{"id":5187,"date":"2006-01-24T01:06:05","date_gmt":"2006-01-24T01:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/i-was-going-to-say-this-site-was-really-lame.html"},"modified":"2006-01-24T01:06:05","modified_gmt":"2006-01-24T01:06:05","slug":"i-was-going-to-say-this-site-was-really-lame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/i-was-going-to-say-this-site-was-really-lame.html","title":{"rendered":"I was going to say this site was really lame"},"content":{"rendered":"

But then I saw that they recommended one of my books in their DVC section.<\/a><\/p>\n

What a fantastic site!<\/p>\n

Or…not.<\/p>\n

It’s "Life4Seekers", an outreach of the UK RC Church of England and Wales, and, in the end, it makes you think of nothing else but a bunch of people sitting around a table trying to figure out What Kids Today want to see, except as it is with all religious-type folk, the gold standard is not Kids Today, but, of course, "Seekers."<\/p>\n

I think if you want to get a sense of how this seeker-sensitive business can end up in a warped, or even non-existent Gospel, you might take a look at this site, especially since we seem to take Protestants to task on this score most often. <\/p>\n

It is such<\/em> a temptation to want to evangelize by asking "Do you want to find real happiness?" I believe I’ve done it. But upon a lot of reflection, I’ve come to see that this is not Jesus’ question. It’s not even an accurate modern restatement of Jesus’ question. And the answer, which is usually, "Get to know Jesus" isn’t right, either. I mean – it isn’t wrong, but it’s only half the answer.<\/p>\n

What’s Jesus’ question? I think, rather than, "Do you want to find inner peace?"  – it’s "What do you want me to do for you?" and "Which of the brothers did the Father’s will?" and "Do you love me?"<\/p>\n

The answers: That I might see again. The first one – who acted. Yes, Lord, you know I love you.<\/p>\n

Then feed my sheep.<\/p>\n

There is just the slightest distinction, that grows bigger, the more closely we look. Peace, happiness, and so on, are the fruits of the Spirit and the life of faith, and the desire for them pushes us, pulls us, drives our restless hearts to God. We know we are far from God because we are unhappy and dis-eased. And the invitation from Jesus is certainly one to intimacy, friendship and love. <\/p>\n

But the point of contact should, I can’t help but think, evoke more than a promise of inner peace, because that is not the first fruit I hear when I read the Gospels. The invitation is to healing because wholeness is the way it is in God’s kingdom. the brothers and the stewards and the fisherman listen and obey, they heed the call and just go<\/em> and do.<\/em> The twelve set out, not to keep searching or to share the search with others, but to announce Good News, that the world is not what you thought it was.<\/em> God reigns, Jesus is the point of contact, where the truth of reality, of the universe, of every bit of creation is revealed, and the time has come to stop living in the darkness of the world as we have tried to make it, but in the world as it is, so that means we’ve got to throw off the ridiculous, sad, burdensome world of our own creation – repent.<\/em><\/p>\n

I suppose in the end it is the same thing. I hope it is. But there is a smallness about seeker-sensitive evangelization, a hint that all that’s wrong with you is that there’s this little missing piece, or this one unanswered question, when the Gospel is something different than that, something bigger, something cosmic, something that I couldn’t imagine seeking if I tried, something I have to realize is about more than my personal search and needs, but is simply, enticingly, mysteriously about the way reality is. <\/em><\/p>\n

The seeker-sensitive path dares not hint that anything is seriously amiss, for fear of scaring off the seeker. But that’s not the way it is in the Gospels, is it? Everyone who is moved by Jesus, who embraces the Kingdom of God, knows that they are broken, in need of healing, forgiveness, and the touch of Jesus to turn them around, strip off the old and clothe with the new. The seeker-sensitive model likes to think of itself as radical, but it’s not – it’s deeply conservative and tentative. Could we ask the seeker a different question? <\/p>\n

Could we ask not, "Do you want to find happiness" but instead, forthrightly, taking the question from the subjective to the objective world: "You’re blind. Wouldn’t you like to see?"<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But then I saw that they recommended one of my books in their DVC section. What a fantastic site! Or…not. 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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\/5187","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=5187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}