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Entry: The Gospel of Hope Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_gospel_of_hope#10643 Post contents: I don't think it's inappropriate to interpret the encyclical - especially section 10 (Eternal Life - What is it?) - as a kind of response to atheism. Benedict has constantly gone out of his way to remind us of the way in which Christians can "appear" today, especially to unbelievers. In an October weekly audience he talked of living out the faith without "playing a role" like a clown, an image he used before in the very beginning of his "Introduction to Christianity." In that book he also went even further: "If he who seeks to preach the faith is sufficiently self-critical, he will soon notice that it is not only a question of form, of the kind of dress in which theology enters upon the scene. In the strangeness of theology's aims to the men of our time, he who takes his calling seriously will clearly recognize not only the difficulty of the task of interpretation but also the insecurity of his own faith, the oppressive power of unbelief in the midst of his own will to believe" (41). I wonder why that theme doesn't really rate on John Allen's list, which places - in my opinion - way too much emphasis on politics. But he does mention it further down: "Ratzinger has long pressed the need to re-present basic concepts of the faith to a modern world he regards as jaded by a sort of weary familiarity with Christianity." That, along with the emphasis on "learned ignorance" is "vintage Ratzinger" for a reason. Clearly the letter is explicitly about, as Scott says, the way Christians have "bought into the gospel of progress," but that also can (and obviously will in the media) function as a critique of contemporary atheism. Section 10 could be read as a direct response to some of Hitchens' more polemical arguments about eternity. It's a fruitful coincidence. Sent at: 2008 07 24