A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World

A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World, by Carl Anderson, HarperOne, 2009.

 

Carl Anderson serves as the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, and his book reflects his deep concern for Catholicism and its role in the public sphere. A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World is an overview of various aspects of contemporary culture; as well as a call to action for the faithful to find some way to make their world a better place.

 

The book takes its title from the works of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who claim that if the societal, intellectual, and spiritual malaises affecting the world are to be confronted and rectified, the best tool to solve these problems is love.  There is no thorough, all-encompassing plan to reform all of society and government in this book, but Anderson’s advice is simple.  Fixing the world must start with individuals making a conscious effort to love. Unlike many “self-help” books that seek to make readers improve themselves for their own fulfillment, A Civilization of Love asks its readers to improve themselves for the sake of everyone around them.

 

A Civilization of Love is in the same vein as many other Catholic call-to-action books, such as Fr. James Keller’s You Can Change the World.  Much of what is said in this book has been put forward in numerous other works that call for faithful Christians to engage and challenge the culture, but that does not mean that this book is redundant.  This book is separated from similar works due to its unshakeable sense of optimism.  Many other writers, when approaching subjects such as government corruption, the unsettling effects of secularization gone mad in Europe, and widespread apathy towards social decay; lapse into a “the end is near” mentality that depresses rather than inspires.  Anderson certainly isn’t fueled by Pollyanna-like levels of optimism.  He realizes that the world is plagued by daunting, even despair-inducing problems.  Nevertheless, giving up hope should never be an option, and the best way to repel despair is to take personal action in the right direction.  In the words of Socrates, “Let him that would move the world first move himself.”

 

One of the more intriguing features of this book consists of the questions that Anderson includes at the end of each chapter.  These allow the book to serve as a spiritual exercise as well as an informational and instructional resource.  After reading each chapter, readers need to ask themselves hard questions.  For example, at one point Anderson asks his readers to think of a time when they have not treated someone else with as much love and respect as that person deserves, and ask why that happened and what one might do in order to prevent that from happening again.  In another case, the reader is asked to think of a person he dislikes, and attempt to explain the reasons for that loathing and how these feelings affect his behavior.

 

It’s very easy to simply skim through these questions, or just give perfunctory or even dishonest answers to them.  This is a fairly short book, but if one is going to reap the full benefits from it, one should spend as much time mulling over the five or six questions at the end of each chapter as one does reading the chapter itself.  There isn’t too much in this book that a reader who is fairly well-read in recent history and Church current events doesn’t already know, but added attention to the spiritual exercises in this book will allow this commonplace information to take on new and intriguing relevance.

 

Some chapters give short thrift to subjects that really need more space in order to better address the intriguing ideas and implications they provoke.  In one titled “A Dignity That Brings Demands,” Anderson discusses the enduring legacy of two of the Nobel Prizewinners for 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre (Literature) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Peace).  These two very different men and their worldviews are both presented as challenges to the Catholic worldview, Sartre for his atheistic existentialist philosophy, and King for his use of American Protestantism as a means of social change.

 

Anderson speaks highly of both Sartre and King, which is surprising in the former case.  Anderson may conceivably be impressed by Sartre’s literary skills while being far less receptive to his intellectual worldview– it’s certainly possible to admire a gift for writing while disliking the message behind the words.  Nevertheless, the deeper implications of Sartre’s work and their pernicious (from a Catholic perspective) effect on academia and broader society and culture are largely ignored here.  Sartre is presented merely as highly intelligent man whose worldview diverges sharply from traditional Catholicism.  If Anderson wanted to provide a more thorough presentation of what the faithful need to do in order to build a more loving civilization, a fuller critique of Sartre’s philosophy and fiction needs to be presented.  (For a more in-depth criticism of Sartre’s legacy and its attacks on Christian culture, check out the essay on Sartre in Architects of the Culture of Death, by Donald DeMarco and Benjamin D. Wiker.)

 

Despite the religious differences between Anderson and King, the former’s deep respect and admiration for the latter is easy to understand.  One particularly thorny question lies in Anderson’s contention that the blend of King’s Protestantism and social justice campaigning really poses a challenge for Catholic culture.  There are plenty of Catholic activists who have similarly campaigned against social ills, and further exposition is necessary in order to see if there really is any validity to the argument that Protestant social justice movements really challenge Catholic ones, or if they simply give a slightly different theological basis to moral motivation.

 

Most of the other chapters take various issues, subjects, and situations; posit on the problems facing humanity at length, and then suggest paths for improvement.  Injustices in the law, causes of suffering, and projections for the future fill the book; and they are coupled with various Catholic responses and attitudes for how to deal with such unpleasant subjects.

