Wednesday, August 16, 2023

It is the 16th of August, 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

There is a rule here on the program- if you are a major contributor to the life of the church AND you appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, you get your own show. We’ve done C.S. Lewis and Karl Barth, and today, on the anniversary of his death on this day in 1967, we remember a man who, I believe, to be the most important American Catholic in the 20th century. He was John Courtney Murray. We throw his middle name in there not only because there have been dozens of famous “John Murrays” but because there is also a giant in the Reformed tradition in the 20th century called John Murray- so we remember John Courtney Murray.

He was born in New York City in 1904 to a Scottish father and Irish mother, both Catholic. In high school, he acted and debated but took to a religious vocation and joined the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus) at the age of 16 in 1920. He attended Weston College in Massachusetts. He took his MA from Boston College and then taught for three years in the Philippines at a Jesuit school. He then attended the Jesuit school in Woodstock, New York, and was ordained at the age of 28. He would study at the Gregorian University in Rome before becoming a professor of theology at his alma mater, Woodstock, in 1937, where he would stay for the remainder of his life.

While his main academic field began as the study of the Trinity, he soon began to focus on issues of church and state- especially in his American context. For us moderns, it might be hard to imagine the popularity of anti-Catholicism in the first part of the last century. This was on account of centuries of Protestant polemic but also the fact that the Catholic church was largely an immigrant church- the Italians, Irish, and later Hispanic and Mexican immigrants brought the old faith to the New World. And prior to the Second Vatican Council, the services were held in Latin, and many in the church echoed Pope Pius IX’s condemnation of Americanism in the 1890s. That is, many Catholics derided the so-called separation of Church and State. According to Catholic teaching, if a majority of the population were to be Catholic, then the government should formally adopt Catholicism and actively root out public heresy. And, to be fair, this was the historical position going back to Plato- the government and the church working together. It was the Reformation and then the Enlightenment which separated the “kingdoms” or spheres of influence. Into the 20th century, the Catholic Church rejected this. Until John Courtney Murray began, his life was a public intellectual. In the 1950s, he was part of a lively debate on the page of Catholic Journals- arguing what some called the “liberal” position of separation of the church and state. He argued that the context of the world had changed- that pluralism was the rule and not the exception and that the American First Amendment was a stroke of genius: the American government would not establish a religion and, at the same time, would not prohibit the free exercise of religion. In this new age, natural law and consensus would have to rule through people of goodwill. His life’s goal was to help create a consensus amongst Americans, not wall the church up.

At first, he was silenced. The Holy See in Rome and the Jesuit order asked him to cease writing on the subject. He stopped writing publicly but continued to research and teach. And then, by the late 50s, the winds began to change. Murray would publish his “We Hold These Truths,” which became a best seller amongst Catholic and political philosophers. When John F. Kennedy ran for president, Murray was given Kennedy’s speech on the separation between the Vatican and the White House. By the time of the second Vatican Council, he was popular enough (although not without opponents) to attend the session of Religious Freedom, and he himself drafted early editions of its statement “Dignitatis Humanae,” a formal acceptance of the doctrine of religious freedom- this a first in Catholic history. Murray would serve on many ecumenical councils and was called upon by Lyndon B. Johnson to council over the war in Vietnam.

Unfortunately, just after his acceptance into the mainstream and by the Catholic Church, John Courtney Murray died- it was on this the 16th of August in 1967. Born in 1904, he was 62 years old.

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary from Matthew 8:

23 Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. 24 Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

26 He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

27 The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 16th of August 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite “other” John Murray’s include the many footballers, the 1st earl of Tulibardine, and the Australian  Father and Son breeders of Merino sheep- he is  Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose favorite John Murray is easy: the voice actor for Bosko the Doughboy from Looney Tunes in the 1930s- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.