-singing. Laudable in the intention of involving the whole body of the faithful in liturgical action, the implementation of this principle represented Rome at its most woodenly centralizing. Overnight, the Tridentine rite of the Ma.s.s was virtually banned (with carefully hedged-around exceptions), and its Latin replacement was used almost universally in vernacular translations. The service of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, which had sustained and comforted so many for so long (see pp. 414-15), was widely discountenanced by the clergy in an effort to concentrate the minds of the laity on the Ma.s.s, and in large sections of the Catholic world it disappeared. The altar furniture that had grown with such exuberance in churches in the wake of the Council of Trent was rendered redundant by the decision to reposition the celebrant at Ma.s.s facing the people: the priest therefore stood behind the altar, which had previously been affixed to a wall of sculpture and painting and thus had been designed for celebration in the other direction. A mult.i.tude of tables often cheap in appearance if not in cost camped out in historic church buildings, while the emphasis on celebrating congregational Ma.s.ses at a single main altar left the greater galaxy of side altars dusty and neglected.

With the vernacular Ma.s.s also came a musical revolution. Early-twentieth-century Catholicism had witnessed an outburst of scholarly and musical energy devoted to the proper and reverent performance of the Church's ancient plainchant. The training which had gone into such sensitivity was now as redundant as the Baroque altar, when the requirement was for congregations to perform music in their own language. Priests completely untrained in teaching music to their congregations were now forced often against their instincts to impose a musical idiom which had previously hardly existed in Catholicism and which, to begin with, had virtually no repertoire native to the Catholic Church. Overnight, outside a handful of redoubts of traditional musical excellence (plus the pope's Sistine Chapel), the acoustic guitar became the dictator of musical style in Catholicism, with the same suddenness and thoroughness that the Geneva psalm had achieved in Reformation England. Not merely plainsong but the whole heritage of Catholic musical composition centred on the Ma.s.s was relegated to the liturgical sidelines, and such music was now probably more frequently and effectively performed by Anglicans than by Catholics.15 Although the hurt extended a good way beyond theological conservatives, the defiant and semi-clandestine celebration of the old Ma.s.s and its music became a catalyst for a slow gathering of fury among traditionalist Catholics, which in some places led to schism. Others, including Josef Ratzinger, who was appointed Archbishop of Munich in 1977 and whose elder brother at Regensburg Cathedral was one of German Catholicism's leading church musicians, swallowed their anger and bided their time. Although the hurt extended a good way beyond theological conservatives, the defiant and semi-clandestine celebration of the old Ma.s.s and its music became a catalyst for a slow gathering of fury among traditionalist Catholics, which in some places led to schism. Others, including Josef Ratzinger, who was appointed Archbishop of Munich in 1977 and whose elder brother at Regensburg Cathedral was one of German Catholicism's leading church musicians, swallowed their anger and bided their time.16 CATHOLICS, PROTESTANTS AND LIBERATION.

