Truth & Relevance

Revisiting the Charles Davis & Gregory Baum Debate

Gregory Baum 1923-2017

Introduction

The theological works of Charles Davis and Gregory Baum embody the profound and enduring struggle between intellectual integrity and institutional tradition that defined 20th-century Catholicism. This essay revisits the core of their contrasting approaches, a foundational struggle whose philosophical and political consequences fundamentally shape the modern debate over conscience, critical freedom, and institutional integrity, especially as it culminated and took unique form within the Canadian intellectual and cultural context. This reflection is ongoing, prompted both by reading key historical texts and by my own intellectual engagement, particularly following the passing of my former professor, Marc Lalonde. His scholarship, which focused on Davis, continues to shape my own analysis, as detailed in my post, Critical Theology and Integral Humanism: Marc Lalonde, Charles Davis, and the Postmodern Conservative Challenge.

This re-engagement is structured by insights drawn from contemporary analyses, including the political-theological context provided by Sarah Shortall’s insightful Soldiers of God in a Secular World: Catholic Theology and Twentieth-Century French Politics, which illuminates the complex interplay between faith and political power, and Leslie Armour and Elizabeth Trott’s foundational work, The Faces of Reason: An Essay on Philosophy and Culture in English Canada 1850–1950. My analysis of the Davis-Baum conflict is intended as an extension to Armour and Trott’s vital historical survey, specifically by addressing the gap in the discussion of organized Catholic philosophical thought in the post-1950 period of English Canadian intellectual culture. Furthermore, this re-examination serves as an ongoing dialogue with current discourse, particularly the critiques of Davis’s legacy articulated by figures like Larry Chapp and Tracey Rowland.

The debate centers on Charles Davis (1923–1999), a theologian of intellectual rigor who publicly departed from the Catholic Church in 1966. His highly publicized resignation stemmed from a radical “intellectual rejection of the Papacy,” which fundamentally challenged the Church’s established authority and precipitated a major “crisis of authority.” He advocated for continuous critical inquiry and argued that true faith necessitates intellectual honesty.

In contrast, Gregory Baum (1923–2017) maintained his theological vocation despite eventually leaving the priesthood and the institution. He passionately championed a vision of evolving tradition. He sought to reconcile traditional teachings with contemporary understanding, emphasizing the communal and evolving nature of faith and the necessity for reinterpretation in each new age. His thought-provoking response to Davis, notably in his book The Credibility of the Church Today: A Reply to Charles Davis, provides a classic case study of theological disagreement.

The crux of their disagreement was whether the Catholic Church could be wrong about specific, non-negotiable doctrines—and still claim to be a reliable arbiter of truth. Their divergent paths—Davis prioritizing individual conscience and critical freedom and Baum stressing the communal and evolving nature of tradition—serve as powerful touchstones for navigating faith in the modern world.

Challenging Tradition: Charles Davis’s Journey

Charles Alfred Davis (1923–1999) was an English theologian and priest, considered the most important theologian in Great Britain before his public exit. He was educated at St. Brendan’s Grammar School in Bristol and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he earned a licentiate in sacred theology in 1948.

Davis’s decision to leave the Church on December 21, 1966, was a monumental event. His core concern was the rigidity of the institutional Church, particularly its hierarchical structure and the unwavering doctrinal claims formulated in the past. His intellectual rejection lay in what he believed were demonstrable errors in doctrine, specifically those formalized in the First Vatican Council (Vatican I), which defined papal infallibility. He articulated that the Church had become “a vast, impersonal, unfree, and inhuman system“ that was compromised by historical connections, such as with the Nazi regime.

Davis argued that blind obedience to religious authority stifled genuine faith and spiritual growth, demanding instead a radical commitment to intellectual honesty and critical thinking. His intellectual rejection of the institutional Church—specifically its rigidity, its inability to reform, and its historic errors like the definition of papal infallibility—had been building for years. This mounting frustration with the stultification of theological thought drove him to lament that he felt compelled to clear away a vast system of “ecclesiastical rubble” just to make room for honest, new thinking to flourish.

The final, decisive break, however, was precipitated by a specific personal event: his desire to marry Florence Henderson, a Catholic theology student. While his desire to marry provided the personal catalyst for his departure, it was merely the ultimate, unbearable symbol of the “inhuman system” he had already critiqued theologically. Thus, the dual forces of theological integrity (the intellectual rejection of institutional error) and personal conscience (the need to live honestly and maritally) merged, compelling his public departure in 1966.

Following his departure, Davis continued his academic career in Canada, first founding the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alberta, and then moving to Concordia University in Montreal in 1970. During this Canadian period, Davis’s intellectual work entered a new phase. In his initial post-Church writings, he explored the nature of his critique, arguing that genuine faith was a dynamic process compelling fresh inquiry and that divine revelation was not about accepting dogma. His book Temptations of Religion (1974) focused on inherent religious dangers, including lust for certitude and pride of history. Subsequently, during his two decades at Concordia, Davis produced what many consider his most erudite books, focusing heavily on critical social theory, deeply engaging with the Frankfurt School and Jürgen Habermas. This trajectory, which examined Davis’s sophisticated use of critical theory, was notably highlighted by Professor Lalonde’s scholarship, among others.

