Engaging the Culture: An Introduction

The recent election has seen new spirit infused into both sides currently fighting the culture wars over such issues as abortion, artificial birth control, the right to health care, and more.  Although the U.S. bishops spoke out strongly against legislation that covers abortions and forces religious employers to pay for services that violate their beliefs, the majority of Americans (and Catholics) did not vote against these proposals.  The aftermath left many faithful Catholics wondering exactly what went wrong.  Did they fail properly to explain the basis of Church teaching?  Were they unable to compete with the information offered by other news sources?  (My friends, for example, seemed convinced that the issue at stake was the outlaw of all methods of contraception, rather than a religious freedom exemption for certain employers.)  What should they do differently in the future?

I am not convinced that a lack of information lies at the root of the current, popular aversion to Church teaching on matters of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, IVF, artificial birth control, and more.  Anyone really interested in what the Church actually says can do a quick Internet search and find helpful resources on such sites as EWTN or Catholic Answers.  Better yet, the Vatican has the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church online.  Yes, despite these resources, many remain ignorant about the actual teachings and instead parrot garbled versions offered to them by sources that have no interest in portraying the Church fairly or accurately.  But the problem is not the lack of information—the problem is that the teachings are so radically opposed to everything our culture tells us that they appear difficult and unattractive.  How many people will spend time researching something that seems so far-fetched as to be irrelevant to them?

Before we offer others the truth of what the Catholic Church teaches, we need to make that truth appear desirable.  Teachings on abstinence, for example, can make abstinence appear as a negative—it seems like just another rule preventing people from having fun.  Because our culture insists that premarital unchastity is normal, desirable, and consequence-free, any teaching insisting the opposite is going to be a hard sell.  Simply saying, “No, you can’t do that!” will not only prove unconvincing, but may also come across as judgmental.  However, explaining why a person will be better off in the long run by practicing chastity can open up a discussion.  Jason Evert and his wife Crystalina do great work promoting chaste lifestyles by arguing that abstinence allows young adults to save themselves for true love.  They do not present abstinence as a list of things unmarried individuals cannot do, but as an opportunity for them to grow an individuals.

So how do Catholics present Catholicism in a positive light to the world?  Living lives of love, of course, but also by engaging the culture.  The recent release of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit will introduce (or reintroduce) many to the works of a man whose worldview was shaped by his Catholicism.  Soon after the movie version of Les Miserables will offer another great Catholic story to the masses.  Neither work overtly proclaims itself as based on Catholic principles; neither one will likely cause viewers to leave the theatre because they under the impression that the makers are proselytizing.  However, neither work can fully escape the philosophy of their creators.  They depict characters living lives that reflect Christian values—and their lives are admirable and attractive enough that they have caught the imaginations of generations.

The world needs more such stories—stories that illustrate the beauty of a Catholic worldview and, in so doing, strike their audiences with a joy so beautiful it hurts.  Stories that engage audiences because they depict characters who suffer hardships and sorrows—many undeserved—but who carry on, showing themselves honest, brave, loyal, and full of love.  Stories that are true.

Join us as we continue the discussion through a series of posts that explores the intersection of contemporary culture and Catholicism.  Coming up, a look at The Hobbit and what it means (or does not mean) for Catholics.