Introduction:
The word evangelism originally meant announcing
the good news that the day of redemption had arrived. The gospel (evangelion,
evangelium) is the good news, the saving message, which is proclaimed by the
"evangelist". The Second Vatican Council sometimes used the term to
refer to the basic message to be preached, but sometimes more broadly, meaning
the fullness of the revelation given in Jesus Christ. Unlike Lutherans,
Catholics do not divide revelation into law and gospel. The law taught by God
is part of the gospel.
The term
New Evangelization was used only in 1975 by Paul VI. It is the need to reform
the idea of the mission of the church and the people by promoting the faith
of the people and focusing on Christ Jesus as the missionary focus of the
church by evangelizing people of all faiths by engaging in their cultural environment
or context if time.
New Evangelization
(Roman Catholic)
So evangelism has two meanings. In a narrower
sense, it means the proclamation of the global Christian message to those who
do not believe, i.e. primary evangelism. But in a broad sense it means all that
has brought human life and the world under the rule of God's word. In the
second sense, evangelization practically coincides with the overall mission of
the church. Normally, the Second Vatican Council used the term evangelization
in a narrow sense to mean the activity of proclaiming Christ rather than
exerting his influence on various persons and situations through education, pastoral
care and social activity.
The Synod of Bishops held in 1974 was held to
discuss evangelization. "On December 8, 1975, Pope Paul VI issued his
apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, dealing with the subject of
evangelization in the modern world. It was issued on the occasion of three
notable events, namely the end of the Holy Year, the tenth anniversary of the
conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, one year after the Assembly for the
Annunciation of the Bishops. Paul VI in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation
Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), he made this famous statement: "The Church
exists to evangelize, which means to preach and teach, to be a channel of the
gift of grace."
Simply put, evangelization is perceived today in
a perspective belonging to the very essence of the church. His existence in
history consists in spreading the good news about Jesus Christ. The mission of
the church comes from God, who is himself 'on a mission'. The mission of the
church is therefore to participate in God's Trinitarian mission, which is
permanent and endless. The primary or basic message of the Gospel, the kerygma,
is to proclaim that "Christ died, Christ rose, Christ will come again.
John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI are now
calling for evangelization of those who have already been baptized. The call
for a new evangelization is a call for baptized members of the Church to deepen
their faith and reach out to other Christians who are in deep need of a new
encounter with Christ. In modern times, this means re-presenting the gospel to
people in countries and cultures heavily influenced by secularization. The
listeners of the new evangelization are those who have already heard the
preaching of Christ. About John Paul II. In the work of salvation, "Faith
is powerful when given to others!". The new evangelization therefore gives
importance to the church and its baptized members to strengthen their faith by
spreading the good news to others. It is a revival in disguise, the need to
reform the faith of the people and the church and expand their missionary
perspective in the light of reforming their faith and missiological
perspective.
This statement by Pope Benedict XVI sums up what
the New Evangelization is for Roman Catholics.
The new evangelization calls each of us to
deepen our faith, to believe in the Gospel message and to go and preach the
Gospel. The focus of the new evangelization calls all Catholics to be
evangelized and then to go evangelize. In a special way, the New Evangelization
focuses on "re-presenting" the Gospel to those who have experienced a
crisis of faith. Pope Benedict XVI called for the re-presentation of the Gospel
to "those areas that await the first evangelization and those areas where
the roots of Christianity are deep, but which have undergone a serious crisis of
faith due to secularization".
He calls on the entire Catholic community or
Christians to renew and strengthen their faith in Christ Jesus and also
proclaim the good news because this will also strengthen their faith even more.
The historical context
of the new evangelization:
Pope Paul VI:
A year after the Synod of Bishops in 1974, Pope
Paul VI issued Evangelii nuntiandi. . Pope Paul VI he declared that the Church
"exists to evangelize, that is, to preach and teach, to be a channel of
the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners to God, and to perpetuate Christ's
sacrifice in the Mass." which is a memorial of his death and glorious
resurrection.” Paul VI. tries to evangelize in two ways, i.e. to invite them to
a life of conversion and to give their life a new meaning through the
"Easter mystery of Christ".
Blessed John Paul II:
Blessed John Paul II renewed the call to all
Christians to evangelize in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and Pope
Paul VI. According to Blessed John II. no one who claims to believe in Christ
and the church that belongs to Christ can ignore the duty of evangelizing the
good news of Jesus Christ. According to him, the church can better evangelize
when the church engages in the culture of those to whom the church evangelizes.
