Must the Gospel be Preached at Every Time & Place?

Must the Gospel be Preached at Every Time & Place? September 20, 2024

The Latest Bum Rap Against Pope Francis

Photo credit: Billy Graham, preaching in Düsseldorf, Germany (21 June 1954); photo by Hans Lachmann [Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license / Bundesarchiv, Bild 194-0798-41 / Lachmann, Hans / CC-BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons]
The latest “pope controversy” is the accusation that he supposedly thinks all religions are exactly the same (indifferentism). I have deliberately stayed out of it (see a great defense of him by Pedro Gabriel and many related resources below at the end). But I want to say a few words about a related presuppositional issue, per my title. I’m being like one of my heroes, Socrates: he always went right to the premise. Peter Kwasniewski, a radical Catholic reactionary who despises Pope Francis, wrote on his public Facebook page on 9-19-24 (I reproduce it in its entirety; his words in blue):

One of the dumbest takes on the pope in Singapore is when some folks said: “He’s just imitating what Paul did in the Areopagus, when he preached to the pagans about the ‘unknown god.'”
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But St. Paul precisely preached the GOSPEL to these pagans.
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“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.'” (Acts 17:22-23)
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He goes on to preach about creation and providence, then condemns idolatry, and finally introduces the final judgment and the resurrection of Jesus. Some sneer at him, while others want to hear more. This is how an apostle behaves: he speaks persuasively on common ground but moves to the Christian message, regardless of whether it will be well-received or not. We see this with all the great missionaries — just think of the Japanese, Vietnamese, and French Canadian martyrs. They preached to the curious and to the hostile, and took what was coming to them.
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Imagine if Paul had said: “You worship an unknown God. We too worship the same God. We’re all speaking different languages of religion, on the path to God together. God bless you. See you later!” I don’t think we’d be venerating him today as the Apostle to the Gentiles!
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None of this baloney about Pope Francis imitating Paul. In his personal fallible views and prudential actions, he is, if anything, an anti-Paul, an anti-Peter, an anti-apostle, an inverter and subverter of the mission entrusted to the Church.
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So there is no conceivable permissible situation where one could lay the groundwork with unbelievers (e.g., St. Paul, in Acts 17:22-23a) without also at that particular time evangelizing (Paul in Acts 17:23b-31)? Even while evangelizing, Paul cited two Greek pagans (17:28). Is it not ever possible that we might not immediately — exercising a prudential judgment — go on to the gospel with some folks, since we have to do more “preliminary spade work”?

The same Paul said, “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor 9:22, RSV). Part of that is to talk to them in their own language and within their present understanding. Then we can preach the gospel. My point is that it doesn’t necessarily all have to be at once. We have to be wise in approaching folks according to what they can understand and handle.

Jesus seemed to teach the same principle or technique that I am suggesting:

Matthew 13:10-13 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” [11] And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. [12] For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. [13] This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

So Jesus didn’t preach the gospel directly here, even to “great crowds”. In the parallel account in Mark, it’s even more explicit and “exclusionary”:

Mark 4:10-12 And when he was alone, those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables. [11] And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; [12] so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven.”

Mark 4:33-34 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; [34] he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

As far as I am concerned, this blows away any necessary requirement that we must immediately preach the gospel to everyone at all times. Jesus didn’t. And that’s quite enough for me. Why isn’t it for Peter Kwasniewski? Even among Christians, Paul recognized the same general principle: that there were vastly different levels of understanding, and so different treatment was accordingly required:

1 Corinthians 3:1-2 But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. [2] I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready,

The author of Hebrews does the same:

Hebrews 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food; [13] for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. [14] But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

I’m not even maintaining that the pope was consciously dong this. But I am disagreeing with Peter’s premise above and saying that this practice is perfectly biblical and wise. I do also know — contrary to the mountain of contrary lies — that Pope Francis thinks evangelism and apologetics are fine and dandy. I’ve documented this myself, ten times:

Pope Francis & the Diversity of Religions (The Sedevacantist Outfit Novus Ordo Watch Lies Yet Again About Pope Francis) [11-29-20]

Dialogue: Pope Francis Doesn’t Evangelize? [4-29-16]

Pope Francis Condemns Evangelism? Absolutely Not! [10-17-16]

Is Pope Francis Against Apologetics & Defending the Faith? [11-26-19]

Debate: Pope Francis on Doctrine, Truth, & Evangelizing (vs. Dr. Eduardo Echeverria) [12-16-19]

Dialogue: Pope Francis vs. Gospel Preaching & Converts? No! (vs. Eric Giunta) [1-3-20]

Abp. Viganò Whopper #289: Pope Forbids All Evangelism (?) [4-8-20]

Pope, Peter, & Paul: Evangelize; Don’t Proselytize [4-28-20]

Pope Francis vs. the Gospel? Outrageous & Absurd Lies! (Anti-Catholic Protestant James White and Catholic Reactionary Steve Skojec Echo Each Other’s Gigantic Whoppers) [5-26-20]

Further Discussion in His Combox
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You won’t find anyone in the Old or New Testaments saying that there are many legitimate paths to God and that different religions are like different languages. Your article is like someone fixating on the toes of a dinosaur instead of its teeth.
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Nevertheless it tackles a premise that you assume, which is altogether debatable. But as to your point now, Paul indeed did something at least somewhat like this, because he commended the Athenians for worshiping an unknown God. Then he contended that the true Christian God is the one they are actually worshiping and cited two pagan Greeks towards that end.
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It follows, then, that he saw the pagan religious beliefs as containing enough truth for him to establish common ground and lead them to the gospel. So they did have some legitimate pathways to God, in some sense, per Paul’s very methodology.
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You say that the pope didn’t do the gospel part. That’s what my paper dealt with: does one have to always do that, in every discussion? Clearly not, I say. Even Jesus didn’t do that, and He and St. Paul are my models and examples, not all of you pope-bashers and nattering nabobs of negativism.
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I don’t view the Paul analogy as “dumb” at all. I think it’s a close enough analogy and of significant relevance to this discussion (speaking as one who loves Paul and analogical arguments alike, and who has pondered and thought through evangelistic techniques for over 40 years).
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Paul was preaching to the Athenians [Acts 17], who believed in paganism: a view that had many precursors to Christianity, as Chesterton noted at length in his masterpiece, The Everlasting Man, and as C. S. Lewis and many others have noted. So that “bridge” was more immediately fruitful; therefore, Paul could immediately move to the Christian message.
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With eastern religions (the pope was in Singapore, which is 31% Buddhist), there are a lot fewer shared premises, so evangelism is considerably more difficult. That could explain why the pope didn’t launch into a direct gospel presentation. I would have done the same. My approach since the beginning, going back to my Protestant missionary days was to take it slow and establish common ground and friendly relations before ever getting directly to the gospel.
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We’re also in a post-Christian era, in many countries, as opposed to being pre-Christian, which makes a different. Christianity is no longer “new and exciting” in the eyes of many but “old and refuted.” I agree with Chesterton (I edited a book of his quotations, published by TAN): “Christianity has not been trued and found wanting. It’s been found difficult and left untried.”
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Photo credit: Billy Graham, preaching in Düsseldorf, Germany (21 June 1954); photo by Hans Lachmann [Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license / Bundesarchiv, Bild 194-0798-41 / Lachmann, Hans / CC-BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons]

Summary: Peter Kwasniewski seems to assume that one must preach the gospel at all times, minus any preliminary or preparatory work. Jesus, Paul, and the author of Hebrews don’t agree!

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