Another momentous development for the Church came entirely independent of the Vatican: a worldwide theological movement which has come to have an increasingly tense relations.h.i.+p with central Catholic authority. A huge s.h.i.+ft in the members.h.i.+p of global Catholicism from north to south transformed the priorities of laity, clergy and religious in settings where the two-century-old confrontation of Church and French Revolution, or even the Russian Revolution, no longer seemed the most urgent struggle. Instead it was the fight against sheer wretched poverty in the lives of millions in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Academic theology in the earlier part of the century had not said much about poverty, apart from being against it: rather like slaves in earlier centuries, the poor had been, with sadness, taken for granted. Now certain theologians, especially those working closely with the poor, began considering the implications of the Christian doctrine of Providence: the Father cares for humans as much as he clothes the lilies of the field.17 They looked again at the furious debates on poverty generated by the friars in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and listened again to the angry comments by friars like Bartolome de las Casas on the early stages of Spanish colonization in America (see p. 692). They listened also to what socialism and Marxism had drawn out of the French Revolution and Christian tradition in the nineteenth century. They even listened to their congregations, humble folk like those who had fought for the Church as They looked again at the furious debates on poverty generated by the friars in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and listened again to the angry comments by friars like Bartolome de las Casas on the early stages of Spanish colonization in America (see p. 692). They listened also to what socialism and Marxism had drawn out of the French Revolution and Christian tradition in the nineteenth century. They even listened to their congregations, humble folk like those who had fought for the Church as Cristeros Cristeros in the Mexico of the 1920s (see pp. 934-5). They christened what they were doing liberation theology. in the Mexico of the 1920s (see pp. 934-5). They christened what they were doing liberation theology.18 It was not easy for the Church hierarchy in Latin America to move beyond both a long alliance with elite Creole Catholic culture and a political outlook still generally conservative and authoritarian, but there were enough clerics capable of making a new a.s.sessment of the significance of lay militancy in earlier popular Catholicism among the Cristeros Cristeros and a.n.a.logous lay movements throughout the continent. That provided the momentum for an episcopal conference called to Medellin in Colombia in 1968, whose partic.i.p.ants sought to call the Church 'to the fulfilment of the redeeming mission to which it is committed by Christ'. Active in the preparation of the bishops' discussions at Medellin was a Peruvian theologian who combined university teaching with the work of a parish priest in a slum area of the Peruvian capital, Lima, Gustavo Gutierrez. He later popularized a phrase first used by a further episcopal conference at Puebla in 1979, in the presence of the recently elected Pope John Paul II: a 'preferential option for the poor' in the Church's construction of its mission. This had been foreshadowed in the statements of the Medellin Conference, which had looked forward to a redistribution of world resources which would give 'preference to the poorest and most needy'. and a.n.a.logous lay movements throughout the continent. That provided the momentum for an episcopal conference called to Medellin in Colombia in 1968, whose partic.i.p.ants sought to call the Church 'to the fulfilment of the redeeming mission to which it is committed by Christ'. Active in the preparation of the bishops' discussions at Medellin was a Peruvian theologian who combined university teaching with the work of a parish priest in a slum area of the Peruvian capital, Lima, Gustavo Gutierrez. He later popularized a phrase first used by a further episcopal conference at Puebla in 1979, in the presence of the recently elected Pope John Paul II: a 'preferential option for the poor' in the Church's construction of its mission. This had been foreshadowed in the statements of the Medellin Conference, which had looked forward to a redistribution of world resources which would give 'preference to the poorest and most needy'.19 In one seminal book, A Theology of Liberation A Theology of Liberation, which had started life as a lecture in Peruvian discussions around Medellin, and in many subsequent works, Gutierrez employed a phrase for purposeful action guided by theory, praxis praxis. To theologians of cla.s.sical Catholic training, this word had a ready and negative resonance, because Karl Marx had used it to indicate a philosophy inseparable from action - but that was only half the truth. As the Greek term for structured activity by free men, it was the word embedded in the original Greek t.i.tle of a book of the New Testament, and of its many subsequent imitators beyond the biblical canon, the Acts Acts of the Apostles. It is notable that in Gutierrez's discussion of poverty, he did not look back, as did some liberation theologians, to the history of Christian purposeful poverty since the first monks and hermits of the Church, as an act of solidarity with those who had not chosen to be poor. Having surveyed the biblical discussion of poverty, he