The Vocation of the Theologian to the New Evangelization
Some thoughts on the framework...
John Paul II’s call to a new, or a “re-evangelization,”[1] is a deliberate re-echo of Christ’s commission to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”[2] In every age the Church must recommit herself to this fundamental task, for “the Church exists to evangelize.”[3] The work of proclaiming the Gospel is nothing less than our cooperation with God’s eternal work: creation, redemption, and sanctification in the Trinity itself. But the newness of his call is conditioned by a new context in which the gospel must be preached: situations in which “entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel.”[4]
To fulfill the vocation of the Church in this context requires a firm grasp of the roots and trajectories of the modern and post-modern situations, and of the specific challenges that hinder individuals and societies in returning to the life of faith. This grasp is best accomplished through the academic study of history, psychology, philosophy, and revelation. In short, it demands the study of theology.
Particularly in the modern day, a credible preaching (kerygma) of the Gospel must be joined to credible witness (martys).[5] It is not enough to preach Christ; first we must live with him. “We are missionaries,” said John Paul II, above all because of what we are as a Church whose innermost life is unity in love, even before we become missionaries in word or deed.”[6] Paul VI wrote that “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”[7]
Holiness, therefore, must be the root of every form of evangelization. But if we must live an authentic witness in order to fulfill the New Evangelization, we cannot neglect the equally important duty to give proper testimony. Paul VI explains, “even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run if it is not explained, justified – what Peter called always having ‘your answer ready.’”[8] This duty of testifying requires a degree of proper understanding. And understanding is the proper goal of an academic study of theology.
But there is yet a further and more fundamental contribution that the study of theology can make to the New Evangelization. Before we can evangelize, we ourselves must first be evangelized. This takes place normally and essentially at the moment of our Baptism.[9] The early forms of the Baptismal liturgy made this reality tangible in its dialogue form of a profession of faith: a triple renunciation and triple affirmation. “Do you renounce the devil? His service? And his works? Do you believe in God—in Christ—in the Holy Spirit?”[10] The believer’s response represented his faith, not as “a recitation of doctrines, an acceptance of theories about things of which in themselves one knows nothing…[but] an all-encompassing movement of human existence…it is a conversion, an about-turn, a shift of being.”[11] The central moment and goal of evangelization, the “baptizing of all nations” involves a two step process: the proposal of something concrete and tangible and an acceptance of the faith that is proposed. “So then, faith comes by hearing.”[12]
Herein lies the fundamental vocation of the theologian: he studies what is proposed in the moment of faith—the moment of conversion. The more he can understand what the Church has been given, the better he can help the world to engage in the moment of conversion. In whatever field he works, whatever gifts he has received, he works to prepare the world to receive more clearly, more completely, and more authentically the gift of faith.
[1] Cf. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 33.
[2] Mt.28:19, RSV.
[3] Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 14.
[4] Redemptoris Missio, 33.
[5] Cf. Strong’s G3144, as in Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samar′ia and to the end of the earth,” found at Blue Letter Bible, https://www.blueletterbible.org/rsv/act/1/22/t_conc_1019008.
[6] Redemptoris Missio, 23.
[7] Pope Paul VI, Address to the Members of the Consilium de Laicis (2 October 1974): AAS 66 (1974), p. 568 quoted in Evangelii Nuntiandi 41.
[8] Evangelii Nuntiandi 23, Cf. 1 Pt.3:15.
[9] Cf. Evangelii Nuntiandi 23.
[10] Cf. Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, translated by J.R. Foster and Michael J. Miller; Communio Books, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2004, p.82-88.
[11] Ratzinger, p.88.
[12] Rom.10:17, RSV.