Evangelizing in the Modern Age

“And he said unto them, ‘Go out to the world: proclaim the gospel to all creation.  Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.'” – Mark 16:15-16 

Even the most nominal and lukewarm Christian has heard the above passage many times, even if he has never stopped to think about what it actually means.  It doesn’t take a biblical scholar or historian, however, to ascertain the meaning of the risen Christ’s words to his apostles.  He is telling them, and by extension us, that we have the solemn responsibility to bring others to God.  Period.  It’s plain and simple.  It’s crystal clear.  It’s black and white.  We HAVE to.

And who wouldn’t want to?  If you truly are a Christian and you believe that the only salvation is through belief in Christ, wouldn’t you want to tell those you love how to get there?  Wouldn’t you want to do everything that you possibly can to ensure that your friends and loved ones are not condemned?

Evangelizing is not easy.  Evangelizing is not going to make you more popular.  In fact, you will almost certainly lose friends and damage relationships if you tell people the truth.

“If you’re not a thorn in somebody’s side, you aren’t doing Christianity right.” - Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN.

But evangelism isn’t just bringing non-Christians to the faith, it’s also about bringing non-Catholic Christians to Catholic Christianity.  If you’re a Catholic for any reason other than “that’s how my parents raised me” then you’re a Catholic because you believe it’s right.  You believe it’s the one true faith – the clearest and most obvious path to salvation.

Evangelizing non-Catholic Christians (aka Protestants) has never been easy.  Most have been raised with generations of anti-Catholic bigotry handed down generation by generation, and they grew up either believing that the Catholic church is, at best just another misguided denomination, or at worst the “Whore of Babylon”.  Either way, you’ve got a long row to hoe in bringing someone like that into the fullness of the Christian faith that is the Catholic church.

But it’s almost impossible when your evangelization techniques are contradicted by current church leadership.  We’ve reached that unfathomable point of history where mainstream Protestant leaders like Franklin Graham are more in line with traditional Catholic teaching than their mainstream Catholic counterparts in America and at the Vatican.

If you have tried to educate friends and family about church teachings in the past few years, you’ve almost certainly had the words of a high-ranking church official thrown back into your face.  And yes, unfortunately, the words of the current pope can often be used as rebuttal to 2,000 years of Catholic dogmatic teaching.  I will not criticize the current pope directly in this blog post, but I will say that his public proclamations and actions have made it very difficult to convince anyone of the value of converting to the Catholic church, especially if you’re dealing with a devout Protestant.

Have you recently tried to talk to anyone about the sacramental nature of marriage as taught by Catholic tradition?  If so, you’ve certainly had the pope’s infamous “Who am I to judge?” statement thrown back in your face as proof that you’re just a backward-thinking traditionalist who needs to get in line with the times.  “Your pope gets it, why can’t you?” is the subtle implication.

A few years back I attended a retreat and during one of the workshops I ended up in a small group discussion which included a priest.  Our assignment was to discuss techniques for improving personality/character flaws.  When it was his turn to announce his plan, the priest said with a sly grin, “I’m told I can be judgmental, but you know, that’s kind of my job.”  This small-town parish priest gets it, those at the Vatican apparently do not.  If a priest does not judge a sin, how can he ever identify a sin or forgive it in the sacrament of confession?  For the record, Jesus and the apostles judged sin.  It was kind of their job.

But it’s not just on issues of marriage that the current talking heads at the Vatican are in direct opposition to 2,000 years of Catholic teaching.  I actually wish it were that simple.  In the past few years the Vatican has OFFICIALLY honored abortion activists, Communists, and even Martin Luther.  You know Luther, right?  He was that rebellious former Catholic priest who fractured the church started by Jesus Christ and his apostles.  He was that rebellious former Catholic priest whose actions eventually led to the brutal murder of thousand upon thousands of faithful Catholics who refused to join his new church and its numerous offshoots.

I have lost count of how many times I’ve received messages from Protestant friends that begin with “Did you see what your pope said about…?”  Sometimes those asking the questions genuinely want my opinion.  Sometimes they’re gloating.  And sometimes they’re just as baffled and confused by the modernist church as I am.

From monkey-laden slideshows projected on the Vatican’s exterior, to obvious Communist-leanings, to the spontaneously planned photo-ops on papal flights, it’s become a truly embarrassing time to be a Catholic.  Literally embarrassing.  Not embarrassed by my faith, but by the modernists leaders of my faith.

