‘Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own?’ (Matthew 7:3-4)

Hans Kung, author of the highly acclaimed ‘On Being a Christian’, is widely regarded as one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. He played an important role in the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which resulted in a new openness in the Catholic Church and a historic dialogue with other Christians and those of other faiths. However, in 1979, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican body tasked with ensuring doctrinal orthodoxy, declared that he had ‘departed from the integral truth of Catholic faith, and therefore he can no longer be considered a Catholic theologian nor function as such in a teaching role’. Along with other things, Kung disagreed with the Vatican’s literal interpretation of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Kung was forced out of the Catholic faculty at his German university (though he continued to teach in the university’s Institute for Ecumenical Research). 

This decision reflects a mindset common in many Christian denominations (including some Evangelical churches in the US), where the main purpose of organised religion can appear to be ‘protecting the faithful from error’. The preoccupation here is on ‘thinking the right things,’ and woe betide anyone who steps out of line. The organisation which represents most Catholic nuns in America has been consistently censured by the Vatican – in 2012 it was accused in a damning Vatican report, of promoting ‘certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith’. One such incompatibility was the persistent questioning of whether the Church needs to retain an all-male priesthood. 

Such a response is about keeping control, it’s the church as ‘thought police’; being right and winning becomes more important than admitting there is ambiguity and uncertainty.

Things have changed a little for Catholics in the papacy of Francis, but there is still an element of defending the faith, like soldiers in a fortress, watching out for those who question and debate too much. Too often, Christian churches have adopted an ‘either-or’ philosophy – you are either right or wrong, either with us or against us. This can result in a slavish devotion to old certainties, protecting the past at all costs rather than creating a future where people feel welcomed and included. Sometimes, the need to ‘keep faith with tradition’ is invoked by those who yearn to keep things just as they have always been. However, Pope Francis pointed out after his 2022 visit to Canada that ‘Tradition is the living faith of the dead… not the dead faith of the living… Tradition is not a piece that belongs in a museum… A church that doesn’t evolve is a church that goes backward.’

St John Henry Newman argued that ‘to live is to change’ and a culture of renewal and openness is vital if Christianity is to win back the hearts of those who have drifted away and those young people who were never really engaged in the first place. Having, maintaining and enforcing a set of correct beliefs about God or the Church just doesn’t work anymore. Not for American nuns, not for anyone.

Instead of embracing uncertainty and allowing healthy debate, Christian churches have often placed dogmatism before an honest acceptance that things are often more grey than black and white. The author of ‘On Being a Christian’ died in 2021, but I think he would agree that being a faithful Christian is not a search for certainty but learning to place our trust in a God who loves us. It is more about being connected than being correct.

Paul Higginson is a retired Religious Education and Politics teacher and author of Doing Christianity: How Religion is about what you do, not what you believe. Before teaching, he worked in a halfway house for people living with schizophrenia and later spent time working with St. Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. He now works part-time as a Schools Inspector. Married with three children, he lives in Hertfordshire, UK.