{"id":1152,"date":"2011-02-08T09:40:54","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T15:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/?p=1152"},"modified":"2011-02-08T09:40:55","modified_gmt":"2011-02-08T15:40:55","slug":"how-to-deal-with-resistance-to-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/08\/how-to-deal-with-resistance-to-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Deal With Resistance to Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1153\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1153\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1153\" href=\"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/2011\/02\/08\/how-to-deal-with-resistance-to-faith\/wall-of-resistance\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1153 \" title=\"Wall of Resistance\" src=\"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance.jpg 400w, https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance-172x172.jpg 172w, https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance-127x127.jpg 127w, https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance-73x74.jpg 73w, https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance-45x45.jpg 45w, https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wall-of-Resistance-74x74.jpg 74w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1153\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">What do you have behind that wall? Want to sit and talk about it? <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Resistance to the Faith is a funny thing. It seems like logically laying out the reasons for Catholic doctrine should be enough. It really does make sense!<\/p>\n<p>It is seldom easy, however, because usually there\u2019s more to the resistance than meets the eye.<\/p>\n<p>In my current series, <a href=\"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/2011\/01\/06\/evangelization-basics-blog-series\/\" target=\"_blank\">Evangelization Basics<\/a>, I talk a lot about developing relationships for evangelizing. A key reason for this is to better understand what\u2019s behind the walls people place in the way of accepting Catholicism.<\/p>\n<p>My blogging buddy, Roy Petitfils, made some fantastic points recently on dealing with resistance. He classified <a href=\"http:\/\/roypetitfils.com\/2011\/02\/four-types-of-resistance\/\" target=\"_blank\">four types of resistance<\/a> that I found extremely useful, so I thought I would present them here and comment a bit more.<\/p>\n<h2>The Four Types of Resistance<\/h2>\n<p>The four types of resistance are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Intellectual<\/strong>: This is a problem with logic, reasoning or understanding. Roy says it\u2019s the least common among youth.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Spiritual<\/strong>: If you\u2019re engaged in sinful behavior, you\u2019re going to push back on that area of Church teaching.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Physical<\/strong>: Results from different learning styles, such as kinesthetic learners. Discussion is sometimes awkward for people but they\u2019ll engage while doing service, hiking outdoors or working on a project.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Emotional<\/strong>: This is the biggie!\n<ul>\n<li>Roy defines,\u00a0\u201cOften resulting from an experience of disappointment or hurt. The blame was either consciously or unconsciously ascribed to God. Saying, \u2018I\u2019m agnostic\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019m an atheist\u2019 or \u2018Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites\u2019 are all symptoms of emotional resistance. These sound better than saying \u2018I\u2019m feeling disappointed because God\u2026\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019m having some feelings about God and the Church I don\u2019t understand.\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019m angry that God\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>So, a person might say they have a problem with a particular doctrine, but in reality there\u2019s an emotional issue behind their resistance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The Hidden Resistance<\/h2>\n<p>My experience with adults in RCIA backs this up. <strong>There are often intellectual issues but usually there\u2019s some kind of spiritual or emotional resistance mixed in<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, they have a problem with the Catholic viewpoint on homosexuality because a good friend (or family member) is gay&#8211;so they don\u2019t want to believe THEY are not normal. Or, they disagree with the teaching on artificial birth control because, you guessed it, they\u2019re contracepting.<\/p>\n<h2>Why Relational Ministry Is Important<\/h2>\n<p>Here&#8217;s where <a href=\"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/2011\/01\/25\/the-secret-of-st-pauls-evangelization-strategy\/\" target=\"_blank\">building relationships and getting to know the people is gold for evangelization<\/a>! <strong>You don\u2019t have much chance of convincing someone on the intellectual level if you don\u2019t address the spiritual or emotional issues as well<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It rarely comes down to just an intellectual argument even if there\u2019s intellectual resistance. <a href=\"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/2011\/01\/31\/teaching-catholic-truth-in-a-postmodern-age\/\" target=\"_blank\">Meeting intellectual resistance with equal firepower almost never works<\/a>. Believe me, I\u2019ve tried.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The <a href=\"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/2011\/02\/03\/5-reasons-why-relationship-is-the-key-to-evangelization\/\" target=\"_blank\">more effective way is gain their trust<\/a>, listen to their issues, then address their concerns<\/strong> in a way that doesn\u2019t undermine their belief but lets them see the more compelling argument you present. Then your reasoned argument has more of a chance to sink in.<\/p>\n<p>And, please do read <a href=\"http:\/\/roypetitfils.com\/2011\/02\/four-types-of-resistance\/\" target=\"_blank\">Roy\u2019s post<\/a> to see his three tips for recognizing and overcoming resistance. It\u2019s great advice.<\/p>\n<p>Have you seen these types of resistance at work? What are your tips and tricks for dealing with it? Let me know in the comments.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.freedigitalphotos.net\/images\/view_photog.php?photogid=1556\">Image: nuttakit \/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evangelization usually meets with some type of resistance but it&#8217;s not always what you think. Here are 4 types of resistance and how to deal with them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelization-2","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to Deal With Resistance to Faith - Marc Cardaronella<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/08\/how-to-deal-with-resistance-to-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Deal With Resistance to Faith - Marc Cardaronella\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Evangelization usually meets with some type of resistance but it&#039;s not always what you think. 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