https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3849-8986
As someone interested in the relationship between music and faith, I was attracted to this book by its subtitle. I suspected, however, that music and dance would simply be used as metaphors, and that this would form the basis of my critique – not enough attention to the embodied practices of music and dance and their significance for the life of faith today. When I saw that Charles Taylor and Karl Rahner were the major influences on Merkle’s study, I suspected that my prejudices would be confirmed. That judgement was too hasty. It is true that, apart from a brief reference to the emergence of modern dance (75), there is not much here about actual music-making or dancing; but this is very much a work of pastoral theology in the spirit of Rahner, and hence of interest to practical theologians. And there is an attention to embodied practices in the form of some sustained reflection on ascetism in modern life that draws on Merkle’s religious life as a Sister of Notre Dame of Namur.
In the first part of the book, however, it is not Merkle’s religious life, but her academic work that is to the fore. Merkle is Professor of Religious Studies at Niagara University with a particular interest in the relationship between church and culture. Her skill in navigating this territory is amply displayed in her clear and insightful reading of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. Not only is she a helpful guide to Taylor’s work – the extensive history of ideas elements as well as some of the key concepts – but she has a distinct ability to use this to speak about the nature of a life of faith in the contemporary world. What makes this a significant work of pastoral theology, is that she seeks to articulate a theology of Christian discipleship, and a corresponding ecclesiology, inductively from the experience of faith as she has understood it from her engagement with Taylor and others (Hans Joas is another prominent voice). To this end, faced with the contingency of belief in a secular age, Merkle asks what sort of religion modern believers might ‘not want to erase’ (92ff) – a phrase drawing on the subtraction theory of secularisation.
In the second part of the book, Merkle offers a sustained response to this question by providing a theological account of human flourishing before drawing on her knowledge of ascetism as a Catholic religious sister. This is done in an ongoing dialogue with Taylor’s analysis, but with Rahner now coming to prominence as a key dialogue partner. A brief history of asceticism and its transformations leads to recognition of the need for a new asceticism for the contemporary time (141 et passim). What is articulated here is an asceticism which is for all, and not just for an elite, and one that contributes to embodied human flourishing in human communities. It is this, she argues, that can equip the contemporary disciple to live effectively in the world as she has analysed it through Taylor’s lens. Merkle develops this positive vision by means of the beatitudes and this is where the musical metaphor comes into its own. The new asceticism is not just a set of external practices, but is grounded in the blessedness of God, which ‘is the music that calls forth the dance of discipleship’, with the beatitudes offering ‘key notes of what this music consists’ (159). This is the ‘dancing to silent music’ of the subtitle, but if that suggests an image of Christian discipleship as some sort of private activity in isolation from others with whom Christians share life in a secular age, nothing could be further from Merkle’s intention. Quoting Taylor on the ‘felt dissatisfaction at this immanent order’ which ‘motivates not only new forms of religion, but also different readings of immanence’, she sees ‘[t]hose who search for transcendence within an immanent frame’ as contributing to this wider quest (174). The public significance of the Church is explored further in a later section (205).
The ecclesiological dimensions of Merkle’s proposal are developed in response to Taylor’s account of the eclipse – within the immanent frame – of four perspectives that are key to the life of the church as music-maker (179): the eclipse of a higher good, grace, mystery, and final destiny. The ways in which the church expresses that which has been eclipsed is key to its mission, making known an alternative to the exclusive humanism (Taylor’s term) that has become such a prominent feature of the contemporary Western world. This leads to a thoughtful discussion of the ‘spiritual, but not religious’ (192ff), with a distinction being made between seekers and dwellers to reflect on the significance of community and the need for a better relationship between faith and humanism. This is the context in which an ecclesiology must be articulated, one that is rooted in the particulars of our situation.
This is a significant contribution to thinking about what it means to live as a person of Christian faith in the contemporary world as understood through Taylor’s insightful and influential analysis. It is one that I can imagine revisiting in particular for its helpful reading of Taylor, and for its valuable exploration of the significance of a new asceticism that takes a positive view of embodied existence. Whilst it is written from a clear Catholic position, to this reader at least, it was easily translatable to other forms of Christian life, even though some may prefer a more radical response to living amid the cross-pressures. I would still have liked more on how actual practices of music-making and dance might contribute to understandings of contemporary discipleship; but this is an insightful and theologically rich engagement with an ascetical response to living amid the cross-pressures of the secular age we inhabit.