Full Description
The purpose of this book is to show how Catholic leaders have shifted their teaching and approach to introducing Catholicism from ritual and play to dogma and having a personal relationship with Jesus. Another way of stating this is to say Catholic communalism has given way to a certain Protestant individualism. The primary method of data collection was qualitative, especially attending parish events and interviewing Catholic leaders. The book is needed to explicate the downside of the New Evangelization which has been the focus of the Catholic Church in Detroit and elsewhere since the late 1990s. Its contribution to research comes from the fact that little social scientific research has been done on the New Evangelization. I believe there has been, in other words, a double whammy effect that has contributed to membership decline: an emphasis on having a personal relationship with Jesus (individualism) and simultaneously an emphasis on dogma and doctrine especially with respect to sexuality (at the same time the church continues to experience the sex abuse crisis in its leadership).This book is primarily for Catholic lay and clerical leaders, particularly those engaged in the ministry of evangelization. These leaders will benefit from understanding the downsides of preaching the New Evangelization from a sociological perspective, hopefully learning in the process what not to do when advocating the New Evangelization.
