G od willing, the new evangelization will happen, but let usnot imagine that this time will be like the first time. The old evangelizationproclaimed the Good News among pagan, pre-Christian peoples to whom it came assomething new. Nothing like that had been done before. But nothing like ourtask has been done before either.
Re-evangelizing is not evangelizing as though for thefirst time again; the very fact of past proclamation makesre-proclamation different. For we proclaim the Gospel to a neo-pagan, post-Christianpeople to whom it does not come as new. The old world had not yet feltthe caress of grace; our world, once brushed, now flinches from its touch.
Is re-evangelization completely and radically different fromevangelization? No. The same Christ knocks at the door of the same human heart,though a heart with a different history. Is it more difficult? In some ways.Easier? In some ways. But different.
Here is one great difference: The pagan made excuses fortransgressing the moral law. By contrast, the neo-pagan pretends, when it suitshim, that there is no morality, or perhaps that each of us has a morality ofhis own. Since they had the Law and the Prophets, it comes as no surprise thatthe Jews took morality for granted. But to a great degree, and despite theirsordid transgressions, so did the pagans.
Not that skepticism was unknown among them: “What is truth?”Pilate asked, not waiting for the answer. Yet consider all the pagan errors towhich St. Paul alludes in his epistles: Was relativism one of them? No. Hecould omit it then; he could not have omitted it today.
Related to that first great difference is another. The paganwanted to be forgiven, but he did not know how to find absolution. To him theGospel came as a message of release. But the neo-pagan does not want to hearthat he needs to be forgiven, and so to him the Gospel comes as a message ofguilt.
This inversion seems incredible, because the neo-pagancertainly feels the weight of his sins. But he thinks the way to have peace isnot to have the weight lifted but to learn not to take it seriously. HearingChrist’s promise of forgiveness, he thinks, “All those guilty Christians!”Having chosen to view the freest people as the most burdened, he naturally viewsthe most burdened as the freest. “Everyone has done things he regrets. Everyonelies. Get over it!”
The pagan was raised differently. He was brought up in theways and the atmosphere of paganism, and in order to be converted, he had to beremoved from both. By contrast, though the neo-pagan has probably also beentaught pagan ways, he may have been brought up in an atmosphere of Christiansentiment. Consequently, he regards the Gospel not as the story of true Godbecome man but as a sentimental fable for children. Even Christian sentimentsare difficult to take seriously apart from the actual life of grace.
Then too, the pagan was likely to be exposed to the Gospeleither all at once or not at all. The neo-pagan has been exposed to just enoughspores to develop an allergic reaction. Perhaps he was baptized as a child butnever seriously taught the faith. Perhaps his parents became angry with theChurch and stopped taking him.
The pagan suffered the burden of a pagan childhood, but hewas spared the burden of an interrupted Christian childhood. Whereas he hadnever been immersed in the waters of faith, all too often the neo-pagan hasbeen dipped in them but then pulled out.
Not only was the pagan devoid of nostalgia for a Christianpast, he was also unencumbered by the anger of guilt for rejecting it. Theneo-pagan is susceptible to both nostalgia and the anger, and he may even feelboth at once.
I once met an atheist with a chip on his shoulder whoboasted of the “fun” he had “ruining all the Catholic kids” at the Catholiccollege where he had taught. Yet after a few glasses of wine he said that hewas “very religious” and that he had recently joined a church choir from sheerlove for the great old hymns. At turns, he was nostalgic for something good hehad left behind and belligerent because he had no good reason for having leftit.
Because the Gospel was new to him, the pagan needed to learnit from the beginning. The neo-pagan is in a very different position; he needsto unlearn things he has learned about the Gospel that happen to be untrue. Wesee a trivial symptom of the problem in the great number of people who think alittle drummer boy was supposed to have accompanied the shepherds, a notionthat makes the Christmas narrative seem most implausible to anyone more thanten years of age.
But nonexistent drummer boys are the least of the problems.The neo-pagan is likely to have entirely mistaken views of what Christiansbelieve about creation, the Fall, and redemption—about God, man, and therelation between God and man.
