New Evangelizers Post: Love As If You Have No Hope

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com

Ours is a faith of paradoxes.

If you want to live, you have to die.  God’s most powerful deed was becoming small.

And when it comes to bring people to Christ, sometimes the best way to do this is to act as if you never will.

Have you ever been in a store where the salesmen came up to you with that easy smile and acted like he was your best friend?  Have you ever been on a date where the other person simply furrowed their brow and nodded their head in a pantomime of understanding?  Have you ever had someone look past you as a person and treat you nicely for some other motive?

This is the situation that many of our brothers and sisters feel they are in when we come and preach to them the Gospel.  

Now many of us share the faith from what we believe are good motives.  We want others to be happy and we believe that the only way to attain lasting peace and joy is to be with Christ.  But even with this in mind it is easy to focus on the MISSION and not on the PERSON.

This post will particularly focus on those who feel disconnected from Christ and His Church.  For example, many of our homosexual brothers and sisters experience a strong disconnect from the faith on a deep and personal level.  Dr. Peter Kreeft once described an encounter he had with a gay man who spoke about his reaction to the Catholic teaching on homosexuality.  

The gay man asked Dr. Kreeft to imagine a society where Catholics were told by the majority that they would be loved, but any outward sign of their deeply felt Catholic faith (e.g. going to Mass, wearing crucifixes) would be vigorously opposed.  

If Kreeft found that unfair, then the gay man said the same this was how homosexuals feel about the Church’s teaching.  They are told that they are loved, but any outward sign of their sexual orientation is vigorously opposed.

Whether or not this feeling reflects reality is immaterial at this juncture.  And we do not have to limit ourselves to homosexuality, but anyone who has a deeply wounded relationship with Christ.  Some feel this way because of marital issues.  Some have been soured because of horrible life experiences.  Regardless, there are many for whom there appears to be an insurmountable barrier.

So what are we to do?

You can read the entire article here.