Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
September 21, 2014
Spiritual Ponderings
7 Deadly Sins of Evangelization

As we continue to look at the idea of how to be a good evangelizer by looking at the approaches we should avoid, let us look at sins four and five of 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.

4. Contentiousness
The Fourth Deadly Sin of Catholic Apologetics is plain old argumentativeness, or, if you like, contentiousness. Some apologists are always looking for a fight. They go out of their way to reduce the faith to areas of disagreements with others or at least put undue emphasis on disagreement.

As I prayed through Lent last year, a thought kept reoccurring in my mind and it was this – Jesus and the Pharisees/Scribes had more in common but yet the Scribes and Pharisees always seemed to be attacking Jesus. It reminded me that the devil came to divide but God’s work is about unity. This happens also in our world today. There seems to be some who are looking more for a fight to win then an opportunity to show love to others.

Defending the faith is not supposed to be about us but about God and his truth. We should not defend Catholicism because our Church is being attacked; that is the attitude of the nationalist or sectarian. Still less should we be defensive because our personal beliefs are challenged—as if the Catholic faith were merely a matter of our private philosophy of life or personal theology. No, we should defend the Church because we love God and the Church belongs to him, and because we love our neighbors, and the Church—on the Catholic view—is the God-given means of bringing people into full communion with Christ, the only Savior. If we truly believe that, then charity compels us to share the truth of the Catholic faith with others.

If we think God needs us to defend Him; we are sadly mistaken. Our Lord promised that the Church would not fall because of the Holy Spirit and not our efforts. In Mathew’s account of the Passion, one of the disciples leaps forward with a sword and the Jesus reprimands Him reminding everyone that Jesus could have easily called down twelve legions of angels to protect Him. The ultimate goal of defending our faith and introducing others to it is to with the grace of God save souls. If you have a good friend, then you would want others to meet that friend. This is true with God. Our desire to tell others about God should come from our friendship with Him and not a need to defend Him or to protect our beliefs. No one like a bully (especially an intellectual one) so we need to avoid contentiousness.

5. Friendly Fire
Not distinguishing enemies from allies is the Fifth Deadly Sin of Catholic Apologetics. We are in the middle of a culture war… In the grand scheme of things, it is not Catholics vs. Protestants so much as believers vs. unbelievers; absolutists vs. relativists. It is truth vs. error, with the old serpent, the Father of Lies using others to front for him. Consequently, we risk unintentionally shooting an ally (or ourselves in the foot) by always aiming our apologetically firepower so close to home—at those nearest us theologically-or at the other extreme, by shooting at anything that moves on the non-Catholic theological landscape.

While we should invite everyone to learn about our Catholic faith, I think it is important that there are non-Catholic faiths that hold many of the same moral beliefs as we do. It is therefore important to work with these non-Catholic faiths on moral issues like abortion, embryonic stem cells, etc. instead of debating doctrine for human lives are at stake. If a person while serving a cause like the pro-life movement for example decides that in the course of the ministry to explore the Catholic faith then by all means tell them about the faith. What I think we should avoid is refusing to work with other pro-life groups for example if they are not Catholic.

Among other things, ecumenism means stressing (and valuing) what we Christians have in common as well as discussing our differences. Both elements are needed if we are to attain the full unity Christ wills for his followers. And both elements have a role to play in the Church’s mission.

Over the years, I have found the best way to lead people to Christ is to start with what we have in common.