Catholicism = Life Transformation NOT Behavior Modification

15 years ago a book called Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. It is a summary of findings from a large survey of teens in America and what they believe. Their key finding is that young people believe in what they label “moralistic therapeutic deism”. This term sums up these beliefs:

A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.

1. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other

2. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

3. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

4. Good people go to heaven when they die.

They also found that most young people did not believe in repentance, Christian salvation through the grace of Jesus, etc. As is the case with all too many Americans (including Catholics in the USA), we care more about what God can give us than we do for God himself.

Yet Christianity is about the giver, not the gifts.

We have entered an era where most self-described Christians (including Catholics) hold heretical beliefs that are far from the truth about who God is, his plan of salvation, and how we are to follow him. We will explore these issues below.

GOOD OR BAD NEWS?
The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus. This Good News is at the very center of what it means to be a Christian. In fact, without the Gospel, our faith is meaningless, because our message loses its very power.

Yet we have turned this message of Good News around and made it about being a “good” person. But, the Gospel is not about being a good person. It is about being a new person.

God wants to make us new. He wants us to be reborn. He wants to change us. He wants transformation on the inside that is lived out on the outside.

• Good News is that Jesus comes to save us even while we are his enemies
• Good News is found in a love that we don’t deserve and cannot earn.
• Good News is found in the offering of a perfect life so we can go to heaven.
• Good News is that any of us could ever be saved, because we are sinners.

NOT ABOUT BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
We undersell Jesus' Gospel when we just try to get people to merely act according to Catholic rules and doctrines. Look at your average Catholic parish and our culture betrays us. What are most parishes aiming for? Is it powerful encounters with God’s merciful love, forgiveness, and grace, so that hearts are made new? Or is it in behavior modification? I will argue it is mainly in behavior modification. Here are a few examples:

• When we teach the content of the faith before giving opportunities to have an encounter with God, choose to follow him, and be able to hear & respond to a presentation of the Gospel - then we are assuming that everyone is already a disciple of Jesus and ready for formation as one. But, how do you know that they are ready for all the doctrines and teachings? Why are we assuming they have already had a conversion? What is it you are aiming for by teaching these things? Probably behavior modification and not life transformation. This places a burden on people, because they can’t think, behave, or earn their way into heaven.
• When we focus on all the outward behaviors before we focus on a transformed heart. How a “good” Catholic spends money, behaves sexually, “gets” their Sacraments, goes to Mass, does the Catholic stuff that is expected, etc.
• I know a great Catholic family who moved to a new city. When they registered at their new parish, they received no phone call (or email, letter, etc) to welcome them. All they got were instructions on how to make donations. What a shame. The unwritten expectation is that the family is supposed to "behave" in a certain manner, from the start.
• Think of this situation. How would your parish handle it if men wanted to join a Bible study or adult R.E. class at your parish? Probably no big deal, right? But, what if 2 of those men were living together, as a couple? Would they still be welcome? Probably not at most parishes. The looks, gossip, shunning, and more, would probably eventually drive them away, if the other barriers to relationship didn't first. To be clear - I am not saying we are to accept their lifestyle as something good for them. What I am saying is we are supposed to love them, unconditionally. Love would compel us to reach out to them as a friend, not start with behavior modification, in order to "believe" correctly and then they are able to "belong".

We should be more passionate about people encountering the grace of God than we are about getting others to stop sinning. The interior desire to stop sinning comes when a heart that loves God seeks to do his will. But even then, sin won’t be wiped out completely until the next life in heaven. Remember that God saves us even while we are still sinners, not after we stop sinning. This is the Gospel and in many places we aren’t acting like it is Good News.

LIFE TRANSFORMATION
Which one sounds like truly Good News?

A - I obey God’s commands and that is why he loves me.
VS
B - God loves me despite my sins and therefore I want to please Him by obeying.