One thing may seem to be unchanged: Now as then, thenonbeliever hails Caesar, not Christ, as Lord. But whereas the pagan reproachedChristians for doubting distinctively ancient illusions, for example theeternal destiny of the Empire of Rome, the neo-pagan is more likely to reproachthem for doubting distinctively modern illusions, for example the idea that bytechnology and social engineering we can devise a world in which nobody needsto be good.
In one way the pagan was less deluded, for he could hardlyfail to know that he was an idolater. His idols were visible and tangible. Theywere carved from physical substances like wood and stone. The neo-pagan is muchless likely to know that he is an idolater; if faith concerns things not seen,then in a sense he is more faithful, for his idols are invisible andintangible. They are woven of sensations, wishes, and ideas, like pleasure,success, and the future. Even his magazines have names like Self. Perhaps visible idols were always masks for invisible idols, but in our day themasks have come off.
The pagan world was unfamiliar with Christian ideas. Bycontrast, the neo-pagan world is brimming with them. The makers of that worldhave even appropriated some of them—but have emptied them of Christian meaning.
For example, the neo-pagan may have a high view of what hecalls faith, hope, and love—virtues undreamt among the pagans—yet he is likelyto use the term “faith” for clinging to the illusions of a barren life, “hope”for sheer worldly optimism, and “love” for desire or sentiment withoutsacrifice or commitment of the will. Another example of such emptying is theway some neo-pagans accept the Christian view that history has meaning anddirection, but purge God from the story so that it becomes a bland tale of “progress”toward whatever they want the world to have more of. Pagans believed not inprogress but in endlessly repeated recurrence.
Nor must we overlook another profound difference. If thepagan was at all inclined to admit that his nation had ever done wrong, he hadno one else to blame. But the neo-pagan can blame his culture’s sins on Christianity.The trial of Galileo, the plunder of the American indigenes, the SpanishInquisition—they were all the Christians’ fault.
Surely these things were gravely evil, though if neo-paganswere consistent, they would set the thousands killed by Christian inquisitionsagainst the millions killed by atheistic inquisitions. Yet it is easy to seewhy they don’t. Christian offenses are easier to invoke, because the Church admitsthem, and they are also more scandalous, just because of the Gospel of love.
In spite of the sins of Christians, one might expect thememory of the influence of the gospel to favor its re-proclamation. After all,the pagan world had never experienced the revivifying effect of grace, but theneo-pagan world has. Consider just the gospel’s high views of conscience and ofthe dignity of the human person and how these have transformed western culture.Surely all this cannot be overlooked!
No, but the neo-pagan takes for granted all the good thathis culture has inherited from Christendom. In his view, certain things simplygot better: That is just how history goes, or at least how it went. If heassigns anything the credit, he assigns it not to grace but to such things asscience, capitalism, and “enlightenment.”
He expects the stream to keep on flowing without the spring.When it does begin to dry up, he may be vaguely uneasy, but he does not fullygrasp what he is seeing. Why doesn’t he? Because his ideas of dry and wet are changing too. It isn’t just thatthe neo-pagan world around him is losing respect for the sacredness of theconscience and the dignity of the human person; he is a part of that world, andhe is losing respect for them too. They seem so unimportant. Why do Christiansobsess over them?
Finally, the pagan knew he was not a Christian. By contrast,a certain kind of neo-pagan may think that he is one. This oddity is perhapsthe most challenging difference between evangelization and re-evangelization.In the ancient world, the people who needed to be evangelized were outside thewalls of the Church; today they include thousands who are inside but who thinkjust like those who are outside. When the Gospel is proclaimed, they complain.
A pew is a difficult mission field. It is hard for theshepherds to bring home the sheep if they think they are already in the fold.But that is a story for another day.
J. Budziszewski is professor of government and philosophyat the University of Texas. His Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’ Treatise on Law is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, and he blogs at UndergroundThomist.org.
Image by PxHere licensed via Creative Commons. Image cropped.
