Christianity and Christian discipleship is fundamentally about The Good News - God has given us Jesus Christ, who has come to save us from our sins. What was once broken is now restored, ever more fully, in the life of Christ. This is the evangel, the Good News of Salvation. Merry Christmas!
When our culture, postmodern Western Culture, hears the Good News, it immediately asks a pointed followup question: "How is this good news?" After all, this Good News reads as an accusation. Modern folks might be interested in salvation, but it's certainly not salvation from something so antiquated or unreal as SIN. And woe to the person (the Christian) who claims something someone freely chooses to do is sinful. This is the most intolerable insult, the one absolute truth to which our culture clings. This insult, the claim that some choices are sinful, assaults both American idols: FREEDOM and CHOICE. Free choices are anointed or holy. And choices - everyone deserves to choose as they see fit, and no one has the right to say otherwise. Now if Christianity claimed to save us from boredom, or from poverty, or from war, or from Republicans, its Good News claim might have a more interesting effect. But this is obviously not the case.
Modern Christian Evangelization must take this modern rebuke of the traditional method of proclaiming the Christian Gospel into account. As VATICAN II says, Christians must "read the signs of the times" and act accordingly. The world will not be persuaded by a God whose principle claim on our attention is salvation from some unknown malady.
No comments:
Post a Comment