Washington D.C., Jul 7, 2019 / 03:06 am (CNA).- Millennials are notoriously blamed for being killers of previously-thought-necessary industries and activities: Applebees. Napkins. Golf. Mayonnaise. Lunch. And so on.
For the ever-shrinking number of millennials who are practicing Christians, could evangelization be on the chopping block next?
Recent data from the Barna group, which researches the intersection of faith and culture, shows that of millennials practicing their Christian faith, almost half – 47 percent – believe it is at least somewhat wrong to “share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith.” This is significantly higher than the number of Gen X-ers (27 percent), and Boomers (19 percent), who said the same.
But while at a glance this statistic may be alarming, given the missionary mandate of the Church, there might be more behind it than just another hit on the millennial kill list.
Elizabeth Klein is an assistant professor of theology at the Augustine Institute in Denver, Colorado. One of the main goals of the institute is to prepare students to respond to the New Evangelization – a term popularized by Pope John Paul II that emphasizes a renewed call to share the Gospel with the world.
Klein said before sounding the alarm about the death of evangelization, the statistic should be read in light of the others also shared by Barna – that 96 percent of millennials believe “part of my faith means being a witness about Jesus,” that 94 percent said that “the best thing that could ever happen to someone is for them to know Jesus,” and that 73 percent said “I am gifted at sharing my faith with other people” – higher than every other generation included in the data.
And in 2013, 65 percent of millennial Christians said they had shared the Gospel with someone in the past year, compared to the national average of about half of Christians in general.
“I thought it was interesting that they didn’t highlight that millennials in fact evangelize more than the older generations do,” Klein said of an article from Christianity Today on the data.
Furthermore, she said, the phrasing of the particular question about evangelization probably also affected the way millennials responded.
“I thought the phrasing of the specific question – it’s about people who already have a religious faith, so I thought that was a big factor,” Klein told CNA.
“I think millennials are more likely to see someone of a different faith as more of an ally maybe than in the past,” she said, “because we are in such a post-Christian, post-religious world that anyone else who is practicing a faith may be more likely to be seen as someone you have a lot in common with, rather than the chief object of evangelization for millennials,” which would probably be atheists or fallen away Catholics, she said.
Vince Sartori is a regional director with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), which trains students and missionaries on college campuses to form disciples through friendships and Bible studies. Evangelizing in a millennial culture is at the heart of the group’s work.
Sartori, who served as a missionary on two different campuses before becoming a regional director, said he has noticed a hesitancy in millennials on campus to engage in evangelization.
“I think some of it comes down to a misunderstanding of evangelization versus proselytization,” Sartori told CNA.
Proselytization, Sartori said, happens when “the person is preaching or going out to be heard, not listening to someone but rather just trying to get a point across.”
Evangelization, on the other hand, is “about building trust, encountering a person, understanding a person, and introducing them to Jesus and proposing ideas, as opposed to just telling them something.”
Sartori said the way millennials answered this question also reflects the current political climate and a culture that prioritizes people’s comfort over everything else.
“In this culture of ‘if you disagree with me you hate me,’ I would say most millennials would say: ‘I’m not trying to convert anyone,’” Sartori said.
“But I would hope everyone is trying to convert someone, it’s just that there’s a right and true way, and then there’s a way that’s just kind of yelling at people, and that’s obviously not what I’m about and not what anyone would desire. And I think in general millennials are really sensitive to that.”
Klein also said that millennials are reacting to the polarization that characterizes the political and social media world of today.
“Actual authentic dialogue has in fact broken down, and I don’t think that’s a delusion of millennials; things are often so polarized that it is very difficult to have a dialogue which is perceived as open and a back and forth, and not somehow inauthentic or aggressive” she said.
“It’s not that they don’t want to share their faith, but it seems that sharing via dialogue or speaking makes people uneasy, and I don’t think that’s inexplicable, that seems to make sense,” she said.
Part of the training of FOCUS missionaries is teaching them how to evangelize, Sartori said – which includes building friendships and trust with people before proposing that they consider going to church or learning more about Jesus.
“The three habits (taught to missionaries in training) are the things we emphasize that help us to go and do evangelization,” Sartoir said. “The first is divine intimacy (with God), the second is authentic friendship, and the third one is clarity and conviction for what we call spiritual multiplication. So this idea that you’re investing deeply in a few people, and sharing your faith in a way that they can then go and do that with others.”
