Opinion

Why are our churches focused on institutional decline when humanity faces an existential crisis?

Rite & Reason: Irish churches are stuck in a sectarian time warp while the existential current and future needs of Ireland and the world go mostly unaddressed

A cyclone smashes the coast of Bangladesh: Our current democracies are creating gross global inequalities and rapidly destroying our planet. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images

Dr Fergus O’Ferrall
Sun Jun 9 2024 - 11:26

As election counts continue across Ireland today, it is timely to reflect on the acute threats to democracy worldwide.

In so many countries a dangerous decay is very evident in respect of the rule of law, free and fair elections, a free and independent media, parliamentary systems with checks and balances in the separation of powers, and lawful opposition parties to those in power. And also with regard to freedom of assembly, of worship and practice of religion, a vibrant civil society free from state control.

There is an urgent need to reimagine democracy if it is to survive in an era of such insecurity and instability that it has led to the new descriptor: “permacrisis”.

A reimagined democracy must be developed based upon a new green economy – we must make a “just transition” to an equitable, sustainable global economy. This will require a new kind of deliberative democracy to garner the necessary public commitment to the radical change and transition on which our collective future depends.

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We have built our current democracies largely upon a neoliberal model, supporting a fossil-fuelled capitalistic free market economy that has created gross global inequalities and which is rapidly destroying our planet. Reimagining democracy requires a central focus upon the common good – understood both within each state but also as a global imperative.

A reimagined democracy must have a focus on the effectiveness of the democratic state to achieve the wellbeing of all its citizens and their needs in health, housing, education, employment, welfare and the implementation of climate change plans; these are key domains for durable sustainable democracies.

It must encompass demographic diversity. It must focus upon building a stable, multicultural society in which racism, ethnic inequalities and gender inequalities are absent.

It needs to foster bridge-building at all levels – the ties of “social friendship” as described by Pope Francis in his 2020 Fratelli Tutti Encyclical Letter, On Fraternity and Social Friendship.

“Fear of the other” is a potent fuel for right-wing populism which promotes an authoritarian ethno-nationalism. Visionary leadership is essential not only from political leaders, but also from civil society and especially from church leaders. Churches have very particular responsibilities to develop a new public theology to meet the grave challenges we face.

A reimagined democracy will be very conscious of the dangers of political rhetoric and misinformation. An imperative will be a highly regulated digital media with zero tolerance for hate speech. And it must be developed around an inspiring public philosophy.

What might such a public philosophy involve? First, a vision of a flourishing society. Such a society would have the common good as its lodestar and would involve what political philosopher Michael Sandel calls “a new politics of the common good”.

Second, such a philosophy would involve changing our deficient current measures of a successful economy – GNP – to effective measures of societal wellbeing. We would measure what is truly important to human development and what truly promotes human capability.

Our churches appear to focus on relatively minor matters while humankind faces an existential crisis. The central place of faith in the public square is grossly neglected by churches currently so focused on institutional maintenance and decline. If churches have no radical public contribution to make to a flourishing society, then they are moribund indeed.

Yet the resources for a compelling public theology are available in Christian social teaching and are fundamental, I believe, to the struggles for freedom, justice, equality and solidarity. We may take inspiration from so many Christians – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King jnr, Desmond Tutu, and John Hume – who have decisively influenced the public life of their nations in order that all may flourish.

The Irish churches are stuck, it seems to me, in a sectarian time warp – still contemplating how they might, if ever, achieve some level of denominational institutional reconciliation – while the world’s, and Ireland’s, existential current and future needs are, by them, mostly unaddressed.

There is an urgent task confronting our churches: to collectively get their act together to invest in developing a relevant public theological response to the “permacrisis” or “polycrisis” we face. When armed with an adequate public theology, Christians would be equipped to offer courageous leadership in vision-setting and support actively practical policies to address the issues.

The Christian concept of the dignity and vocation of the human person contrasts sharply with the prevailing concept of the human person as a merely self-interested maximiser of commodities. The Christian concept of the stewardship role of humankind in God’s creation contrasts sharply with the greedy idolatrous exploitation now dominant in our world.

Sadly, one would hardly be aware of this radical difference given the absence of the Christian voice in the public square.

Dr Fergus O’Ferrall is an author and historian and a lay preacher with the Methodist Church in Ireland and served as lay leader of the Church between 2016 and 2018.

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