Shepherds for the Whole World

"And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John 5:19).

"Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, makes himself an enemy of God" (Jas. 4:4).

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world" (Jas. 1:27).

"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Eph. 6:12).

"We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God" (1 Cor. 2:12).

"Woe unto the world because of offences! For it is necessary that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence comes!" (Matt. 18:7)

"Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" (1 Cor. 6:2)

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives do I give you" (John 14:27).

"Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the pagans seek...But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" (Matt. 6:31-33).

"Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither does it know him" (John 14:17).

"For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world" (2 Tim. 4:10).

"I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me" (John 17:9).

"The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Cor. 3:19).

"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 John 2:16).

"Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you" (1 John 3:13).

"But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world" (1 Cor. 11:32).

"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14).

"For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome , the latter end is worse with them than the beginning" (2 Pet. 2:20).

"They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world hears them" (1 John 4:5).

"Be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom. 12:12).

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, That you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be sorrowful , but your sorrow shall be turned into joy" (John 16:20).

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15).

"For what does it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt. 16:26)

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The list of Bible verses above is just a sampling of those that deal with the Christian's relationship with that entity known as "the world". The world is a very interesting term in the New Testament. It appears throughout the New Testament, but especially in the writings of St. John, where it is used a total of 105 times in 78 verses. 

The word can mean various things. Sometimes it simply means the sum total of things here and now; i.e., the universe, as in Revelation 13:8, "And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world." Sometimes it means the world as the physical location of humanity, or simply in contrast with heaven, such as in John 3:17, "For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him." Sometimes "the world" is synonymous with humanity, as in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world." 

But the majority of uses of "the world" in the New Testament refer to the world as the system of human existence under its various aspects: as a place of earthly joys and passions, and especially as a system that is hostile to God. In this sense, the world is something that is in opposition to God and His kingdom, as in John 8:23, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world." Over 50% of all uses to the word "world" (κόσμος, "kosmos") in the writings of John use this adversarial language; this percentage increases when we take into account similar uses of κόσμος, by St. Paul ("Hath God not made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world, by wisdom, knew not God" ~1 Cor. 1:20-21).

Thus, although there is certainly some nuance in the word, we are safe in suggesting that the primary usage of the phrase "the world" in the New Testament is in reference to the entire earthly system of opposition to God under all its aspects, the "City of Man" of St. Augustine, whose head is ultimately the devil (cf. Luke 4:5-6. 1 John 5:19). Because the head of this system is the devil - and because there is no concord between the Kingdom of Christ and the Kingdom of the Devil (2 Cor. 6:15) - it is clear that the New Testament posits a relationship of fundamental and irreconcilable hostility between the Church and the world. Hence St. James can say, "do you not know that the friendship of this world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, makes himself an enemy of God" (Jas. 4:4).

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Of course there is a popular saying, long hallowed in Christian tradition, that believers are to be "in the world but not of the world." This formula, "in but not of", is seen as a way to resolve the tension between the Christian's call to love the people of the world whilst simultaneously refusing to become "part" of the world. It is often invoked as an admonishment to those Christians who no longer wish to engage the corrupt culture but merely withdraw from it. "The Bible says we are to be in the world but not of it. Disengagement is not an option."

You may surprised to learn that this phrase "in the world but not of the world" never appears in the New Testament. It seems to be based loosely on John 17:14-15, where Jesus prays,"I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil." Here Jesus specifically teaches that we are "not of the world", and that though we must remain physically present in it, He prays that God would keep us from its evil. In other words, Jesus never says by way of command that we are to be engaged in the world; He merely says that since we must be physically present in the world by necessity, God should keep us from the world's evil, which is quite a different shade of meaning than that conveyed by "in but not of."

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The goal of the Christian life if holiness. Yet what is holiness? What does it meant to be holy? We understand that we are called to be loving, forgiving, etc. But what does it mean to be "holy"? Is holiness a mere sum of all other natural and supernatural virtues? And what about God? God is love, power, forgiveness, justice and so on. But what does it mean when the angels cry that God is "holy, holy, holy?"

The fundamental definition of holiness is separation. The Latin word for holiness is sanctitas, from whence sanctity. Holiness denotes separation or consecration unto God. When the angels cry "holy, holy, holy" it is because God is so far separate and distinct from all created things that awe is the only appropriate response in his presence. "Between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them", the Fourth Lateran Council taught (cap. 3, "On Heretics"). St. Thomas defines holiness as a firm separation of created things which are translated from profane use to use in the service of God (STh II-II Q. 81 art. 8). This is why Holy Water, Holy Cards, Holy Candles, Holy Oil, etc. have the adjective "holy" - once they are consecrated, they are "set apart" for divine worship exclusively. To use Holy Oil for cooking for Holy Water for common washing would be sacrilegious. Their consecration is what makes them "holy", and hence set apart for divine use exclusively.

Of course, a person is holy in a different sense than an object, but the fundamental reality that holiness means separation remains. A man with Holy Orders is set apart for the service of God. A holy person is one whose life is separated from worldly concerns and activities and who already lives, even in the flesh, in contemplation of heavenly things. Holiness is separation; separation from worldly uses and a setting apart unto God, "who is above all, through all, and in all" (Eph. 4:6).

