I think people have become turned off to religion in general because of the kind of complacency our modern affluent secular society facilitates. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the richer we get the more secular we get; when people feel that God is no longer relevant, that they no longer need God because all of their needs are satisfied by themselves or the civil conditions of the country in which they live, they will stop praying, stop going to Church, they will stop believing. I think to some extant even us believers do something similar, when everything in our life is going good, do we remain as devoted to prayer, as earnest in living our faith? I’ll speak for myself and say no, when things are going good I tend to get complacent, and when things go bad, this is when my faith is reignited after the dryness that comes with complacency. I think this has happened on a much broader scale, we have been so blessed to live in America or the western world i general, and people have forgotten (or perhaps have never known) what it means to work to live and live to work, that life is about more than getting the newest iphone, watching football on sunday, partying for the sake of partying, etc.
I think the poor, and those who are not well off have an entirely special perspective on this issue of religion vs secularism; the poor tend to be more religious than the rest of society, and I think this is because the poor are in a position to see beyond this illusion of a society that values everything that ought not be valued, and puts no value in things that ought to be valued.
So the way I see it, for faith to make a comeback, people need to come to the realization that all of their needs are not met, that there are some things that money cannot satisfy, some things that the pleasures and comforts of the culture cannot satisfy. And this can be done in a variety of ways, in my own life it has been personal struggle, for most others I think that external struggles are necessary, for most people their lives need to be turned upside down before they make a radical change and having recourse to faith. And I think this is sad, that many people need their lives turned upside down in order to even have the door opened for belief.
But in regards to what the Church should do, I think the Church needs to simplify it’s message, and open it’s doors a bit wider. And by this, I mean the Church needs to find a way to package it’s message in an age of twitter and facebook, where no one is willing to read things exceeding 140 characters.
I think a lot of people are turned off by the waiting period for conversion, that it will often take at least a year in order to convert to Catholicism, I have one such friend who is sort of very loose in terms of spirituality ( former protestant, now just has a loose belief in God) but he has expressed to me interest in Catholicism, even interest in converting at one point, and I told him all sorts of things, and he was dismayed at having to go through a years worth of education in RCIA and waiting so long, and eventually grew cold to the idea. I understand there are reasons for making people wait, but my question is, do the benefits of making people wait a year and usually only performing conversions around Easter outweigh the drawbacks? I truly believe the Church loses potential converts, because people are dismayed at the formality of the conversion process. Protestant churches have altar calls every week and gain new members, I think it would be in the best interest of the Church and potential converts to accelerate the conversion process, we live in a digital age, and people can access information with the click of a mouse, most of the truly substantive religious education I had, was done by myself on the internet, the same can be the case for those seeking to convert rather than going to weekly RCIA classes.
And back to what I said about the Church simplifying its message, I think we need to bring the emphasis of our faith back to the core narrative of salvation, and that is bring it back to Jesus Christ the person. One of my other observations is that outsiders not familiar with the Church look at it with confusion, we have such an expansive spirituality and theology, with attention paid to all sorts of different aspects of spirituality, devotions, sacramentals, Mary and the other Saints, theology, liturgy, etc etc. Not that these are bad, by no means, but I think it’s better to leave the things that belong in the periphery in the periphery in regards to new converts. The Church’s “selling point” if you will, should center around the narrative of salvation history in Jesus Christ. Essentially, our selling point is summarized in the creed that we pray every sunday at Mass, these are our core beliefs, if someone wants to know what Catholicism is about in a few words, we should point to the creed. And from that staging point, we can get into everything else about our faith, the sacraments, liturgy, and so on. I think a simplified “sales pitch” such as this would open more eyes to what the Church has to offer, and be more inviting to those ignorant or mis informed about what the Church is all about.
In an age where information is condensed, and tightly packaged the Church needs to imitate this in my opinion, and condition our faith to be transmitted in a similar manner. Our faith offers us not only an escape from what is wrong with the world, but a means to overcome what is wrong with the world. I often here muslims proclaim “Islam is the answer!” in regards to the problems of the world, the Church needs to be just as bold once again, The Church needs to loudly proclaim that Christ is the answer and drive this message full steam ahead. It is a boldness I do not see often enough, and all of us have the ability to exhibit this in our own lives among our own circles of friends and family even though at least for myself it seems so hard to do sometimes.
