6d • General discussion
Conversion: the way to Salvation
Conversion is for everyone, not just a select few.
"No one can serve two masters: he will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Mt 6:24). "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Mt 10:37). These passages share a common theme, one made explicit in the first commandment: there is only one God, and there can be no others.
This past weekend, many heard about the need to place God as our highest priority. We cannot worship creatures, or the goods of creation, in place of the Creator — to do so would be folly. Yet so many in the world choose some good as their god, organizing their lives around it while other, more important goods suffer. God sets the world aright when He dethrones the idolatry, ruin, sin, vice, and death of this age, and establishes a new kingdom with Jesus, the slain Lamb, seated on His throne of glory. We cannot serve the King of the universe and still worship other gods.
So what is to be done with the other idolatries and gods of the age? They are to be rendered moot, trampled underfoot, or refashioned as tools to worship the one true God. Those who worshipped or fell prey to the errors of vice and sin are called to turn their backs on their former way of life and turn once more to the Sun that never sets — Light from Light, true God from true God.
Jesus' public ministry began with a call to repentance: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mk 1:15). He then went about healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, and casting out demons. The new order was established because the true Sovereign had come to reign. Conversion, repentance, and new life in Christ were the hallmarks of the Church's work; her authority was demonstrated by her readiness to bring life to the downtrodden, hope to those in despair, and life to those forsaken in death. To meet the Christian evangelist was to meet Christ through him, and by him, to be called to transformation.
St. Paul exhorted every community to put on Christ — to lay aside the old, broken, sinful past and be made new. Death gave way to life, and that new life in Christ required a sacrifice; the One who offered that sacrifice demanded a new manner of living.
But the Church of old seems far removed from what we find in the pages of the early Church. Today, we hear constantly of new evangelization — initiatives to make the Gospel more palatable, more tenable to a world seemingly deaf to its promises and blind to its glory. We hold assembly meetings on reaching the masses, listening sessions to practice accompaniment, talks ad nauseam on engaging this or that group, only to rehearse the same tropes a year later with little to no effect.
The claim is simple: how will we know what people need unless we listen to them? Proponents cite the woman at the well as the paradigm for modern evangelization. Others point to the Synod on Synodality as a new mode of being Church. Yet none of these efforts produces the results claimed, and each eventually requires a new committee to start over and try a fresh approach. Novelty is the method of the modern Church's evangelizing arm, but it bears little fruit.
These efforts strive for unity through tolerance, agreement through shared interests, a way forward through mutual learning. It is as though the Tower of Babel has been rebuilt — only this time it does not seek to ascend, but to spread: to spin a web tying all humanity into a single knot, twisting and tightening until it hardens to stone. The result is an assembly of factions held together by half-hearted agreements, throwing stones at those who refuse to tolerate them.
The problem is simple: the principle of unity is not found in tolerating everything, but in the conversion of all to the One. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Every other way, truth, and life must be subject to Him. No authority on earth can rival the Creator's order or usurp God's purpose through sheer will, collective agreement, or human understanding. Numbers are no match for the Infinite One — yet many continue to build coalitions of peace rather than receive the Prince of Peace Himself, who offers an otherworldly peace that nothing on earth can destroy.
What, then, should our program be? The early Church teaches it plainly: "Always be ready to give a reason for your hope" (1 Pet 3:15). "When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this household.' If a peaceful person is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you" (Lk 10:5-6). "And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God" (1 Cor 2:1-5).
If you are to evangelize, every encounter must bear witness to Christ's work in your life. It must recall the grace of conversion and challenge others to follow. A church that holds more meetings affirming those unwilling to change is not pursuing a program of evangelization — it is enacting the evil one's slow tactic to erode the Rock on which the Truth has chosen to rest. Peter's faith was not shaken by his own cross or death. He was a sinner who turned to Christ when it seemed the world had abandoned him, and said: "To whom shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life."
Conversion is for everyone, not just the select few.
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Conversion: the way to Salvation
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