{"id":232,"date":"2007-10-15T08:30:32","date_gmt":"2007-10-15T08:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/10\/evangelization-and-mission.html"},"modified":"2007-10-15T08:30:32","modified_gmt":"2007-10-15T08:30:32","slug":"evangelization-and-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/10\/evangelization-and-mission.html","title":{"rendered":"Evangelization and mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some pertinent posts today:
\nCarl Olson has an interview with Fr. Robert Barron<\/a> of the Archdiocese of Chicago here: <\/a>
\n(Fr. Barron is known for his evangelization efforts, but the subject of this interview, his new book called The Priority of Christ<\/em>, <\/a>is a work of theology, so that’s the topic..but since Christ is the subject of evangelization…it fits the post.)<\/p>\n

IgnatiusInsight.com: The subtitle to The Priority of Christ<\/a> <\/em>is “Toward a Postliberal Catholicism”, and Bridging the Great Divide<\/em> is subtitled “Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conservative Evangelical Catholic.” What is misleading or hindering about the descriptives “liberal” and “conservative” when used to describe Catholicism? How might you define a “post-liberal, post-conservative evangelical Catholic”?
\nFr. Barron:<\/strong> The terms “liberal” and “conservative” are misleading in regard to the Catholic faith because they are primarily political categories borrowed from the era of the French revolution. During that time, if you supported the ancien r\u00e9gime<\/em>, you were a conservateur<\/em>, and if you favored political reform, you were a liberal<\/em>. But this applies, only very awkwardly, to the context of Catholicism, for the church is not a political form towards which we are either positively or negatively disposed. It is, rather, a body of which we are members. As the subtitle to my book Bridging the Great Divide<\/em> suggests, I would recommend that we leave these misleading designations behind and embrace the title “evangelical.” By this, I mean that we should be Christ-centered, eager to proclaim the faith, and deeply desirous of bringing people into the mystical body in which we have found such abundant life.
\nIgnatiusInsight.com: What are some of the primary issues and arguments that you address in The Priority of Christ<\/em>? What do you think are the most serious challenges (or errors) facing Catholics in the realm of Christology?<\/strong>
\nFr. Barron:<\/strong> The primary issue that I address in The Priority of Christ<\/em> is the need to transcend the theological style that has dominated Christian thought since the time of Schleiermacher, viz. experiential-expressivism. By this I mean the view that dogma, doctrine, practice, and ritual are but expressions of universal spiritual experiences. I propose a reversal according to which interpretive primacy is given to the densely textured world opened up by the Biblical revelation, so that that world shapes experience and not vice versa. This shift is of special importance in regard to Christology, for in the dominant Christologies of the post-conciliar period\u2014K\u00fcng’s Schillebeeckx’s, Rahner’s, Haight’s, to name just a few\u2014interpretive primacy is clearly given to anthropology and subjective experience. This has led to a serious atenuating of the content of the New Testament revelation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sherry Weddell has a few posts on mission, including this overview:<\/a><\/p>\n

The 2010 will be the 100th anniversary of the famous 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference. This anniversary is another example of the hermetically-sealed-alternate- universes of Catholics and evangelicals when it comes to missions.
\nCatholics like Fr. Peter Phan<\/font><\/a> regard the Edinburgh Conference as a symbol of western over-reach and missionary failure. Meanwhile, Evangelicals are getting ready to throw a giant global party in 2010 to celebrate the extraordinary success and fruitfulness of the missions movement for which Edinburgh was a significant turning point. The party – better known as Lausanne III: International Congress on World Evangelization<\/font><\/a> – will take place in Cape Town, South Africa. They expect about 4,000 delegates from missionary groups, churches, and denominations all over the world. This is not just an evangelical enterprise. Both Anglicans and Orthodox will be represented. What is unclear to me is whether or not there will be any significant Catholic representation.
\nIt is not an accident that while the first Lausanne Conference took place in Switzerland in 1974, the third one, a mere 36 years later, is taking place in Africa. It is the global south, especially Africa, which has become the center of Christianity in our lifetimes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Via Sherry, this fascinating online magazine called St. Francis,<\/em><\/a> which describes itself:<\/p>\n

