I can easily say that C.S. Lewis is, hands down, my favorite author. He captured my imagination as a youngster with his Narnia series and had me looking in closets for secret worlds well into my adult years. Then in college he wowed me again with his theological books, "Mere Christianity" and "The Screwtape Letters." On a dark December night in 2008, a priest opened his homily with, "I've been reading a science fiction trilogy by C.S. Lewis...." I knew immediately that a) I had found a kindred spirit in the priest and b) I had to read those books, too!
The second book in that space triolgy, "Perelandra" and "The Problem of Pain," another of C.S. Lewis' more theological books had a profound impact on me. For the first time I can ever remember from my reading career, I had to set the books down, sometimes mid-chapter, in order to allow what I had just read to sink in.
I discovered that C.S. Lewis had an amazing way of expressing himself, whether by storey telling or through logical argumentation, that was much stronger than anything I could ever say. Often in his works he would say something I had tried to express myself, but he said it in a way that I knew millions of people would understand. As of late, I have wondered if one reason he is so profound is simply because he was English - reading the writings of someone who speaks my native tongue will probably provide more value to me than reading something that was translated.
Theologically, I do not know him to have ever stated anything glaringly blasphemous. In fact, I often find him expressing opinions that I had thought only I felt, that I had never expressed to anyone. When I read his essays, I found them relevant to the world I live in, too, and strangely comforting. If he was battling these ideas in the 1950's that I am battling today, then it means that the deterioration of society has bene much slower than he feared.
Once I discovered how amazing he was, I decided to embark upon a journey to read all his books, many of which are collections of essays. While I still would not say that C.S. Lewis has ever written anything bad or boring, in reading through his essays I found a repetitiveness of topics that was a little disheartening, but nothing a few months' break from the author couldn't cure.
But it was in reading "Surprised by Joy," his autobiography, that I began to feel like I knew the man, and it was a little melancholy. Somewhere in the middle of the book I realized that we would not really have been friends. For one, I think I admire him too much to ever have been his friends - I know from personal experience that the more I like someone and want them to like me, the less I feel like they do. But I do think I would have fit well into his circle - perhaps as the girlfriend / wife of his very best friend. You see, I think we are too similar, but if we had a common denominator, someone who found both of our types of logic and thoughtfullness attractive, it would bring us into the same group. But I do think we would butt heads sometimes - either because I am too opinionated, or because I am not eloquent enough to really say what I mean. Of course, the worst part of reading the book was realizing how important literature was to the man. I have read quite a bit of literature and have even gone through a phase of seeking it out. But I have found that "literature" is much like the Oscar winning movie - someone finds it of value, but it is not entertaining in the least bit. One day I should like to go back through "Surprised by Joy" and Lewis' other works, and read through all of his literary references. I go almost mad trying to understand some of his examples. But that was his passion, he made it very clear, and I would never have been able to keep up with that.
Now I find myself about halfway or more through his collection. I am reading, "The Four Loves," which like all Lewis books is incredibly profound. I just realized, having read a section tonight, that it is almost like a discipline I should have. For, each night when I pick up the book, it speaks to me some relevant little tidbit, almost as if C.S. Lewis is speaking to me. "Now Sarah," I can almost read, "In your situation, this is what is going on..." and "The reason you are so upset right now is..." and "In order to move forward and get to a better place you are going to have to...but don't worry..." And so on! I should not be entirely surprised - the man was a Christian, and as such, his books would make for tremendous Bible studies.
How I wish everyone else were reading all his books. We would certainly all be much more educated and thoughtful. But I cannot express the sentiments he puts forth, however much I want to tell my roommate about whatever profound tidbit he most recently put my way. Still, I may have to start the whole exercise over again and make sure that someone in my small circle reads the books along with me...for even having my roommate read it after me does little good if it is a deep discussion I want.
