Dr. Peter Kreeft stood before an audience so large it threatened to
cause Franciscan University’s Christ the King Chapel to burst at the
seams.
Kreeft’s November 17 lecture, “How to Win the Culture War: A
Christian Battle Plan for a Society in Crisis,” drew hundreds of
Franciscan students, faculty, and guests to hear the Boston College
philosophy professor—who has published over 63 books—speak on the fate
of the Church.
Kreeft used a seven-letter acronym, PHONEYS, to highlight society’s
biggest problems—Politicization, Happy talk, Organizationalism,
Neoworship, Egalitarianism, Yuppiedom, and Spirituality. With deadpan
humor and a collection of “Kreeft-isms,” he explained the challenges
they present to the Church.
Beginning with politicization, Kreeft described the tendency
Americans have to confuse politics for religion. He drew awareness to
the trend of defining oneself by politics instead of religion, saying,
“We have persuaded many of them to judge their faith by the standard of
‘political correctness’ rather than vice versa.”
Kreeft’s principle of happy talk raised the ante on the average
ignorance-is-bliss mentality. He pointed out that Catholics must first
return to being Catholic, and correct their own practices before
projecting to non-Catholics. “Catholics abort, contracept, sodomize,
fornicate, divorce, and sexually abuse,” he said, “at almost exactly the
same rate as non-Catholics. Amid this devastation, keep them happy
talking. Keep them saying ‘Peace, Peace,’ when there is no peace." He
wants Catholics to take responsibility for their behavior, make a
conscious effort to change it, and to acknowledge that blame can't be
placed entirely on the secular world.
Kreeft also stated that Catholics suffer from organizationalism,
causing them to regard everything—including the Church—as business
ventures. This is especially bad, he noted, because people have lost
sight of the role of the Church, and instead focused on the goals of
business. “They must worship success, not sanctity," he said, "and fear
failure, not sin."
Describing society's misguided translation of egalitarianism, Kreeft
pointed out that “sexism” has persuaded men and women to perceive each
other as equal, when they should instead be considered beautifully
inferior to each other. He believes in the importance of regarding men
and women as separate and unequal, and in acknowledging the positive
impact of the differences that define each. According to Kreeft,
society's deterioration of egalitarianism fosters “the difference
between the beauty of black and the beauty of white reduced to a boring
grey.”
Regarding his final topic—yuppiedom—Kreeft described a generation
that prides itself on not being prideful, saying, “Let them feel
superior about not feeling superior, judgmental about not being
judgmental.”
During the question-and-answer portion of the evening, Kreeft told
of the time he took a Muslim student to Mass; the student later asked
Kreeft questions about what he had seen. A discussion about the
Eucharist—a concept the Catholic educator assumed his Muslim pupil
wouldn’t comprehend—became an eye-opening situation when the student’s
repeated question, "Do you really believe that the wafer is the body of
your God?" led Kreeft to say, “Yes, I really believe that I am consuming
the body of Christ. Do you find that impossible to understand?”
Kreeft was left in awe by the Muslim’s response: His struggle was
not in comprehending that Catholics thought they were ingesting God. An
understanding of how they didn’t fall to their knees, unable to return
to their feet after receiving communion, however, eluded him.
Ending his lecture with a short phrase that holds the potential to
defeat the culture war, Kreeft said, “Simply put, be real. Don’t be a
PHONEY. Be a saint.”
