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Americanized Catholicism? A Glance from the United States back toward Germany*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2014

Thomas Schärtl
Thomas Schärtl*
Affiliation:
University of Augsburg
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Abstract

Thomas Schärtl observes that many trends in the United States are adapted in Europe and especially in Germany, yet there remain categories that are incommensurable. What can appear to be an ideal pluralism in the United States can also be interpreted as “bubbles” that reveal a lack of interaction among various groups. Consumerism and individualism have an impact on even some US Catholic bishops, leading to actions that appear strange to a German observer, such as protesting President Obama's invitation to speak at Notre Dame and teaming up politically with conservative Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians. German Catholics need to safeguard the relationship between religion and reason. Dennis Doyle agrees with Schärtl on the big picture but offers qualifications on specific points, noting especially the positive dimensions of Catholic interaction with Evangelicals and Pentecostals.

Keywords

US CatholicismEuropean Catholicismconsumerismchurchculture
Type
Theological Roundtable
Information
Horizons , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , December 2014 , pp. 296 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © College Theology Society 2014 

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Footnotes

*

This article originally appeared as “Amerikanisierter Katholizismus? Ein Blick aus den USA zurück nach Deutschland,” Stimmen der Zeit 230 (July 2012): 459–71. It has been translated by Dennis M. Doyle (University of Dayton) with the help of Katherine Kornek (graduate assistant, University of Augsburg), and revised by Stefanie Knauss (Villanova University).

References

1 See Sloterdijk, Peter, Sphären I: Blasen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1998)Google Scholar; also Sloterdijk, , Sphären III: Schäume (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2004)Google Scholar.

2 Miller, Vincent J., Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York: Continuum, 2004)Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., 32–72.

4 See Miller's example in Consuming Religion, 199–200.

5 Allen, John L. Jr., The Future Church: How Ten Trends Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 56–57Google Scholar.

6 See in this regard Casanova, José, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 135–36Google Scholar.

7 Casanova, Public Religions, 138–39.

8 Ibid., 146–57.

9 Allen, The Future Church, 375–80.

10 Ibid., 381–82.

11 See Schärtl, Thomas, “Postliberale Theologie und die Standortbestimmung von Fundamentaltheologie,” Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 132 (2010): 47–64Google Scholar.

12 Casanova, Public Religions, 167–207.