He emphasized a new zeal, a new method of evangelism by engaging with the times
or current cultural context of the people.
Blessed John Paul II in a way he provided three
circumstances in evangelism: one was preaching to those who had never heard the
gospel. Secondly, it is preaching to those Christian communities where the
Church is present and who have a fervent faith, and being tired of preaching to
those Christian communities that have ancient roots but "have lost a
living sense of faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the
Church. These were the main emphases of blessed John Paul on the New
Evangelization.
Pope Benedict XVI and
the future of the new evangelization
During his homily on the Feast of St. Peter and
Paul in the Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls on June 28, 2010, Pope
Benedict XVI renewed the call of the Church to a new evangelization. Here, Pope
Benedict XVI emphasizes the importance of evangelization in those places that
will never be evangelized. And it also gives importance to re-evangelization in
those regions where Christianity has its deep roots, but over time has lost its
essence due to secularization. Pope Benedict XVI declared that the Church must
enter into a difficult dialogue with modern culture and face the cultural
crisis caused by secularization. In this way, the church's mission in
evangelization will become more effective and people who are affected by
secularization will be more receptive to the call.
In a final note, we can say that the concept of
the New Evangelization, which the papal document presents, is in turn greatly
influenced by the intervention of the bishops at the synod. It accepts the
concept of evangelization in its global sense as found in the synodal
documents. In the introduction, the Pope stated that the effort to preach the
Gospels is a service to the Christian community and to all of humanity. He
wants to strengthen his brothers in their mission to evangelize them himself,
as Paul VI strongly emphasized during his pontificate. Proclaiming the Gospel
is the duty of the Church and this exhortation is meant to be a genuine
invitation to mediate this all important responsibility.
Characteristics of the
new evangelization:
1. New evangelization requires new zeal.
John Paul II he said we need an evangelism that
is "new in its fervor, new in its methods and new in its expression."
The new evangelization is therefore about each Christian deepening his own
faith, hope and love and becoming more inflamed with a new fervor, a real love
for Christ and his Church. This new zeal awakens individual needs and zeal not
only to strengthen their faith, but also to find the motivation and
responsibility to spread the good news of Christ Jesus to the people of the
world.
2. The new evangelization is more Christocentric
than ecclesiocentric.
The New Evangelization focuses on Christ Jesus
or Christo-Centric. It turns its face away from the church's eccentric mission
model. Here it means that the church no longer wants to work with the motive of
raising the churches and their property and compete with other churches or
denominations, but rather to work together for a common goal with the same
principle of the New Evangelization, i.e. to raise the faith. baptized members
and also to preach and spread the good news.
3. The new evangelization is thoroughly familiar
with the streets, i.e. with awareness of today's cultural context.
Catholics are people or religions who live in a
culture focused on design, media image, style and entertainment. Yet this
culture is also a corrosively secular, pluralist culture that seeks to banish religion
from the public sphere.
In such a challenging context, it is essential
to underline the "brand" of the church, i.e. to be able to express
what is characteristic of being Catholic, of a faith that is completely
ancient, yet thoroughly modern and alternative. This allowed Catholics to be
more inclusive of the contextual contemporary world. To be more flexible in
fulfilling God's mission, but also without losing one's cultural essence. It
also means taking advantage of the modern art of communication and all that is
available for mission and publication.
Current theological
obstacles to evangelism:
The secular goals of prosperity, wealth,
comfort, safety and education and such a good life are understood in terms of
the material possibilities of life. Such an understanding of the good life is
influenced by urbanization. "They were very attached to his selfishness as
a person and his new goal of material success." This secularization
process puts people in danger of losing sight of the importance of human
dignity.
Another form of secularization is certain human
rights given equally to all men and women. But society is made up of different
types of persons who have different roles and functions, some have rights and
responsibilities, some don't. A God, moreover, who freely gives gifts to some,
which he withholds from others. False egalitarianism ignores these differences
and attributes equal rights and gifts to all. An obvious example, which is much
debated these days, is the so-called right to same-sex marriage. But this is
just one example of evil that is omnipresent in manifest form and subtly
undermines the authentic Christian message. Of course, God would love each
individual equally, but this is where the problems begin when evangelizing in
such a context.