In the United States the Republican party is the obvious choice for any citizen who takes his Christianity seriously.  Period.  Some may argue that they consider themselves Christians and they are registered Democrats, and that may be factually true, but it is also factually true that one cannot claim to follow the literal teachings of Jesus Christ and also support the official platform set forth by modern Democrats.  So, if all of the serious American Christians are Republicans, you can again see the issue with trying to convert them to Catholicism.  The current rulers in Vatican City have made it crystal clear that they oppose and despise the current Republican leadership of the United States.  Even worse, their words and actions seem to show a fondness for the Democratic leadership and its anti-Christian political platform.

And that’s another thing - the majority of Catholic elected officials in the United States are Democrats.  How has this happened?  How is it even possible?  You want to talk about stumbling blocks to converting Protestants, look no further than Capitol Hilland the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Patrick Leahy, and Tim Kaine.  And lest we forget Joe Biden, John Kerry, and all of those Kennedys.

Another hurdle in evangelizing in the modern age is the availability of information on the Internet.  While there are hundreds and hundreds of websites dedicated to solid Catholic teaching, there are sadly just as many dedicated to wishy-washy, feel good, new age, invalid teachings.  You can tell a friend today that “The church has always taught issue Y” and within minutes he can find a dozen examples of priests online who will contradict that teaching.  And if your friend is already hesitant about what you’re trying to teach him, all it takes is one dissident priest telling him what he wants to hear (usually that his sin is perfectly alright) for him to just dismiss your evangelization attempt as outdated and irrelevant.

So again, how in the world is one supposed to follow the explicit directions of Jesus Christ and bring “all creation” to his church when the most visible Catholics are Nancy Pelosi and dissident priests preaching against traditional Christian social teachings?

A few years back, the heavy metal band Metallica performed on the TV talk show “The Colbert Report.”  Before the show’s final scene, a live performance by Metallica, Colbert’s viewers were treated to a dissident Catholic priest named James Martin (I refuse to call him Father) shouting the introduction of the band with both hands raised high in the familiar devil horns hand-gesture.  Instead of choosing to use his opportunity to witness to the resurrection of Christ on national TV, little Jimmy Martin decided to pander to those who will mock him behind his back only moments after congratulating him on his unexpected and refreshing coolness. 

Side note, if anyone ever tells you that Colbert is a “devout Catholic” they are lying to you.

Full disclosure – I like Metallica’s music. I used to own every single one of their albums and live DVDs. I’ve seen them in concert twice.  But as I grew older I decided that it was time to put aside childish things and reorient my mind to what’s really important in life.  Not surprisingly, Metallica wasn’t high on that list.

In summary, everywhere you look you see bad Catholics and hear false doctrine.  From pseudo-Catholics in Hollywood and Washington, to loudmouth dissident priests with Internet access, to baffling comments and proclamations from the Vatican.  There has never been a more difficult time to be a devout and faithful Catholic.  I truly believe that with all of me heart. 

So, it just stands to reason that there has never been a more difficult time to evangelize with devout and faithful Catholic teaching.   Sure, it would be easy to evangelize with the easy and comforting false Catholicism that preaches that all sin is relative, and that God loves you so much that you could never do anything to separate yourself from Him.  That would be easy, but it would be a lie.  Telling people what they want to hear, instead of telling them the truth, is literally making yourself complicit with their condemnation.  And it’s terribly cowardly also.

Condemnation is such a harsh word, isn’t it?  So rigid and uncaring.  So completely lacking in mercy and love.  Go back and read the gospel quote that I started this blog entry with and see for yourself who else uses that word.

So how in the world can we possibly evangelize successfully in such dark and confusing times?  The truth is that it’s going to be very, very difficult to have success with the current state of the world and the state of the church.  But guess what?  We have to do it anyway.  We have to be that thorn in someone’s side that Mother Angelica spoke of.

You may spend every day of the rest of your life trying to bring people to the Catholic church without having one single success story.  You may stumble over your words and fail miserably when someone challenges you on a 2,000-year old teaching.  You may feel overwhelmed and you may feel tempted to  just give up and go back to an easier self-absorbed lifestyle.

You will meet resistance.  You will be marginalized.  You will be mocked.   You will lose friends.  You will irreparably fracture family relationship.  You will have the pope’s words used against you.  You will be called old-fashioned and uncaring.  You will be called much, much worse.  But you can never, ever stop trying to drag people to heaven.

Send me an email

Follow me on Twitter