As a final note on C.S. Lewis - I have given him praise as an author and theologian. After the authors of the Bible, I would say he is my favorite Christian writer. I make the disticntion, though, because I know that he was not an inspired biblical writer. In theological terms, he was just an average joe who was uncanny at putting things together. With that said, I have often found a similarity almost in voice between the writings of Paul and C.S. Lewis. Indeed, the narrator in my head usually is the same for both authors. I think this is because Lewis mimicks Paul in ways, and he goes into a depth that Paul goes into. Both are so very careful to try to make things clear. But Lewis has one advantage, for me, that Paul does not, simply that he writes originally in English (as mentioned above) and that I need no context to understand Lewis' writings. I know what World War II was. I don't know all the little nuances of 1st century Rome. Still, I want to make it clear that, between the two writers (or any Bible author for that matter), Lewis is inferior because he was not inspired. But as a person who can take what Paul wrote, what was inspired, and break it down into waht a normal person can understand, then C.S. Lewis is phenomenal and takes the cake!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Purgatory
I think the church I was raised in had a unique view of heaven. Because we believed there would only be one "Last Judgment," we believed that souls do not go directly to Heaven or Hell upon death. Instead, depending on their goodness on earth, they went to a kind of holding cell - something bland and confining like a prison or something very much like heaven but not the real thing. As a teenager, if my Catholic friends brought up Purgatory, this is what I imagined. I imagined Purgatory and the prison holding area to be the same. I imagined it like an expanse of brown, dried grass, sitting under a brownish green sky...there was nothing to do, but no pain really.
My friend explained Purgatory to me as I took a walk one summer afternoon, well before I had ever started to consider Catholicism. "It's simply a place you go where you can draw closer to God without temptation." While this is not the whole story, I will pause to explain the effect that statement had on me. I was an instant believer. I have always felt a little anxiety over going to heaven, because there is no sin in heaven. Perhaps because I am a little bratty, or perhaps because of original sin, or both, I could not imagine me - Sarah, my soul - without the inclination to sin. What if all the other souls in heaven got on my nerves? The idea that I could go to Purgatory and learn not to sin before standing in front of God for eternity gave me a sense of relief.
Now, based on my friend's explanation, I pictured Purgatory as a valley of rolling hills. You couldn't call it anything close to heaven, nor to the best places on this earth, but it was not unpleasant. On the top of each hill was a tree - perhaps an apple tree in bloom or covered in apples - and beneath each tree a soul sat. Here we souls contemplate God without ever feeling hot, cold, hungry, fat, tired, thirsty, or jealous. And the longer we sat, the longer we learned to want God - even though our circumstance was not so bad. Eventually, our longing would be so great that we would be ready for heaven, and to heaven we would go.
The other thing my friend told me about Purgatory was that it was a safe place. "If I die and find myself in Purgatory I will be the happiest person ever, because I know I will get to heaven, it's just a matter of when." Perhaps because of misunderstanding and grace abuse, some Catholics have given a very different view of Purgatory. In their minds, they can behave however they want in this world, and then in Purgatory they will make up for it. We cannot judge where they go when they finally leave this world, but if they are living wholly unchristian lives, then they may go to the alternative to Purgatory and Heaven.
A few months later, my friend sent me a booklet on Purgatory, presumably because of my interest in it. I was shocked to read it! Purgatory was not a happy valley - it was a pit of fire! Pain - horrific pain - worse pain than anyone on earth has ever experienced - awaits us there. And we get to stay there until we are ready for heaven? What is going on? For one, the idea of painful fire is not so far different than my idea of learning to love God and learning not to be sinful. Doesn't fire purify? If we are scalded, won't that burn off the old, dirty self? Aren't we supposed to be baptized in fire? Although the pain of Purgatory now sounds dreadful, I imagine it could be like the good kind of pain. Pain that heals.
Because our sins have been forgiven, we no longer have to fear death. If we have been saved, then we will go to Purgatory. However, because we are sinful, we must also be cleansed of and punished for the sins we have committed. This is similar to a thief who steals a TV. If he is caught and the TV replaced, he still has to go to jail. If he repents of his crime and turns himself in, he still has to pay for the TV. Even if the TV owners forgive him, he still has to serve his time.
