2nd Part - Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform In The 21st-century Church By George Weigel

By Author: Craig Read
Total Articles: 33
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As Weigel states Evangelical Catholicism is happening. It is a vital part of the Church's reformation, on-going for 125 years. This past Easter 150.000 North American adults entered the Church as converts. The Church is far from dead with 1.6 billion world-wide members and growing.
Evangelical Catholicism is an expression of the four fundamental realities of Christian ecclesial life—unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity—as mediated through the deep reform of the Catholic Church that has been underway since Pope Leo XIII [early 20th century Pope].
Why would anyone believe in the above ? There are sundry reasons, all of them valid, but the core of the belief is that the miracles of Christ's rebirth, along with the unexplained yet incredibly well attested miracles of the Apostles, and hundreds of Saints are true:
He is Son of the Most High God, incarnate in the flesh and in history, for, as C.S. Lewis provocatively suggested, there are only two other possibilities: that Jesus of Nazareth was a madman, or that he was history’s greatest liar. There are no other options. Evangelical Catholicism begins ...
... with the confession of faith that Jesus is indeed Lord, as the Great Tradition of Christianity has always understood him. And Evangelical Catholicism affirms that that basic confession of faith measures all theological efforts to explain just how this could be, or what it might mean.

Many people reject Christ as anything other than a nice man, who did some good preaching. Others state he did not exist. There are 2 times as many sources – non Christian – detailing the life of Christ and his Resurrection, an event that both the Romans and Jews acknowledged as occurring, than there is for the life of Caesar for instance. Yet Marxists who might have heard of Caesar [a limited number to be sure], seem to know that he existed. Yet they will laugh off the life of Christ, though the proof of his existence his miracles and his risen, have been attested to by the harshest of Church critics throughout the ages including our own and far surpass that of the populist Julius. How consistent.
Faith leads to freedom, by destroying sin [itself a product of slavery]; opening up the mind and soul and challenging the material. Without faith freedom withers. Truths are unknown, the soul lies dormant.
Thus the obedience of faith, rather than leading to oppression, is the path to radical freedom: the freedom to freely choose the good, the true, and the beautiful, and to do so as a matter of moral habit. This, of course, is a profoundly countercultural way of life, based on what is, in the twenty-first century, a deeply countercultural apprehension of reality.
Faith through good works matched with the spirit of reason. It is no wonder that the Catholic Church is the world's largest charity. Where are the Moslem or Hindu charities for non-Moslems and non-Hindus? Where are the Moslem hospitals in developing nations, along with schools, sanitation systems, and care for lepers and others who are marginalized ? Nowhere to be found.
Post modern culture leads to State manipulated Gnosticism. Everyone is a little god or goddess, and should be shaped as such by the state. You should be told what to do, think, and how to act, only by the state. Your children are to be raised in the 'village' managed by the state. Your views must be censured and accountable to the state. You must follow like a good little slave, everything that Marxist orthodoxy, represented by the state, demands of you. This is deemed the highest intelligence, and is called 'democratic freedom' by the cult members of the state:
Late modernity and postmodernity have seen a powerful cultural revival of Gnosticism, the most ancient of heresies, which denied the goodness of creation and sought redemption not in history and the fulfillment of history, but outside history and materiality. In its twenty-first-century form,Gnosticism teaches the utter plasticity of the human condition: there is nothing given in men and women, not even their gender; all is malleable; all can be changed to fulfill the desires (or, as it is usually phrased, to meet the “needs”) of the imperial autonomous Self. Nor are there any givens in society...
Redemption comes through the very hard work of faith, itself built on reason and even scepticism. It is much easier to be a goose-stepping cult member than to actually argue out, accept, and implement a true immaterial faith, which produces real world benefices. The post-modern world is long on rhetoric and hot air. It is short on effort, knowledge and virtue. Apparently most people like it that way. Evangelical Catholicism will however, over time, change millions of minds. The battle is far from finished.

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As you can see in the Books on Civilization , the Church is far from dead. Evangelical Catholicism is still ongoing as it has been for the past 125 years. For more, Check out Books on Civilization .