From the title I assumed this was going to be one of those Bible Study things, but it was actually more a follow-up to the Changing Face of Society session. It presented the question: What exactly is the ‘Good News’, and what does it really mean in today’s society? The presentation material is available for download here.
The session went off on so many tangents, it took a while to make a coherent post on this.
A CityToCity project’s mission statement is this: ‘[…]A movement for the planting of highly contextualised, Gospel-centred, church-planting churches[…]‘
Let me try to explain what this means in more concrete terms: The definition and nature of evangelism has changed in recent years. Long ago (say about twenty years ago), it was common to encounter preachers evangelising on the streets in a language that might be considered rather condemning and judgemental. Basically their message was to accept Christ or be condemned to eternity in Hell, because mankind deserves the latter by default, for reasons nobody seemed to understand.
The biggest problem for myself was the absence of logic or reason in what they were presenting as ‘Good News’. How on Earth could one person be absolved of wrongdoing because another man was executed in a distant land 2,000 years ago? How is being a slave to ‘sin’ any worse than being a slave to a man-made religion? How could the idea of Hell be reconciled with the concept of a loving God? Surely liberalism and tolerance are preferable, certainly in the 21st century, than adherence to religious dogma? And what of those who profess to be devoutly religious but aren’t living up to the standards they hold others to? People are right to ask these questions, and I never found satisfactory answers to them outside the Catechism.
So, it is for those reasons I don’t evangelise by speaking of Jesus dying for peoples’ sins, or of repentance, for those words have no traction in in a secular world, and neither am I aiming to convert anyone.
I’m more interested in causing people to question materialism and consider the mysteries our faith presents us with, because that’s where the battle between secularism and religion seems to be. I hint at ideas that are somewhat occulted, and sometimes discouraged, in a postmodern and highly individualistic society. In everyday life, I attempt to bring the Good News into the world by trying to bring happiness to others and through the subtle use of symbolism – these are far more effective than any amount of street preaching. And, if the words ‘pastor’ and ‘church’ become associated in the public consciousness with kindness, hope and compassion, that would count as successful evangelism.
For myself, the Good News is that God lived amongst humanity because He loves us, that everyone is involved in the continual unfolding of creation, and that everyone can have a relationship with something much greater – these, in my belief, are the core truths behind the dogma. And they’re life-changing truths if you can believe them.
Another reason we don’t evangelise by preaching is that preaching is not effective communication. People (myself and other Street Pastors included) have the human tendency to talk instead of listen, to pause during a conversation only for the opportune moment to voice our opinions. By listening to another person and asking questions, instead of merely exchanging opinions, conversations can be made more meaningful. Interestingly enough, Jesus seemed to be aware of this – you’ll notice that He rarely answered a question directly, but instead usually countered with another question, and His teachings were usually communicated using imagery and practical demonstration.
Taking a broader view, I’d argue that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection left humanity with a profound mystery, a huge unanswered question that our best philosophers and theologians struggled with for centuries.
The Good News and the Social Condition
The way I see it, social problems arise because we’re not in harmony with what we’d call ‘natural law’ – this is something that’s better understood by reading/listening to ‘apologetics’ resources rather than your typical homily. Natural law is often described as an immutable law that’s written into the hearts of men. It is independent of, and above, secular laws, and it determines the consequences of our behaviour, individually and collectively. On a large scale, natural law governs the rise and fall of civilisations. On a personal level, it determines whether we live a good life according to our life decisions.
What has Christianity to do with natural law? Well, Christianity promotes a way of living, a pattern of individual and social behaviour that’s in harmony with natural law. We believe that every person is made in the image of God, and therefore has certain inalienable rights – the right to life, dignity and freedom of expression being chief among them. Every child should be raised by a mother and a father, and that family unit would exist within a support network of extended family and community. You’ve probably come across the truism that it takes a village to raise a child. Far from being disempowering or constricting, this pattern of society would give everyone a connection to something greater, a means to act within the world and influence it as they see fit, and even an obligation to participate in local politics. This is the essence of subsidiarity.
Like the traditionalists and conservatives, I have a tendency to refer to a sort of ‘golden age’ of society being modelled on Christian values and the aforementioned ideals, but it seems simplistically naive to think this happened without reason, and for more than a very brief period in human history. It seems, certainly in Wales’ mining communities, that strong community and the traditional family existed because of the hardships experienced by previous generations, and working men needed to involve themselves in local politics because rights for the working class had to be fought for.
The Good News, then, would include the proposition that our collective sense of disempowerment, the disconnect between the average person and how the country is run, is an illusion. Anyone could indeed change the world around them, and our individual actions do indeed affect the world more than we’re aware of.
As a case in point, who would have thought that a small group calling themselves ‘Street Pastors’, dedicating just four hours per week, could reduce crime by 40% in a town and save the NHS £millions? Who would think that a simple gesture of kindness to a homeless person early one morning would be emulated by several others?
Spirituality
We cannot really discuss ‘Good News’ without exploring spirituality and contemporary attitudes to it. In a couple of the training sessions, it’s been pointed out that, according to a fairly recent YouGov survey, most people still believe, or at least profess to believe, in a ‘higher power’ and some form of afterlife. Most the others at the sessions took this as evidence that our society is spiritual and, deep down, believes in God, but I don’t agree.
First, as Dr. Jordan Peterson has pointed out, it actually depends on the definitions of ‘believe’ and ‘God’, since those terms usually mean very different things to the religious and the secular.
Secondly, what we do know is that church attendance has been on the decline for several decades. It’s a general trend spanning most denominations, which suggests a societal reason for this. The problem is there are a myriad of possible societal reasons. Some of them are understandable and entirely valid, such as the disillusionment with organised religion and the loss of trust in authorities. And perhaps attending Mass simply isn’t something most people are into – even I sometimes need to force myself to attend Mass and do whatever is needed in my ministry.
One of the possible societal reasons for the decline in church attendance is the fact most the population are living in cities and urban areas, and with the weakening of communities that, before, would have perpetuated traditions. This would obviously have an effect on the spiritual outlook of society.
Increasingly our senses are barraged with the artificial, synthetic and man-made. Many of us spend most our waking hours staring into a monitor, a smartphone or a TV screen. We’re far less grounded in truth and reality than our ancestors were, even now to the point of political discourse being casually dismissed as ‘fake news’ or the work of Russian propagandists.
As a talking point, a short video was played during the session listing some of the technological advances that are anticipated for the coming decade. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most the advances were in some way related to virtual and augmented reality, further abstracting our experience and interactions with the world.
What’s my point here? Spiritually, I think we’re collectively in danger of becoming rather like the prisoners in Plato’s Cave, refusing to accept the truths behind the shadow of reality presented to us, whether those truths be religious or political. As an aside, one of the more pressing consequences of this is our ignorance of the environmental impact of consumerism, and the (in)humane treatment of animals used in food production, and the welfare of those involved in the manufacture of things we take for granted.
So, the ‘spirituality’ that is common in society is actually a byword for spiritual apathy. We don’t see many becoming disillusioned with the Church and seeking gnosis in Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, psychadelics or suchlike, but instead accepting a non-committal and relativistic kind of agnosticism. What’s commonly referred to as ‘spiritual’ today is vague, post-modernist, worldview that doesn’t really have a significant influence on how one lives. It takes a back seat to all other material things.
A Catholic Commentarium 