Realities not Ideologies

On evangelization and missionary discipleship

Every paragraph of this reflection from Sarah Carter is gold. It’s titled, “The Evangelization Mistake I Made for Years.”

Sarah articulates the scattered feelings I’ve had about evangelization for the past several years.

I’ve largely abandoned evangelization: in part because it’s so often done in a coercive way, and in part because if the end goal is butts in pews then I have little desire to invite others to participate in an institution that does so much harm. From Sarah:

“The reason this doesn’t work, I think, is that when we see everything through the lens of where people around us stand in relationship to the visible Church, we aren’t seeing the whole picture. By the way, Francis literally says this in The Joy of the Gospel, but the temptation is strong to read between the lines and assume that it’s our job above all else to Get People Back to Church.

Missionary discipleship, if understood in this action-oriented, results-focused way, quickly starts to feel unsustainable, exhausting, inauthentic, and sometimes downright cringe, rather than … what was it again? Oh right, joyful and attractive.“

And yet I haven’t abandoned evangelization if evangelization is what Sarah, what Pope Francis, describes. Sarah quotes Rocco Buttiglione:

“The missionary disciple has faith in what he has seen and heard and is open to what the Lord has in store. He is aware that God’s design is broader than his own human vision and is full of surprises; reality is greater than (human) ideas. What is already known must be discovered anew in each encounter with new peoples and new cultures. The missionary disciple does not protect spaces; he begins processes. He does not want to impose a law from the outside as soon as he can; he aims, rather, to change the hearts of men so that they themselves rediscover the law inside them, as the fulfillment of their desire for perfect justice. He knows that the whole is greater than his own work, which will reach completeness and come into its authentic meaning only within the unity of the Church, under whose judgment it ultimately stands.”

I’ve stopped being defensive. I’ve let go of fear. I’ve stopped trying to impose God and instead I’ve tried to just be genuine with others, letting them know they belong, letting them discover God for themselves in their hearts.

I’ve also let Christ present in those marginalized by the Church change my heart. I’ve let their realities change my paradigms, my neat and tidy categories. Again, from Sarah:

“When an epistemically honest person encounters realities that don’t fit the grammars she has put in place to make sense of the world, she yields and changes the grammars. We must let the realities of the people and events that unfold around us change us, or they will crash into us and shatter, destroying all hope of the communion for which we were made. In this sense, the only alternative to missionary discipleship is ideology.”

This reflection is a breath of fresh air. Check it out and follow Sarah here:

The Evangelization Mistake I Made For Years