A great push has been put together within the Church towards a reinvigorated attempt to “evangelize” which is a Mission of the Church. This must be celebrated, because it saves us from a self-referential attempt to become Holy, which of course is self-defeating.
But I’d like to make a critical observation: Evangelization must not be a mere matter of consoling the affect of other people – but rather generating disciples who have been saved by the Love of Christ.
The deficit I note is in the whole realm of soteriology, whereby the uncomfortable truth about our fallen-state is completely avoided. Simply, the Gospel teaches us that there are two things we need to be saved from: Sin and Death. Understood properly, these are not terms that won’t be integrated into the notion of a loving relationship with God – as that would be to follow in the footsteps of Kant: a demoralizing preoccupation with morality apart from an abiding friendship with Christ. Nor are we to fall into the error of reacting to moralism by only embracing the accidental aspects of our faith (sentimentalism) while ignoring its Saving-Substance.
If evangelization is promoted, but sin, and death are not mentioned in conjunction, what we have instead is the latter: a horizontal, non-transcendental pre-occupation. Again, to say it simply, we are concerned about the secondary or non-essential dimensions of our faith.
To paint an image that is straight-forward and simple: we celebrate the invitation to follow Christ without actually following Him, like receiving a wedding invitation, yet never going to the wedding. It is consoling to know that Christ loves us while we are sinners, but he loves us in such a way that is meant to change us from the inside-out. If we stay in the mere consolation of His invitation of Love, then we will not be saved.
That last line is definitive, true, and uncomfortable. And for that reason it often isn’t proclaimed, likely because it is not perceived as “pastoral.” Equivocally, however, the term Pastoral here does not mean leading someone to heaven gently, and with kindness. Rather it means avoiding any kind of loving reprove or challenge, starting with ourselves, and in union with others. In any other relationship, the expectation to go to the wedding if we loved those in attendance would be a real priority. This isn’t novel, this isn’t anything other than the common-sense of relationships. Yet here we are.
Evangelization without soteriology is nothing more than a secular type of humanism pretending to be religion.
Photo: Public Domain
