This work began with a pastoral question: “If the Good News is truly good news, why is it not received as good news in our Western societies of this modern age?” With this question in view, my aim was to till the soil of the moment and to discover what might be revealed regarding the nature of faith and the future of belief. Karl Rahner, along with many others, foresaw the dissonance between the language of doctrine, the methods of theology, spiritual practices, and the religious affiliation of people in today’s world. The ecclesial response to this current state of affairs is called the “new evangelisation”. The purpose of this work is to offer a clearer understanding of the new evangelisation and to consider whether current approaches and methods are adequate to reach the minds and hearts of modern searchers and seekers of “something more” than this world can offer.
The situation of religious institutional diminishment in many Western countries requires a more nuanced approach to the proclamation of Christian faith. This new context demands new methods of reproposing the Good News in the modern age. A mystagogical approach looks towards modes of evangelisation that engage the religious imagination and draw out personal experiences of transcendence and religious sensibility. In its creative and reflective processes, mystagogy is a form of invitation to recognise and respond to the “always already” divine presence at play in personal, concrete experience and larger human history.
Historically, mystagogia was a catechetical method used by patristic teachers that led the neophytes into a deeper realisation of the experience of Christian initiation. More broadly, Karl Rahner advocated a renewed mystagogical approach to theology in the modern age by developing modes of theological expression that spring from human experience rather than from doctrinal definitions. Rahner reframed the fides qua / fides quae distinction as the “transcendental” and “categorical” dimensions of religious experience, and recognised the need for theological methodology that brought into a greater unity the fides qua (the act of believing) and the fides quae (the content of faith).
A mystagogical mode of communicating the Gospel involves reading the cultural context in which the Gospel is proclaimed and received, and entering into a pre-creedal conversational style of social dialogue. In the Australian context, as in any context, there are certain cultural and communal narratives that can be identified to assist the evangelising conversation. David Tracy’s analysis of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s dynamics of interpretative “conversation”
In order to situate these conversations in the public realm, Tracy’s three fields of theological reference (society, academy, and church) offer a framework for developing mystagogical conversations. Drawn from Tracy’s three “publics”, these three fields of reference for a mystagogical approach to new evangelisation can be identified as: the performative space (church), the dialectic dialogical space (society), and the open communicative space (culture). These three fields identify differentiated modes of conversation, each of which requires a particular evangelising freshness and creativity. An analysis of these differentiated spheres helps develop forms of evangelisation more attuned to the ecclesial, social, and cultural realities of the contemporary moment.
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I wish to thank those who have offered insights and mentoring in the process of writing this book, especially Professor Rev. Dr Anthony Kelly, and Rev. Dr Tom Ryan. I am also grateful to the many who accompanied the development of this book through proofreading, conversation, encouragement, and friendship. In particular, I acknowledge the editorial work of Chris Brennan whose skill has greatly enhanced the final product. While the words are mine, the thoughts offered here draw on the wisdom and reflection of many others. Herein lies the primary mystagogical insight: the invitation to faith unfolds through the gradual discovery of gifts that have already been given to us. This book is the product of one such unfolding.