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With the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church adopted a posture of "openness" to the world. Pope John XXIII harbored great hopes for a kind of reconciliation between the Church and the world that would lead to the mutual building up of both; what he called a "new order of human relations", while also condemning those "prophets of gloom" who only saw the modern world in a negative light. This led to a massive paradigm shift in the post-Conciliar Church, a pivot towards the world. It matters not whether the Council documents ever called for this pivot; the essential weakness of the conservative response to the Council has been a narrow focus on the Council documents' language and a failure to comprehend the Council as an event (see, USC, "Book Review: Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story", Aug. 2013). The pivot happened and it must be acknowledged as a fact.

The result of this pivot was a blurring of distinction between the Church and world, between merely natural goods and supernatural goods. Worldly concerns seemed to be become the Church's concerns. It started innocently enough with "world peace," but then moved on to all sorts of other issues, occupying bigger and bigger parts of the Church's canvas until the Church appeared as little more than an NGO concerned with worldly problems like climate change and youth unemployment. Not that the Church has no concern with temporal evils that offend God; but as the Church shifted its focus more and more towards merely natural goods, it began to address them with increasingly little reference to man's supernatural ends.

The results were a spiritually deadening and embarrassingly banal Church that gives us such gems as "Driver's Ten Commandments", documents about immigration reform, and of course, encyclicals on global warming.

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This is all very shady territory, of course, because there can always be an argument made that these are all issues of profound concern to Christians. There is often an ambiguity in these sorts of pronouncements; what one gets out of them largely depends on what one reads into them. We are talking about mood and emphasis, not doctrine. I remember a Protestant friend of mine, upon hearing of some new papal gesture for world peace, said, "It's weird...it's like he's trying to be the pope of the world or something." And that was under the pontificate of Benedict! Needless to say he is not very impressed with Pope Francis; there is no discernible "Francis Effect" on him, at least not in the positive sense.

Perhaps this all expresses the tension in modern Catholicism - once one has opened up to the world, what is the overlap between one's duties to the Church and to the world? What happens when they are in contradiction? Can they be in contradiction? In traditional Catholicism the answer was clear: the Church and the world were in a fundamental state of opposition. But once we have pivoted towards the world, what now?

Case in point: Consider Pope Benedict XVI's recent letter in which the Pope Emeritus states that the Church's pastors should be "shepherds for the whole world." Benedict wrote:

"The service of a shepherd cannot be only limited only to the Church [even though] in the first place, we are entrusted with the care of the faithful and of those who are directly seeking faith. [The Church] is part of the world, and therefore it can properly play its service only if it takes care of the world in its entirety.”

What is a Catholic to make of these words? It is certainly true, in one sense, that since the mission of Christ was to redeem the whole human race, the Church can never concern herself solely with matters entirely internal. She must always be considering her mission ad gentes; God wills all men to be saved, and so we must labor for all men to be so.

This is nothing new. But is that the sense in which Benedict means it? He goes on to say that the Church "must be involved in the efforts that humanity and society put into action" to address "the questions of our times."

The fundamental question is this: Is he envisioning the Church reaching out to make the world think about heavenly things, or the Church focusing more of its attention on worldly things? Does he want the Church to call the world to remember man's supernatural ends, or is he proposing the Church help to world attain its merely natural ends? Is this a call of the world to the Church or a capitulation of the Church to the world? The problem is both philosophies can be read into Benedict's words, depending on one's predisposition.

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The Church has come a long way in its relation with the world. From a New Testament relation of essential opposition, to the modern zeitgeist of positivity and openness to the developments of the world. The tendency in the modern age is for the things going on in the world to be accepted by the Church. This certainly didn't begin with Vatican II; I personally think it began back when the Church began acclimating itself to the credit economy by mitigating its condemnations of usury (see USC, "Usury and Love of Money").

The Church must always engage the world with an aim of bringing men from the City of Man to the City of God; but this translation of one city to the other happens on the Church's terms, not the world's. We "become all things to all men that by all means we might save some" (1 Cor. 9:22); we go out into the highways and byways to all. But we go out into the highways so that we might bring the lost into the feast; we do not go into the highways that we might join the lost wandering around outside. This is what so many Christians are missing, because like a kid who wants to be 'cool' and is embarrassed by his parents, Christians are ashamed to bring the lost to their Father's house.

In other words, finding it increasingly too difficult to break with the world to become truly Christian, the Christian people have simply decided to become one with the world and call it Christian. Rather than seek holiness by separating from worldly thoughts and behaviors, they have chosen to wallow in their worldliness and call it the 'universal call to holiness.' And as long as this is the reality, protestations against creeping worldliness will go unheeded, the worldiness of anthropocentric ecclesiastical policies will not even be recognized let alone corrected, and those who seek to pursue a true separation from the world in the classical Christian sense will ironically be accused of escapism and failure of Christian charity.

"When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" ~Luke 18:8