“Secularization does not have to be difficult
for faith and practice. But if the need to act together with people of different
faiths or no faiths is important in a religiously pluralistic society, the
obvious tendency is to seek neutral humanitarian or humanist bases for programs
of social and political action. Secularization as a way of overcoming religious
and communal prejudices is desirable. It is questionable, however, whether
without the resources of religious faith to sharpen our concern for human
well-being, secularization based solely on humanitarian and humanist notions of
human dignity can achieve the goals of social justice.
Evangelism rests on the assumption that the
Christian religion is a uniquely precious gift of God. This is indeed the
teaching of Scripture; it is also the faith of the Catholic Church, confirmed
by popes and councils over the centuries. We do not create a religion according
to our own ideas and wishes. The message we believe in and preach is the gospel
of Jesus Christ faithfully transmitted in the church.
According to the Christian view, the church is
the people that God has gathered to himself in Jesus Christ. The members of the
church are charged with spreading the faith and gathering new members from all
the nations of the earth. The church is therefore essentially an evangelistic
community. Our secular culture promotes the opposite point of view, which
claims that no human community has a privileged relationship with God. Everyone
has the right to collectively reject religion, join any existing religious
group, or start a new sect as they see fit. There is no such thing as a deposit
of faith, nor is there any agency capable of authoritatively declaring what is
contained in the word of God. Whether people see the necessity of evangelism
depends on which of these two points of view they take. For those who have
embraced the former, it seems abundantly clear that evangelism is a high
priority. For those who accept the latter, evangelism is of dubious value and
might even be offensive. Only the first position is, of course, authentically
Christian and Catholic. But the leveling mentality that is dominant in our
secular culture is a powerful undertone that Christians, including Catholics,
can succumb to. Unless thoroughly trained in Christian doctrine, they tend to
adopt the attitudes of their fellow Americans.
Prevailing egalitarian humanism has a huge
doctrine of consequences. Most fundamentally, it undermines the doctrine of
revelation and portrays religion as a purely human construct. Christian faith,
as understood in Catholic traditions, is a positive response to revelation, a
joyful submission of mind and heart to God and his words. Those who have
received revelation have certain answers to many questions that would otherwise
be very difficult or impossible to answer. It would be irrational and
ungrateful to reject God's gift because we want to be like everyone else. Our
faith, which does no harm to our fellow man, equips us to lead, teach, and
benefit them. We could not evangelize anyone unless we were sure we had
something important to give. We believe this is the faith we grow from Christ.
The Church exists to do what it is supposed to do, which is to preach and
teach, to be a channel of the gift of grace.
Conclusion:
The New Evangelization may sound very new, but
in reality it is not. Of course, the term New Evangelization was coined only in
1975 by Paul VI, but this concept is not new. Many would think that the New
Evangelization means evangelizing people with all new communication mechanisms,
which is partially correct, but not all. New Evangelism is a movement created
by Roman Catholics to re-evangelize those whose faith is loosened by current
trends of secularization and also continues to reach the unreached. In other
words, to strengthen one's own faith by making Christ the center of the church
and its members, and finally also to evangelize the unreached. The mission of
the church thus turned its focus from mutual competition to a common goal, i.e.
to evangelize the world with the good news about Christ Jesus.
The New Evangelization is like living theology.
Living theology continues to evolve with time and context. In the same way, the
concept of new evangelization often fits the times. It is constantly evolving
and will continue to do so, adapting to the demands of the context of the time.
Bibliography
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S. J. “Vatican II and Evangelization”, The New Evangelization: Overcoming the Obstacles. Edited by, O.
P. Steven Boguslawski & Ralph Martin:
New Jersey:
Pualist Press, 2008.
Chandran J.R. The Church in
Mission. Madras: The Christian Literature Society, 1991.
Vadakumpadan Paul. Evangelisation Today; Understanding the
integral concept of
Evangelization in the light of Contemporary Trends
in the Theology of Mission: Shillong: Vendrame Missiological Institute, 1989.
Web Sources
Hahn,
Scott. “What is new evangelization?”
https://www.avemariapress.com/yearoffaith/what-is-the-new-evangelization
accessed
on 24.04.2021.
Benedict
XVI, Pope. "Homily of First Vespers
on the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter
And Paul," http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20100628_vespri-pietro-paolo_en.html
accessed on 24.04.2021.
Philip Egan, Monsignor.
“The
New Evangelization”
http://www.dioceseofshrewsbury.org/catholic-faith/the-new-evangelisation/what-is-the-new-evangelisation
accessed on 24.04.2021.
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