Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
September 14, 2014
Spiritual Ponderings
7 Deadly Sins of Evangelization

Before he ascended into heaven Jesus tells His disciples: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Mathew 28: 18:20). I believe everyone eventually discovers that there is a right way to evangelize and there is a wrong way to do so and so therefore for this month, I would like to spend sometimes ponderings Mark Brumley’s Seven Deadly Sins of Apologetics and Evangelization as he outlines them in his book: How Not To Share Your Faith: The Seven Deadly Sins of Catholic Apologetics and Evangelization. Quotes from his book will be in bold and my reflections will be found in the normal font.

2. Reducing the Faith to Apologetics/Arguments
“It is absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing,” said Cardinal Henry Newman. From this comment, many Christians wrongly conclude that there is no point at all in arguing about religion. “Argument never convinced anyone,” they say.

I personally like to make a distinction between faith and religion. For me religion is the academic part of a faith. For example a non-Catholic can study our faith and past a test on the Twelve Apostles, the Ten Commandments, but that does not mean that they have experienced faith. Faith comes from faith experiences and sharing stories with others. This is why retreats and faiths haring groups can play an important part in a person faith development.

At the center of the Catholic is not a set of dogmas or doctrines but rather a person(s). Our God desires to be in a personal relationship with each of us and this is what faith is all about. Let us say for a moment that I have a good friend named Joe and I want you to meet him. I can tell you every fact that I know about Joe but unless you meet Joe you will never develop a friendship with him. In the same way, I can tell you everything I know about Jesus but unless you have a personal encounter with Jesus your will never know Jesus.

Similarly, our ability to marshal arguments for Catholic Doctrine will not save us.
Human beings like to do things and we often define our worth by what we do or how much we produce. We can therefore become more aggressive if we are trying to make a quota instead of inviting someone to meet a friend. We need to be careful that after leadings others to Christ that we do not hear Jesus say “I tell you I do not know you.”

3. Confusing the Faith with Arguments for it.
The Third Deadly Sin of Catholic Apologetics is to confuse the faith with the arguments for it. It is not simply a matter of reducing the Catholic faith to the arguments, but reducing faith to our own particular arguments for it, or at least those particular arguments that we find useful or persuasive.

As I stated above our faith is more about a relationship with the Blessed Trinity then it is about facts. Some of my favorite living role models in the faith know less about the facts of our faith than I do but their relationship with the Lord seems stronger. While I don’t think my grandmother could name the twelve apostles if her life depended upon it, at the same time I can never remember a time in which my grandmother doubted in God’s loving providence. Sometimes when I am in trouble, I wish I had her faith and confidence.

Furthermore, merely because we fail in argument and do not actually demonstrate what we set out to prove does not mean the thing we argued for is false. Yet, if we all your faith too closely with our arguments, the fate of the one will seem to guarantee the fate of the other.

When I was newly ordained I thought I had to know everything about every aspect of the faith and if I could not answer a question, that I was a failure. Now when someone asks me a question about the faith that I do not know, I have no problem in pointing them to another priest or person who is an expert in that area of the faith. I have also become aware of the fact that there are some aspects of the faith that need to be experienced and cannot be explained. My faith is stronger now that I can admit that I do not have all the answers.