The Hour of the New Beginning

A Theological Reflection on Evangelisation Today

Klaus Hemmerle

In a recent talk the well-known theologian and Bishop of Aachen, Klaus Hemmerle, proposed a new "poor persons' Bible", no longer made up of images but written by the lives of Christians themselves, as a way to overcome the difficulties met by evangelisation in the modern world. The following is an abbreviated version of the talk

Today we live in an era characterised by the split between the Gospel and life. The mood which pervades modern society is one of estrangement. In the past people spontaneously experienced reality and received traditions, expressing them in words and images perfectly integrated with the world in which they lived. Hence the gilded background of the medieval altars powerfully conveyed the dimension of the transcendant and the fundamental relationship between humankind and the divine. In contrast to this vivid form of communication, the world of images within the environment in which we live today fails to capture such richness

After two millennia during which the Gospel was successfully transmitted from one culture to another, it is fair to ask why this communication has broken down today. An examination of the characteristic traits of our time may provide the answer

Firstly, images are different today because life is different; the Church and society, the Gospel and people of today no longer recognise each other. In our highly technical world, faith is without images and images are without faith. The newly emerging religiosity is far from the Christian message of the incarnation, the paschal event, and the Trinity

Secondly, the process of tradition which necessarily implies some kind of authority and which transmits images and contents from one generation to the next, no longer seems to work. No single world of images can be offered today. In the past the tradition constituted by unity, gave rise to common thinking, willing and living. The unity of our increasingly interdependent world today, however, is of a functional type - a worldwide interchange of information and co-operation. In contrast to the past, when trust, which was by no means uncritical, existed in authority and in tradition and before which the innovators had to justify themselves, today, unfettered freedom has become fundamental to the creative spirit. Revolutionary ideas born of this mentality influence the life and image-world of individuals and condition their mentality in an unprecedented way

Thirdly, a new poverty is emerging in what may be termed the unitary culture, which is dominated by technical uniformity. There is a sameness about the multiplicity of cultural goods, the products of human planning and construction. But where can the individual find the unity of his or her own person, of his or her own life? And where are the ideals capable of uniting cultures and peoples? The experience of the first Christians who found in Jesus Christ the unity of all, as enthusiastically procalaimed, for example, by the Letter to the Ephesians seems alien to this culture. The Gospel and faith are no longer understood as the unifying point of the whole of reality. At best they are regarded as an island for those needing consolation and private inner peace. Today's anguished quest for a new unity expects nothing from a "worn-out" Christian faith

In short, these three characteristics point to the need for a completely new reflection and direction in evangelisation. When the medieval Church had to hand on the Gospel to those who could neither read nor write, it turned to pictorial representation. This is how the Biblia Pauperum, the Bible of the poor, came about. The attempt at spreading the faith, at evangelisation, became the decisive impulse for the creation of that magnificent world of images which no longer seems to belong to today's world. Christians of the twentieth century who look to today's impoverished world of images need a new Biblia pauperum, so that our faith may be represented by new images and words engendered within the living context of today

The meaning of the term Evangelisation

Let us turn now to reflect on the meaning of the term evangelisation. The term itself is relatively new in catholic circles, and is particularly linked with a 1975 papal document, Evangelii Nuntiandi. In the following years its use spread quickly, especially in the young Churches, helped on its way by Paul VI's reflections on the same topic, and it substituted or at least modified the traditional notion of mission. In the biblical context, to evangelise means to transmit a message. In fact, the evangelisation of the poor is portrayed as the decisive proof that Jesus is the Messiah (Cf., Lk 7:22; Mt 11:5)

The message transmitted cannot be isolated from the event that announces it. An attentive examination shows the primacy of the event itself. This is what attracts, spreads, and makes news. The event of the Kingdom of God that arrives with Jesus takes possession of the messenger and indeed lives in him. And then through the messenger's message the one who hears becomes involved in the dynamic of the event and not just brought up to date about something new. Just as a stone that falls into the water produces a gradual series of waves, so the event encompasses the message, the messenger who communicates it, and those who hear it. Jesus' mission is addressed to the poor, the little ones, those who depend radically on God and it makes of them in turn, the bearers of that message that wants to go ahead and reach others, involving them too in its dynamic