My friend explained Purgatory to me as I took a walk one summer afternoon, well before I had ever started to consider Catholicism. "It's simply a place you go where you can draw closer to God without temptation." While this is not the whole story, I will pause to explain the effect that statement had on me. I was an instant believer. I have always felt a little anxiety over going to heaven, because there is no sin in heaven. Perhaps because I am a little bratty, or perhaps because of original sin, or both, I could not imagine me - Sarah, my soul - without the inclination to sin. What if all the other souls in heaven got on my nerves? The idea that I could go to Purgatory and learn not to sin before standing in front of God for eternity gave me a sense of relief.
Now, based on my friend's explanation, I pictured Purgatory as a valley of rolling hills. You couldn't call it anything close to heaven, nor to the best places on this earth, but it was not unpleasant. On the top of each hill was a tree - perhaps an apple tree in bloom or covered in apples - and beneath each tree a soul sat. Here we souls contemplate God without ever feeling hot, cold, hungry, fat, tired, thirsty, or jealous. And the longer we sat, the longer we learned to want God - even though our circumstance was not so bad. Eventually, our longing would be so great that we would be ready for heaven, and to heaven we would go.
The other thing my friend told me about Purgatory was that it was a safe place. "If I die and find myself in Purgatory I will be the happiest person ever, because I know I will get to heaven, it's just a matter of when." Perhaps because of misunderstanding and grace abuse, some Catholics have given a very different view of Purgatory. In their minds, they can behave however they want in this world, and then in Purgatory they will make up for it. We cannot judge where they go when they finally leave this world, but if they are living wholly unchristian lives, then they may go to the alternative to Purgatory and Heaven.
A few months later, my friend sent me a booklet on Purgatory, presumably because of my interest in it. I was shocked to read it! Purgatory was not a happy valley - it was a pit of fire! Pain - horrific pain - worse pain than anyone on earth has ever experienced - awaits us there. And we get to stay there until we are ready for heaven? What is going on? For one, the idea of painful fire is not so far different than my idea of learning to love God and learning not to be sinful. Doesn't fire purify? If we are scalded, won't that burn off the old, dirty self? Aren't we supposed to be baptized in fire? Although the pain of Purgatory now sounds dreadful, I imagine it could be like the good kind of pain. Pain that heals.
Because our sins have been forgiven, we no longer have to fear death. If we have been saved, then we will go to Purgatory. However, because we are sinful, we must also be cleansed of and punished for the sins we have committed. This is similar to a thief who steals a TV. If he is caught and the TV replaced, he still has to go to jail. If he repents of his crime and turns himself in, he still has to pay for the TV. Even if the TV owners forgive him, he still has to serve his time.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
My Decision Made
The story of my decision winds down now. Having committed to going to Mass and falling in love with the passion for God, my heart had almost decided to be Catholic. I had jumped off the cliff. However, I wasn’t ready to tell anyone, and I still had doubts. My heart and intellect had to be on board, because I had to know if my decision was what God wanted me to do. No doubt he would pull me back from the edge in one way or another if he wanted me to stay Protestant.
In early January I was reading a book called the “Dictionary of Christianity.” Terms started to blur together, but I was fascinated about all the things about Christianity I still did not know. I found an entry on a group of heretics in the middle ages. These heretics were a precursor to Anabaptists in one way but also a remnant of a more ancient heresy in another (heresies in the first four centuries after Jesus tend to run together in my mind, but they centered on the divinity of Jesus, and their conclusions caused further theological breaks with the church).
For some reason, I was surprised to think of a heresy in the Middle Ages. Before, I had thought that any “heresies” the Catholic Church had “crushed” were legitimate protests, and that the response was a power struggle. While I don’t condone the church’s more violent responses, as I read about this particular heresy, I found that it was, indeed, a heresy.
