“In a Christendom culture, the type of person who is brought forward to lead the Church is often the conflict-avoiding administrator rather than the apostle. The Church goes from being a movement of spirit incarnated in institutions to a set of sclerotic institutions that have lost their inner spirit” (From Christendom to Apostolic Mission).
The quote above offers a penetrating analysis of some Catholic institutions and the fate of those institutions if led by “conflict-avoiding administrators” in a post-Christian environment. It might be easy to point an accusatory finger at specific bishops, priests and PhDs who have ceased to operate as evangelists and prophets. However, a more fundamental institution needs attention – the Christian family.
Parents are First Evangelizers
Parents can no longer delegate their responsibility as first evangelizers and formators to secondary institutions, even if those institutions carry a Catholic name. While Christendom falls, the Christian family must rise, and for that to happen parents must be the first apostles and witnesses of the faith.
St. John Paul II said that the future of the Church and humanity passes through the family. For 2,000 years, the Church affirmed the dignity of the Christian home, calling it The Domestic Church. If we are going to navigate the troubled waters of transitioning from a Christendom mode to an Apostolic mode, the vitality of Christian family life is of utmost importance.
As Christendom continues to fade, the space that the Church and believing Christians are permitted to occupy is shrinking, says Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Lopez. The Christian family can become both a resistance cell to a post-modern society and an evangelizing outpost capable of transforming culture, says author Rod Dreher in his book Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents.
Gone are the days when Christian families can live like everyone else: attend church on Sunday and expect the kids to adopt a Christian worldview that is strong enough to resist post-Christian culture. The cultural narrative in 2022 is just too strong to think that going with the current will direct kids to a good place. Parents must become much more intentional about evangelizing their children and forming them into a full, mature Christian faith capable of living fruitfully in a new world order.
Some data points from a recent article in Newsweek:
- Growing numbers of people no longer see the value of getting married. Almost half of the adult population in North America is unmarried compared with just 28 per cent of the adult population in the 1960s.
- 55 per cent of first-time mothers are unmarried.
- Eight times more children are born to unmarried parents today than in 1960.
- Researchers are discovering that the increase in children’s anxiety today is a symptom of a more fundamental issue – the breakdown of the family.
Sadly, the Church has not adequately strengthened family life. Instead, many churches are investing in problems downstream. Recent research of 19,000 Christian churches with a weekly attendance above 500 found these churches spend a combined $855 million per year on youth ministry.
When you add the financial investments given to ministries like NET, CCO, Life Teen, Athletes in Action, Young Life, and FOCUS, the number is closer to $2 billion a year invested in youth and young adult ministry. Conversely, a staggering 94 per cent of those same churches report spending zero per cent of their budgets on marriage and family ministry.
These stats are not to say that youth ministry, young adult ministry, and campus evangelization are not important. Those ministries are very important, but they are downstream from ground zero: the breakdown of the family.
Young people leaving the faith is a symptom of a deeper issue. It is the smoke signalling the fire, but it is not the fire itself. The real issue is family life, committed marriages, and parental engagement.
Cultural Trends Against Family Life
The world is changing, and many emerging cultural trends stand in contrast to traditional marriage and family life. We live in the information age, yet people are so confused. What makes this more troubling than ironic is that we are confused about the things that matter most – the dignity of the human person, the meaning of human sexuality, the sacramentality of marriage, and the role that parents should play in the raising of their children.
Each day the pace of change quickens and we are being encouraged, some would say coerced, into accepting and advocating for issues we found out about yesterday. Many of these “issues” are rooted not only in secular paradigms but in an aggressive de-Christianization of all traditional institutions, including the family.
This is why the missionary dimension of the family has never been so important as it is today. Now, more than ever, we need a robust marriage and family ministry in the Church to preserve the sacred institution and help families become a spiritual impulse capable of transforming culture.
Families Reveal What is Good, Beautiful, and True
To a world that has forgotten how to blush, Christian families model modesty and preserve the sanctity of sexuality, keeping it hidden in the sacrament of marriage.
To a world that has lost the meaning of love as a sincere gift of self, Christian families are a school of sacrificial service, where the willingness of wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, to suffer so that others may have abundant life is a new form of martyrdom, the seed of the Church.
Pope Francis greets families at the Vatican. For 2,000 years, the Church has affirmed the dignity of the Christian home, calling it The Domestic Church. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
To a world that is advocating for self-esteem, committed Christian parents offer so much more to their children, namely a strong sense of security, knowing that their story as young people is caught up in a much bigger story – the love story of their mom and dad. This knowledge provides children with a profound sense of security that is much deeper, stronger, and more permanent than self-esteem.
To a world that has lost the art of visiting, when it is necessary to book dinner with friends months in advance, Christian families offer an alternative. “Come when you can” and “you’re always welcome here” is the attitude that drives their schedule.
The homes of Christian families are an oasis of evangelical hospitality. These families sit on apple crates if necessary, but everyone is welcome at their table, everyone’s story is revered and cherished.
To a world that has lost its ability to hold attention, when a four-minute video on YouTube is considered too long to watch till the end, Christian families inspire us to resist the tyranny of busyness and hurry to embrace a life lived at the pace of the soul.
More than anything else, Christian families remind us of our evangelical nature. Rather than recluse themselves, Christian families look out to the world around them with heads held high and chests out. Christian families fear little, observe all, and are open to the good things of culture because their moral, intellectual, and spiritual lives are well-lived within the four walls of their home.
St. John Paul II said, “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.” With Christendom fading, Christian families may be the primary institution by which Christianity remains strong in the West.
Brett Powell is the Archbishop’s Delegate for Development and Ministries in the Archdiocese of Vancouver. From his website Leadership Where it Matters Most.