Matt Maher

For me, growing up, I always had a cross section of friends from different ethnic or religious backgrounds. So the thing I’ve witnessed is that there has been a lot of misrepresentation out there. A lot of people have been poorly educated about Catholicism. They’re just taking what their pastor said when they were 10 or 11 or a teenager in high school and they give a quick track on 10 things to refute your Catholic students. I was never taught that, through all of my Christian upbringing. There’s this whole buzz-talk now about the “emerging church”. What is that look like? A friend of mine asked me that once and I said, “Well, it starts with candles and creative music!” (laughs) No, seriously, I’m only 30, so what do I know, but I think it starts with solid community, regardless of the denomination, and depth of teaching. It’s about re-presenting, which I think Catholics need to do a better job of, dogmas or doctrines, not as these set rules or laws, but as deeper expressions of God’s love, for God and God’s love of humankind. Not so much as alternate ways to God like a 12-step program. It’s not about that. It’s interesting that people could look at creation and see how God used that to worship Him, and yet look at a 14 year old girl who said “yes” and could have gotten killed for being pregnant outside of marriage 2000 years ago, and not honor her. So I think it’s trying to find new ways to dialog with other Christians to re-present these ancient ideas that I see people stumble on or find out on their own. We have a history or a fascination with the ancient church and I think it’s our job as Catholics to … not to protect it … but for us to know about it and be in dialog with it. I always say that I feel like we’re like the spoiled, adopted kids of God. We have all of these toys and we don’t even know it.”