Reimagining Faith: Gregory Baum’s Vision

The contrasting path chosen by Gregory Baum was profoundly shaped by his early life. Born in Berlin in 1923, Baum was a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany, a formative experience that instilled in him an unshakeable critical awareness of institutional betrayal and the moral necessity of justice. Gregory Baum (1923–2017) possessed an equally formidable intellect. Born in Berlin to a Jewish mother and a Protestant father, he arrived in Canada at age 17 as a war refugee, having earned degrees in Mathematics and Physics from McMaster University and Ohio State. He became an Augustinian priest in 1954.

His conversion and subsequent career did not neutralize this initial trauma; rather, it became the critical foundation for his theological engagement. As he recounts in his memoir, The Oil Has Not Run Dry: The Story of My Theological Pathway, his theological consciousness was irrevocably scarred by the Church’s historical anti-Semitism, forcing him to confront the dark side of tradition. This realization made his commitment to Catholicism a radical and critical choice—he would not abandon the tradition, but sought to redeem it from within.

Though he gained prominence as a peritus (theological advisor) to Cardinal Augustin Bea at Vatican II (1962–1965), Baum’s participation was specific and influential. He composed the first draft of Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions), the groundbreaking document that repudiated anti-Semitism and opened a new era of interreligious dialogue. He also contributed significantly to the drafting of Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism) and Dignitatis Humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom). His theological pathway was quickly forged by confronting historical anti-Semitism and embracing a critical sociology that married faith to the project of social liberation.

He emphasized the communal tradition’s capacity for dynamic reinterpretation, particularly after studying sociology at the New School for Social Theory. He viewed the historical forms of doctrine as human expressions requiring constant updating to reveal the core Gospel message. His theology was explicitly oriented toward action and social change, merging the insights of classical sociology with Christian ethics. He embraced Liberation Theology and the preferential option for the poor, using ideology critique to challenge social and institutional injustice.

Baum’s commitment to theological action was anchored by his academic posts and influential publishing efforts. He taught at the University of Toronto for many years before moving to McGill University in 1986. He was a prolific writer and served as the founding editor of The Ecumenist from 1962 until his retirement in 2004. The journal was later rebranded as Critical Theology in 2018, reflecting a post-mortem evolution that underscored his lifelong focus on sociological analysis and social justice.

The most definitive move in his critical theological trajectory was his personal disengagement from the institutional structure in 1974. This choice allowed his subsequent views to become increasingly iconoclastic: he became a powerful voice for social justice, including support for the ordination of women and same-sex marriage. His eventual public disclosure of his homosexuality became integrated into his broader demand for the Church to address injustice and promote the dignity of the marginalized, cementing his legacy as a prophet of critical inclusion.

The Nouvelle Théologie Fault Line and the Philosophical Divide

The philosophical core of the Davis-Baum debate represents the Canadian culmination of an intense internal crisis within the Nouvelle Théologie itself. This “New Theology” movement, which preceded the Second Vatican Council, sought to make the Church’s ancient teachings relevant to the modern world by engaging with new historical and philosophical insights. The crisis centered on a single, seismic problem: the enduring challenge of determining precisely how far historical tradition could be stretched through “reinterpretation” before its fundamental claims to absolute truth fractured completely.

As Tracey Rowland’s insightful book, Catholic Theology, confirms, this split maps directly onto the ongoing struggle over foundational post-Conciliar fault lines concerning the profound relationship between nature and grace, dogma and history, and the proper theological response to modern culture. Both Davis and Baum sought a faith relevant to the contemporary world, but their deeply divergent paths forced a choice between two competing visions of integrity.

The Baum position, associated with the progressive Concilium camp, stressed dynamic reinterpretation and the communal, evolving nature of faith. This view argued that the primary duty was to act on the Gospel’s ethical core (praxis), adapting the historical forms of doctrine to achieve social justice in each new age. Conversely, the Davis position demanded unflinching intellectual honesty and critical rupture. This position, often linked to the core ideal of the more tradition-focused Communio camp, insisted that acknowledging demonstrable historical error (like the definition of papal infallibility) was the highest moral and intellectual necessity.

For Davis, errors formalized by the Vatican were historical facts that could not be dismissed or spun away; they forced him to conclude that the institution was no longer a trustworthy vehicle for Christian truth. His break was not merely personal but a profound philosophical defense of individual moral autonomy, arguing that institutional authority must be subordinate to the demands of truth and critical freedom. Baum, however, viewed these struggles as the messy, human side of a divine-led, evolving project. While he admitted flaws, he believed the core message could and must be reinterpreted—a stance Davis criticized as confusing hopeful aspiration with difficult reality, leaving Baum dangerously exposed to institutional ideology. Crucially, despite their dramatic difference over rupture, both Davis’s later trajectory into critical social theory and Baum’s rise as a voice for emancipatory theology defined the progressive theological movement of their era.

