E-vangelization: The Promise and Pitfalls of Evangelization Online

(Article was written by our son, David)

It is no secret that evangelization has become a priority throughout the Church since the Second Vatican Council. In the encyclical Redemptoris Missio Pope John Paul II wrote that evangelization “is the primary service which the Church can render to every individual and to all humanity in the modern world.” Mass media technology today provides the Church a fantastic opportunity to engage in this evangelization, which entails communicating the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of our faith. Commenting on John Paul II’s call for the New Evangelization, Avery Cardinal Dulles singled out several key characteristics of this New Evangelization, including preaching the centrality of Christ, communicating the social doctrine of the Church, and converting cultures. Today, our culture is communicated powerfully through the Internet; this is where ideas are disseminated quickly and expansively. Thus, the Church will inevitably have to place tremendous focus on this area—and many within the Church are already making their presence felt.

One could call an Internet-based approach “e-vangelization,” and such an approach has tremendous promise. The Internet provides the means of communicating the rich patrimony of our faith to a wide variety of people, and it can be seen as a means of reinhabiting the virtual realm and giving Internet usage a greater purpose. Virtually all of the Western world relies heavily on the Internet to obtain news, make transactions, and communicate with others. In education, online courses are growing more popular and effective. Catechesis online can be just as effective, if not more.

Since the Internet is such a central element in the lives of young adults, in particular, the Church would do well to leverage the ubiquity of the Internet, its aesthetic possibilities, and its user-friendly accessibility to communicate the Gospel online. Bishops and priests can create podcasts and YouTube videos in which they can explore the meaning of Mass readings or explain the tenets of the faith. All Catholics can explore theology and dogma in a multimedia, user-friendly way, so as to invite and educate others.

Resources can be made available online—and in many cases, they already are. On their website, the USCCB has both the New American Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is one of the most beautiful and expansive resources any Catholic can have. One can also find the Liturgy of the Hours online. The Paulists have a popular website, called Busted Halo. Catholic Answers has a website and forum for apologetics. And several years ago, Pope Benedict XVI started XT3, a social networking website for World Youth Day Pilgrims.

The possibilities for e-vangelization are limitless, and the e-vangelist should be excited to draw on the rich tradition of our Catholic faith and make it accessible to the Church at large through the Internet. But one must be realistic: e-vangelization has its own challenges, and online communication cannot be the be-all, end-all of evangelization efforts. Drawing upon the insights of social scientists who study Internet culture, e-vangelists should adopt two axioms: First, nothing trumps personal relationships. As trendy and slick as a well-run blog, Twitter page, or YouTube video can be, they do not intrinsically bring about conversion, and they are limited in providing meaningful human interaction. Relationships cannot be based solely on 140-character text messages, email, and instant messaging. Nothing can substitute for the power that physical presence has in communication. The same can be said for e-vangelization.

Second, and more importantly, the Internet is largely unregulated. E-vangelization will be a venture into a virtual environment that is already filled with supporters and spammers alike.
E-vangelists will have to sift through junk mail and viruses, “trolls” and vitriol as they strive to communicate the Gospel in the digital realm, and the latter in particular will be particularly burdensome and challenging. One needs only to peruse the online comments section of some of the major religious periodicals across the spectrum (First Things, America, Commonweal, the National Catholic Reporter) to see just how unchristian Internet users can be.

Why is this the case? The Internet grants users a relative degree of anonymity, which tends to invite a level of frankness (to put it mildly) that would rarely be experienced in person. As a young adult who frequents the aforementioned periodicals, I cannot stress enough how painful it can be to see some of the exchanges between fellow Catholics that occur over the Web. Consequently, as promising as e-vangelization can be, e-vangelizers must be prepared for the worst: vitriolic comments, rash arguments, harsh judgments, and misinterpretations. It will try one’s patience.

Ultimately, one must recognize that the Internet is both a tool and a battleground, where Catholics will need to work hard to cultivate an ethics of communication that is grounded in charity in truth and be prepared to engage in apologetics with fellow Christians, with atheists, and even with people who might argue while having no desire to have anything to do with the Church. In addition, Catholic e-vangelists will be tasked with fighting against an Internet culture of pornography and vulgarity. This makes St. Peter’s admonition in 1 Peter so vital. “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15-16). When engaging in evangelization online, the Church must take this to heart.

Footnotes:
1 Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio
2 Avery Cardinal Dulles, Evangelization for the Third Millennium (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2009), pp 31-38.
3 To be sure, even the Council Fathers at Vatican II, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI all stress this same point.
4 There are, of course, methods to track users and determine their identity, but explaining the technical aspect of these things is not relevant in this article.


About the writer: Dave de la Fuente is a graduate student in the Master of Theological Studies program at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry.