The end of Christendom: let’s focus on timelessness, not relevance

This is the final article in a three-part series on the end of Christendom and shifting the Church into a mode of intentional evangelization.

Last week I shared three shifts the Church can make in moving toward Apostolic mission:

• Shifting from Christendom Power to Apostolic Power
• Shifting from Strategic Planning to Prophetic Listening
• Shifting from Christendom Messaging to Apostolic Preaching

In this last article I offer two more shifts.

Shift from a Focus on Relevance to Timelessness

As the Church engages with the wider society, she experiences tension between two goods: preserving the core and stimulating progress. For the past 2,000 years the Church has welcomed the elements of culture that are not contradictory to the faith and she does not assimilate elements that are contrary to the faith.

Culture is not static, however; it evolves through changes both minor as well as significant. One shift might bring the culture closer toward the Gospel, while another may push the culture further away. History shows that some cultural shifts are so severe that the new normal is in direct opposition to the Christian faith. Legalizing abortion, for example, or same-sex marriage.

The Church aims to be attractive to the world she is trying to reach, but focusing too much on being relevant puts the Church at risk of losing her identity, becoming a Church in the world and of the world. Jesus warned against this.

In a recent conversation with Bishop Robert Barron, Dr. Jordan Peterson observed the tension between preserving the core and stimulating progress. He suggested to Bishop Barron that the Church should learn to communicate better with young people while never becoming so relevant that it forsakes its rituals.

Relevance is an endeavour to keep up with the times, but ritual is timeless, and timeless truths are always relevant, even if the way they are communicated requires innovation. Methods are many, principles are few. Methods always change, principles never do.

We are living in a unique time in history, not an era of change but a change of era. Christendom no longer exists, and society is galloping further and faster from the worldview it once shared with Christianity. The Habiger Institute for Catholic Leadership is a place of thoughtful analysis concerning what it means to be a Catholic leader in modern society. In the book True Leadership, the Habiger Institute provides insight on the emerging separation of worldview between the Church and modern society. The authors label this new paradigm The Utopian Temptation.

Everyone agrees the world needs fixing. Politics is not immune from moral corruption. Emerging interest groups may be fostering polarization. There is a massive discrepancy in the distribution of wealth. Diseases continue to plague humanity. The education system may become a conduit for ideological indoctrination. Loneliness and depression are on the rise. Drug overdose is killing more people than ever. Sexual abuse is a major issue in every sector. Marriages continue to fall apart, and families are struggling to cope with the pace of life. It cannot be denied, something has gone wrong with humanity.

For centuries, society and the Church agreed that personal sin was the “something” that went wrong with the human race – “a fundamental turning from God that has deeply wounded our inner nature and delivered the world to the power of darkness and vanity” (True Leadership).

G.K. Chesterton famously communicated this worldview several decades ago when a London newspaper invited readers to draft an essay on the subject, “What is wrong with the world?” Chesterton penned a two-word answer, “I am.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote similarly, “The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart.”

Society and the Church shared this “fallen” worldview, holding in common the truth that human beings, while created in God’s image, have a wounded nature, are inclined to sin, and need both forgiveness and continual healing.

We also shared a common understanding of the antidote – the Lord Jesus Christ and the Church he founded. Everyone agreed that each person needed conversion, grace, and the Holy Spirit to empower them to live a life worthy of the Gospel. We shared a sacramental economy. The Eucharist was considered heavenly food, full of grace and the healing presence of Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity. We valued confession as a pursuit of freedom, not an oppressive ritual.

In Christendom times, Christians were regarded as humanists, full of apostolic energy and committed to the betterment of humanity and society. But this humanism was religious, not secular. Christians saw God as the One with perfect knowledge of the world. With an omniscient understanding of the human condition, he was the best Person to design a plan for the restoration of humanity. “His diagnosis of the problem and his prescriptions for its solution is perfectly accurate and completely effective, and they are the only way to successfully address humanity’s problems” (True Leadership).

The worldview today no longer elevates God and his Church as the guiding force needed to overcome what is plaguing humanity. The paradigms are changing. The cultural shifts are pushing society further from the worldview of the Church.

The godless solution being proposed has its philosophical roots in the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th century. Because the Fall is denied, the new paradigm suggests that the worst enemy of humanity is not sin but ignorance. This is a consistent message coming from the new atheists like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens before him.

Nicholas Condorcet, a French thought leader of the Enlightenment said, “the perfectibility of man is indefinite.”

The path forward toward perfection is no longer about growing in the human virtues. It is the accumulation of knowledge, especially of physics, psychology, and sociological dynamics. In The Humanist Manifesto, John Dewey wrote, “We can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what they are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”

If humanity has no need of a divine physician, Jesus Christ is no longer necessary. If sin has no relevance, the cross and Resurrection are meaningless. The stories of the Gospel – the Nativity, the raising of Lazarus, the feeding of the 5,000, and the Resurrection itself – are filed away under the category of myth and legend. The new paradigm holds that religious sentiment is fine at a personal level and within a family, but it should never be considered seriously as a common good for all people.

