THE (MAGIC) KINGDOM OF GOD, BY MICHAEL L. BUDDE | BOOK REVIEW.

Reviewed by Thomas Scarborough.

“Whatever power the Catholic Church wields in today’s world is ultimately a reflection of its cultural power.” So writes Michael L. Budde in his book The (Magic) Kingdom of God. He continues: “The Church operates primarily as a cultural actor in the contemporary world”.

It follows, therefore: “How is [the Church] affected by those actors who are most dominant in the exercise of cultural power […] the global, trans-sectoral culture industries”? That is, how does the powerful and all-pervasive media culture impact the culture of the Church?

Budde introduces his subject with a perplexing array of jargon (Polanyanism, neo-Weberianism, Taylorism, and several dizzying terms besides), but the book soon settles down to clarity and conviction about a few key issues.

WHAT IS BUDDE’S DEFINITION OF CULTURE?

Budde continually uses the word “power”, both with reference to the culture of the Church, and to contemporary culture. He uses the word “domination” many times with reference to contemporary culture. He suggests that to act against a prevailing culture may be “heroic, often risky”, and states the need to “resist”. In short, it is a language of power, opposition, and struggle.

Further, in referring to the cultural power of the Catholic Church, and to the “maintenance […] of the Christian community”, it would seem that Budde subscribes to the idea of cultural capital, which is the kind of power by which a social class “maintains its position” (The Fontana Dictionary Of Modern Thought).

With this in mind, it would be important to ascertain how the cultural power of the Church might be distinguished from that which is wielded by today’s “culture industries”.

While Budde disavows the use of “force and indoctrination”, he emphasises the need for “formation” and “making Christians” within the Church. Would this imply inducement, or even coercion? How should one be formed (Lat. forma, shape), or made, except through becoming the object of another’s control, or through a surrender to him who forms? Does this not place Budde on much the same level as those who so dismay him? On what basis should one distinguish between the validity of cultural power in the employ of the Church on the one hand, or in the employ of the culture industries on the other? On what basis should an “alternative reality proposed by Jesus” seem to be more compelling than any other? These issues do not seem to come into focus in the book.

WHAT IS BUDDE’S VIEW OF THE TRANSCENDENT?

By “transcendent”, I refer to the direct influence of God on the Christian, seen apart from cultural or human influences. In this regard, there is what I found to be a humorous interlude in Budde’s book, in Chapter 4.

Budde describes George Lindbeck’s “notion of religion”, with which he broadly aligns himself. This “sees the process of becoming religious as similar to that of acquiring a culture or learning a language”.

He then turns his attention to the “cautions and reservations” of eminent critics of this idea, highlighting six of these in all. “The weakest criticism, ironically”, he states, comes from a critic named Robin Gill. Yet he then goes on to refer to Gill more often than he does to all the other critics put together. This surely is strange. It gives one the impression of a fixated child. What is it that so draws Budde’s attention to Gill?

I can only glean from Budde’s own text what Gill might be advocating. Gill would appear to advocate transcendence. He criticises the “cultural-linguistic approach” (which, simply, we might call the dead letter), and instead offers worship “as the most distinctive feature of Christianity” – suggesting that this may be “a key feature in doctrinal formation”. But Budde rejects this notion, seemingly unable to rise above the view that worship merely expresses “stories, characters, and images”.

Therefore Budde would appear to have little idea of what it might mean to encounter the living God directly, which would seem to be the ultimate answer to the influences of culture, the questions of human control and techniques – in fact to the central concerns of the book.

WHAT IS THE ANTIDOTE TO THE CULTURE INDUSTRY?

Budde argues that “narrative theology” holds the key to countering the negative effects of the culture industry. He quotes John Navone to argue that our lives are shaped by “models, metaphors, stories, and myths”. Since these shape our lives above all, it follows that the solution to the culture industry lies in “embodied religious narratives, learned and internalized through strong ecclesial structures and experiences”. One reservation above all comes to mind:

Bearing in mind the vast and growing impact of the culture industry which Budde outlines in his book (and this is well described), this would seem to overshadow any impact that spiritual formation might hope to have. As one example, he states that just 3% of parish-registered Roman Catholics in the U.S.A. devote one hour of their time to the Church each day, and that Catholics on average may spend “three and four times as much time” before the television set – not to mention other media, which could easily double this figure.

It would therefore seem, in Budde’s analysis, that if many millions of Roman Catholics could be induced to reduce their television viewing by half, they would still be vastly more influenced by the “culture industries” than by the Church.

Budde would appear to have made his own argument for the inevitable failure of his stratagem, and any attempt to downplay the reality of the situation would appear to be misplaced. In the words of his publishers, he (merely, in my view) replaces “religious education” with “lay formation”. I cannot see how this should offer anything significantly new.

SYNTHESIS.

How does the powerful and all-pervasive media culture impact the culture of the Church? Budde’s answer is a decidedly negative one, if not alarmist.

He states that the Church’s capacity to bring its concerns into contact with the world “may well dissolve under the corrosive effects of the cultural ecology now emerging”, and that “the capacity of the church to survive as a movement committed to a distinctive vision and practice rooted in Christ” is threatened. That is, in a worst case, the Church as Church may “dissolve”, and may not “survive”.

Yet Budde fails to present a convincing answer to this, except to suggest redoubled efforts of spiritual formation, with “initiation, instruction, and imitation as requisites” – with all that this might imply for disillusionment in the priesthood, questions of control and manipulation, and continuing failure to shore up the cultural power of the Church.

He again comes tantalisingly close to the light in a reference to Robert Webber and Rodney Clapp, in which they state that transformation occurs “when the church is determined foremost simply to worship God”. Yet all that Budde sees in this is a “paradox”, and again that “liturgical practices” shape attitudes and language.

CITATION OF REFERENCES.

Budde, Michael L. The (Magic) Kingdom of God. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8133-3076-9.

Bullock, Alan; Stallybrass, Oliver; & Trombley, Stephen (Editors). The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. Hammersmith, London: Fontana Press, 1988.

Rev. Thomas Scarborough is the minister of an Evangelical Congregational Church in Cape Town, South Africa. During the course of a Master’s degree through Fuller Theological Seminary, he needs to read and reflect on some 100 books – hence this review!