The heresy, based on Jesus’ divinity, was an old one that the church had been fighting for years. In the 4th century, they had defined Jesus as fully God and fully Man. Either / or was not a possibility for them. And ever since they had defended what they knew to be true about Jesus – what all Christians, Protestants and Catholics alike, who believe the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed believe. Emotionally I was struck – the Catholic Church had been defending not just Christianity but the very essence of Jesus since it was started!
My mind raced on, as I remembered what I knew about early church history. The church had defined what we call “Christianity” in the 4th century in the Nicene Creed and through the assembly of the New Testament. With all due respect, people who are followers of Jesus but do not believe in the Apostles Creed which explains his divinity, are not necessarily Christians – or not what I would call Christians. This is why Catholics believe Protestants receive many graces and are saved through Jesus, while some Christ following sects are not given titles within the fold (Islam could be called a great Christian heresy – Muslims believe in, and to some extent follow, Jesus, but do not believe him to be God).
In addition, for us to believe the Bible that we have, to know that is complete and made up of the best books, to know that God’s word is in it, we have to trust that God helped the assemblers of the New Testament to create an authoritative source.
As such, anyone who believes in Christ and calls themselves a Christian must believe in what the Catholic Church was in the 4th century, or they must re-evaluate if they believe the Gospel at all…
And so I did. Because I cannot separate myself from Christianity, I realized that it was necessary to delve in to Catholicism. Many of the practices that Protestants oppose today were set in place when the Catholics created the creeds and the Bible. In addition, the church had 1800 years of near-continuous history to record its rationale for certain beliefs, so we can always test things we don’t understand.
In the year since I made my decision, I have joined the RCIA (Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults) program, and I feel even more confident in my choice.
Although I dived in, I had lingering doubts about certain things, but one-by-one the doubts were erased. Beliefs that seemed hard before now seem clear as day, and morality that had astonished me now makes sense from a life-loving perspective. If I found something hard to swallow, I would set it aside in trust, and in time, I would see how it fit into God’s plan.
In early January I was reading a book called the “Dictionary of Christianity.” Terms started to blur together, but I was fascinated about all the things about Christianity I still did not know. I found an entry on a group of heretics in the middle ages. These heretics were a precursor to Anabaptists in one way but also a remnant of a more ancient heresy in another (heresies in the first four centuries after Jesus tend to run together in my mind, but they centered on the divinity of Jesus, and their conclusions caused further theological breaks with the church).
For some reason, I was surprised to think of a heresy in the Middle Ages. Before, I had thought that any “heresies” the Catholic Church had “crushed” were legitimate protests, and that the response was a power struggle. While I don’t condone the church’s more violent responses, as I read about this particular heresy, I found that it was, indeed, a heresy.
The heresy, based on Jesus’ divinity, was an old one that the church had been fighting for years. In the 4th century, they had defined Jesus as fully God and fully Man. Either / or was not a possibility for them. And ever since they had defended what they knew to be true about Jesus – what all Christians, Protestants and Catholics alike, who believe the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed believe. Emotionally I was struck – the Catholic Church had been defending not just Christianity but the very essence of Jesus since it was started!
My mind raced on, as I remembered what I knew about early church history. The church had defined what we call “Christianity” in the 4th century in the Nicene Creed and through the assembly of the New Testament. With all due respect, people who are followers of Jesus but do not believe in the Apostles Creed which explains his divinity, are not necessarily Christians – or not what I would call Christians. This is why Catholics believe Protestants receive many graces and are saved through Jesus, while some Christ following sects are not given titles within the fold (Islam could be called a great Christian heresy – Muslims believe in, and to some extent follow, Jesus, but do not believe him to be God).
In addition, for us to believe the Bible that we have, to know that is complete and made up of the best books, to know that God’s word is in it, we have to trust that God helped the assemblers of the New Testament to create an authoritative source.