 

Probably the most inspirational portion of this book comes from its presentation of ordinary individuals who noticed problems and decided to take a shot at fixing them.  In today’s culture, good deeds only seem to get recognized when multimillionaire celebrities donate a hefty check or a good photo opportunity’s worth of volunteerism.  Anderson cites a handful of examples, such as a couple who take in young unwed mothers, and another family who mortgaged their home in order to fund an organization that digs much-needed wells in order to provide water to drought-plagued farmers in Central America.  These do-gooders have helped dozens of people, but they receive no widespread recognition or acclaim, nor do they seem to want it.  The examples in this book hint that doing God’s work often comes at a personal cost.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta abandoned her comfortable job at a school in order to care for the sick and destitute.  An unstated moral is that doing really good work is generally not pretty or glamorous, and rarely brings about any widespread recognition.  It does, however provoke much less tangible rewards.  After all, people need to realize that things aren’t always about them.

 

This book, read thoughtfully, intelligently, and honesty, may be used as guide for gauging one’s moral behavior.   Those who are disinclined to concur with Catholic social teachings and doctrines are less likely to be swayed by Anderson’s rhetoric, but if one is willing to consider Anderson’s blueprints for a better tomorrow, A Civilization of Love might prove to be a useful tool for helping readers understand their own natures better, the problems they face, and what needs to be done in order to improve oneself and the wider world.

 

–Chris Chan

The Everlasting Man

The Everlasting Man, by G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton, originally published 1925, reprinted in 1993 by Ignatius Press.

 

One of G.K. Chesterton’s best-known books, The Everlasting Man is famous not only for its content, but also for its connection to two other British authors with double-initialed names: H.G. Wells and C.S. Lewis.  The Everlasting Manwas written in part as a counterargument to Wells’s bestseller The Outline of History, which promoted a materialistic and secular worldview.  In contrast, Chesterton’s book stresses the primacy of Jesus in all aspects of human history, society, and culture.  C.S. Lewis’s connection to the book lies in the fact that he was an atheist when he first started reading it.  When he finished, his worldview had changed dramatically.

 

Chesterton opens The Everlasting Man with a reference to a subplot of his novel Manalive, where it is stated that there are two ways to appreciate one’s home.  The first is to stay there, and the second is to go all the way around the world and return home after having circled the globe.  By circumnavigating the world, traveling in a strange land and seeing one’s home as a destination rather than a place of rest, one thereby gains an appreciation for one’s home that one otherwise might never have obtained.  Grumbling about the state of one’s home means nothing if one has never been homesick.  Chesterton uses this metaphor to explain how critics of Christianity fail to understand how deeply everything around them in Western Civilization has been affected and shaped by Christianity.  In his introduction, Chesterton writes:

 

“The point of this book, in other words, is that the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it.  And a particular point of it is that the popular critics of Christianity are not really outside it.  They are on a debatable ground, in every sense of the term. They are doubtful in their very doubts. Their criticism has taken on a curious tone; as of a random and illiterate heckling. Thus they make current and anti-clerical cant as a sort of small-talk.  They will complain of parsons dressing like parsons; as if we should be any more free if all the police who shadowed or collared us were plain clothes detectives.”

 

Throughout the book, Chesterton addresses many of the popular arguments against the Church and concludes that all them miss the point.  Christianity, he argues, is a good that cannot be corrupted.  The fallen race of Man, in contrast, is far too anxious to extrapolate its own faults and sins upon the only thing that can truly redeem humanity.  He continues his introduction by contending that:

            

“As for the general view that the Church was discredited by the War--they might as well say that the Ark was discredited by the Flood. When the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do. But that marks their mood about the whole religious tradition they are in a state of reaction against it. It is well with the boy when he lives on his father's land; and well with him again when he is far enough from it to look back on it and see it as a whole. But these people have got into an intermediate state, have fallen into an intervening valley from which they can see neither the heights beyond them nor the heights behind. They cannot get out of the penumbra of Christian controversy. They cannot be Christians and they can not leave off being Anti-Christians. Their whole atmosphere is the atmosphere of a reaction: sulks, perversity, petty criticism. They still live in the shadow of the faith and have lost the light of the faith.”

 

It is popular to refer to the “post-Christian West,” especially when referring to contemporary Europe, where church attendance rates are low and hostility towards Christianity, especially Catholicism, is rampant. For Chesterton, there is no truly “secular” society, and “post-Christian” is a misnomer, since all of society has been baptized by the light of Christ.  There are only apostate sections of society, and no matter how hard certain aspects of society may try, they can never entirely cease being Christian.  This raises intriguing questions.  How are all of society’s institutions, ideologies, and aspects influenced by Christian doctrine and tradition?  As The Everlasting Man illustrates, the answers are sometimes subtle and sometimes dramatic, but always inspiring.

