As I have been reading about this topic of New Evangelism, I have noticed that each of my sources on the topic have included a different set of lists about what a New Evangelist or what New Evangelism is. Luckily, they all seem to start at the same place, which is Jesus.
I'd like to share what these thinkers believe make up New Evangelism, starting with Fr. Robert Barron. He describes Seven Keys to Being a New Evangelist in this interview posted by fellow Catholic Blogger Brandon Vogt on his own blog, and then on Fr. Robert Barron's own Word on Fire. What I am including below is Barron's list with my own thoughts, paraphrases of Barron's idea. I highly recommend that you start by checking out my original sources first....both Vogt and Barron put it far better than I could! No, really....go check them out now! (And if you have 45 minutes, DO Listen to Vogt's speech on the topic)
1. "In Love with Jesus Christ" or "A friend with Jesus Christ"
This is a trait that New Evangelist Roman Catholics share with our Protestant brothers and sisters. The emphasis on having a personal relationship with Christ is one that has not been emphasized in recent history by Catholics, but that needs to be on the forefront of our faith if we are to maintain our Catholic identity into the future. Just knowing ABOUT Christ is no longer enough, or learning our faith through cultural osmosis. It needs to get personal. Personally, as someone who is ecumenically minded, my heart rejoices that this is the first on the list of traits. It gives me something strong in common with my Protestant brothers and sisters, and I can honestly say to them when asked, that yes, I do have a friendship with Christ.
2. "A Person of Ardor" or who is "Filled with Ardor"
Us Catholics just love vocabulary lessons! (Consubstantial, anyone?) Someone who is filled with Ardor for God is someone who is ON FIRE for him, someone who is passionate. Someone you can't help but listen to, and who rejoices in having what Fr. Barron calls a "keen sense of the resurrection." When we are filled with joy of what Christ did for us on the cross. When we truly GET IT, it's difficult not to be filled with immense joy and want to shout it from the roof tops. The first person I think of is Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who expresses this passion and joy in every interview I've watched. Some day I'll get to listen to the joyousness that must be one of his sermons live.
3. "A Person Who Knows the Story of Israel," Someone who is well aware of temple about covenant about prophecy, about law, because Jesus fulfills all of that.
This past fall my sister-in-law invited me to a bible study with a Women's Ministry at a local Presbyterian Church. Now, as you may have guessed, my In-Laws are NOT Catholic, but I still relished in this invitation to share my walk with Christ with them, and so I became the groups "pet Catholic." Incidentally, the study we are doing is "Deuteronomy: More Grace, More Love: Living in Covenant with God," by George Roberston with Beth McGreevy. It is an in depth look at the Old Testament which has opened my eyes to the foretelling nature of Christ in the Jewish scriptures. I am a little bit jealous at just how well most Protestants know their bibles backwards and forwards and are deeply aware of the ways that Christ fulfills Old Testament prophecy. I hope to emulate this kind of bible knowledge someday and am able to express it in teaching my own children. It's a little frustrating that my own catechesis had too take a temporary dive into Protestantism in order to fall in love with the temple narrative. However, I rejoice that this narrative is a central portion of my favorite mass of the year, the Easter Vigil, when we hear numerous readings about Man's Fall and the hope of Christ to come hinted at throughout all of time in the prophets of Abraham, Moses, David, Jonah, Elijah, and others. My husband refers to this mass as the "Marathon Mass," which at three hours long when attending it at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis does seem like a marathon, (fitting that Paul did refer to the Christian life as a marathon often) but the participant is richly rewarded in the end by sharing in the joy of new Christians entering our church and in the resurrection of the lamb. Cue the Alleluia chorus in full glory near the end......
4. "Has Got to Know the Culture" or be"A Person who Understands the Culture"
Fr. Barron refers to the quote by Karl Barth that "the homilist should have the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other:" a quote which resonates with my Lutheran husband. Being a Christian today is inexplicably a Counter-Cultural move. Our beliefs often don't make sense to those outside the church, we have been described as hateful and behind the times for putting our foot down on certain moral issues and refusing to budge. The trap is to fall into our own little subculture as many evangelical Christians have been known to do, only listening to "Christian" music or wearing "Christian" logos on t shirts. However, when we tuck ourselves behind a closed door of a sub-culture, we are not engaging the culture at large. As New Evangelists we are called to be in engagement of the culture around us, not in avoidance of it. We are called to question it and to interact with it, drawing out what message of redemption we can use in order to preach the Gospel. St. Patrick evangelized the Celtic people by using their own imagery. According to the legend, we used the three leaf clover to describe the Holy Trinity. In our time, speaking the language of the culture around us may look like knowing what movies are playing, referring to facebook, television. Fr. Barron lives this example in the cultural commentaries that he publishes on his Youtube channel. Oddly, there was a time in history when WE were the culture. Take a look at Renaissance art, for example. But today, our culture has increasingly turned away from any kind of biblical foundation and has turned toward postmodern pessimism. It needs re-engaging and re-filled with hope.
5. "A Person who reverences Great Tradition" Not Sola Scriptura.....our tradition has unfolded over time. We have a grand interpretive tradition, the arts--visial and media
Roman Catholicism acknowledges the infinitely enjoined nature of both the Bible and Holy Tradition. The Bible was born out of Holy Tradition and Holy Tradition continues to be evaluated by the Bible. We are not Sola Scriptura as the Protestant denominations have insisted on. We, instead, have a rich interpretive tradition of two thousand years worth of thinkers who have been inspired by the message of Christ and have put down their words to inspire future generations. They have interpreted the Word so we may be left without interpretive confusion about what is going on. That, and we have this rich tradition of art, music, even movies, which have had something to say about the nature of our world, the nature of man, and the nature of Christ's grand sacrifice.
6. "A Person with a Missionary Heart"
I know many a person who claims Catholicism as their religion and history, but don't go to mass. Even I struggle to make it to weekly mass. While I was fortunate enough to be raised in a family where missing Sunday mass was usually not an option, as an adult no one is forcing me to wake up early on Sunday morning and just go. I have fallen trap to the "Meh" Culture. I'll go tomorrow. Truthfully, however, when I don't go to mass, I feel it the rest of the week. I feel that separateness from God. Fr. Barron called souls divorced from God in this manner as anguished. It takes surprisingly little to go from not going to church anymore to not believing anymore. It's going to take a real effort to get wayward Catholics to return in a culture that doesn't want to be bothered. Our mission as New Evangelists in North America has to engage this "Meh" culture, to reawaken those of us who have fallen asleep in Christ, and to be missionaries within postmodernism.
7. "Knows and Loves the New Media" or "A Persons who knows how to use the New Media"
Fr. Barron and others have pointed to the work of the Venerable Fulton Sheen who has had a mission toward using the Media of the day. Today we live in a world rich with media technology. For people like me its even almost a part of our blood! Youtube, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter.....these are all a part of our culture and HOW we engage the culture. These are simply many forms of media as our fingertips. The most beautiful part of this is that these very tools make it possible for us to tell our OWN stories. Just look at the coverage of last week's papal elections to see the fruit of this. On one hand we have Mass Media, owned by secular institutions, who have already tried to tell our story for us and have tried whatever they can to paint our message in a false light. On the other hand, the thousands of us telling our own story via New Media. Who is going to tell the story of our faith? Us? Or a culture hostile to the message of Jesus?
Coming Soon: What Cardinal Donald Weurl has to say about New Evangelism.
No comments:
Post a Comment