As such, anyone who believes in Christ and calls themselves a Christian must believe in what the Catholic Church was in the 4th century, or they must re-evaluate if they believe the Gospel at all…
And so I did. Because I cannot separate myself from Christianity, I realized that it was necessary to delve in to Catholicism. Many of the practices that Protestants oppose today were set in place when the Catholics created the creeds and the Bible. In addition, the church had 1800 years of near-continuous history to record its rationale for certain beliefs, so we can always test things we don’t understand.
In the year since I made my decision, I have joined the RCIA (Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults) program, and I feel even more confident in my choice.
Although I dived in, I had lingering doubts about certain things, but one-by-one the doubts were erased. Beliefs that seemed hard before now seem clear as day, and morality that had astonished me now makes sense from a life-loving perspective. If I found something hard to swallow, I would set it aside in trust, and in time, I would see how it fit into God’s plan.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
A Group of Apostles
Also in Louisville, I attended my first Catholic Mass on my own. I was blown away. I would like to spend some time discussing the details of Mass and why they are so special later, but I will keep things shorter for now. Every single phrase and gesture has meaning – deep meaning. I had trouble following, but from just the one mass I remember taking away two special things.
First, an altar server carries a crucifix held high on a stick to lead the procession of altar servers, lectors, and the priest, up to the front. This was one example of the incredible respect for God, Jesus, and Jesus’ act of sacrifice on the cross for us that I learned was a natural part of Catholic life. Watching the robed procession, I felt as though I could be watching the early apostles. As if they were carrying the cross through ancient streets, ready to tell people what this symbol was all about.
The other takeaway was the response to readings from the Bible, especially the New Testament. After a reading, the crowd would say, “Thanks be to God!” and for the Gospel, we sang a song (Alleluia), stood up, and said, “Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ,” when the reading was finished. Besides being respectful, to me this showed how excited Catholics were about the Word of God. They were thanking Him for it! Yes, thank God for the Gospel! While the words do not save us, they tell us the story of salvation, and without these words, we would not know of what Jesus did! Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ!
After several weeks of attending mass and observing this and many more “rituals,” I told a friend, “I would think Catholics were crazy if they didn’t love Jesus so much!” Although both Catholics and Protestants can be both hot and cold, I think Catholics are more notorious for being cold to their faith. However, if you attend Mass, you know there are some people left in both the church leadership and the masses in general who completely get the Gospel story. As such, with Jesus as the center of everything, a Catholic Mass is as passionate and fired up about Jesus as any gospel revival meeting.
First, an altar server carries a crucifix held high on a stick to lead the procession of altar servers, lectors, and the priest, up to the front. This was one example of the incredible respect for God, Jesus, and Jesus’ act of sacrifice on the cross for us that I learned was a natural part of Catholic life. Watching the robed procession, I felt as though I could be watching the early apostles. As if they were carrying the cross through ancient streets, ready to tell people what this symbol was all about.
The other takeaway was the response to readings from the Bible, especially the New Testament. After a reading, the crowd would say, “Thanks be to God!” and for the Gospel, we sang a song (Alleluia), stood up, and said, “Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ,” when the reading was finished. Besides being respectful, to me this showed how excited Catholics were about the Word of God. They were thanking Him for it! Yes, thank God for the Gospel! While the words do not save us, they tell us the story of salvation, and without these words, we would not know of what Jesus did! Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ!
After several weeks of attending mass and observing this and many more “rituals,” I told a friend, “I would think Catholics were crazy if they didn’t love Jesus so much!” Although both Catholics and Protestants can be both hot and cold, I think Catholics are more notorious for being cold to their faith. However, if you attend Mass, you know there are some people left in both the church leadership and the masses in general who completely get the Gospel story. As such, with Jesus as the center of everything, a Catholic Mass is as passionate and fired up about Jesus as any gospel revival meeting.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Who Wouldn't Want to Be a Saint?
One argument that atheists use against Christians is the apparent inconsistency of the Bible. However, Christians believe the Bible to be true and not inconsistent. And yet we all interpret it differently. For instance, to use an old example, when slavery was legal in the United States, Christians on both sides of the debate would use the Bible to support their cause. This didn’t make the Bible wrong, but it did divide Christians. Jesus doesn’t want His children divided.
