Acting Like We Believe

    In his conversation with Jonathon Pageau, Jordan Peterson identified the apparent lack of faith of Catholics, as represented in their behavior, as a significant obstacle to his accepting Catholicism and giving over his life to the faith.

You aren't sufficiently transformed for me to believe, that you believe in God or that you believe the story you're telling me. The way you live isn't sufficient testament to the truth. Christians don't manifest the transformation of attitude, that would enable the outside observer to easily conclude that they believe.

    Dr. Peterson's response is an indictment of the Church's ability to evangelize today. Yes, one could argue the illegitimacy of judging the veracity of a proposition by the behavior of its adherents or one could fall back on the divine/human aspects of the Church and explain how the sinful actions of the sinners within the Church do not corrupt the truths of the faith or one could refer to Christ's identification of Himself as the Divine Physician, who comes for the sick or one could explain Christ's parable of the weeds among the wheat, yet how do any of these strategies address the heart of Dr. Peterson's observation?

    For at the heart of Dr. Peterson's complaint is the reality of Catholics, ignorant of their faith, living no differently than their non-Catholic peers. At the center of Christ's ministry as the Divine Physician is the healing transformation of Christians through His passion, death, and resurrection. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:3-5). These verses from the first letter of St. Peter are full of incredible joy, hope, and faith. St. Peter's words here are triumphant and encouraging. These are words Catholics love to hear, because these are words, which point to something better and greater than what we have now.

    Catholics fail, however, to truly consider what St. Peter is describing, when he declares Christians to be born anew. "Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God...'but the word of the Lord abides forever.' That word is the good news, which was preached to you" (1 Peter 1:22-23, 25). Christians' obedience to the truth revealed in the "living and abiding word of God" purifies their souls. That truth is not the variable and self-justifying morality everyone seems to have adopted, but the truth "which was preached to you." In other words, the truth, the living and abiding word of God, as taught and defended by the Catholic Church, which abides forever. This purification of the soul through obedience to the truth then leads Catholics to "love one another earnestly from the heart." Whom do we love from the heart anymore these days?

    St. Peter explains the behavior of the purified soul. "So put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander....long for the spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation...abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul. Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles, so that in case they speak against you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation....Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing" (1 Peter 2:1-3, 11-12, 3:8-9). Unity? Sympathy? Tenderness? Humility?

    The Christian is made capable of this, because "...Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit...Baptism...now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him" (1 Peter 3:18, 21-22).

    "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of time in the flesh no longer by human passions but by the will of God. Let the time that is past suffice for doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you do not now join them in the same wild profligacy, and they abuse you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God" (1Peter 4:1-6).

    And there is the failure of evangelization in the Catholic Church today. Catholics as a body do not live the lives of purified souls as described by St. Peter. Their testimony, therefore, is vapid and disingenuous. The way you live isn't sufficient testament to the truth. The grace of baptism is God bringing the baptized into participation in His divine nature. This is the promise of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection, "that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. For this reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love....Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall..." (2 Peter 1:4-10). Despite St. Peter's admonitions, Catholics live lives consumed by the acquisition and enjoyment of all of the tinsel and glitter offered by the world, the flesh, and the devil.

    Consumed by the consumption of the emptiness of this world, Catholics choose to ignore their utter transformation through their baptisms into the Mystical Body of Christ. Christ is the Divine Physician, but Catholics seem to forget, that He heals. Through the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred Tradition and through the sacraments, the liturgy, the rites, the doctrines, the dogmas, and the prayers of the Church, within His Mystical Body filled with His Holy Spirit, sinners are healed of their former lives of sin and depravity and made new. Christ's Church offers each and every Christian everything necessary to "love the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart." Otherwise, St. Paul's words are nonsense: "...but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 5:20-21). Christ's righteousness, received in baptism and built upon in the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, strengthens us to overcome sin and to live for Christ, a life which, as taught by St. Peter, is a life completely removed from the lives lived by those without faith in Jesus Christ.

    Christians' lives are completely different and are distinguished by their loving obedience to God's commandments. "My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says 'I know him' but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love for God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him..." (1 John 2:1-5). The overabundance of grace available to Christians through Christ's Church make possible this life without sin in the keeping of God's commandments.

    This requires Christians to work: "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13). This work, performed within Christ's Mystical Body, is to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18). What Christians are to do, how they are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is neither hidden nor unknown. Poor catechesis, however, has obscured the truth, yet this is not insurmountable. Each and every Catholic can avail himself of the countless opportunities to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Plenty of orthodox sources are available to study the faith, such as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Solid translations of Sacred Scripture are readily available from numerous sources, like the Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition or the Douay-Rheims. Daily Mass attendance and prayer are possible for every Catholic. These are places to begin, but what must Catholics abandon to do this work and are they willing to do so?

    The ancient world was transformed by the testimony of the Catholic faith in the lives and actions of a body of believers acting in unity with humility, tenderness, and sympathy for the love of the brethren in obedience to the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Likewise, the post-modern world is being transformed by the absence of the testimony of the Catholic faith in the lives and actions of a body of non-believers acting instead in disunity with hubris, coldness, and competitiveness for the defeat of the brethren in obedience to their own wills for enjoyment of their gains. What's next?

Photo credit: Photo by Monica Saavedra on Unsplash