Christianity, Evangelisation and the Social Factor in South Africa

Abstract

When James Watt developed his steam engine in 1765 he created an enormous problem for the Church. He set in motion a process that was to cry out for a radical change in the Church’s methods of evangelisation, which the Church by and large has found difficult to put into effect. I use the term ‘evangelisation’ here in the sense recently given to it in the Roman Catholic Church. Prior to the Second Vatican Council of 1962–65 and, even more precisely, prior to a 1974 assembly of the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church and the document that flowed from it, Pope Paul VI’s Evangelisation in the Modern World, the term ‘evangelisation’ meant preaching the Gospel where it was not known, planting the Church in a place where it did not exist. Now ‘evangelisation’ in the Roman Catholic Church embraces every activity of the Church: proclamation of the word, catechetical instruction, Christian adult education, prayer, worship, promotion of Christian family life, community building, works of mercy and concern for development, justice and peace. Everything that promotes the reign of God in and through Jesus Christ is evangelisation.