Education and Witness

I recently had an e-mail discussion with a couple of friends about how some bishops seem enamored with the idea of "education" (as in "educating the laity"), to the point of obscuring and even discouraging a vibrant witness to the gospel. One friend, who has worked in a chancellery and for parishes (and has witnessed the good, the bad, and the heretical), wrote:

I think the emphasis on education ... betrays a gnostic tendency I encountered all too often in working for the church, to wit: the goal of the Church's work is to impart "enlightenment/gnosis/awareness," not salvation from sin and death. It also shows an unwillingness to get down and dirty and into the nitty-gritty of people's lives.  Rather than confront suffering and sin head on, it is much more comfortable to sit in a well-apportioned room and have high-minded dialogues about "process," "renewal," and (you know it's coming) "collaboration."  Sts. Peter and Paul would puke.

And the other friend mentioned this passage from Pope Paul VI's 1975 apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi ("On Evangelization In The Modern World"):

Without repeating everything that we have already mentioned, it is appropriate first of all to emphasize the following point: for the Church, the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one's neighbor with limitless zeal. As we said recently to a group of lay people, "Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses." St. Peter expressed this well when he held up the example of a reverent and chaste life that wins over even without a word those who refuse to obey the word.[68] It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus- the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of sanctity. (par. 41)

If you've never read Evangelii Nuntiandi, consider doing so sometime as it is a really excellent and helpful document, an often overlooked and underappreciated precursor to the "new evangelization" emphasized by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

On Ignatius Insight:

• Can Catholics Be Evangelists? An interview with Russell Shaw
• We Are All Called To Be Evangelizers | by Fr. C. John McCloskey, III, and Russell Shaw
• Evangelization 101: A Short Guide to Sharing the Gospel | Carl E. Olson
• Evangelization & Imperialism | Carl E. Olson
• Evangelizing With Love, Beauty and Reason | Joseph Pearce
• The History and Purpose of Apologetics | An Interview with Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
• Love Alone is Believable: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Apologetics | Fr. John R. Cihak
• "Be A Catholic Apologist--Without Apology" | Carl E. Olson

Comments

[Bender]

???????????

Isn't the fact that people have been poorly catechized a major and routine complaint, and justifiably so? And now there is a complaint that there is too much emphasis on "education"?

Such a complaint would merely seem to confirm that there has not been enough learning about the nature of the magisterial (teaching) mission of the Church.

OF COURSE the best teaching of the Faith incorporates personal witness -- Ours is a Living faith, not merely a collection of ideas and facts and words on a page. We teach by sharing that lived faith with others. Meanwhile, we witness to others by, among other things, informing (teaching) them about Jesus.

I confess that I really do not understand what the dispute is here.

[Carl E. Olson]

Bender: Apologies for being obtuse. Read this and this, and see if that helps at all. The issue here isn't really catechesis (we all agree that catechesis has generally lacked for decades), but the smokescreen of "education" to keep people from taking actual education and catechesis and putting them into practice as witnesses. I can assure you the complaint has nothing to do with a lack of knowledge about the teaching mission of the Church (my friend taught youth for over ten years, and did it very well); it has to do with a failure on the part of certain bishops to unapologetically stand up for life and truth.

[Kevin C.]

I would perhaps clarify that the 'education' being referred to is not the kind of solid, unapologetically orthodox and vibrant teaching that leads to the type of evangelical and missionary action the Church so desperately needs. Instead, it is the same old same old watered-down, seamless-garment mumbo jumbo that has the net effect of simply robbing a soul of his thunder and causing a lukewarmness and apathy so typical in so many of us (and so easy to succumb to, I might add).