 

Another popular maxim that Chesterton contends is erroneous is the belief that there is an inherent and irrevocable gulf between reason and religion.  Nothing could be further from the truth, he argues, since it was the great intellectual traditions of Christianity that shaped the minds of Western Civilization and upheld the use of reason. In his closing paragraphs, Chesterton writes:

 

“If it were an error, it seems as if the error could hardly have lasted a day. If it were a mere ecstasy, it would seem that such an ecstasy could not endure for an hour. It has endured for nearly two thousand years; and the world within it has been more lucid, more level-headed, more reasonable in its hopes, more healthy in its instincts, more humorous and cheerful in the face of fate and death, than all the world outside. For it was the soul of Christendom that came forth from the incredible Christ; and the soul of it was common sense.”

 

The book is divided into two main sections, the first titled “On the Creature Called Man,” the second named “On the Man Called Christ.”  In the first half, Chesterton summarizes the whole of human civilization, and contends that contrary to what many pundits have contended, there is indeed something special about the human race.  In the second half, Chesterton presents an abridged history of the Christian millennia, and assails the commentators who insist that Christianity is nothing more than one of dozens of mythological and moral systems that weak-minded people cling to out of a fear of the bleak random meaningless of a godless universe.  Out of all the religions on Earth, Chesterton claims, Christianity is special, and furthermore, of all the characters that have played a part in the human story, Jesus Christ is far and away the most important.

 

Much of this review has been devoted to explaining how The Everlasting Man could affect the heart and mind of a man like C.S. Lewis, but what of the other double-initialed author who provoked a literary response from Chesterton?  Chesterton produced a generalized history of humanity that contended that every facet of mankind’s existence was influenced the life, love, and teachings of Jesus Christ.  H.G. Wells’ Outline of History, in contrast, argued for materialism and atheistic scientific forces being the main directing agents of humanity.  Wells blithely mocked religion and filled his book with slurs against believers and those who disagreed with his take on history, science, morality, and all other disciplines.

 

Intellectuals who disagreed with Wells did so in dramatically different ways.  Chesterton, as has been stated, wrote his own book in response.  In The Everlasting Man, as well as in all of his other works, Chesterton displayed class and grace towards his ideological foe.  Chesterton disapproved of Wells’ ideas, but he never let his differing opinions spill over into personal animosity.  Chesterton fills The Everlasting Man with counterarguments, not attacks upon the author.  Wells seems to have appreciated Chesterton’s respectful disagreement– the two men remained good friends despite their wildly opposite opinions.

 

One of Chesterton’s dearest friends, Hilaire Belloc, did not maintain such cordial relations with Wells.  Belloc was a staunch Catholic and an unhesitant controversialist, and understandably took umbrage to Wells’s frequent assertions of the irrelevance of religion.  A series of critical essays were rapidly fired off by Belloc, and anthologized under the title A Companion to Mr. Wells’s “Outline of History.”  Belloc did not hesitate to savage Wells’s intellectual integrity.  Wells rebutted with a short collection of essays titled Mr. Belloc Objects, which contained venomous quips about Belloc.  The angry ideological game of ping-pong continued with Belloc’s Mr. Belloc Still Objects.  Chesterton tried to mediate between the two men, but to no avail: Wells and Belloc were never able to bury their personal acrimony.

 

It is therefore a testament to Chesterton’s character that he was able to keep anger and direct attacks out of his work.  The Everlasting Man tries to convince its readers of the value and relevance of Christian doctrine through intellectual arguments, humor, respect, and love.  One may certainly derive a great deal of personal satisfaction from metaphorically grinding one’s intellectual opponent’s face into the dirt, but does that really win many converts?  Not only that, does that earn anyone any friends?

 

Today, the gargantuan Outline of History is largely out of print save for a heavily abridged version.  The Everlasting Man, in contrast, is now available in numerous editions.  Perhaps not very much should be read into this, after all, The Outline of History was such an immense and unwieldy text that it had to published in two volumes.  In addition, many of the scientific assertions that Wells championed have been proven false or fraudulent today, such as Piltdown Man. 

 

One final comment on The Outline of History.  For all his defense of the book, Wells’s authorship has been challenged recently.  A.B. McKillop’s book The Spinster and the Prophet: H.G. Wells, Florence Deeks, and the Case of the Plagiarized Text asserts that Wells basically ripped off his book from the work of an obscure feminist scholar.  Florence Deeks wrote a lengthy history of the world stressing the importance of femininity and sent it to a publisher for consideration.  Much later, the publishers declined to print the book and a surprisingly battered manuscript was sent back to Deeks.  When Deeks read The Outline of History some time afterwards, she realized that the many similarities regarding structure, content, and style (not to mention the errors) were too close to be coincidental.  Her manuscript had essentially been cannibalized to feed Wells’s own work.  A plagiarism lawsuit soon followed, but Wells triumphed and Deeks never received any vindication during her lifetime.  Contemporary scholarship, however, has not been kind to Wells.

 

At the risk of sounding puckish, Chesterton has never been accused of plagiarizing his work.  Indeed, The Everlasting Man provides such an original defense of Christianity and its legacy that one wonders how many more Christian writers (à la C.S. Lewis) that it will inspire.

 

–Chris Chan