Debate or Talk?
Jeff Vihige over at Thursday Night Gumbo has a really interesting post on how those with a minority religious worldview can interact with a the majority secular worldview.
A short summary of Jeff's options:
The religious person can adopt:
1) a ghetto mentality
2) a "liberal" mentality
3) the attitude of open-dialogue with the secular mind
Jeff is proposing:
"aggiornamento, i.e., an open consideration of the secular, modern mindset. This attitude rejects the isolationism of the ghetto; it realizes that Christianity, if it is to be effect, cannot exist in a hermetically sealed community. The modern world is asking questions. If Christianity is the truth, then it should be able to answer those questions. If it cannot . . . then do we not have a bigger problem at our door?
But the ghetto mentality has a legitimate concern, namely, that aggiornamento can lead to liberalism. What, exactly, is meant by an open consideration of the secular, modern mindset? Of what do these considerations consist? Is there a line between consideration and concession? Where is that line? If the Christian engaged in this open discussion with the modern world is not careful, they will soon loose everything distinctively Christian. They will be left with nothing.
So what is a modern Christian, who is interested in evangelization, to do? The best answer I can give is this: Study your faith. Do not study apologetics, because that won't help you much. Why? Because your study is based on your interlocutor's questions, not on the whole of Catholic theology. If you want to evangelize, then you need to know what the Church teaches, not how to win a debate.
Then when you come into contact with a non-Catholic view, regardless of whichever perspective it takes (secular, anti-Catholic, Protestant), you will be able to both defend the Church as well as evangelize the person. Why? Because this kind of in-depth study teaches you that when it comes to truth, one cannot debate, one can only talk."
Comments?
As some of you know, I am busily at work on a new four day seminar on evanelization that we will be offering this summer called Making Disciples.
One of the issues that is coming up is that post-modern people simply don't think in categories of "this is true" and "this is not true". And that the classic catechetical approach that arose in the early modern era (late 16th, early 17th centuries) as part of the Catholic Reformation (as many contemporary historians prefer to call it since it wasn't just a reaction to the Protestant Reformation as the term Counter-Reformation would imply) doesn't work as well in a post-modern era when people's beliefs and issues are very different.
Yet, Christ and the faith must be proposed for people to respond. So how did we propose it effectively in a very different era?
I'll post more on this later but now I must work. Thanks Jeff! Your post has triggered some great "ahas!"
posted by Sherry W @ 6:55 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
My feeling is that if evangelization is going to happen - we as Christians must be absolutely intentional about it (thus I love the blog title of "intentional discipleship")
I agree that studying theology, etc. - maybe in juxtaposition to the "combat arts" of apologetics - is a good idea.
Even more it is the actualization of the "logic" of the "theos" or the internalization of the "knowledge of God." Rather than dry intellectual knowledge of the science of theology.
Thus, how do we allow ourselves to be impelled by the Holy Spirit to evangelize - juxtaposed to a masked polemic or an evangelization that derives its energy from the desire for everyone else to conform to our way of doing things?
I love St. Paul who writes in 2 Corinthians, "For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died." (5:14)
Or in another way, how do we have the "mind of Christ among us" and become obedient servants like our Lord and like St. Paul say, "therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men." (2 Cor 5:11)
A lot of people won't evangelize because they fear man (I fall into the category a lot) - how do we transfer this to a holy fear of God - and thus not care so much about stepping on the toes of others with the greatest news of all time?
By the way, I think this holy fear is more a fear of offended the beloved - less a OT fear or terror of the God who is about to get us...
How are others urged on by the love and holy fear of Christ in evangelization?
Another great post by Jeff. I've blogged my own response to Jeff over at my blog. My only area of dispute is in the statement that the only way to evangelize the world is through knowing your faith.
Of course, we must be able to make a case for the reason for our hope, but we are not necessarily required to engage in in-deph study of theological formulations.
The "world" is made up of individual men and women who have a number of dimensions in their life that need salvation. Someone without in-depth knowledge of the theological underpinnings of their faith can effectively and powerfully evangelize through a number of other ways--especially including the charisms.
While I fundamentally agree with Jeff's final assertion when it comes to engaging with the philosophy and culture of secularism, I believe that the lens of his own charisms (one of which might possibly be Knowledge) colors his viewpoint on the individual level.
In any event, Jeff's post is another reason why I make Thursday Night Gumbo a regular daily part of my journey around St. Blog's.
It's an interesting question that you ask, Sherry. In many ways, my response is colored by my own charisms. In my experience, it is personal encounter and personal testimony that speaks to the post-modern mindset more than a presentation of the effects of sin and the necessity of a savior.
There have been many times that sharing what God has done for me has helped lead someone else to an experience of and decision for Christ.
Don't get me wrong...I love to teach and share from the riches of the Church, but I guess I just expect God to "move" people's hearts once personal faith is broken open and shared.
But the ghetto mentality has a legitimate concern, namely, that aggiornamento can lead to liberalism. What, exactly, is meant by an open consideration of the secular, modern mindset? Of what do these considerations consist? Is there a line between consideration and concession? Where is that line? If the Christian engaged in this open discussion with the modern world is not careful, they will soon loose everything distinctively Christian. They will be left with nothing.
I agree with much of what Jeff wrote, but there's a bit to it that sits uneasy to me. Like Keith, I think knowing the faith is not the end all be all of evangelization. It's important, and I don't want to discount it, but (to paraphrase Pope Benedict), we follow a Person, not subscribe to a "packet of dogmas". Theology is not the same thing as Christianity and I wish that point was emphasized more.
Because the real reason it is important to know one's faith is that the act of learning about the faith is part of the act of engaging my life. Christianity is life and only in actively engaging my life in it can I truly come to know it. So it's part of the process of taking what has been handed to me and making it my own. Translating, if you will, the Baptist's "Behold, the Lamb of God" into St. Andrew's "We have found the Messiah!"
And that's why I am bothered by the quote above. Engaging the world runs the risk of liberalism? Huh? This isn't a matter of knowing the ins-and-outs of my preferred ideology so as to be able to defend of attacks on its coherence and proclaim its superiority to the other ideologies of the day. Christianity isn't an ideology. If it is of value, it is a fact. A fact that I can identify and verify in my own experience. And that's the act of living, so, yes, it comes with the risk of me making wrong judgments along the way (which is why I need a community to help correct me and anchor me in the truth). But we should not be afraid of learning that something we once believed to be true is in fact not true. Otherwise, we've transformed Christianity into something less than what it is, something far less approachable and beautiful.
The point is that we need a criterion for judgment. But one rooted in reality, not something arbitrary or ideological.
All of this isn't so much a complaint of Jeff's main point, but of a tinge of what seems to be unconsciously present.
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Jack, good point, but what hasn't been said is that my post was a off-the-cuff reflection on Chapter 1 of Peter Berger's A RUMOR OF ANGELS. So much of what I said relates in part to Berger.
Further, as I clarify in my post, the kind of liberalism I'm speaking of is that of theological liberalism. The kind professed the likes of Schleiermacher, Harnack, Bultmann, and, in its more popular and unintelligent form, the Jesus Seminar. I am certainly not speaking of political or social liberalism.
Jeff,
Helpful clarification and admittedly I didn't give you the benefit of reading your original post, which is my fault.
Although, I'm still not clear on how engaging our times in this way risks theological liberalism. I'll go read your original post and see if that helps clarify.
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