Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Reviewed by: Thomas Merton and the Individual Witness: Kingdom Making in a Post-Christian, Post-Truth World by David E. Orberson Patrick F. O'Connell Thomas Merton and the Individual Witness: Kingdom Making in a Post-Christian, Post-Truth World by David E. Orberson (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2022. Pp. ix, 128. Paperback, 21. 00. ISBN 978-1-5326-7648-2). David Orberson, author of a well-received earlier work entitled Thomas Merton: Evil and Why We Suffer (2018), turns his attention in this new volume to a consideration of Merton's ongoing significance for the current cultural, political and religious environment. Without trying to recruit the famous monk as a posthumous participant in today's ideological conflicts, Orberson presents him as prescient about the direction in which society was heading during his final years, the turbulent sixties, and as someone who tried to articulate and to live commitments to the Christian gospel that are at once perennial and of particular importance for our own time. The clearly organized discussion can be divided into three segments of roughly equal length. After a brief introduction (1–4), the first two chapters provide a panoramic overview of what the subtitle calls "a Post-Christian, Post-Truth World. " The opening chapter, "Where Are We and How Did We Get There? " (5–29), surveys "notable recent developments" (5) in the field of organized religion by summarizing studies on the historical process of the fragmentation of Christian unity since the middle ages; the rise of "nones" who identify with no religious institution; the critique of the "new atheists" who attack organized religion as not only illusory but harmful; the popularity of megachurches catering to the disaffected by providing a familiar, comfortable milieu for worship; and the "moralistic therapeutic deism" (28) characterizing the belief system of many contemporary young people. This chapter is paired with a briefer look at the wider "Post-Truth" culture (30–40) that prioritizes subjective opinion over objective evidence, often distrusts judgments based on professional expertise and favors the "alternative facts" of one's own ideological group, reinforced by selective social media, thus leading to an era marked by widespread skepticism and increasing fanaticism. Orberson concludes this chapter by proposing that "Merton can serve as a valuable role model" in the effort "to seek out and affirm the truth. . . and can also help us take on other challenges found in our post-Christian and post-truth world" (40). The lengthy central chapter, "Why Merton? (41–73), provides a condensed but detailed biographical portrait of Merton in order to End Page 114 explain, especially to those unfamiliar with him, his stature as "one of the most influential Catholic writers of the twentieth century" (41) and to suggest why and how his "life and writings can serve as a model for Christians to live in the world today, " a world in which the influence of the institutional church has radically diminished so that, in Merton's own words, "radically new forms" will be needed "in which the purity of the individual witness will take precedence over everything else" (73). The two final chapters, "Merton and the Individual Witness, Parts I and II, " then develop in detail a five-point program of action based on Merton's own mature spirituality, first outlined in the introduction: "1. Don't retreat from the world—be an active part of it; 2. Be a part of a faith community; 3. Join in the suffering of others to work for change; 4. Work for peace; 5. Seek and affirm the truth wherever it is found" (4). The first three of these points are discussed in chapter 4 (74–94), the remaining two in the final chapter (95–117). Given the briefness of the text, probably due at least partly to a desire to attract a broad audience, particularly of readers less familiar with Merton, it is not surprising that it is more suggestive and illustrative than comprehensive or definitive, nor that certain aspects could have been developed in greater detail. For example, the passage containing the phrase "individual witness" (73), appropriately quoted at the conclusion of chapter 3, could do with some further elaboration, such as a comparison with Merton. . .
Patrick F. O’Connell (Fri,) studied this question.