“You’re listening, you’re building trust, you’re speaking in a way that they’re going to be able to hear you,” Sartori said, “but you’re also hearing where they’re coming from on things.”
Once a friendship is established, Sartori said one of the easiest ways to talk to someone about God is to ask them about the faith tradition they had while they were growing up.
“It’s the basic questions of like – did you ever go to church growing up? Something like that that’s less attacking than, say, ‘How do you feel about abortion?’ or something that’s more politicized or a hot topic,” Sartori said. “You want to do something that’s a softer, more inviting conversation, so you can just understand the person.”
After a conversation about faith has been opened, then it can be time to invite someone to events at a parish or into a Bible study, if the person is open to it.
“While there’s an urgency for someone to accept the Gospel as quickly as possible, we also want to propose it and not impose it, so we’re not going to rush into anything on that,” Sartori said.
Klein said millennials are also most likely to be tuned into the need for authentic witness – that someone must be living a personal life of holiness and friendship with God before they can propose it to someone else.
The article on the Barna research from Christianity Today ended with: “Younger folks are tempted to believe instead, ‘If we just live good enough lives, we can forgo the conversation entirely, and people around us will almost magically come to know Jesus through our good actions and selfless character.’”
“This style of evangelism is becoming more and more prevalent in a culture constantly looking for the fast track and simple fix,’” it said, quoting Hannah Gronowski, the founder and CEO of Christian non-profit Generation Distinct.
But Klein said this kind of attitude is overly dismissive of the importance of personal holiness.
“Witnessing personal holiness – it’s not like that’s easy, its plenty important,” she said, especially with the recent sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church.
“I don’t think that millennials are crazy to think that personal holiness is the most important thing right now, especially when dialogue has broken down and there has been a lot of – with the recent scandals – insane hypocrisy where people’s lives are not matching what they’re saying,” she said.
“I think a big part of it is…holistic Catholic formation,” Klein added. “If you’re not prepared to pursue wisdom and pursue personal holiness, you’re not going to have that authentic witness and authentic life to share.”
While that doesn’t remove the necessity of evangelizing with words, Klein said, it does point to why millennial Christians may have answered that particular question the way they did, beyond a trend toward universalism and relativism.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church itself recognizes the disconnect that may exist between a person’s holiness and the preaching of the Gospel: “On her pilgrimage, the Church has also experienced the ‘discrepancy existing between the message she proclaims and the human weakness of those to whom the Gospel has been entrusted.’ Only by taking the ‘way of penance and renewal,’ the ‘narrow way of the cross,’ can the People of God extend Christ’s reign. For ‘just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of salvation to men.’” (CCC pp. 853).
“It’s very clear that the Church has a missionary mandate, but I think it nuances that very well and talks about the hypocrisy that has been found,” Klein said. “I think that tension is what millennials are most keyed into, that personal holiness comes first before you can even think about opening your mouth.”
An oft-quoted line, typically attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, speaks of the tension between personal holiness and evangelizing: “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words,” the saying goes.
But if that quote really came from St. Francis of Assisi, Sartori said, it came from a saint who preached the Gospel so prolifically that he was known to preach it “to the birds.”
“He couldn’t stop preaching,” Sartori said, “so of all the people to have said that, St. Francis is one of the greatest examples of preaching (the Gospel).”
So while personal holiness is a must, he said, so is preaching the Gospel with words.
“To preach the Gospel is an integral part of being a Christian,” he said, “and we can’t separate that.”
This article was originally published on CNA Feb. 13, 2019.
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Howler!
The Pelosi Protest in a country which, until the Dobbs ruling, was the least restrictive fetal killing field in the world, except for Communist China and North Korea.
Actually that title goes to Canada. There’s no regulation whatsoever.
Saith the archbishop-ress of partial birth abortion…
I guess all the stern warnings she received about endangering her soul she must have gotten from Francis last October failed to change her mind.
Pray for all unrepentant sinners that their hardness of heart will be softened.
Amen, Deacon Edward.
These sad, pathetic women need our prayers.
And yet, we’re subjected to her photographed with Pope Francis, all with big smiles.
She is a false prophet.
Everything I read about this pathetic woman is – pathetic.
And then I read about the actor Shia Laboeuf who portrays St. Padre Pio in the upcoming (Sept 9) film of his life, and it gives me hope – much hope.