Evangelisation is, therefore, a living process that generates new unity. What the Son lives in the Father is manifested to the world through the Person of Jesus. The life Jesus lives, in its turn raises up life through his Word with which He goes out beyond himself, reaches those who hear it and questions their lives. And so the Gospel becomes the living space that gathers the faithful together, uniting them with Jesus and with each other, and is the force that sends them on their way into the world

The key points of Vatican II theology

At this point we come to the theology of communion sketched out in Vatican II and made explicit in the episcopal synods held in Rome in 1985 and 1987. It is nothing less than a coherent development of what in Scripture is called evangelisation

Mysterium - the mystery of salvation. As we have seen, evangelisation indicates a process of communication. The intimate mystery of God, the "world" of God, is communicated fully and definitively to the human world without being confused with, or annihilated by it. In this regard, the christological dogma of the two natures in Christ, divine and human, distinct but not separate, united but not confused (Chalcedon) is extremely relevant. The life of God, which is present in Jesus who incarnates it, is historically manifested among us and by its nature tends to share itself out and make history. The gospel bursts in on every person and every time as utterly new and always surprising. Particularly at times of great change, and at the beginning of each new historical epoch, the inner vitality and strength of the tradition that continues to generate a new world, is revealed

Communio - unity. In this process, by which the event of salvation is transmitted, what comes into focus is the experience of the new unity which the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of: in Jesus Christ the wall of separation between the people of God and the world of the pagans, together with the other wall between God and humanity (Cf. Eph 2:11ff) is broken down. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is therefore the great event of unity: the unity between the separated Greek and Jewish worlds and through their reciprocal unity, the unity of God with the world and, ultimately, the interior unification of the whole world so torn apart. Evangelisation - and this is important - is a communicative process whose protagonist is God alone, but not a solitary God. God involves humankind, and more precisely every man and woman and all of human life

Missio - sending. The transmission of the biblical message from the beginning has been a dynamic process. The history of evangelisation is the history of the ever-new overcoming of limitations. In the history of the Christian mission what we see repeated over and over again, in an ever-new yet analogous way, is the breaking down of the walls of separation between Jews and pagans in the early Church. Translation of the Gospel into new languages and new images is part of the very essence of the Gospel and this is completely different from a metholodological addition to its fundamental nucleus. The Gospel keeps its unity and identity but without communio and missio it would not be itself, rather it would be compromised in its intrinsic dynamic. And this has consequences when today we are faced with a truly epochal change prompting the need for a new beginning

The Church as communion: a new biblia pauperum

So far we have seen that the original character of evangelisation is a communicative process but today the living relevance of Christian faith and images is losing its impact. At this point we come to a surprising idea: the split between Word and life, between Word and the imaginative world of our life, requires a new bible of the poor. This cannot, however, consist in images. It has to be written with life, with that life which each of us is living personally but also communally. We are the new bible. This is not so much an observation but rather an appeal. Not that we are already this, but that we should and could become this. Besides, the poor to whom the message of the Gospel is directed, are not only or primarily "the others" but rather ourselves who want to be Christian

Like children in kindergarten we should learn again the a b c of the gospel. But the key to understanding it is neither speculation nor meditation alone, but our personal life, including here our relationships with others. Above all we need to discover and experience in ourselves, step by step, the gospel in our existence; then it will give light to the others too and be an invitation to them. Chiara Lubich expresses the challenge like this: "If by an absurd hypothesis all the Gospels of the earth were destroyed, we would wish to live in such a way that people, seeing the way we acted, could, in a certain manner, rewrite the Gospel: 'Blessed are you who weep...'(Lk16:21), 'Blessed are the merciful...'(Mt 5:7), 'Judge not...'(Lk 6:27). John Paul II's exhortation has the same thrust: the Christian should be "a living catechism". Such a challenge is not the same as a moral appeal, even if that would always be valid. Rather it reminds us that our faith will be convincing only if we live what we believe

