LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Assignment Title: EVANGELIZATION AND SOCIAL DOCTRINE
Course: CHMN 699 - Internship
Student: Kristine Sage
Date: January 29, 2022
Professor: Dr. Joel Breidenbaugh
EVANGELIZATION AND SOCIAL DOCTRINE
a. The Church, God's dwelling place with men and women
60. The Church, sharing in mankind's joys and hopes, in its anxieties and sadness, stands with every
man and woman of every place and time, to bring them the good news of the Kingdom of God, which in
Jesus Christ has come and continues to be present among them[73]. In the midst of mankind and in the
world she is the sacrament of God's love and, therefore, of the most splendid hope, which inspires and
sustains every authentic undertaking for and commitment to human liberation and advancement. The
Church is present among mankind as God's tent of meeting, “God's dwelling place among men” (cf. Rev
21:3), so that man is not alone, lost or frightened in his task of making the world more human; thus men
and women find support in the redeeming love of Christ. As minister of salvation, the Church is not in
the abstract nor in a merely spiritual dimension, but in the context of the history and of the world in
which man lives[74]. Here mankind is met by God's love and by the vocation to cooperate in the divine
plan.
61. Unique and unrepeatable in his individuality, every person is a being who is open to relationships
with others in society. Life together in society, in the network of relationships linking individuals, families
and intermediate groups by encounter, communication and exchange, ensures a higher quality of living.
The common good that people seek and attain in the formation of social communities is the guarantee
of their personal, familial and associative good[75]. These are the reasons for which society originates
and takes shape, with its array of structures, that is to say its political, economic, juridical and cultural
constructs. To man, “as he is involved in a complex network of relationships within modern
societies”[76], the Church addresses her social doctrine. As an expert in humanity[77], she is able to
understand man in his vocation and aspirations, in his limits and misgivings, in his rights and duties, and
to speak a word of life that reverberates in the historical and social circumstances of human existence.
b. Enriching and permeating society with the Gospel
62. With her social teaching the Church seeks to proclaim the Gospel and make it present in the
complex network of social relations. It is not simply a matter of reaching out to man in society — man as
the recipient of the proclamation of the Gospel — but of enriching and permeating society itself with the
Gospel[78]. For the Church, therefore, tending to the needs of man means that she also involves society
in her missionary and salvific work. The way people live together in society often determines the quality
of life and therefore the conditions in which every man and woman understand themselves and make
decisions concerning themselves and their vocation. For this reason, the Church is not indifferent to
what is decided, brought about or experienced in society; she is attentive to the moral quality — that is,
the authentically human and humanizing aspects — of social life. Society — and with it, politics, the
economy, labour, law, culture — is not simply a secular and worldly reality, and therefore outside or
foreign to the message and economy of salvation. Society in fact, with all that is accomplished within it,
concerns man. Society is made up of men and women, who are “the primary and fundamental way for
the Church”[79].
63. By means of her social doctrine, the Church takes on the task of proclaiming what the Lord has
entrusted to her. She makes the message of the freedom and redemption wrought by Christ, the Gospel
of the Kingdom, present in human history. In proclaiming the Gospel, the Church “bears witness to man,
in the name of Christ, to his dignity and his vocation to the communion of persons. She teaches him the
demands of justice and peace in conformity with divine wisdom”[80].
As the Gospel reverberates by means of the Church in the today of men and women[81], this social
doctrine is a word that brings freedom. This means that it has the effectiveness of truth and grace that
comes from the Spirit of God, who penetrates hearts, predisposing them to thoughts and designs of
love, justice, freedom and peace. Evangelizing the social sector, then, means infusing into the human
heart the power of meaning and freedom found in the Gospel, in order to promote a society befitting
mankind because it befits Christ: it means building a city of man that is more human because it is in
greater conformity with the Kingdom of God.
64. With her social doctrine not only does the Church not stray from her mission but she is rigorously
faithful to it. The redemption wrought by Christ and entrusted to the saving mission of the Church is
certainly of the supernatural order. This dimension is not a delimitation of salvation but rather an
integral expression of it[82]. The supernatural is not to be understood as an entity or a place that begins
where the natural ends, but as the raising of the natural to a higher plane. In this way nothing of the
created or the human order is foreign to or excluded from the supernatural or theological order of faith
and grace, rather it is found within it, taken on and elevated by it. “In Jesus Christ the visible world
which God created for man (cf. Gen 1:26-30) — the world that, when sin entered, ‘was subjected to
futility' (Rom 8:20; cf. Rom 8:19-22) — recovers again its original link with the divine source of Wisdom
and Love. Indeed, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son' (Jn 3:16). As this link was broken in
the man Adam, so in the Man Christ it was reforged (cf. Rom 5:12-21)”[83].
