Evangelical Activity in the Roman Catholic Heartland

https://cne.news/article/4508-rene-breuel-bringing-the-gospel-and-pizza-to-post-catholic-italy

I all but immediately shut down when I see this now standard Evangelical image - the pop culture guy with the headset and backlighting with a drum kit and other instruments. It's something that could be put in a history book as a typical of the period. For my part, it's something I intuitively reject and even recoil from.

The only exception here is that because it's Italy - the guy has a little bit more of a styled look about him.

This article was meant to be encouraging. I found it depressing.

This kind of pop-driven, entertainment, therapeutic, egalitarian model is planting seeds that will produce a great deal in terms of numbers, revenue, and activity, but the faith it cultivates produces little fruit - and most of it will be rotten. And I would argue that it will wither and likely will not last more than a generation at best.

Someone will reply - is that not still encouraging in some sense? I'm not suggesting that some won't be saved, but in the long term I think such models do more harm than good.

Readers should note that for all the Evangelical confusion and ecumenical co-belligerence that exists in the American context - in Italy it's different. You can't play footsie with Rome in the Catholic heartland. The issues cannot be confused if you expect people to break with Catholicism. It must be labeled (rightly) as a false Church.

In the United States for most Evangelicals it's patriotism and politics that drives and motivates them, and so they can find a great deal of common cause and even fellowship (in a false religion kind of sense) with Catholics, Mormons, and others. They may separate on Sunday morning for a couple of hours but for the rest of the day and the rest of the week - they have more in common than not. They are defined by a cultural ethos and its values - not by doctrine.

I do not doubt this man's sincerity and again, I hope some will in fact be saved and turn away from Rome. But as his models are not Biblical to begin with - my expectations are low. And once again I find myself frustrated to learn that America is the font of these errors. This is so often the case. American Christians think of their nation as a beacon to the world. In reality it is the seat of the modern False Church and the font of errors - even back-feeding into Roman Catholicism, the False Church of a previous civilisational phase. Evangelicalism and especially its Charismatic variant are at the very heart of this movement. In that respect the overlap that's often found with Rome, Evangelicals, and especially the Charismatics is a perfect match - just not a match made in heaven.