simply declared material poverty as a 'subhuman situation' and 'scandalous condition', and dismissed notions of spiritual poverty as unhelpful diversions. of the Apostles. It is notable that in Gutierrez's discussion of poverty, he did not look back, as did some liberation theologians, to the history of Christian purposeful poverty since the first monks and hermits of the Church, as an act of solidarity with those who had not chosen to be poor. Having surveyed the biblical discussion of poverty, he simply declared material poverty as a 'subhuman situation' and 'scandalous condition', and dismissed notions of spiritual poverty as unhelpful diversions.20 While Catholics in Latin America were discovering new meanings for justice and equality for the powerless, Protestants in the United States turned a century of black struggle for equal political rights into an interracial campaign to make a reality of the civil war emanc.i.p.ation of enslaved African-Americans. Even in the worst times when white supremacists distorted the democracy of the Southern States, some white Evangelical Protestants in the South were capable of standing out against the culture round them to reach across the racial barrier within Evangelicalism. Belle Harris Bennett, epitome of well-bred white Kentucky Methodism, was central to Southern support for overseas missions, and the founder of a college which also trained women for work at home on civil rights and social projects. She campaigned against lynching, and made sure that the great black activist W. E. B. Du Bois was invited to interracial Methodist gatherings, where she used the force of her personality to ban segregated seating.21 When, in the 1950s, civil rights activists began to campaign against Southern racism, there was a groundswell of support which could look back to affirmations like this. Among the leaders.h.i.+p was Martin Luther King Jr, a Baptist minister and son of another who had taken the name of Martin Luther for himself and his son, inspired by his visit to Germany. When the younger King began campaigning for civil rights, his insistence on non-violent struggle had two roots: one, the Bible; the other, the campaigns of Mahatma Gandhi, whose family he had visited in India. In King, the Evangelicalism of the South met the writings of one of the greatest exponents of the 'Social Gospel' in the USA, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, whose synthesis of Reformed and Lutheran theology and liberal Protestant a.n.a.lysis of society he much admired. When, in the 1950s, civil rights activists began to campaign against Southern racism, there was a groundswell of support which could look back to affirmations like this. Among the leaders.h.i.+p was Martin Luther King Jr, a Baptist minister and son of another who had taken the name of Martin Luther for himself and his son, inspired by his visit to Germany. When the younger King began campaigning for civil rights, his insistence on non-violent struggle had two roots: one, the Bible; the other, the campaigns of Mahatma Gandhi, whose family he had visited in India. In King, the Evangelicalism of the South met the writings of one of the greatest exponents of the 'Social Gospel' in the USA, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, whose synthesis of Reformed and Lutheran theology and liberal Protestant a.n.a.lysis of society he much admired.

Perhaps the greatest achievement in King's career, prompting President Lyndon B. Johnson to put all the skills developed in his rather chequered political career behind an act to protect black voting rights, was a pair of marches through Alabama from Selma to the state capital Montgomery in 1965. In the first, hundreds of marchers, hastily gathered through Sunday sermons from King and his colleagues after the murder of a civil rights worker, were brutally attacked and tear-ga.s.sed by state police - fatally for the credibility of Southern government, in full view of television cameras. When King called a new march for two days later to commemorate the brutality, clergy of all denominations from across the nation, and representatives of faith beyond Christianity, poured into Selma. It was one of the most remarkable demonstrations of ec.u.menism and multi-faith action against injustice yet seen in the world.22 Faced with an order from the state authorities to turn back, King used his authority over the crowds to abandon their march rather than provoke further suffering. This might have seemed like humiliation, but once more King's enemies ruined their cause that same night by their street murder of a Unitarian minister from faraway Ma.s.sachusetts, who had been among the Selma marchers. A few days later, when President Johnson - wily old Texan politician shocked into uncharacteristic moral indignation - spoke to Congress to back the Voting Rights Act, he ended incongruously but with sensational effectiveness by reciting a slogan from the song which remained the anthem of American protesters throughout the 1960s: 'We shall overcome'. Three years after that, Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis, Tennessee, the day after a speech in which he had likened himself to Moses, afforded no more than a glimpse of the Promised Land before the entry of Israel.23 King joined a procession of modern Christian martyrs who were killed for their work for the powerless, at the hands of those defending unjustly wielded power. King joined a procession of modern Christian martyrs who were killed for their work for the powerless, at the hands of those defending unjustly wielded power.

