HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422
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Original Research
Aspects of political theology in Thomas Merton’s spiritual autobiography Author: Iuliu-Marius Morariu1,2 Affiliations: 1 Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa 2
Corresponding author: Iuliu-Marius Morariu, maxim@radiorenasterea.ro Dates: Received: 16 May 2021 Accepted: 02 July 2021 Published: 18 Aug. 2021 How to cite this article: Morariu, l-M., 2021, ‘Aspects of political theology in Thomas Merton’s spiritual autobiography’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 77(4), a6842. https://doi. org/10.4102/hts.v77i4.6842 Copyright: © 2021. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
An important personality of the Catholic space of the 20th century and, at the same time, of the ecumenical and the inter-religious, Thomas Merton (1915–1968) is one of the most important authors of spiritual autobiographies in the Christian space. Knowing this and the fact that from other points of view, his work has been investigated by different researchers from all around the world, we will try to present the aspects of the political theology which can be found in works such as: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), The Sign of Jonas (1953), among others, which he wrote and which contain passages of spiritual autobiographies. These works emphasise aspects such as his attitude towards racism (a problem which he encountered in the America of the 1960s), war or Communism (because of the fact that before he studied at Columbia University, but also during this period, he also sympathised with the Communists). The author will therefore try to present some practical aspects of his works, and show how they can be used to create bridges between society and church; the answer he gives to the challenges of his time. Contribution: The article presents the main aspects of political theology which can be found in Merton’s work and shows how keywords such as war, racism or Communism have been seen by him and the views he has of a potential attitude of the Church towards them. Keywords: Thomas Merton; political theology; spiritual autobiography; War; Communism.
Introduction It is difficult to write about Thomas Merton. His writings have been printed and re-printed over the years, and even the exotic aspects such as his ecological conviction (Jensen 2020:7–8), racism (Feurherd 2021:5–6; Horan 2020:7–18), his openness towards Buddhism (Di Valerio 2020:474–475) or his humour (Pearson 2020:221–242), have all been investigated. However, there are certain aspects of his life as the Trappist monk (having had a vocation as a writer, yet living the life of a monk, was one of Merton’s great struggles in life, especially in his early years in the monastery), that still should be investigated; and they could undoubtedly say many things to the contemporary reader. As discovered over the past years, through his notes, Merton was close to political theology and to the presence of this aspect in his spiritual autobiographies (Kalaitzidis 2012; Losonczi, LuomaAho & Singh 2011; Morariu 2018a:153–157, 2018b, 2018c, 2019a, 2020:1–5; ed. Ricci 2012; Stoeckl, Gabriel & Papanikolau 2017). We will try in this research to present the way in which this topic interferes with his spiritual autobiography. Before proceeding further, a few clarifications are necessary. It would have certainly been useful to be able provide a presentation of his life and activities analysed previously to this investigation in order to help the reader to have a deeper understanding of his life. However, because of the scope of this research, this is not possible. The reader/s who however, want to learn more about this topic can refer to recent publications such as: Pearson (2020:221–242), Morariu (2021:183–184), as also the various publications indicated below.
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When talking about spiritual autobiographies, one may be tempted to think that there is one book belonging to this genre in the entire work of an author. In many cases, this is indeed the reality (see e.g. Morariu 2019b:233, 2019c:310). In the case of Merton (1915–1968), a man who converted to Christianism after having previously been a convinced Communist and who wrote 50 books in 27 years, until an unpredicted electrocution ended his earthly journey (Di Valerio 2020:473–474), the situation is different. All his books, including The Seven Storey Mountain (Merton 1948), which marks his moment of beginning, The Sign of Jonah (Merton
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