Douglasville, GA
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This report is a continuation of yesterday’s story and comes to us from team leader Jeremy with our team in Douglasville, GA:
An encounter with an anti-Catholic Evangelical prompted me to reflect on the context of the work of evangelization.
1) Our evangelistic methods need to be culturally relevant.
Kevin, a cradle Catholic, was baffled by their street preaching and asked me what they thought they were accomplishing with it. They see examples of Jesus and the Apostles preaching in public spaces to crowds, and imagine themselves being faithful to this model. Herein lies a problem with Sola Scriptura Christianity – it is constricting where it doesn’t need to be. Methods need to take into consideration the context, and we do not live in a culture where a street preacher is going to be respected and attract an attentive crowd. No one was stopping to listen to them. A friendlier, more conversational approach like ours is more appropriate to our cultural moment. Thus, St. Paul writes that he seeks “to become all things to all men that I might save some.” (1 Cor. 9:22)
2) When we encounter Protestant evangelists, we should recognize ourselves in them and rejoice that the Gospel is being preached. St. Paul writes about rival evangelists who were causing trouble for him:
Of course, some preach Christ from envy and rivalry, others from good will. The latter act out of love, aware that I am here for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not from pure motives, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment. What difference does it make, as long as in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is being proclaimed? And in that I rejoice. – Philippians 1:15-18
Since we found their methods off-putting – and ineffective – we worried that others would associate us with them. They even tried to interfere with us to an extent, at one point criticizing “using beads to pray” on their loudspeaker. But it is not our place to judge their motives. What they were proclaiming was generally true, and the same Holy Spirit can and does use their words to bring saving grace to souls.
3) Some Protestants cannot accept that Catholics preach essentially the same Gospel.
This group jettisoned my attempt to build common ground and acknowledge a common mission. This is a result of a deep, settled bias against Catholicism that is tied to their own sense of religious legitimacy. For only the charge that the Catholic Church preaches a “false Gospel” can justify the Protestant split from the Church and their ongoing revolt against the Church’s authority. For them to accept that we are preaching the true Gospel raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions about why it is then acceptable for the Church of Christ to be fractured.
4) When evangelizing, our debating with Protestant brothers, we need to be careful not to impose our perspective on them, for we would not have them do the same to us.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of this encounter was their insistence in judging Catholics according to their own misunderstanding of what we believe. They imposed on us their own understanding of the words Gospel, idolatry, anathema, etc. – and would not accept that we meant something different by these words. We feel disrespected, and know it is unkind, when others want to define what we believe on their own terms, rather than seeking to understand us from our own perspective first.
But we are all prone to the same tendency, whether talking with a Protestant Christian or an unbeliever. This is why good listening is an important practice in evangelism. We need to make people feel that we understand them on their own terms, even when we disagree and wish to change their beliefs.
5) It’s usually best to avoid getting entangled with Protestant evangelists we are doing an outreach, especially if they are hostile. Our main mission is not to reach anti-Catholic Protestants. This doesn’t mean we should never talk with them, but we are there mainly to bring the unchurched to Christ and into His one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Furthermore, I would rather their attention be turned to the non-Christians they are there to reach (even though they think they are trying to save our souls too!). In the future, if they try to distract us with theological debates, I will say that this is not why I am here and invite them to call me if they really want to have this conversation.
Praised be Jesus Christ!