Column Counting heads isnt key to lasting
evangelization
By KRIS BERGGREN
Evangelization seems to be a buzzword these days in
certain ecclesial circles. Frankly, the word makes me squirm: I envision a
Bible thumper on a street corner or a TV screen. Prim church ladies rendering
disapproval with raised eyebrows. Worse yet, members of the corporate church
who believe they have a corner on how and where the Holy Spirit enters the
lives of the faithful, as if by controlling the nature of religious experience
they can guarantee uniform behavior and outcomes.
Evangelization could be construed as a numbers game: How many
thousands of young people can we fit into a stadium for a rally? How many on
the waiting list at the local parochial school? How many charitable dollars can
we cough up for the latest archdiocesan operation center or suburban Catholic
high school? Conversion, on the other hand, is a process that cant be
quantified. Though evangelization can precede conversion, theres no
axiomatic relationship between the two.
During my college years, I spent a couple of summers in Rehoboth
Beach, Del., a summer vacation spot popular on the mid-Atlantic corridor. In
fact, so many Washington residents flock there on weekends that a sign on the
way into town proclaims it The nations summer capital. (I
revel in the irony that Rehoboth may be translated as room for one
more sinner. As I recall from the couple of summers I spent there as a
young adult, working at restaurants and bars by night, enjoying beach life by
day, its a pretty family-friendly place, though there is an underbelly of
night life that lends credence to its name.
Every Sunday morning in Rehoboth, a lone evangelist would stride
the boardwalk with a simple message. REEEE-PENT! hed cry out
like a concessionaire selling cold beer at a baseball game, his mantra calling
all the hungover and guilty to higher consciousness. Well, to consciousness,
anyway.
Maybe it was his way of keeping the Sabbath and inviting the rest
of us to ponder what we might be missing. Maybe, I mused, he had taken on this
personal mission as a lifelong penance for some real or perceived sin of his
own. Ill never know if this voice in the wilderness ever succeeded in
converting a soul from the evil of one too many Bahama Mamas (a
concoction of dark rum and orange juice) or from the temptation of the local
after-hours hot tub establishment -- and from whatever sins those gateway vices
might lead to.
For me and many others, the classic Catholic school education
worked pretty well as a means of evangelization: I learned my three rs in
a safe environment where just about everybody was pretty much like me, and I
absorbed the richness of faith traditions and practices. My conversion,
however, didnt -- indeed, couldnt -- begin until I had more
experience of the world outside my Catholic cradle. Unfortunately, today so
much energy of the institutional church seems invested in self-preservation and
insulation, in fostering a sense of Catholic tribalism as an antidote to the
evils of secularism.
Were generally more subtle than that Rehoboth preacher, with
his determined gait and sweaty forehead. But I worry that we compartmentalize
faith as he does: Being a good Catholic too often means attending Mass and
making sure the kids are baptized. I deplore the prospect of watering down
faith to a Judeo-Christian lite sort of alliance, with churchgoing
as a social grace -- the equivalent of, say, eating with the correct fork.
I wish for my children to experience the strong sense of belonging
to community, an environment saturated with justice consciousness, and the
opportunity to grow in personal grace nurtured by a sacramental sensibility --
all fostered in the best parishes. But I wonder, does the institution really
understand that millennial Catholics are not docile sheep who cant find
their way back to the pasture; that our leaders do not need to be shepherds
focused on keeping the herd together? Our religious identity must be forged not
in the well-managed fold but in the wilds of wider culture.
The institution and the spirit can coexist: Some of the crustiest
nuns who taught me in my classic Catholic grade school had the most enlightened
message. I remember one nun telling us that wisdom and divine inspiration may
come from unlikely sources, television, for example, or novels -- and hey, who
knows? even an itinerant preacher -- so it is best to keep an open mind. And as
I think we all know, its a good idea to pay attention to Sister.
Kris Berggren lives in Minneapolis.
National Catholic Reporter, October 23,
1998
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