On the other side of the world, another situation combining rapid social change and political oppression provoked the development in the 1970s of a different variety of Protestant liberation theology: the minjung minjung theology of South Korea. The word means 'ordinary people', but this simple concept changed focus with the bewilderingly fast development of the republic, from factory workers through to the flexibility of the information technology industry: eventually more what might be termed a 'cognitariat' of educationally skilled workers than a 'proletariat'. Jesus was minjung and the friend of the minjung, teaching forgiveness and love of enemies, but Moses was also minjung, political leader of his people against oppression. Minjung theologians were proud of their Korean past, and saw a complex struggle not only with the authoritarian South Korean government, but with the global strategies of the United States, which maintained that regime. Those involved faced torture, imprisonment and execution from South Korea's military dictators. Given the trauma of the Korean War, with nearly a million refugees from the Communist North in their midst, even self-consciously reformist Korean theologians had little inclination to explore the terminology of Marxism in the fas.h.i.+on of South American liberation theologians. Although opposed to the strange dynastic Communism of Kim Il Sung in the North, minjung theologians still sought to show proper respect for the Korean ideal of self-sufficiency which lay behind North Korea's cruelty and inhumanity. theology of South Korea. The word means 'ordinary people', but this simple concept changed focus with the bewilderingly fast development of the republic, from factory workers through to the flexibility of the information technology industry: eventually more what might be termed a 'cognitariat' of educationally skilled workers than a 'proletariat'. Jesus was minjung and the friend of the minjung, teaching forgiveness and love of enemies, but Moses was also minjung, political leader of his people against oppression. Minjung theologians were proud of their Korean past, and saw a complex struggle not only with the authoritarian South Korean government, but with the global strategies of the United States, which maintained that regime. Those involved faced torture, imprisonment and execution from South Korea's military dictators. Given the trauma of the Korean War, with nearly a million refugees from the Communist North in their midst, even self-consciously reformist Korean theologians had little inclination to explore the terminology of Marxism in the fas.h.i.+on of South American liberation theologians. Although opposed to the strange dynastic Communism of Kim Il Sung in the North, minjung theologians still sought to show proper respect for the Korean ideal of self-sufficiency which lay behind North Korea's cruelty and inhumanity.24 As Korean democracy gradually came to maturity after three hectic decades of economic development which had taken Europe two centuries to complete, there arose a new problem for minjung theology: how to reinvent for the 'cognitariat' this movement born in political struggle. The movement contributed to the social activism of a society whose needs and problems outran the administrative capacity of government, but it found it difficult to compete with Korean Pentecostalism. Pentecostals celebrated the success of the new society, and in their vehement anti-Communism they gladly adopted a conservative evangelical style from the United States, especially the 'prosperity' message of the 'Word of Faith' movements, while scorning the 'idolatry' to be found in the Korean past. Minjung's roots were in Presbyterianism, long accustomed to respecting and exploring Korean tradition and culture. So minjung theologians in recent years have explored the Korean past to find appropriate forms for a fully involved citizens.h.i.+p. They look with interest to the revolutionary Donghak movement, which, in the same era as the Taiping in China, sought to synthesize religion and reform for Korea. They offer people who are in danger of being too proud of their own new success Jesus's call to principled action, which can be seen as a praxis praxis for Korea: 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me'. for Korea: 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me'.25 For at the heart of all these movements was a meditation on the powerlessness of the crucified Christ, and on the paradox that this powerlessness was the basis for resurrection: freedom and transformation. Christian art created in the twentieth century (beyond run-of-the-mill devotional objects) has interestingly s.h.i.+fted away from old priorities: even in Catholic art, the Madonna and Child appear less often, and there is a greater stress on Christ on the Cross. Against the background of power struggles which had laid empires low and ruined so many lives in two world wars and beyond, much Christian experience thus resonated with the themes of crucified weakness and the tiny scale of the mustard seed before it becomes a great tree. Protestants had discovered ec.u.menism in their relative failures in small villages in India. Catholics discovered liberation theology in small communities of ordinary people in Latin America. They were often facing as dire threats from military power as the Mexican Cristeros Cristeros before them, and with what little schooling the Church could provide, they turned to the Bible to help them understand their situation. They have come to be described by the inelegant terms (which have not translated well from Iberian languages) 'basic ecclesiastical communities' or 'base groups/ communities'. before them, and with what little schooling the Church could provide, they turned to the Bible to help them understand their situation. They have come to be described by the inelegant terms (which have not translated well from Iberian languages) 'basic ecclesiastical communities' or 'base groups/ communities'.

