At times we can become frustrated with the modern world, especially when we see it turning away from the Truth. Why do people deny such basic realities of life, like marriage, for example?
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If we are ever to combat the numerous lies that the world is eagerly following, we need to step back and look critically at our traditional means of evangelization. Something is obviously not working.
First of all, it is important to know what extent the modern world is receptive to the Gospel. An accurate summary of where the culture stands at the present time is found in a document produced by the Pontifical Council for Culture entitled, The Via Pulchritudinis, Privileged Pathway for Evangelization and Dialogue:
The culture emerging from a materialist and atheistic worldview, characteristic of secularised societies, causes disaffection from religion, sometimes opposition to it, particularly Christianity, with a new anti-Catholicism. Many live as though God did not exist.[1] (emphasis added)
God is increasingly being thrust out of the public sphere and out of the lives of many who live in such societies.
One of the causes of this crisis in modern man’s attitude toward Christianity and God resides in the failure of traditional pathways to discovering the ultimate meaning of life. Truth and goodness normally were sufficient in winning the hearts of men, but with the rise of secular culture, they are not achieving the desired result of drawing people closer to Christ.
The reason behind this loss in the effectiveness of truth and goodness has been that, “Too often in recent years, the truth has been instrumentalised by ideologies, and the good horizontalised into a merely social act as though charity towards neighbour alone sufficed without being rooted in love of God.”[2] Consequently, the world today is not enamored by truth or goodness and has lost its normal path to God. That is why the path of beauty shown by Augustine has proven to be extremely relevant today as evangelists try to ignite the world with the flame of God’s love.
Beauty must be reunited with both truth and goodness in order for effective catechesis and evangelization.
The methods that may have been able to accomplish the conversion of sinners in times past do not hold captive the hearts of men and women in the relativistic culture of today. In particular, this new relativism “continues to spread, encouraging a climate of miscomprehension, and making real, serious and reasoned encounters rare.”[3] How many times have you had a rational, peaceful argument with someone who held an opposite point of view?
Let’s take the arguments for a traditional view of marriage as an example. Are people who are opposed to a traditional view of marriage receptive to a basic, reasonable argument based on the revealed truths in the Bible? Usually any attempts at a strictly logical explanation for a traditional view of marriage results in a heated discussion that is very emotional and ends with both people more firmly planted in their beliefs about marriage. Few are honestly interested in the barebones method of delivering the truth.
Because of this inability to reason the truth with modern man, it is necessary to take Augustine’s advice and wed beauty and truth together, so as to lure the hearts of men and women into seeing the attractiveness of truth.
On the flip side, catechesis should never do away with truth in favor of beauty, for, as Augustine would affirm, “Beauty itself cannot be reduced to simple pleasure of the senses: this would be to deprive it of its universality, its supreme value, which is transcendent.”[4] The only appropriate attitude to have in catechesis is to realize that “beauty is only authentic in its link to the truth—of what would brilliance be, if not truth?”[5]
In approaching modern culture, it is necessary to be armed not only with truth and goodness, but also with beauty.
In our next article, I will finally address how this practically looks and examine a few different methods of catechesis.
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[1] The Via Pulchritudinis, §I.
[2] Ibid, §II.1.
[3] Ibid, §II.1.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.