Hiding Behind Labels

 I've been thinking about the way we refer to ourselves in the public sphere in relation to our faith. It's common for people to say, "I'm Catholic" or "I'm a Christian." On the surface level, this is accurate. We are Catholic, and we are Christian. There is a collective identification here with a faith tradition and modus of belief. But there's something missing.

These are a kind of 'hitch the boat' labels that can allow for a passivity in responsibility. Combine that with the oft-touted, "I'm Catholic, BUT [I don't believe x, y, z teaching." Or, "I'm Christian [because my parents are]" and there can be a discomfort in adopting it for ourselves. 

Though I don't fully ascribe to it's philosophical theology, Christian existentialism (in the vein of Kierkegaard) demands a wholly committed and subjective sense of radical responsibility for our moral choices. This did have an influence on me early on in my conversion because it squared with my experience--being ransomed in love by a benevolent God who took pity on me in my abject state and offered me the promise of eternal life and freedom from slavery, sin, and death. In turn, I wed myself to the Bridegroom and pledged myself to follow Him wherever He went.

In the public sphere, Catholics and Christians are often seen by the world as a collective force to be dismissed and largely ignored, because they can be. They may subscribe to a kind of Moral Therapeutic Deism that doesn't hold much value in terms of spiritual currency. They will often acquiesce to the cultural norms around them without resistance. They may still think cultural Catholicism (when was the last time someone described themselves as an Irish Catholic?) has some kind of weight or legacy today. 

Does this describe you? If you are reading this blog, my guess is, "maybe not." 

So, I have a proposition for you: the next time someone asks you what your religion is, or why you pray before you eat, or why you go to Mass on Sundays, or why you can't affirm x,y,z perversion, answer it this way:

"I am a disciple of Jesus Christ."

The early apostles were Catholic (and Jewish, of course). They belonged to the Body, the Church. They were considered followers of "the Way" in the early sect days. They were "Christ-followers." All these things are true. But to live in the post-Christian era today, where "religious people" suffer the temptation to cling to a kind of Catholicism that may no longer exist in the near future as a kind of ineffective inoculate against the cultural tide, we should stand firm and unabashed in our commitment to the one we follow, the one to whom we belong. 

We stand before the King at our personal judgement alone, and every moral decision we make when there is no one else to lean on or hide behind, has eternal consequence. Therefore, it seems fitting to adopt this plainly radical moniker when questioned about why we live as we do and resist what we resist. As it says in Scripture, "if we die, we die to the Lord." (Rom 14:8). We do not say, "it we die, we die to the Church." We belong to Her by nature of our baptism, but she exists because of the Bridegroom. He is who we are living for.

And so, consider it. When someone at your work asks why you're not taking part in x training, or when your neighbor asks why your kids don't go to the local school, or when your parents ask you why you do the things you do, try answering, simply, "I am a disciple of Jesus Christ." It puts the onus on you--not the Church or your cultural religious heritage--to live up to that label. A disciple must be worthy (Mt 10:38). You can be "Catholic" or "Christian" without taking up your cross. But you can't be a disciple without doing so. We are part of the collective, Catholics and Christians, yes. But disciples first. Like other disciples world-wide, we follow Christ to His death in order to be worthy of Life. If that doesn't mean something, I don't know what does.