Over and over again I have found myself hearing the words, “Well, I believe…” tied to a perspective on theology. I’m not talking about someone’s religious beliefs of another faith. And I’m not necessarily talking about the beliefs of specific denominations within Christianity – that would be “we believe…” I’m talking about the personal confusion that many people have about certain matters of theology. How can the layman tell? Many people do not want to be told what to believe, but I felt more and more certain that someone had to tell me because there was a right answer out there, not just an “I believe.” It had to either be someone with more education and training, or else someone who was divinely influenced. Preferably both. Otherwise, knowing exactly what God wants would be impossible.
More and more I was drawn to the idea of a pope, a council of leaders, a tradition leading back to Christ himself. I could not explain it that way at the time, but I wanted unity within the church.
Summer turned into fall, and I went to Louisville. I was alone for months on end out there – and I was choosing not to go to church. Because I found church to be about music and people, it did not make sense for me to get attached to a church I could not return to, or go to a church where I knew nobody. In addition, I thoroughly believed I would just spend Sunday mornings in a Bible study devotional, but that rarely materialized.
I grew lonely and hardened to God for the first time in my life – a dark night of the soul. I started crying out in the night for Him to come back to me. I will never forget the words of a Catholic friend, who spoke to me as I silently cried on the stairs of my hotel loft. “You keep digging for buried treasure in all these different places, but I’ve found it. I keep trying to get you to see that I’ve found the hole, and that the treasure is over here, but you just keep digging new holes.”
That weekend I went out and bought a book called, “The Dictionary of Saints.” It had a short paragraph on pretty much every saint recognized by the Catholic Church. At the time, I couldn’t have explained a saint to a Protestant, other than by saying that these were people the church believed to be in heaven.
Their stories were similar. Many were martyrs. Others were women who ran away from their rich families to become nuns. There were priests and monks, too. A few were married people. Short as each paragraph was, and similar as the stories became to each other, I could not put it down. I read it like a book, rather than a reference. I found myself longing for that kind of life. I wanted to be a saint, not to be put in some kind of book, but to live the kind of life wholly devoted to God! I didn’t know if I was ever going to get married or not, but if not, I wanted to be a nun! (Being a nun as a last resort for unmarried women is the wrong attitude to have, by the way, although I didn’t understand back then).
I was challenged to purify my life, and am continually challenged to this day to live in the world but not of it. One challenge was movies. I found it hard to “not get” to watch PG-13 movies, or felt guilty for doing so. “Who,” I wondered, “can go through life like this? No wonder Protestants are not legalists, we would all be Puritans.” But I realized that if something would bring me closer to God, then I could not excuse myself from it with a clean conscience. Bad movies would have to go (could I watch them with Jesus in the room anyways?). In addition, I needed to make a greater effort for prayer time. I have felt these spiritual revivals come and go in my life, and I know that God uses some of our hardest times to call us to him. However, I did find a new perspective that helped keep the momentum going.
Over and over again I have found myself hearing the words, “Well, I believe…” tied to a perspective on theology. I’m not talking about someone’s religious beliefs of another faith. And I’m not necessarily talking about the beliefs of specific denominations within Christianity – that would be “we believe…” I’m talking about the personal confusion that many people have about certain matters of theology. How can the layman tell? Many people do not want to be told what to believe, but I felt more and more certain that someone had to tell me because there was a right answer out there, not just an “I believe.” It had to either be someone with more education and training, or else someone who was divinely influenced. Preferably both. Otherwise, knowing exactly what God wants would be impossible.
More and more I was drawn to the idea of a pope, a council of leaders, a tradition leading back to Christ himself. I could not explain it that way at the time, but I wanted unity within the church.
Summer turned into fall, and I went to Louisville. I was alone for months on end out there – and I was choosing not to go to church. Because I found church to be about music and people, it did not make sense for me to get attached to a church I could not return to, or go to a church where I knew nobody. In addition, I thoroughly believed I would just spend Sunday mornings in a Bible study devotional, but that rarely materialized.
