1. The first opportunity: An intelligent truth<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cI hate dumbed-down Catholicism,\u201d Bishop Barron emphatically told the audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do I mean by that? It puts a huge stress on the superficial, the \u2018banners and balloons Catholicism\u2019 as I call it. We are a smart religion. When we don\u2019t express Catholicism in a smart way, people fall away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In particular, the Bishop urged catechists, apologists and evangelists to equip themselves with a good grasp on one of the great arguments for the existence of God. Young people often don\u2019t have a robust understanding of God beyond a vague and irrelevant deity, he noted.<\/p>\n
His favorite argument is based on contingency \u2013 that existence flows from God, and everything on the world gets its existence from him, because nothing created itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe God that I\u2019m talking about sustains the whole universe moment to moment the way a singer sustains a song. Continual creation \u2013 that\u2019s the God the great Church talks about, that we must convey to our young people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
2. The second opportunity: The goodness of radical Christians<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen the Christian life is embraced fully and radically, it\u2019s goodness stands out to the world, Bishop Barron said.<\/p>\n
The best example of this in the 20th century was Mother Teresa, who evangelized the world by her radical witness of goodness \u2013 caring for others indiscriminately, he said.<\/p>\n
Throughout the history of the Church, he said, it was the \u201cgoodness and radicality of the Christian life that got the attention of the world,\u201d through great saints like Benedict, Dominic and Francis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to recover what all these great figures found \u2013 this splendidly radical form of the Christian life. When it\u2019s lived publicly, it evangelizes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
3. The third opportunity: Authentic beauty<\/strong><\/p>\nPerhaps the best opportunity from which to start evangelization is with the authentic, objective beauty of the faith, Bishop Barron said.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s not just talking about something subjectively satisfying like, say, deep-dish Chicago pizza, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe objectively valuable and beautiful is not like that, it\u2019s something so intrinsically good and beautiful that it seizes us, it stops us in our tracks \u2013 something called aesthetic arrest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an easy place to start evangelizing because it\u2019s as simple as \u201cshow, don\u2019t tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust show people the beauty of Catholicism \u2013 show them Cathedrals, show them the Sistine Chapel, show them Mother Teresa\u2019s sisters at work. Don\u2019t tell them what to think and how to behave, show the beauty of Catholicism, and that has an evangelical power,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing more beautiful than the dying and rising of Jesus Christ,\u201d he said, and the apostles in the New Testament communicate this with a \u201cgrab-you-by-the-shoulders\u201d urgency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are people who have been seized by something so powerful and so overwhelming that they want to grab the world by the shoulders and tell them about it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to be filled with the same \u2018grab-you-by-the-shoulders\u2019 enthusiasm\u201d about the beauty of our faith, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes we face obstacles, but the saints always loved a good fight, and we should love a good fight too, because we go forth with this great truth, goodness, and beauty of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bishop Robert Barron on the challenge of evangelization in the postmodern world. After noting the challenges (scientism, the culture of \u201cmeh\u201d, and the culture of self-determination), Bishop Barron then goes on to discuss the opportunities that lie at our feet: 1. The first opportunity: An intelligent truth \u201cI hate dumbed-down Catholicism,\u201d Bishop Barron emphatically told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[743,54],"class_list":["post-100694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bishop-robert-barron","tag-new-evangelization"],"yoast_head":"\n
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