We’ll get through this.
On may suspect that she has willfully lost her eyes to see or her ears to hear as it appears that God may be turning his Face from her, maybe withdrawn the Holy Spirit.
Whenever I see a photo of Nancy Pelosi I am driven to draw it nearer to me , to see if I can spot the horns under har bouffant hairdo.
Nobody, including the federal government, “mandates pregnancy.” There is a foolproof method of contraception called abstinence. Don’t use sexual intercourse as recreation when it was meant for procreation. Yes, there are rare instances when pregnancy results from rape, but those cases are far from the majority of abortions. The Leftist Democrats have been working to eliminate personal responsibility since 1933 to the detriment of individuals and society. Everyone needs to take responsibility for their actions and the consequences thereof, period.
This so called catholic needs to be ousted….. such a shame to have women that are “catholic” promote taking the life of a child that our loving God has made possible. Makes me just sick that they don’t even care about the babies that are to born. Not good women or mother’s.
How is it that every Catholic bishop has not rushed to support Archbishop Cordileone’s effort to end the desecration of the Blessed Sacrament by refusing to administer our Lord to this high priestess of satan?
Her evil contagion is vomiting forth whenever she speaks now and erupting across the face of the earth, while our shepherds — with too few exceptions — do virtually nothing to protect their flocks.
The antichrist with is is now all to clear — and it is leftism.
In the meantime, half of America’s Catholics vote for its insane, vile, monstrous agenda every chance they get.
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Isaiah 5:20
Its interesting but not shocking that Democrats like Pelosi NEVER speak about the virtual of personal responsibility. NOBODY is responsible for your getting pregnant but YOU. And that applies not matter what color you are or what income level you possess. It seems rather “sinful” to me that Pelosi implies that women lack the brains to make responsible decisions, like abstaining from sexual activity when needed. They therefore MUST need the ability to the murder the child they conceive. Its hard to say what if anything this crone knows about sinfulness, inasmuch as she is a major proponent of late term abortion. Which she appears to believe a greater good for woman-kind. Some can posit the “clump of cells” argument in arguing for abortion in the first two months of a pregnancy. But that is absolutely bogus by well before the 9th month. Yet there is no recognition of this reality from the democrats. I have a friend in her 60’s (past pregnancy age herself) who recently made it clear to me that this will be her voting issue. She has no daughters, and thus I am mystified why she takes this issue like she will need an abortion herself tomorrow. Out the window evidently in her voting decision are REAL life concerns about the open border admitting terrorists and fentanyl pushers and sex traffickers, food shortages, hyper inflation, and the dangers presented by the increasingly war-like posture of our enemies. No comment about the violence perpetrated on life centers and churches by pro-abortion “activists”. Its clear that clergy must speak up loud, often and clear with brutal frankness not only about this barbaric procedure, but about the sinfulness of those who support it, medically or politically. I would consider Pelosi merely dim-witted if she wasnt doing so much harm.
Men often put extreme pressure on a wife or girlfriend to terminate or else
Which again feels like an argument that women lack either intellect or the spine to understand the consequence of what they do. I personally would take the “or else” rather than continue a relationship with a man who urged me to kill my baby.
More “theology” from Professor Pelosi! No doubt she will be warmly
welcomed the next time she goes to the Vatican. And Cardinal Gregory
will be silent and keep giving her Communion.
I am so tired of well-heeled women pleading compassion for minority and low income women to justify their promotion of abortion. How does it show respect/compassion for minority and low income women to tell them their babies are trash?
Our Lord persevered in efforts to help free Judas from the curse incurred by him that blinded him to Lord’s warnings . The Holy Father too likely with the intention to set such persons free – ? from the blinding effects of the curses incurred .
https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/27-25.htm
Such persons also ignoring the wisdom and warnings from exorcists as well .
The Govt. too , participating , even in the act of bribing by supporting such choices … and we see the effects – as massive social issues , debt issues , afflictions of nature ,lives and families – wars , identity confusions , addictions , suicides ..
Persons who ought to see the connections refusing to connect the dots – themselves being blinded by the curses ..
Used to be puzzled about the focus given by Rev.Fr.Jim Blount , for the Precious Blood prayers ( a rather long standing devotion ) as advocated for our times – not hard to see how much we need same –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOghQCAeqrE
Blessings !