65. Redemption begins with the Incarnation, by which the Son of God takes on all that is human,
except sin, according to the solidarity established by the wisdom of the Divine Creator, and embraces
everything in his gift of redeeming Love. Man is touched by this Love in the fullness of his being: a being
that is corporeal and spiritual, that is in a solidary relationship with others. The whole man — not a
detached soul or a being closed within its own individuality, but a person and a society of persons — is
involved in the salvific economy of the Gospel. As bearer of the Gospel's message of Incarnation and
Redemption, the Church can follow no other path: with her social doctrine and the effective action that
springs from it, not only does she not hide her face or tone down her mission, but she is faithful to Christ
and shows herself to men and women as “the universal sacrament of salvation”[84]. This is especially
true in times such as the present, marked by increasing interdependence and globalization of social
issues.
c. Social doctrine, evangelization and human promotion
66. The Church's social doctrine is an integral part of her evangelizing ministry. Nothing that
concerns the community of men and women — situations and problems regarding justice, freedom,
development, relations between peoples, peace — is foreign to evangelization, and evangelization
would be incomplete if it did not take into account the mutual demands continually made by the Gospel
and by the concrete, personal and social life of man[85]. Profound links exist between evangelization
and human promotion: “These include links of an anthropological order, because the man who is to be
evangelized is not an abstract being but is subject to social and economic questions. They also include
links in the theological order, since one cannot disassociate the plan of creation from the plan of
Redemption. The latter plan touches the very concrete situations of injustice to be combated and of
justice to be restored. They include links of the eminently evangelical order, which is that of charity: how
in fact can one proclaim the new commandment without promoting in justice and in peace the true,
authentic advancement of man?”[86].
67. The Church's social doctrine “is itself a valid instrument of evangelization” [87] and is born of the
always new meeting of the Gospel message and social life. Understood in this way, this social doctrine is
a distinctive way for the Church to carry out her ministry of the Word and her prophetic role[88]. “In
effect, to teach and to spread her social doctrine pertains to the Church's evangelizing mission and is an
essential part of the Christian message, since this doctrine points out the direct consequences of that
message in the life of society and situates daily work and struggles for justice in the context of bearing
witness to Christ the Saviour”[89]. This is not a marginal interest or activity, or one that is tacked on to
the Church's mission, rather it is at the very heart of the Church's ministry of service: with her social
doctrine the Church “proclaims God and his mystery of salvation in Christ to every human being, and for
that very reason reveals man to himself”[90]. This is a ministry that stems not only from proclamation
but also from witness.
68. The Church does not assume responsibility for every aspect of life in society, but speaks with
the competence that is hers, which is that of proclaiming Christ the Redeemer[91]: “Christ did not
bequeath to the Church a mission in the political, economic or social order; the purpose he assigned to
her was a religious one. But this religious mission can be the source of commitment, direction and vigour
to establish and consolidate the community of men according to the law of God”[92]. This means that
the Church does not intervene in technical questions with her social doctrine, nor does she propose or
establish systems or models of social organization[93]. This is not part of the mission entrusted to her by
Christ. The Church's competence comes from the Gospel: from the message that sets man free, the
message proclaimed and borne witness to by the Son of God made man.
d. The rights and duties of the Church
69. With her social doctrine, the Church aims “at helping man on the path of salvation”[94]. This is
her primary and sole purpose. There is no intention to usurp or invade the duties of others or to neglect
her own; nor is there any thought of pursuing objectives that are foreign to her mission. This mission
serves to give an overall shape to the Church's right and at the same time her duty to develop a social
doctrine of her own and to influence society and societal structures with it by means of the
responsibility and tasks to which it gives rise.
70. The Church has the right to be a teacher for mankind, a teacher of the truth of faith: the truth
not only of dogmas but also of the morals whose source lies in human nature itself and in the Gospel[95].
The word of the Gospel, in fact, is not only to be heard but is also to be observed and put into practice
(cf. Mt 7:24; Lk 6:46-47; Jn 14:21,23-24; Jas 1:22). Consistency in behaviour shows what one truly
believes and is not limited only to things strictly church-related or spiritual but involves men and women
in the entirety of their life experience and in the context of all their responsibilities. However worldly
these responsibilities may be, their subject remains man, that is, the human being whom God calls, by
means of the Church, to participate in his gift of salvation.
Men and women must respond to the gift of salvation not with a partial, abstract or merely verbal
acceptance, but with the whole of their lives — in every relationship that defines life — so as not to
neglect anything, leaving it in a profane and worldly realm where it is irrelevant or foreign to salvation.
For this reason the Church's social doctrine is not a privilege for her, nor a digression, a convenience or
interference: it is her right to proclaim the Gospel in the context of society, to make the liberating word
of the Gospel resound in the complex worlds of production, labour, business, finance, trade, politics,
law, culture, social communications, where men and women live.
71. This right of the Church is at the same time a duty, because she cannot forsake this
responsibility without denying herself and her fidelity to Christ: “Woe to me if I do not preach the
Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). The warning that St. Paul addresses to himself rings in the Church's conscience as
a call to walk all paths of evangelization, not only those that lead to individual consciences but also those
that wind their way into public institutions: on the one hand, religion must not be restricted “to the
purely private sphere”[96], on the other, the Christian message must not be relegated to a purely other-
worldly salvation incapable of shedding light on our earthly existence[97].
Because of the public relevance of the Gospel and faith, because of the corrupting effects of
injustice, that is, of sin, the Church cannot remain indifferent to social matters[98]: “To the Church
belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the
social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the
fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls”[99].