This intellectual split, captured vividly in Shortall’s political-theological framework, immediately connects to broader contemporary debates: Davis’s insistence on moral integrity over institutional inertia mirrors the perennial defense of individual conscience against the raw power of any state or centralized institution. This commitment to unflinching honesty stands as the enduring central legacy of his break.

The Unfinished Conflict: Conscience, Tradition, and the Post-Secular Turn

The theological debate between Charles Davis and Gregory Baum is a foundational narrative for understanding the modern Catholic intellectual divide. Their ideological split—emerging from the Nouvelle Théologie and articulating the rivalry between the progressive Concilium and the conservative Communio—reveals two core commitments to theological integrity: Davis choosing critical rupture and Baum choosing dynamic reinterpretation. The struggle between Davis and Baum remains unfinished, defined not by their own conclusions, but by the rise of the Communio counter-movement that sought to overturn their legacy. This conflict reveals an enduring irony specific to the unique Canadian context. On one hand, the Concilium tradition, championed by Baum and others, secured a profound intellectual and academic victory within Canadian higher education, with methodologies focused on social relevance and historical context influencing the curriculum of the new Religious Studies departments across the country. This transformation involved distancing the new field from theological bias by adopting an approach characterized as open, critical, and inclusive of the full range of major religions, using interdisciplinary methods from the social sciences and humanities. On the other hand, the Communio movement has unequivocally won the institutional battle, a trend visible in the philosophical squabble at the highest levels of the Canadian Church hierarchy. Cardinal Marc Ouellet—a Canadian prelate long aligned with Vatican institutional authority and traditionalist critiques—exemplifies the Communio victory by holding sway over the structural future of the Church. By contrast, Cardinal Michael Czerny, whose ministry focuses on global social justice, ecological economics, and solidarity with the marginalized, reflects the enduring influence of the Concilium tradition’s core philosophical and ethical principles within the hierarchy itself. The ongoing intellectual critique articulated by traditionalist scholars like Larry Chapp and Tracey Rowland, who actively reject Davis and Baum’s embrace of modern critical thought, further underscores the existential nature of the Concilium-Communio conflict. The Communio forces consolidate power within the Church hierarchy even as the corrupt clericalism of the past continues to challenge its moral legitimacy and fuel secularization.

The papacy of Pope Francis represents a critical sea change in this enduring dynamic, a pragmatic attempt to reconcile the core values of the two traditions. This shift in the hierarchy is explicitly a renewal of the Concilium tradition. Pope Francis’s emphasis on social justice, environmental protection, and welcoming migrants—all hallmarks of the Conciliar movement—is a concerted effort to implement Vatican II as a pastoral council. His appointment of figures like the Canadian Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny, who heads the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, serves to enact a mission focused on accompanying people on the margins and listening to the “cry of the poor and the cry of the earth”. This stance, which prioritizes a pragmatic, reality-based approach over rigid doctrine, contrasts sharply with the earlier emphasis on doctrinal clarification and theological continuity represented by figures like Benedict XVI and Cardinal Marc Ouellet. The tension remains visible in the Canadian hierarchy, where figures like Cardinal Ouellet still embody the institutional commitment to traditionalist critique, while Cardinal Czerny’s high-profile social justice ministry reflects the enduring relevance of the Nouvelle Théologie‘s ethical legacy. The ultimate legacy of the Davis-Baum struggle, viewed through the lens of Shortall’s work, is that the philosophical tension ignited by the Nouvelle Théologie is far from resolved; it has merely migrated. The core crisis over conscience versus institutionality now pulses through contemporary academic and political discourse, engaging the very thinkers who frame our post-secular world.

This philosophical current continues to be worked out in a unique and critical fashion, defining the relationship between the Canadian Catholic intellectual tradition and the Global Catholic tradition. This enduring global philosophical conflict is best characterized by the “theological turn“ in contemporary thought—a powerful intellectual movement that seeks to reclaim political and ethical concepts for theology by moving beyond the self-imposed limits of secular reason and is exemplified by figures striving for reconciliation, such as the widely respected Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas, who explore how faith and reason can still contribute to shared democratic life. This intellectual current has branched into key areas of post-secular political critique, including the radical orthodoxy movement (e.g., John Milbank and William Cavanaugh) which directly draws on the Nouvelle Théologie to develop a postliberal theology that resists the dominant modern formations of the state and the market, relying on concepts such as the gift and the body of Christ to critique secular political frameworks; it is also reflected in leftist philosophers (Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, and Giorgio Agamben) who have found new inspiration for a post-Marxist revolutionary politics by turning to the eschatological vision of St. Paul. This vital terrain of philosophical and political engagement—representing the necessary extension of any comprehensive work building on Armour and Trott‘s mapping of the Canadian intellectual landscape—remains the ground upon which new scholarly debates will be provoked, urging further study of the profound questions of truth and relevance.