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Jessica’s post yesterday was a useful, if painful, insight into something quite common nowadays. The notion we live in a secular age is not well-founded. The spiritual urge we see in mankind across the ages has not vanished. The notion, commonly-held by some athesists, that as science answers various questions, mankind will lose the need for God is curiously tone-deaf. At its heart is the view that religion served the need to know how the world was created or why the sun shone, but there is precious little evidence to suggest that our need for God comes from such a source; that is an atheist myth. The search for God comes from a search for an answer to something far less material than our atheist friends seem able to grasp; it stems from a need to worship.
Man is a worshipping animal. He will worship a tree, the sun, the moon, the wind, a footballer, a film star, a hero of one form or another; he will worship money, sex, rock and roll and drugs; he will find himself in thrall. That is our nature. If all else fails, he will worship himself and his intellectual independence. It is as though there is something within us that is not complete until we find it – as Augustine noted many years ago.
This is where Dawkins and company are doomed to go into the dak alone. Most of mankind for most of recorded history has needed to believe in something we could worship. For rest assured, we shall go into the dark in the end. To every man born of owman there is on fate we share in common – that the day is coming when the place where we are now will know us no longer. Those we love will carry on, but we shall not do so – and no man knows the time of that.
There is no use our atheist friends telling us we should not feel that way; it is like telling us we should not feel hungry when we do.
So, people like the person Jessica encountered come in a long line of those promising to fill that gap, and before we rush to condemn them (hand me a stone someone) we should, in humility, ask why the Church is not reaching them? As much as I abhor the syncretistic rubbish propounded by men like ‘Brother Ben’, I have to ask where the chaplains at my own university where, and why they asked this man when they could have spoken themselves?
Jessica and I are part of a group which has been running a class on Saturday afternoons on ‘Basics of the Faith’. It is Anglican and Catholic, and we steer clear of matters where we disagree. What is perfectly clear is that most of those who come in know very little indeed. There has been a catastrophic failure of catechesis by the Churches, and an equally bad effort at school level. Well, if we can’t or won’t reach out, we can’t be surprised that charlatans will fill the gap.
“There has been a catastrophic failure of catechesis by the Churches, and an equally bad effort at school level. ”
Amen and amen. I have learned more here, and in a more directed matter, by accident here, than I did in my confirmation and my conversion classes to the Lutheran church, combined.
And what I’ve learned here has been simple to the point of being simplistic. I agree, if we don’t want Brother Ben’s, we need to speak of our faith. Any of our churches doctrines are far more satisfying than the mish-mash peddled by such charlatans.
Alas that it seems to be universal.
It does, and I think it may be key to a lot of our problems.
Well, Jessica did a good job this afternoon helping try to do something about it.
Surprising me not at all, she is very good at simplifying things to the level of the student, I’ve never met a better at that part of the job.
She’d make a good missionary
She would indeed.
“we should, in humility, ask why the Church is not reaching them?”
I have heard it said by many a saint that to be converted to faith one must be drawn by the Holy Spirit in some way to the Faith or the Search for Truth. It seems to me that it is not so much in the reaching out that we have failed – it is in the living of a Holy and Faith filled life that draws people to the Peach they desire. Until they are knocking at the door asking for answers and explanations I don’t see a lot of movement on this front.
The old adage has always been that Holiness attracts the young and in my opinion we find precious little of it within the Christian faith these days: lack of obedience and wishy-washy teachings attract nobody. Where are those few saintly individuals who thirst for the salvation of souls: especially their own?
Good points. If we are not a good example, why should anyone listen?
I say hear hear to the statement, ”There has been a catastrophic failure of catechesis”.
I prefer putting a strong head lock on my opponent and physically reminding him my view is correct, but my priest will not let me, so reason and wisdom must be used(the other way is faster). But sometimes I wonder if I should call the Dominicans and see if they need any firewood.
And that requires catechesis and the church has failed in arming the poor laity with knowledge since V2 with the best intent. The catechesis you are doing keeps the people from starvation, I thank you.