Dear Friends,
Last week, our parish leadership team attended the Global Leadership Summit, a national video conference highlighting leaders and teaching others to do likewise. The Archdiocese hosted the local viewing at Creighton. One of the points made at the conference was the importance of learning from all sources, not limiting yourself to a small circle.
In that vein, an article this week in National Review written by David French addressed a new concern in evangelical churches where young people who were active in the church, even evangelical pastors and musicians, decide that they are no longer Christian. I thought the writer made a good point about why this is happening. I think we can learn from their experience. Here are a few excerpts from the article:
“As our culture changes, secularizes, and grows less tolerant of Christian orthodoxy, I’m noticing a pattern in many of the people who fall away: They’re retreating from faith not because they’re ignorant of its key tenets and lack the necessary intellectual, theological depth but rather because the adversity of adherence to increasingly countercultural doctrine grows too great.
Put another way, the failure of the church isn’t so much of catechesis but of fortification — of building the pure moral courage and resolve to live your faith in the face of cultural headwinds.
In my travels around the country, one thing has become crystal clear to me. Christians are not prepared for the social consequences of the profound cultural shifts — especially in more secular parts of the nation. They’re afraid to say what they believe, not because they face the kind of persecution that Christians face overseas but because they’re simply not prepared for any meaningful adverse consequences in their careers or with their peers.
C. S. Lewis famously said that courage is the “form of every virtue at its testing point.” In practical application, this means that no person truly knows if he possesses any virtue until it’s tested. Do you think you’re loving? You’ll know you truly love another person only when loving that person is hard. Do you think you’re truthful? You’ll know only when telling the truth hurts. Soldiers are familiar with this phenomenon — most men who travel to the battlefield believe themselves to be brave, but they know they’re brave only if they do their duty when their life is on the line.”
The world, as Jesus taught us, has never really understood nor accepted his message. He tells us that we are in the world, but not of the world. He also tells us in today’s gospel that his message will cause division even in families. People may reject us because we admit that we are Christians. They have stereotyped ideas of what Christians believe. They may think that you reject science, that you are not accepting of other “lifestyles”, and that you have surrendered your intellect for a nice story. None of these should be true, but that image of Christians is often portrayed in movies and on television.
How important it is then that we believers live our faith well so that others can see what it truly means to follow Jesus. How necessary it is for us to be able to tell others what we believe and why we believe it. Are we really Christians if we have never been challenged? If it has always been easy for us to say we are Christians? Do we practice the virtues simply because we have never been tempted? Let us engage our faith, our love and our intellect to show the world what a relationship with God really looks like.
Let us be clear about what Catholics believe and stand with Christ in the face of the crowd.
Peace,
Fr. Damian