The new paradigm is like two sides of the same coin. On one side is the elimination of personal sin. On the other is the rejection of the divinity of Christ, eliminating the need for his life, death, and resurrection.

I am writing this on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, when the First Reading is from Acts 4:8-12: “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Can there be a more anticipated clash of worldviews? Modern society suggesting we can save ourselves without need for divine intervention, and the Church proposing that Jesus is necessary and unique, the one and only Saviour of humanity and the only hope we have for forgiveness, restoration, and healing.

The tension between preserving the core and stimulating progress is not going away any time soon. In fact, the Church is going to be forced to manage the tension even better.

The Church is relevant when she partners with others in the fight against all kinds of hatred in the world. She is timeless when she confronts the hatred passing through every human heart and strives to introduce every individual to the Lord Jesus who can heal wounds and set hearts free from the tyranny of hate.

The Church is relevant when she collaborates in the battle for economic parity, for clean water in developing countries, and for equal opportunity for women. She is timeless when she helps every person recognize the universal brotherhood and sisterhood they share with other believers because they have a common heavenly Father.

The Church is relevant when she gives voice to the voiceless – the unborn, the elderly, those being trafficked, the politically oppressed, the sick. She is timeless when she speaks the Good News with gentleness and reverence to every human heart, those who are oppressed as well as those who are doing the oppressing.

There are countless individuals who are trying to strike at the branches of what oppresses humanity, but only the Church of Jesus Christ is cutting at the root. The antidote to mankind’s fallen state is not knowledge but forgiveness of sin, the healing of our wounded nature, the restoration of our hearts to the fullness of life in Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

As we become clear on this message and learn how to innovate the way we communicate it, the Church will become more relevant, not less, because timeless truths, communicated well, are always relevant.

Shift from Managing Decline to Leading Transformation

In 1979 Pope John Paul II called for a new evangelization, an “evangelization of the second millennium.” He invited the Church to embrace a “new ardour, new methods, and new expressions” in our efforts to spread the Gospel.

In today’s spiritual climate the new evangelization also needs a new type of leadership.

Certain fundamentals apply to all forms of organizational leadership, including pastoral. Pastoral leadership has more in common with other roles of organizational leadership than it has differences. Yes, it has unique responsibilities and challenges, but the essence of leadership remains the same.

There are three consistent leadership fundamentals that apply to every sector, including pastoral leadership:

Mission

The mandate of every leader is to ensure the organization accomplishes its mission. Well-led organizations accomplish their mission. Poorly led organizations do it badly or not at all.

Change

Change is a permanent landscape for leaders. If change is not necessary, leadership is not required and management will do just fine. Managers maintain the status quo; leaders disrupt the status quo. Leaders challenge the process and foster an appetite for continual improvement. They take risks because missing an opportunity is worse than making a mistake.

Choice

Leadership is a choice. Leadership is not about holding a position or a title but boils down to making the decision to lead – to influence people, bring about positive change, and make forward progress.

Many Church leaders, including Andre Regnier (Catholic Christian Outreach) and Father James Mallon (Divine Renovation Ministry) have identified the need to transform the culture of our parishes as a first step to embracing the new evangelization, and therein lies the need for new leadership – transformational leadership.

Pastoral transformational leaders are divinely discontent with current reality. They lie in bed at night dreaming about transforming the parish into what it could be, should be, and must be for the sake of the renewal of the world.

The goal of transformational leadership is to transform people and organizations in a literal sense – to change minds and hearts. There are four roles of a transformational leader in the parish context:

• To inspire others with exemplary commitment to evangelization and disciple-making.
• To set a missionary agenda focused on the people they are trying to reach, while caring for the ones they are trying to keep.
• To recruit leaders and utilize the talents and charisms of people.
• To align all activities and initiatives to the evangelizing mission.

Transformational leaders lead from maintenance to mission. They are passionate and committed to a “steps, not programs” mindset. These leaders make sure that every parish initiative is designed to help people take a step – a step closer to conversion, a step deeper in discipleship, or a step outward in missionary boldness.

Fortune 500 companies invest billions of dollars every year in the professional development of their leaders. It is ironic because many leaders leave the company long before a return on the investment is realized. Sadly, there is much less investment in our pastoral leaders who champion the most important mission in the world.

The seminary is the beginning, not the end, of formation, especially formation in leadership. The new evangelization requires a new form of leadership to transform our parishes into missional outposts. We can do this; we must do this.

In summary, there are five shifts that must be made to move from Christendom to Apostolic Mission:

• The shift from Christendom power to Apostolic power
• The shift from strategic planning to prophetic listening
• The shift from Christendom messaging to Apostolic preaching
• The shift from focusing on relevance to being timeless
• The shift from managing decline to leading transformation

There is much to celebrate in terms of the impact Christianity made during the time of Christendom, including the many Catholic institutions that were formed and continue today.

But the Church is no longer society’s trusted lighthouse, we now live in a time of Apostolic Mission. It would be unhealthy to live as if we do not.

Marking this time of transition could be a watershed for the Church, an occasion to recognize the shift from Christendom mode to Apostolic mission.