Poor people throughout the global south recognized the experiences of Latin Americans and civil rights marchers in their own. They likewise looked for political liberation, but the historic context in Africa and Asia was very different from that in Latin America. From Dakar to Djakarta, the 1940s and 1950s had witnessed rapid disintegration in the enormous colonial empires built up by European colonial powers in the nineteenth century - Africa's decolonization was a particular surprise. Although the United States was initially very ready to encourage Europe's shattered powers to shed their colonies after 1945, no one expected the virtually universal withdrawal which emerged at the end of the 1950s, postponed only by special circ.u.mstances in southern Africa. When one young liberal Catholic Belgian academic in 1956 published a work proposing that the Belgian Congo might suitably be given independence on the centenary of its cession to King Leopold in 1885, his book provoked a storm of ridicule and fury in Belgium. In fact the Congo's independence came four years after its publication. Rome had given so little consideration to providing an autonomous future for Catholicism in the vast Belgian territory that an indigenous hierarchy of bishops was only hastily established in the months between the King of Belgium announcing imminent independence in 1959 and the actual handover. The political authorities had shown no more forethought than the Church. This short-sightedness was the prelude to immeasurable human misery in the self-styled Democratic Republic of the Congo which has not yet ceased.26 Elsewhere, it seemed that more potential existed for a delivery of state machines into the hands of responsible politicians. The precedent was the independence won by the British Gold Coast as Ghana only three years before the Belgian Congo, but after infinitely more careful local preparation. The British government, despite major blunders like its brutally inept and demoralizing handling of the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya through the 1950s, was generally prepared to listen to anglophone Christian missionary organizations which understood the realities of anti-colonial movements and saw positive possibilities. Max Warren, an exceptionally able secretary of the Church Missionary Society and in many ways the successor to J. H. Oldham as an international Protestant statesman, played an important role as a mediator between British officialdom and the new leaders.h.i.+p, especially in the CMS's long-standing areas of activity in East and West Africa.27 Some observers in Europe and in nationalist circles in Africa confidently expected that Africans would think Christianity too closely a.s.sociated with colonialism to let it flourish in the newly independent states. This was the reverse of the truth.28 As we have seen (see pp. 963-5), beyond the European-initiated Churches there was now an extraordinary variety of African-initiated Christian practice which made Christianity even beyond its ancient north-eastern African heartlands at least as indigenous a religion as the great alternative, Islam. Moreover, the political inst.i.tutions left by colonial powers at independence produced widespread disappointment. Artificially created chunks of colonial territory had been set up with democratic forms, civil services and judiciaries. Even in European society, these worked only when sustained by widespread prosperity and painfully acquired consensual norms and national ident.i.ties. They rarely functioned effectively in Africa, and the generation of liberation politicians who became rulers at independence frequently succ.u.mbed to the corruption of power. People let down by government turned to the Churches for their welfare, self-expression and a chance to exercise control over their own lives. Nowhere was this more true than in the one region which did not readily succ.u.mb to decolonization, the Portuguese and British southern territories dominated by the Union of South Africa. As we have seen (see pp. 963-5), beyond the European-initiated Churches there was now an extraordinary variety of African-initiated Christian practice which made Christianity even beyond its ancient north-eastern African heartlands at least as indigenous a religion as the great alternative, Islam. Moreover, the political inst.i.tutions left by colonial powers at independence produced widespread disappointment. Artificially created chunks of colonial territory had been set up with democratic forms, civil services and judiciaries. Even in European society, these worked only when sustained by widespread prosperity and painfully acquired consensual norms and national ident.i.ties. They rarely functioned effectively in Africa, and the generation of liberation politicians who became rulers at independence frequently succ.u.mbed to the corruption of power. People let down by government turned to the Churches for their welfare, self-expression and a chance to exercise control over their own lives. Nowhere was this more true than in the one region which did not readily succ.u.mb to decolonization, the Portuguese and British southern territories dominated by the Union of South Africa.