There is no question of diminishing the persuasive force of a Word that would also be accessible in itself, but rather of opening out this access to the gospel Word. The Gospel resonates and becomes intelligable only when, by informing the life of Christians, it thus becomes the concrete answer to the vital questions put by people of our times. They find this answer in an image, in the image of a life transformed and renewed. What is important is to discover the new "world of images" constituted by life and relationships, and to take this seriously as the, literally, indispensable access to the Gospel. True, the Fathers of the Church were already aware of the link between, on the one hand, life and communion, and on the other, the intelligibility of the Gospel. But today's need for a new inculturation of the Gospel demands something more than a mere repetition of what has gone before

Concretisation in life

How will it be possible to grasp the dogma of the Triune God as a message that grounds human life and transforms it in its depth, if we do not build up new relationships which make us experience the effectiveness of what Jesus has left us in his final testament? In fact he asks us to be one as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, so that the world may believe (cf. Jn 17:21-23). How would it be possible to understand the Incarnation, the presence of God in each man and woman as the definitive epiphany of God for the world, if we did not experience as a living reality in Christians that YES God has directed and still directs to each person thanks to the incarnation of his Son? How can we grasp the paschal mystery, the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as God's way for the salvation of all, if we cannot glimpse in the life of Christians that the distance from God and the forsakenness of God in our time are realities already taken up by God himself and overcome in Jesus dead and risen; if we cannot, in other words, check out that the Lord is truly risen in their living with the One who lives?

Each word of the Gospel, each basic dimension of the message needs to be represented in a personal and shared life that is different, that is at least an index of the newness of the Christian message. Otherwise, the message risks coming across as a colourless myth or an alienating ideology

A social-icon of the Gospel

Our call for a new biblia pauperum in the form of a Church that would be a lived communion must not be confused with what could be the reduction of the Christian message to mere social and ethical processes that would be of purely human origin. Yet, we must remember that the Church is called to be the "social icon" of the Gospel. The icon is a powerful medium for presenting visibly what it announces. A new Christian religious "art" would be first and foremost the "art" of representing the Word of God as life and relationship; that is to say, as communion, as the Church. From this "art" will emerge, hopefully, the living force that will enable artists to create living images and writers to forge living words

For the Church to become a believable communion, there is also, however, the need for a new relationship between the ordained ministry and the whole people of God. The ministerial task is to ensure unity both with the biblical origin and with the universal Church, and these are dimensions of mission which are more urgent than ever today. To bring about such unity, the minister has to welcome the multiple witnesses and experiences that are occuring in the Church. He has to listen to them and make them reciprocally intellible in the context of the unique Word that has been given and entrusted to us. Every Christian has to discover his autonomy and responsibility as a Christian and this is no less important for communion than for the authoritative service of the ministry

We can return now to the beginning of our reflection and consider again the characteristic experiences that indicate to us the split between the Word of God and the life of man. We said that Church and and society, Gospel and contemporary man no longer recognize each other. Our insistence on the need for a Bible of the poor for today and for new images in which the Gospel and contemporary experiences can be understood authentically, led us to the requirement of living the Gospel personally and communally in such a way that it can once again inspire life. Now, wherever the Word is translated into life and the experiences which follow from that are communicated and shared, the message of the Word is effectively concretised into a life and a way of being together that is understandable and believable

We referred to the tension within modern consciousness, between the autonomous subject on the one hand and authority and tradition on the other. When authority and tradition are understood as a challenge enabling us to experience and make the Gospel concrete in an authentic manner in our lives, then authority and tradition can be seen as promoters of the subject, of his or her responsibility. Included within the horizon of the modern "I", is the "You" and the "We" of the past. In this way, the Gospel becomes plausible in a way that goes beyond mere logic and rationality: lived consistently and with others, the Word of God carries within itself its own force of conviction which fascinates by the new Gospel "logic"

We examined how the modern quest for a united world risked ignoring the unifying force of the person of Jesus. But where the Church lives what it preaches, so becoming the social icon of the Gospel, it becomes obvious that no one else other than the risen Lord could bring about the unity desired either in the life of the individual or in human community. The Church as communion reveals herself as a Unity/Diversity that goes beyond the technological-functional connections of a society in which the many single members mechanically interact while remaining isolated. The Church, rather, is a Unity transcending a global closed system that suffocates the freedom of the individual

Certainly it will not be us who will be able to bring about this attractive ideal. Only the Holy Spirit can make of us that living icon capable of communicating today the Gospel, which is always unique but ever the same, in new images and words.