The Hagia Sophia
A Christian Church turned into a Mosque by Muslims, turned into a Museum by Masons.
When trying to spread the Catholic faith, one of the biggest problems that arises is betraying the religion of the tribe. Catholicism can easily be shown to be a universal faith. It has a dynamic presence on every continent and is therefore compatible with any culture in the world. It’s not affiliated with a certain culture or regional area. However, for many cultures, Catholicism is completely foreign.
One time I was having a discussion with a young lady and I was trying to convert her to Catholicism. Her answer was:
I’m from country X and in my country, we follow religion X.
How do you beat that?
Let’s look at an example here. Let’s look at Turkey. Turkey is a country with almost no Catholic presence or history. Islam is the majority religion there by far. There are almost no Catholics in Turkey and probably most Turkish citizens who are Catholic come from a Catholic country such as Italy, Spain, or Poland.
Turkey has over 60 million people. Most of them affiliate with Islam in one way or another. Many Turks have become secular over the years, but the idea of a secular Turk choosing Catholicism is just as unlikely as a religious Muslim Turk accepting Catholicism. The secular Turk isn’t thinking about Catholicism. For most Turks, it’s either Islam or nothing. This is the case for many ethnic groups. For example, many Jews don’t practice Judaism but most of them aren’t looking elsewhere for spirituality. The Turks are the same way. Many other cultures are the same way.
Now, not all countries are as religiously homogeneous as Turkey. Countries like Germany, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, South Korea, Lebanon and other countries have Catholic minorities. Catholicism is part of that culture, even if it is in a minority position. It would not be as hard to convert one of these people because they’re not betraying their tribe; at least not to the extent as someone from a more religiously homogeneous country would be.
I’m sure that there are some ethnic Turks who are Catholic. However, even though these small number of Turks chose to stop being Muslim and embrace a foreign religion, they’ll never stop being Turkish. They’ll always be the nail that sticks out in Turkish society. People change beliefs all the time. People change religious beliefs, political beliefs, social beliefs and all other sorts of beliefs. However, one can never change their national identity. They can change their citizenship but not nationality.
If a secular Turk comes to a country like Canada or America, odds are that they may marry a local. Their children will then be half Canadian and half Turkish. They will feel less of the tribal pull because the Turkish identity isn’t as strong as it is for the Father. The next generation will have even less tribal influence.
This attachment to tribal identity makes Evangelism very hard. Especially in this day where there is so much immigration. People are wedded to the religion of the tribe.
What are we to do? I suppose that we have to convince them that truth is truth and isn’t relative to where you’re born. We can always look to Scripture I suppose. In John 8, Jesus Christ criticized fake followers of His because they wouldn’t let their ancestry go. In Genesis, Abraham left his home city of Ur to follow a God who was completely foreign to him. St. Paul talks about avoiding endless genealogies. It’s all clearly in Scripture. Truth is truth, right?
While a Turk wouldn’t believe in the Bible, this shouldn’t be a problem as we can surely convince him with common sense and logic, right? Well, unfortunately most countries in the world don’t have a traditional Western mindset and logic is foreign to them. I suppose that’s another problem that we face in our spreading of the Gospel. Who ever said this stuff was easy?
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