The Union was an amalgam of British colonies and two former republics dominated by 'Afrikaner' descendants of colonists from the Netherlands. Afrikaners were proud of more than two centuries of struggle to establish themselves in a wilderness, buoyed up by a militant Reformed Protestantism which told them that G.o.d had delivered them this land, and determined to resist any extension of power to non-whites, whether African or Asian. Indeed, as the twentieth century wore on, the Afrikaners turned their military defeat by the British in the second Boer War (1899-1902) into a gradual rebuilding of Afrikaner ascendancy, removing what political rights had existed for non-whites in some parts of the new Union. Most British settlers, and successive British governments anxious to avoid confrontation, connived at the process, which culminated in the victory of an Afrikaner Nationalist party in the 1948 all-white general election. In the intervening years, Africans had quit white-initiated Churches on a ma.s.sive scale to lead their own Christian lives; the segregation of races widened inexorably. After the Nationalist victory, successive governments, with cabinets stuffed with Dutch Reformed pastors and elders, turned this de facto situation into a system with its own crazy and cruel logic, known by the Afrikaans word apartheid apartheid, separateness. This was often glossed by the South African government as 'separate development'. The separation of blacks, whites, Asians and 'Coloureds' was small-mindedly real; the development entirely one-sided.29 At the heart of apartheid was a great act of theft from the Churches: the entire ma.s.s-education system which they had built up from primary level to higher education, a beacon for Africa that had benefited students from as far away as Uganda. From 1953 all this was delivered into the hands of the government and became an instrument to hold black Africans back rather than advance them. The Roman Catholic Church resisted the confiscation the longest, but it too was eventually defeated by the effort of financing its independent schools.30 Around the world, as the cruelty and arbitrariness of apartheid became apparent, a chorus of protest went up. From Western governments it was muted, because South Africa had a strategic importance in the 'Cold War' against Communism which had been in operation from the late 1940s (a card played to the full by the Nationalist government, which talked much of Communism as the enemy of Christian civilization). The Soviet government did indeed use the struggle against apartheid to further its own interests, but on the Western side the bulk of opposition had to come from the Churches. They alone among the coalition of activists could effectively draw on their international fellows.h.i.+p to keep open overseas links for South Africans and help the beleaguered liberationist political party which Christians dominated, the African National Congress. Around the world, as the cruelty and arbitrariness of apartheid became apparent, a chorus of protest went up. From Western governments it was muted, because South Africa had a strategic importance in the 'Cold War' against Communism which had been in operation from the late 1940s (a card played to the full by the Nationalist government, which talked much of Communism as the enemy of Christian civilization). The Soviet government did indeed use the struggle against apartheid to further its own interests, but on the Western side the bulk of opposition had to come from the Churches. They alone among the coalition of activists could effectively draw on their international fellows.h.i.+p to keep open overseas links for South Africans and help the beleaguered liberationist political party which Christians dominated, the African National Congress.

Given the almost blanket support of the South African Dutch Reformed Church for apartheid, and its withdrawal or expulsion from ec.u.menical activities in worldwide Church bodies, the Anglican Church was best placed to lead the struggle in South Africa. For all the Nationalist government's efforts to shut down any sphere of cooperation between whites and non-whites, Anglicans led the Churches' resistance, and had the capacity from time to time to intimidate the ostentatiously Christian Nationalist regime - admittedly often against the wishes of many in their prosperous white congregations. Throughout all the Anglican Communion's centuries of involvement with politics and social change, its role in the liberation struggle in South Africa should perhaps give it most pride. It is a story of heroic individuals who turned what was often a personal singularity and craggy awkwardness into a stubborn refusal to compromise with evil. Exemplary was the monk Trevor Huddleston, sent out to South Africa by his Community of the Resurrection: he was tireless in his anti-apartheid work alongside the ANC and then, after a reluctantly obeyed recall from his order, he spent a lifetime in helping the struggle from afar, as an Anglican bishop and eventually archbishop. Desmond Tutu, another exceptional Anglican priest of the next generation who rose to be Archbishop of Cape Town - perhaps Anglicanism's greatest primate in the twentieth century - recalled his astonishment as a boy at witnessing Father Huddleston, the picture of Anglo-Catholic authority in his black hat and white ca.s.sock, showing an automatic English courtesy to Tutu's mother: 'I couldn't understand a white man doffing his hat to a black woman, an uneducated woman ... it made, it appeared later, a very deep impression on me and said a great deal about the person who had done this.'31 Perhaps most important of all for the eventual defeat of apartheid was an English Anglican priest who briefly visited South Africa only once: John Collins. Like Huddleston, Collins was an example of a type which Anglicanism has traditionally been good at fostering: an undisciplined, extrovert rebel member of England's solid middle cla.s.s, for whom the Church's untidy historic legacy of niches for eccentrics provided a perch in a canonry