Why I’m Catholic (Reason 31)
From Dave Armstrong’s list:
Evangelicalism’s “techniques” of evangelism are often contrived and manipulative, certainly not directly derived from the text of the Bible. Some even resemble brainwashing to a degree.
There’s two points I want to cover here, the first being that for all the shortcomings that might befall it at a parish level — and that happens a lot, unfortunately — the process one goes through when becoming Catholic is actually pretty intelligent and reasonable. catechesis is not about playing up a person’s fear of condemnation, nor is it about guilt trips. It’s about investigation, or discernment as we call it. And in it’s presentation — which, basically, involves laying out points of Catholic doctrine and beliefs and then offering valid reasons for why those beliefs are held — it has a slightly apologetic flavour.
The second point, though, is a gripe I have, and will expand upon in a future blog post. For now, let me just say that for as much as I like how the Church handles prospective converts, I do wish at times that Catholics were more passionate about evangelism.
Though in saying as much, I do rather invite at least one obvious question: what would Catholic evangelism “look” like, as something distinct from Protestant evangelism?
