Dumbing Down The Vocabulary Of Faith

 I learned the phrase, “dumbing down” from one of the editors at a British publishing company Blackwell Scientific Publishing Company. Richard understood my goal to produce a textbook which challenged and would provide a breadth of physiology and pathophysiology not available in competing texts. But, he warned me, the culture was dumbing down. It was the mid-eighties, and the majority of readers wanted simpler, easier sources. The vocabulary of faith is like that. In the interest of making the Catholic faith accessible to laypeople- children and converts, it is has been distilled to something unrecognizable.

A convert to Catholicism, I learned the fundamentals of our religion at a Benedictine Monastery in Still River, Massachusetts, St. Benedict’s Abbey. I read five textbooks that summer, each of which was a tough read and required intense concentration. But this was familiar territory, and it was fun. The following is excerpted from a recent publication of mine:

“Fun. Really? Reading a textbook from the 1940s based on St. Thomas Aquinas’ writings is fun? My ‘yes’ is unqualified, unconditional. Can you imagine finding something you have been looking for most of your life? A something you could not describe even to yourself but once you found it, you knew? And even better, a teacher to guide you, answer your questions, one on the same path as you? In his delightful book, Mere Christianity, C.S Lewis explains eloquently exactly the way I felt:

‘Everyone has warned me not to tell you what I am going to tell you in this last book. They all say “the ordinary reader does not want Theology; give him plain practical religion.” I have rejected their advice. I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool. Theology means “the science of God,” and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available. You are not children: why should you be treated like children? In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology.

I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the RA.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, “I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!” Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper.

But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.

Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God— experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion— all about feeling God in nature, and so on— is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music.

When a nun at the local parish where my husband and I were attending church suggested that I join the RCIA, I agreed readily, Sister Rita had heard that I had become a Catholic at the monastery and felt I would benefit from the curriculum of the Church. I was a sponge and wanted to learn all I could as quickly as possible. But the weekly classes were aimed at an elementary school level. The content of the entire course devoid of the depth and profund wisdom of those spiritual giants whom I had been introduced to. There were close to twenty adults in that class and I felt sorrow for what these people were missing. Because I learned that Sister Rita had been an elementary school teacher, I assumed that my experience was unique to that particular church in Connecticut during the late nineties. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Over the years, I have talked with a number of people whose experience with RCIA was similar to mine. One person used the word inane to describe the content of the class she joined in Pennsylvania.

The process of religious conversion in and of itself causes the convert to stop. That cessation of motion in the direction of his life has tremendous consequence. Everything that was believed before feels upside down, the openness to learning is unprecedented, perhaps never to be felt like that again.

He or she now has a yearning which is begging to be fed by the thoughts of men and women who have walked the same path: St. Teresa of Avila, St. Benedict, St. Catherine of Sienna, Thomas Aquinas. These are, of course, only a few of the almost infinite repositry of writings. Dumbing down the initiation process to one which excludes Thomistic doctrine on the will, soul, intellect seems almost profane. Perhaps if the initiation classes were composed of meaty, intellectually rigorous material, there would be people lining up to help others experience the mystery and majesty of this faith we call Catholicism. What better way is there to learn but to teach?