of London's St Paul's Cathedral. Canon Collins ruined the breakfasts of many a choleric Tory reader of the Daily Telegraph Daily Telegraph by his p.r.o.nouncements as chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, but his contribution to South Africa's future was the International Defence and Aid Fund, an umbrella organization which, after the South African government banned it in 1967, managed to avoid journalistic scrutiny for another quarter-century. The fund gathered money from across the northern European and North American world via a host of personal contacts; it provided a cleverly disguised financial lifeline for those struggling in the most dangerous of circ.u.mstances to resist apartheid, to fight lawsuits or survive the disappearance of their loved ones into South African jails. The South African security services, so adept at penetrating and subverting such organizations, never succeeded in infiltration here, nor did they unmask the agents who were distributing the funds: tens of thousands of people were given around 100 million. Collins's IDAF remains one of the greatest achievements of twentieth-century liberal Protestantism. by his p.r.o.nouncements as chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, but his contribution to South Africa's future was the International Defence and Aid Fund, an umbrella organization which, after the South African government banned it in 1967, managed to avoid journalistic scrutiny for another quarter-century. The fund gathered money from across the northern European and North American world via a host of personal contacts; it provided a cleverly disguised financial lifeline for those struggling in the most dangerous of circ.u.mstances to resist apartheid, to fight lawsuits or survive the disappearance of their loved ones into South African jails. The South African security services, so adept at penetrating and subverting such organizations, never succeeded in infiltration here, nor did they unmask the agents who were distributing the funds: tens of thousands of people were given around 100 million. Collins's IDAF remains one of the greatest achievements of twentieth-century liberal Protestantism.32 Churchmen like Huddleston, Tutu and Collins played a major part alongside the imprisoned Nelson Mandela in ensuring that the African National Congress remained firmly committed to an effort to establish a genuine and all-inclusive democracy when the white minority regime eventually lost the will to resist. The liberation struggle in South Africa remained much more closely linked than elsewhere to the concerns of liberal Western Christianity for other freedoms - h.o.m.os.e.xual rights, the ordination of women - and that has been an important factor in recent travails of the Anglican Communion. Moreover, Archbishop Tutu was at the forefront of the movement to seek national healing rather than sectional revenge after the eventual defeat of apartheid and the coming of universal democracy in 1994. He headed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which has been imitated in other places riven by long-term hatreds and atrocities. Nelson Mandela as president symbolized the commitment to a Christian reconciliation when he proclaimed that the old Afrikaner national anthem Die Stem Die Stem ('The Call') should continue to stand alongside the serene Xhosa Christian hymn written in 1897 by a Methodist schoolteacher, ('The Call') should continue to stand alongside the serene Xhosa Christian hymn written in 1897 by a Methodist schoolteacher, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika: 'Lord, bless Africa . . . Descend, O Spirit; Descend, O Holy Spirit'.33 Not the least dramatic aspect of this reconciliation was the repentance shown by the official bodies of the South African Dutch Reformed Church for their part in providing ideological blessing for the lunacy of apartheid. As recently as 1982 they had responded angrily to their exclusion from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches with an emphatic a.s.sertion of their constant testing of 'the demands of Holy Scripture . . . to strive for the best practical way in which to fulfil our apostolic calling to be the Church of Jesus Christ giving due consideration to our experience within the unique South African ethnic situation'. Only eight years later, the year that Nelson Mandela was freed after twenty-seven years in jail, the Church in a declaration at Rustenburg took practical steps to restore property to the 'relocated' and provide funds for renewal and resettlement of exiles, since 'Confession and forgiveness necessarily require rest.i.tution. Without it, a confession of guilt is incomplete.'34 On the other side of the Atlantic five years later, in 1995, another Church actually born in racism gradually and painfully came to a similar realization. The Southern Baptists, by now America's largest Protestant denomination, in a charged and emotional meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, expressed repentance for their historic origins in a movement to oppose the abolition of slavery: twenty thousand delegates overwhelmingly pa.s.sed a resolution to repudiate what they had once said on slavery and to make an official apology to African-Americans. They quoted the Bible to prove their new case for condemning slavery, albeit with more good-heartedness than profound scriptural exegesis - and it has to be said that they remain an almost entirely white denomination.35 Other mainstream American Churches, such as the Episcopal Church of the USA, are also aware of their often inglorious role in the story of slavery and its accompanying racism. That is why they may be more sensitive to other liberation struggles than Churches elsewhere which do not have that past story. Other mainstream American Churches, such as the Episcopal Church of the USA, are also aware of their often inglorious role in the story of slavery and its accompanying racism. That is why they may be more sensitive to other liberation struggles than Churches elsewhere which do not have that past story.

