Advancing the Argument

Our dear friends from Nashville were the guest presenters at Theology on Tap Monday night, speaking on the evangelical counsels. Theology on Tap is a new thing in Australia and the youth are coming out in some very exciting numbers in response to the speakers and topics (I am sure the location doesn’t hurt either).

The three Nashville Dominicans are all on staff at WYD and spoke with the upcoming event in mind. The often misguided ideas of happiness, pleasure and freedom were the words associated with poverty, chastity and obedience throughout their presentation. As one can imagine the Sisters did a wonderful job, but it left Morgan and I with a lot to talk about on the way home. We are left wondering how we advance the argument? I imagine most the audience has a pretty good sense of what the Gospel is demanding, and are in good company in failing to live up to its demands. . . leaving us to wonder why? How do we get around saying the same thing over and over again?

Believe it or not, I have a working hypothesis -- though it is probably overly simplistic and certainly not original, but worth pondering nevertheless.

During the Q&A, every single question concerned some form of pluralism: how do I share my faith with my friends of other faiths without condemning their beliefs? What do I say to friends who see no need for God? How do I discern what message I am supposed to listen to, and act on? These are the questions they need addressed. Ministers are very good at speaking about poverty, chastity and obedience – be they under vows or not, but how often do the youth today hear how they can live these values in the pluralistic contexts of their lives?

Many have told me this is an issue that has been around for a long time, but we have never had so much information coming to us that requires so much discernment; never had such open communication with faiths from around the world; never been so stretched for time and so on. . .

It was quite clear to me that these youth know and want to live the Gospel in a radical way, they are just lacking the resources and knowledge as to how they can live this life in harmony with their friends and neighbors without compromising their values – which most would agree, is what was previously done.

So the answer to my question about advancing the argument comes down to really solid catechesis. Young Catholics today are so hungry to learn more about their faith they are even gonig to the bars – not to drink, but in hope that they may learn something about how to live an authentic life with conviction. Dummed down theology has no place here – the people present last night don’t have the time or energy for it. As one young woman said tonight, “tell me straight up – I can take it, and if not, I’ll pray about until I can!”

As for the Australian word of the day: "diary", that would be your schedule or calendar. We were quite amazed for a while when everyone we ran into had a diary. Alas, now Australians are not nearly so impressive.