Five Non-Catholic Heroes of the 20th Century

Last updated on: October 28, 2009 at 7:10 am by Henry Karlson

Five Non-Catholic Heroes of the 20th Century 2009-10-28T07:10:10-05:00 Henry Karlson

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One of the things I like to highlight are the ideas, issues, and people which often get overlooked by the general Catholic public, and bring them into the open as a means to address contemporary issues. In this piece here I want to bring out here are the five non-Catholic people who lived in the 20th century and have influenced me the most. I believe if more people came to know them as I do, studied their works or lives, and followed through with the insights they offered, the world would be a better place.

The first is Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890 – 1988). He is the man, more than any other, I think the modern world needs to get to know. He was a Pashtun, a Muslim reformer, and a life-long peace activist who worked with, and was close friends with, Gandhi. He was a man of principle – there are few who have ever been as principled as he. He believed in God (Allah), and the teachings of Islam, but he believed Islam had been corrupted through the centuries, through all kinds of cultural assimilation which led to a misunderstanding of the message and work of Mohammad. He believed that women were mistreated and whose voice had been wrongly ignored by Islam (he rejected the need for the veil, and his daughter was an active, vocal member of his movement, the Khudai Khidmatgar, the Servants of God). Just as important as his struggle for women’s rights, he thought that the struggle that Muslims faced under British rule was a struggle that could only be met by a peaceful means of resistance. He knew his people, and their warlike ways, but he believed that Islam could only properly be promoted through peace, and anything else was an abandonment of the principles of Allah. For this reason he led a large number of Pashtuns to work with Gandhi, whom he thought was doing the will and work of God. Because of his work, he was eventually given the rare privilege of being granted the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest honor, while not being a citizen of India. He was upset about the partition and division which happened between Pakistan and India, and indeed, he found himself protesting many of the policies of Pakistan. For over fifty years of his life he found himself either in exile or in prison, first by the British, and later by Pakistanis (because they did not like his stands, not only in relation to India, but also as to his vision of an Islamic state). From his experiences in jail, he said that the British treated him more humanely than his fellow Muslims, indicative of the kind of reform he thought needed in Islam.

The second is Pavel Florensky (1882 – 1937). Florensky possessed one of the greatest intellects of the twentieth century. He was a Russian Orthodox priest who was also a scientist (electrical engineering and physics), a mathematician, a linguist, a philosopher, and an artist. Many people who met him thought of him as the Russian Leonardo da Vinci. He was a true polymath, and respected so much for his scientific abilities, that he was given (for a time) more leeway in Lenin’s Russia than any other Orthodox priest: he taught the sciences in Moscow, even after the revolution, in his priestly garb; he could do so for quite some time because his mind and intellect was needed to help modernize Russia (he helped establish its modern infrastructure). Once the communists thought his use was over, however, he was sent into the gulags, and eventually executed with the false charge of espionage (a charge which communist officials in Russia would later admit was erroneous). Because of this, some consider him a martyr, but because he was a “liberal” in his day (by Orthodox standards), others contest his status as a saint. ROCOR initially granted him sainthood, but then has backtracked somewhat on this because of his status as a Sophiologist. I personally have no doubt of his sainthood. His work, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, is one of the most beautiful, marvelous pieces of theology I’ve ever read, and whenever I find myself depressed, it is one of the works I turn to for spiritual comfort.