St Francis Magazine<\/em> aims to strengthen the Christian witness in the Arab World.\u00a0 The magazine does this by the articles we publish here, through studies, and by offering applied training on matters related to the Christian apostolate in the Arab World.
\nIn missiology much can be debated, and that is what we like to stimulate with St Francis Magazine. However, we have some solid parameters. \u00a0Central for us is our commitment to the triune God as revealed in the Christian Scriptures and ultimately in his Son Jesus Christ.\u00a0 We adhere to the historic faith as expressed by the Ecumenical Councils of the early Church.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aimee Milburn has a long and very interesting post about her MA thesis project, and asks for prayers:<\/a><\/p>\n

In the fall of 2005, when a new student at the Augustine Institute,<\/a> I attended a packed Theology on Tap presentation where Archbishop Charles Chaput told several hundred young people that evangelism is essential for Catholics to practice.\u00a0 Many in the audience, during a question and answer period, expressed frustration that they don\u2019t know how.\u00a0 One brought up door-to-door evangelism, and Archbishop Chaput responded that he would love to see a resurgence of it, which he remembers from his youth and which was common in the Catholic world until only a few decades ago.
\nThis got my attention, because I am a convert to Catholicism, a former Evangelical – and a former door-to-door evangelist.\u00a0 I trained and served as a trainer in what is, as far as I know, the most successful evangelism training program in the world, which trains ordinary people in how to share their faith with other people.\u00a0 It has been around for several decades, and operates in every country in the world, providing training where people actually go out on the streets and door-to-door with experienced evangelists, in order to learn how to share their faith with people.\u00a0
\nIt is very effective, and I\u2019ve often wished there were a program like it for Catholics.\u00a0 For example, in 2006 alone the program trained almost 200,000 ordinary Christians worldwide in how to share their faith, and saw almost 5 million conversions to Christ through their witness.\u00a0 It is based on the idea that people need structured training, experience, and practice over a period of time to learn how to share their faith effectively with others.\u00a0
\nA standard training course runs 12 weeks, meeting once a week for class time and going out, and there are shorter intensives available.\u00a0 There is also a leadership track for people who want to learn the organizational basics, so they can implement a program in their own church or ministry, and train their own people.\u00a0 Once a person goes through the training, they have the tools and experience to be able to share their faith with anyone, anytime.\u00a0 Trainees are also invited to become trainers, so they can help hand on what they\u2019ve been given; some do so for a term, others stay for years, they enjoy it so much.\u00a0 I knew a trainer in my church’s program who’d been volunteering for 20 years, he loved it so much.
\nFor myself, I was an extremely shy person when I began the 12-week training only a year after my conversion to Christ \u2013 and it caused me to overcome my shyness in a hurry, when I learned how joyful and powerful it can be to step out in faith and start talking to people about our God.\u00a0 I had wonderful experiences in the program, stayed to train for a term, and continued to use the training after I left it, which enabled me to have the joy of actually leading people to Christ, and seeing them convert and their lives change as a result \u2013 which I could do because I knew how.\u00a0 I had been trained.
\nAfter Archbishop Chaput\u2019s talk, I approached him and told him about my background \u2013 and that conversation sparked the idea for my thesis project, which now, two years later and classes completed, I have initiated: develop a pilot model of such a training program for Catholics, that is thoroughly Catholic in both theology and approach, with respect for the dignity and conscience of whoever we approach (no coercion or manipulation).\u00a0 The first challenge is to develop a truly Catholic presentation of the gospel that can really convey the essence of Catholicism in a brief encounter; the second is to test it in the field with real trainees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some pertinent posts today: Carl Olson has an interview with Fr. Robert Barron of the Archdiocese of Chicago here: (Fr. Barron is known for his evangelization efforts, but the subject of this interview, his new book called The Priority of Christ, is a work of theology, so that’s the topic..but since Christ is the subject…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nEvangelization and mission - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/10\/evangelization-and-mission.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Evangelization and mission - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some pertinent posts today: Carl Olson has an interview with Fr. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}