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August 23, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – I have discovered over the years a certain reaction to Christian journalism that covers unsettling, painful, and sometimes downright terrible news. This reaction could be summed up as: “Hear no evil, see no evil, say no evil.” According to some people, we should not be “focusing on” or “obsessing about” the bad news, but only looking out for the good news!
There is a grain of truth to this observation when it comes to the secular media, who seem hellbent (if I may so say) on covering every last murder, rape, and theft, and give a lot less space to stories of good people doing good things. And it would never be appropriate for monks and nuns to use up their time in the monastery reading the latest newspapers and magazines, for they have a higher calling than the battle on the streets. But if it is taken to mean that laity, men and women living in the world, should be like ostriches with their heads comfortably buried in sand, I could not disagree enough.
The first condition for winning a war is knowing, to the extent possible, where your enemy is, where he is coming from, what weapons he has, what his strategy might be, and how to beat him. This is not the most important truth, but it is necessary for taking any intelligent move, for the best use of mental and material resources, and for the “long haul.” The worst general would be a perpetual optimist who read philosophy books rather than used his field glasses, his couriers, and his telegraph machine. The worst soldier would be one who wore a blindfold in order not to be frightened or discouraged by the bullets or the blood.
The New Testament has no hesitation using military imagery when describing the spiritual life. You find it in the Gospels, the Epistles, the Book of Revelation. In the Christian battle that we wage in this world, we always need to keep in view two things: on the one hand, the truth we adhere to, the good we love and strive for; on the other hand, the ever-present threats assailing this good and the insidious errors ranged against the truth.
Indeed, this is a fundamental structure of revelation itself. As someone once observed, we are unable to hear and take up the comforting Good News about God’s forgiveness in Christ unless we first hear and face up to the crushing Bad News about our fallen human nature. We have to be convicted of sin, original and actual, and of our dire need for mercy and healing, before Christianity resounds as the one and only efficacious answer to the deepest human need, the one and only proper response to God’s righteousness and glory. We need to hear the bad news about our distortion and destruction of nature before we can hear the good news about the healing and elevating power of divine grace. Short of the kingdom of heaven, our possession of what is good and our furtherance of it in the world is unavoidably set within the context of our confrontation with evil.
In the contemporary world, we frequently hear appeals for Christians to be “more positive and less negative.” They should “avoid preaching about sin, punishment, confession, and concentrate on joy, peace, social justice, love” (or maybe “luv”), and such themes. In this way, supposedly, our message will suddenly become appealing once again, and churches will be flooded with new members singing and hugging their way to heaven!
It is perhaps a pleasant fantasy, but it has no bearing on reality. It has been tried for the past fifty years, and found wanting. To play an ecumenical card for a change, I think no one has summed it up better than Reinhold Niebuhr, who scornfully dismissed the liberal social gospel with the description: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” In other words, a total falsification of the Bible and of the entirety of the Christian religion. God became man to deliver us from sin, death, and hell and to give us the power to live pure, holy, God-glorifying lives. It is our duty to wake up to this truth—to rejoice because of that deliverance and that vocation, and nothing else.
The faithful Christian cannot pretend not to see evil when he sees it, and must never fail to call it by its name, especially when the salvation of souls is at stake. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them,” as St. Paul exhorts (Eph 5:11). “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known” (Lk 12:2): so, if a bishop is trying to hide sexual immorality, his own or anyone else’s, beware—the truly Christian journalist will detect you, hound you, call you out, expose the works of darkness, and never relent until the evil is acknowledged, rebuked, punished, and expelled.
Is this an easy job? No, of course not. Does it carry risks? Yes, obviously. But it is the vocation of some to wage spiritual warfare in just this manner. Their work helps Christians in general to be wakeful about the world, vigilant over themselves (for any one of us can fall into grave sin), and ready to proclaim the truth, in season and out of season, each in accordance with his or her place in the Mystical Body of Christ (cf 2 Tim 4:2; Eph 4:11–16).
Allow me to share one last thought. A lot can be done by positive instruction, catechetical programs, and other methods of outreach designed to “appeal” to Catholics, especially those who are uncommitted or inconsistent. But, as unpopular as it may be, we must never omit the inverse: exposing error in all its ugliness, refuting the sophistries of the enemy, labeling sin clearly as sin, urging repentance and confession. Broken modern people are looking for liberation from evil, from addiction, from darkness, from seductive and destructive errors—and therefore clear talk, hard-hitting critiques, forthright condemnations, is often just what is needed, like a friend or family member who gets an alcoholic to see for the first time how serious his problem is.
Allow me, a layman, to implore any priests or bishops who may read this: Be not afraid to speak the full truth—including the beautiful truth about human sexuality and the ugly truth about the evils that Satan has brought in to undermine mankind and the Faith!
Yes, it is true that one who does this will make some enemies (did not Jesus and Paul, and each of them rather often?); and yes, we cannot always be preaching about what is wrong. We must nevertheless frequently and clearly educate the faithful about sin, righteousness, and judgment (cf. Jn 16:8) if we are going to remain faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He came to deliver the world from sin, but those who do not know what sin is are trapped by it and will not escape from it. Imparting truth is a precious form of mercy, since it is the presupposed to repentance and deliverance.