While we might know B is the Gospel, we are acting as if A is. Too often we don’t evangelize or share the Gospel with people because we believe they are “good” people. They don’t do terrible things. We like them. They are friendly and kind. But, not every kind person goes to heaven. This is a heresy (pelagianism) that one can be saved by merely acting in a moral way. We have fallen into the trap of a kind of neo-pelagianism that keeps us from offering salvation to others. The trap is that “good” people go to heaven and yet this is not what Jesus tells us about salvation.

An atheist can act more moral than a Christian, but that does not save them. Behavior doesn’t save you. Knowing the right doctrines doesn’t save you. Thinking correct things doesn’t save you. Rather, it is a living faith which responds to the grace of Jesus that saves. God loves us while we are still imperfect, because none of us, short of heaven, are perfect. This is how Jesus approaches us. He loves us right where we are. He asks us to believe in Him. When we choose faith, THEN he can transform us and help us live better lives.

TRANSFORMED CULTURE
If we are to be evangelists, we too need to operate under this dynamic of merciful love and seeking out of the sinner. But, not so we can give them our opinion on their lifestyles, but so we can introduce them to Jesus, who has the power to transform them. This is radically different from how most parishes operate. Radically different than how most Catholics try to evangelize. Rather than staying in our comfortable Catholic bubbles, we need to go out. Rather than aiming for changing behaviors, we aim for transformed hearts. Rather than being comfortable with where we are as missionary disciples, we allow God to challenge us to grow where we may not be comfortable. This is what holiness looks like. This glorifies God. This helps us fulfill the mission of the Church to make disciples.

Before Jesus told the woman caught in adultery (John 8) to “go and sin no more”, she repented, her life was renewed through an encounter with Jesus, and had a conversion in faith. THEN she was ready to live differently. This is the way we are called to operate with others. It starts with being in relationship with those who are far from God. Who do you know that is far from God? Do you seek a relationship with them or keep them at arm's length? In what ways are you loving them? Do you try to emulate the decisions of Jesus in your relationship with non-believers?

WHAT ABOUT THE RULES?
Yes, we have to do what Jesus says we are supposed to do. But, this living out our faith is not done by mere willpower or effort. It happens by grace, when we are receptive to the gifts that God gives us.

The law of God is a guide. It tells us how to act. It tells us what to do. It gives us the fences to tell us where the danger is (the other side of the fence). The problem is the law by itself can’t give us a transformed heart and without a new heart the law becomes an imposition on us. A heavy burden. So, how can Jesus say that his “yoke is easy and burden light” (Matt 11: 30)? It is when our new hearts are aligned with God’s heart that the burden becomes light.

The goal of Jesus wasn’t just to get people to follow his rules, it was to enter a relationship with them wherein he could be the transformative agent that led to a new life. Once made new, they could live differently. This is certainly the case with St. Paul.

PAUL
A great case study in transformed heart leading to a transformed life is in Paul. Why does Paul ultimately change his behavior? Because he was made new in an encounter with Jesus that led to repentance and a converted heart. After this conversion (being made a new person) Paul lives differently. Inside out vs outside in. Look at these passages from his letters:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” -Gal 2: 20

“When you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.  You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” -Eph 4: 21-24

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” -Col 2: 6-7

Once made new, then you will live, choose, and act differently. 

ACTIONS FOLLOW BEING
Jesus entered into relationships with others, regardless of where they were, spiritually (or morally, socially, etc). He befriended tax collectors, prostitutes, and others. Once they had this encounter with Jesus, he would then invite them to follow Him, to believe. After they chose to believe, he would ask them to behave a certain manner, so they could live an abundant and fruitful life.

This is like any relationship. When I dated my wife, we built a sense of friendship first. We decided that we wanted to be more, so we made a conscious decision to solidify that relationship, once we believed in one another. Only after we fell in love, did we want to start to be better people for one another.

A similar dynamic happened during my initial conversion in college. I had a group of friends, who loved me enough to be my friend, despite all my sins and problems. They eventually invited me to a retreat where I had a conversion and decided to follow Jesus. After that I started to change my life, because I fell in love with Jesus.

When we get this process of life transformation not behavior modifications reversed, it leads to problems like we are dealing with today. Get it right and we have a chance to "make disciples of all nations".