RCIA: Christian Initiation in a Secular Age
Deep within my Evangelical heritage is a very particular view of conversion and Christian initiation: we have been very firm on this – that evangelism is an act of witness and preaching wherein a person is encouraged to recognize the compelling truths of the Gospel and accept and believe and repent and pray that Christ would become one’s Saviour and Lord. It is all rather simple and it is an interior process – subjective and personal. There were certain strengths and some significant limitations in this understanding of both evangelism and conversion, but in what follows I want to focus attention elsewhere for the moment with a consideration of what evangelism and initiation to faith might look like in an increasingly secular society.
Formal research projects have examined the journey to faith of those who from an entirely secular upbringing and background in Sweden and the United Kingdom and observed that this is always – literally, always – a multi-year process – typically taking as long as five or six years. If this is the case, then it follows that our approaches to evangelism and initiation need to be adapted accordingly. Evangelism is not so much words of encounter as they are a journey alongside the other who is coming to the faith – drawn by Christ and directed by the Spirit, but in a slower, more gradual process.
Further, we surely need to affirm that baptism is integral to the process and that, indeed, baptism essentially ritualizes and benchmarks this journey, this appropriation of the faith, this initiation into Christian community.
And this leads me to the Rite for the Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) – the document approved by the respective college of bishops in respective jurisdictions [thus there are distinct but comparable guides for the US and Canada] – that outline the process and guide parishes as they accompany seekers and enquirers, those who are being prompted by the Spirit to explore the possibility of Christian faith.
The RCIA is a contemporary appropriation of an ancient rite; it is a recovery of an early church practice. Christianity flourished in the pre-Constantinian Greco-Roman pagan social and cultural environment – before Christian faith become the religion of the empire. One of the reasons – not the only, but one reason Christian faith flourished – was the catechumenate. That is, rather than the immediate move to baptism that seemed to be the practice of the early church, by the time of Ambrose and Augustine, the church practiced an intentional delay between initial interest in the Christian faith and the rites of initiation.
In summary, the catechumenate was an intentional process by which those who expressed an interest in Christian faith were incorporated into committed Christian community. St. Augustine of Hippo picked up on his own experience of the catechumenate under St. Ambrose of Milan and further expanded and nurtured the set of practices that established a good beginning, to the Christian journey, for those being initiated into Christian faith. Particularly noteworthy for 21st century Christians and approaches to evangelism is that the catechumenate was both a church mediated process and a process of teaching and instruction that preceded baptism.
My observation is that the church in West in the 21st century faces a similar challenge: how does someone coming to faith transition from a completely secular mindset and heart-orientation to a genuinely Christian faith? Our situation is not in direct parallel to the world of Ambrose and Augustine, and yet: why not draw on the wisdom of the ancient catechumenate? Why not recognize that this ancient practice does have continuing relevance? And this is what the RCIA recognizes.
In some parishes, the RCIA is on-going, year round; but some follow the RCIA more closely and invite those who are interested to join a weekly conversation and study group in the later part of the church year [Fall in the Northern Hemisphere], an initial step in a three phrased process:
A time of enquiry – where questions are asked and clarifications offered – typically through the months of September, October and November leading to Advent;
A time of instruction – with a focus on the Creeds – from the beginning of Advent until the last Sunday prior to Ash Wednesday;
A time of preparation for baptism, the season of Lent leading up to the baptism itself at the Easter vigil, the Saturday evening of Holy Week.
At each stage, the individual is invited to confirm if they wish to move ahead with the process – first, at Advent, to become a catechumen and then with the first Sunday of Lent to accept the declaration that they are indeed of the “elect.”
The objective is clear: the church can make no assumptions about the intellectual, emotional or moral life of a person coming to faith in Christ. Thus a process is needed to nurture them in the faith, one that leads not merely to baptism but towards the capacity to grow and mature in faith after baptism.
I still believe that Evangelicals have something to offer to the conversation, of course. I have published two books on conversion and initiation, as an Evangelical, in which I intentionally draw on the wisdom and insights of John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards and other voices from the Evangelical renewal movement of the late 18th century. And I appreciate the way that my heritage affirms the integration of intellect and affect, heart and mind, in the journey of coming to faith. I appreciate the call to repentance and radical allegiance to Christ. And I could say more; it is not that these themes are not found within a Catholic perspective, of course not; it is merely that I think we could have a vibrant and generative conversation about conversion and initiation that would draw on the best that both traditions have to offer.