These statements of penitence are as resonant as those made by European Churches conscious of their tarnished part in the n.a.z.i crimes of the Second World War. They betoken a new humility in Western Christianity born of experience. Such turnarounds in the Church may encourage wariness in those inclined to make confident dogmatic p.r.o.nouncements intended to lay down unchangeable truths for the future. But humility is by no means the only mood among the Churches worldwide in recent decades. Afrikaner South Africa saw the defence of its special racial system as part of a more general defence of traditional Christian values against a G.o.dless liberalism, intent on demolis.h.i.+ng the Christian family and all the inst.i.tutions dependent on it. Conservative Christians everywhere have continued to echo this wider theme: even now that apartheid is only a sour memory, a cultural battle continues. It began at the end of the 1950s, and has now become the widest fault line within Christianity - Chalcedonian, non-Chalcedonian, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Pentecostal alike - casting more ancient conflicts into the shade.

A CULTURAL REVOLUTION FROM THE SIXTIES.

The nemesis of Pope Paul VI as Church reformer was a pair of issues in human s.e.xuality. In his reaffirmation of universal clerical celibacy and ban on contraception, he had not understood the profound cultural revolution which had been occurring in the West from the early 1960s, in which new understandings and expressions of human relations.h.i.+ps played a central role. Alongside s.e.x was a phenomenon which began by affecting European liberal Protestantism, but which quickly spread throughout all the Churches of Western Europe, and beyond them, into their cognates in Canada and European-origin Australasia: steep falls in the number of those actively involved in corporate religious practice. The process was labelled 'secularization' by students of the sociology of religion, and during the 1970s and even early 1980s, it was confidently expected to set patterns for the whole world. The United States was also part of the cultural revolution - in fact it provided most of the symbolism of the changes, not least through the Hollywood film industry, but also through a veritable industry of youth protest centring on popular anger about America's war in Vietnam. Yet the USA has behaved differently from Europe in the matter of churchgoing and religious activism, if not in the s.e.xual revolution. The divergence was perceptible from the early 1970s and emphatically gathered pace in the 1980s.36 What had happened? A starting point which may seem paradoxical is the exceptionally healthy state of the inst.i.tution of marriage and the weakness of alternatives in mid-century European and American society. More people married, and they married younger. In 1960, 70 per cent of American women aged 20-24 were married. In the Republic of Ireland, extramarital births then accounted for a mere 1.6 per cent of all births, and lest it be thought that Ireland's exceptional levels of Catholic piety were responsible, comparable figures for the religiously pluralistic Netherlands were 1.4 per cent and 3.7 per cent for Lutheran Norway.37 Clearly people were opting for the nuclear family; but this was not just a traditional Christian family. It put a great deal more emphasis on emotional and s.e.xual fulfilment, and traditional male superiority was eroded in favour of a 'companionate' partners.h.i.+p of equals, wh