Perspectief 2016-34

Perspectief 18 Prof. dr. Gabriel Monet Towards de-cognition of recognition For decades now, the ecumenical movement has been mainly led by church leaders and theologians by means of theological declarations. In other words, the wished recognition is intended by the head, with the head. I am far from saying that this was not necessary and useful, and it still is, but the de-cognition of recognition is linked to ascertain some of the limits of this approach. Hopefully, it also enables the arising of new initiatives that may come about through common Christians or local church leaders and more and more with the heart and the hands, not only with the head. This “not-only-cognitive” approach to recognition is anchored in the evolution of society. We can mention that we moved from modernity to postmodernity, which brought the end of metanarratives, as Jean-François Lyotard states it 1 . Modernity was characterized by the primacy of rationality whereas postmodernity at least partially advocated its overstepping. We moved from literacy to digital orality. From the beginning on, the world was shaped by orality. Since the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the invention of printing, we entered a world with the primacy of literacy, but in our times, we discover a new era which is characterized by digital orality. It has not abandoned the writing, but the vectors of communication are now a set of digitized elements: words, sounds, images... We could also mention the fact that today, people are not anymore primarily looking for what is true, but for what works. This soaring of pragmatism leads to the valorization of experience over rationalized agreements. A lot more could be said but what we can observed in society concerns also the Church. In the ecclesial context we should also make two preliminary remarks. First, the de- cognition of recognition in an ecclesial context is nourished by the growing fluidity of frontiers and the inner diversity of churches. This can be linked to hot topics such as women’s ordination, the view of homosexuality, or more basically many subjects of which single people or different groups take the freedom to affirm and live according to personal views, that are not necessarily in phase with the authority or the official discourse. There is a cohabitation of different currents. It is not new but it seems to me a growing reality. This 1 Jean-François Lyotard, La condition postmoderne. Rapport sur le savoir (Paris: Minuit, 1979).