After Pavel Florensky, we come to the third hero of mine, Sergius Bulgakov (1871 – 1944). Bulgakov, like Florensky, is controversial in Orthodox circles because of his Sophiological speculations as well as for his ecumenical activity. Like Florensky, he is recognized as being a genius, and indeed, one of the most influential Russian Orthodox theologians of the 20th century. Bulgakov’s history is interesting, and quite significant: he was born into a “priestly family,” and so was expected to carry on the family tradition and become a priest as well. When he himself went to seminary, he lost faith and became a Marxist. He studied economics for many years, and became a leading Marxist theorist (though of a moderate kind). His academic studies, however, led him to see failings in Marxist economics. While he thought some of the desires for Marx might have been valid, his conclusions were not. From his studies, he was to see Marx’s failings as twofold: one, Marx’s misunderstanding of what science could produce and would produce, the second was Marx’s materialism, which Bulgakov was to see as being fundamentally religious. He turned to philosophy, to German Idealism, and, through much work and exploration of idealism, he found himself slowly being brought back to the Orthodox faith of his youth. During this time, he was an influential intellectual, trying to shape the Russian political landscape; he was associated with a ground of people who wrote the work, Landmarks, the criticized the ideals and methods of the 1905 revolution. Once he reverted to Orthodoxy, he was already an influential figure in Russia, and he became one of many who helped re-establish the Moscow Patriarchate in 1917. From all that work for the Church, he was eventually to become that priest he was meant to be, and indeed, to become a major theologian. His political role did not go without notice; because he contradicted Lenin, he was sent into exile by the Bolsheviks in 1922. He slowly made his way to Paris, where, in 1925, he was to participate in the creation of the St Sergius Institute and become its dean. Philosophically and theologically, Bulgakov was to explore controversial ideas, causing many people to accuse him of heresy ( a charge which many still accuse him of, though far less now than during his lifetime, as his theology is now better understood and appreciate). He saw the need for Orthodoxy, for Christianity, to be more socially engaged while at the same time to be more philosophically engaged, to deal with the questions of modernity even if the answers are not exact same ones given in the past. It was for his Sophiology, like with Florensky, which would give his opponents their greatest weapon to use against him; but even then, his critics never understood (or misstated) his positions, so that their charges against him were, in the end, ones which would not stick (no matter how many times they are repeated). The works of his which have influenced me the most are Bride of the Lamb, Sophia: the Wisdom of God, and his Philosophy of Economy: World as Household, though his works as a whole continue to inspire my own theological explorations.

C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) Like many others, if I had never read Lewis, my own life story would have been different. I actively engaged his works while in high school, and through them, was given a vision of Christianity which was different from my exclusivistic Baptist background. He introduced me to the Church Fathers in his essay “On the Reading of Old Books,” and he brought out my love for myth, and an understanding of the value of myth, no matter which culture it comes from. His openness to pagan traditions as being preparatory to Christ helped me see world religions differently and to eventually explore them on my own (first, for their myth, later for their theological traditions). The works of Lewis which inspire me the most are: Till We Have Face, God in the Dock, The Discarded Image, The Great Divorce, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle.

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 – ). Hanh is the last one on my list because he is still alive. He’s a Buddhist monk from Vietnam whose major contributions have been twofold: peace activism and inter-faith dialogues. His work for peace follows a Buddhist belief that peace first comes from within, and that to establish peace, one must learn to be at peace with oneself before one can create the structures of peace in the world. This is not to say that one should not work for external peace when one has not found it within; it is only that the weaknesses within will affect what is established without. During the Vietnam War, he was one of the leading Buddhist activists who wanted to have the war come to a peaceful conclusion; both sides of the conflict thought ill of him and thought he must be some sort of spy for their enemy, because he was willing to engage anyone who came to him and to work for their betterment. He didn’t want to see anyone as an enemy, but to see everyone as a human person with inherent dignity worthy to be loved, no matter how covered up that dignity might be covered up through one’s past actions. It is for this reason that he has said that the peace movement in the 1960s and 1970s America was not about peace, but fear; if it were about peace, it would have shown respect to the soldiers and respected their dignity, instead of mistreat them and abuse them as it did. He saw quite a few violent undertones of that peace movement, and spoke out against it, saying it was not what he was about in his peace activism. He was interested in the betterment of the world, and in helping everyone, of all walks of life. He was to become one of the Buddhist Members at the Paris Peace Talks; when the war was over, he was told by the Vietnamese he could not return to Vietnam (it was only a couple years ago that he was allowed to return to his homeland). So he set up a new monastic community (PlumVillage) in France, where he was to continue the work he started in the 60s; one of the remarkable things he has done with this community is to offer free shelter and aid to soldiers from the Vietnam war, to help them deal with the pain and suffering they felt in the aftermath of the war. He has also used it as a retreat site for people involved in other conflicts, such as Israelis and Palestinians, helping to bring people into contact with each other and to get to know them as people, not as their enemy. Hanh’s Buddhist work is eclectic, combing not only Zen and Theravada Buddhism, but also the wisdom of other Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions (he sees Jesus as a spiritual ancestor of his). He also helped launch the Engaged Buddhism movement (a kind of Buddhism which is this-worldly because it sees that Buddhists cannot abandon the needs of the world but rather, should seek to help liberate it from oppression; it is highly influenced by Christianity and its missionary activity). It is his vision for peace, which is moderate (he does not decry the need for soldiers, but believes they are legitimate for the defense of a nation, and that in between times of war, they could be and should be used in civic projects), that has influenced me the most and shown me what true peace activism can be and should be about: the removal of all internal strife and conflict so that one can be free to love.

These are my top five non-Catholic heroes of the twentieth century. I could have made this list longer, and added more influences, but I thought it best to limit myself to five. Now, who are your five?

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