Evangelize Like a First-Century Christian

Obviously, the "New Springtime" never arrived, and we're still in the depths of a Vatican II winter. We need to reach the young people by returning to Tradition!

From Crisis

By Julie V. Burkey

We are all intimately familiar with what the statistics prove in raw numbers concerning our evangelization efforts over the past sixty-years. But how do we turn this around?

Catholics of a certain age can still recall the Faith of the 1940s, 50s, and early 60s. These decades were largely a continuation of previous centuries of steady Church growth with full pews at most Masses. The parish priest was greatly respected for playing many roles in service to both God and parishioners: confessor, counselor, intercessor, and, most importantly, celebrant at Holy Mass. The clergy served, and the faithful received.

One responsibility clergy did not then often consider was retaining and attracting individuals and families to the Faith. The sacraments were treasured, celebratory events in family life, marking important life milestones not to be missed. Traditional family structures, limited mobility, and a consistent moral code kept the Church and its teaching relevant to the faithful for centuries. 

Then came the Second Vatican Council: change was in the air, but a paradoxical change, one that professed to look back to early authoritative sources, a ressourcement, while also looking forward to a new and wider understanding of the Church’s mission, an aggiornamento. 

Much has been and surely will continue to be written and debated on the pros and cons regarding both the need and outcomes of Vatican II. One thing is clear: the documents of Vatican II put new emphasis on the participation and responsibility of the laity in the life of the Church.

One of the most revered of Vatican II documents, Lumen Gentium (Light of Nations), devotes an entire chapter to “The Laity,” offering rationale and encouragement for the laity to actively partake in the mission of the Church: “Now the laity are called in a special way to make the Church present and operative in those places and circumstances where only through them can it become the salt of the earth”(LG 33).

Emphasis on the role of the laity continued after the Council, most significantly in the form of several “post-conciliar” documents. St. Pope Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World), promulgated in 1975, was the most relevant to an understanding of evangelization, while also stressing the need for a renewed effort and spirit. His opening paragraph highlights this need with the question: “In our day, what happened to that hidden energy of the Good News…?”

After Evangelii Nuntiandi, it took another couple of decades before the E-word was a common expression in Catholic circles, followed by an explosion of parish Evangelization Committees, as well as numerous programs intended to jump-start a new era of evangelization in Catholic parishes. Disciples in Mission, Welcome Home, Landings, Alpha, and Discovering Christ are but a few. While most of these programs fulfilled one of the goals of what became known as the New Evangelization (promulgated by St. Pope John Paul II), that is, pastoral care of those in the pews, little was accomplished in outreach to lapsed Catholics and those in the margins.

Many statistics attest to decline in attendance at Mass, as well as the general Catholic population. One such study by the General Social Survey (GSS) revealed that in 1973, 84 percent of the participants raised Catholic still identified as Catholic when surveyed as adults; but in 2002, it was 74 percent. By 2022, it had dropped to 62 percent. The Church is losing nine out of 10 cradle Catholics, and most are becoming religiously unaffiliated. Clearly, efforts to motivate Catholics to evangelize have not succeeded—despite just about every parish hosting an Evangelization Committee.

The Church is losing nine out of 10 cradle Catholics, and most are becoming religiously unaffiliated. Clearly, efforts to motivate Catholics to evangelize have not succeeded.

The question posed by Pope Paul VI in 1975 must be addressed again. It is time for another ressourcement, another look back to a time when Christianity flourished despite desperate circumstances: specifically, the first several centuries of the Christian Faith. What kind of energy fueled the early Christians—ordinary working people without worldly power or influence—to spread the Good News across the entire known world in a mere 300 years?

This is a question asked by many sociologists and academics, many of whom care little about the Christian religion itself. It is a remarkable phenomenon which the world has not seen again.  To be a Christian in the first century often meant that there was no prior history of Christian belief, no established customs handed down from family to family.

Christianity gained believers by its own strength: the Faith grew one person to another via conversations and relationships that took place during ordinary daily activities. It stands as an amazing example of extraordinary personal initiative and personal belief: a countercultural decision to communicate what gives hope to life—a desire to share a belief so impactful, so live-affirming, that it cannot be kept to oneself. St. Augustine described this sharing of faith simply as “one heart setting another heart on fire.”

When major epidemics struck the Empire, Roman citizens fled to their villas in the hills while Christians remained to nurse the sick without regard to class or belief. While Romans could murder or abandon daughters or sick males, Christians forbade infanticide, as well as abortion.  While pagan women could marry as early as 12, Christians considered 18 to be the more appropriate age. They could also decline marriage and not fear being destitute, having the Christian community to see to their needs. 

Even the manner in which Christians regarded death—not the end but a beginning of a new life—was inspiring, giving hope and meaning to a difficult earthly existence. The early Christian author Tertullian, who witnessed much of this, wrote: “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘how they love one another!’”

It is this genuine Christian love put into action that has the power to transform our world once again. Pope Paul VI affirmed the necessity and power of love to accomplish such transformation: “The work of evangelization presupposes in the evangelizer an ever-increasing love for those whom he is evangelizing.”

Upon reflection, we realize that we have heard this call to love before, from Christ Himself: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another (John 13:34, NABRE)”

Looking back to those first Christians points the way to evangelize our desperate world. They had no committees or programs, only an ethic of loving one’s neighbor. Author Bryan Stone

put it this way:

The Church evangelized by forgiving enemies, welcoming the stranger, sharing bread with the poor and refusing to fight imperial wars or engage in imperial entertainments. Its corporate life together in the world was its offer to the world of a new creation. Its ethics was its evangelism.

This leads to the ultimate question: Can we love in the manner of those first-century Christians in our own time? Love that gives beyond our comfort zones, beyond family, beyond our parish circle of friends, beyond our particular charities and adopted projects. Our response may very well determine the future of the Catholic Church.