I grew lonely and hardened to God for the first time in my life – a dark night of the soul. I started crying out in the night for Him to come back to me. I will never forget the words of a Catholic friend, who spoke to me as I silently cried on the stairs of my hotel loft. “You keep digging for buried treasure in all these different places, but I’ve found it. I keep trying to get you to see that I’ve found the hole, and that the treasure is over here, but you just keep digging new holes.”
That weekend I went out and bought a book called, “The Dictionary of Saints.” It had a short paragraph on pretty much every saint recognized by the Catholic Church. At the time, I couldn’t have explained a saint to a Protestant, other than by saying that these were people the church believed to be in heaven.
Their stories were similar. Many were martyrs. Others were women who ran away from their rich families to become nuns. There were priests and monks, too. A few were married people. Short as each paragraph was, and similar as the stories became to each other, I could not put it down. I read it like a book, rather than a reference. I found myself longing for that kind of life. I wanted to be a saint, not to be put in some kind of book, but to live the kind of life wholly devoted to God! I didn’t know if I was ever going to get married or not, but if not, I wanted to be a nun! (Being a nun as a last resort for unmarried women is the wrong attitude to have, by the way, although I didn’t understand back then).
I was challenged to purify my life, and am continually challenged to this day to live in the world but not of it. One challenge was movies. I found it hard to “not get” to watch PG-13 movies, or felt guilty for doing so. “Who,” I wondered, “can go through life like this? No wonder Protestants are not legalists, we would all be Puritans.” But I realized that if something would bring me closer to God, then I could not excuse myself from it with a clean conscience. Bad movies would have to go (could I watch them with Jesus in the room anyways?). In addition, I needed to make a greater effort for prayer time. I have felt these spiritual revivals come and go in my life, and I know that God uses some of our hardest times to call us to him. However, I did find a new perspective that helped keep the momentum going.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
It Can't Be They're Lying...
For thousands of years man has wanted to grow wings and fly. For those of us who have done so with the aid of an airplane, we understand why. The ancients longed for something they missed but could not explain. The most breathtaking experiences in life can be found 30,000 feet in the air looking down. In the summer of 2008 I was flying to from Kansas City to Minneapolis on a weekly basis. One Friday on the return trip, as I watched the sun setting over clouds that looked like ocean waves painted in gold and orange, I found myself turning away from the astonishing beauty to contemplate the turmoil in my own heart.
A friend had been giving me pamphlets on Catholicism. These pamphlets and books I soaked up eagerly – not knowing or suspecting that I was searching for something deeper in my Protestant faith, I enjoyed what I perceived to be a friendly debate. I would read the arguments and return my own, supposedly better, ones. I realize now I was just repeating hollow catch phrases I had heard from my other friends.
I don’t know what particular tenet of faith I was thinking about that Friday. Perhaps I wasn’t even concerned about Catholic apologetics at all. But the first seed of logic was then planted in my mind that maybe Protestants weren’t the be-all-end-all authority on Christianity that I thought we were.
Here is the chain of thought. Catholics rely on the teachings of the church – which consists of priests, bishops, and the pope. Each priest is in charge of a parish – people that are his surrogate family. The priest goes to eight years of seminary - eight years to learn about theology. So he knows the Bible and the Catholic teachings very well. (Here we must understand that I already realized that the difference between Catholics and Protestants was more than just sola scriptura, for no matter what they called it, the differences were not about the scriptures themselves but how to interpret them). Each week he was in charge of saying the mass, saying the prayers of the Eucharist – prayers that Catholics believe turn bread into the person of Jesus Christ.
Here’s the problem – if any one priest ever had a doubt about major Catholic tenets of faith, such as transubstantiation, then to continue to participate would be blasphemy. In addition, because of his advanced learning, he would be more culpable for leading others astray. Many people fall away from the faith of their youth, and many will deceive others because they are embarrassed to admit they were wrong. However, could the overwhelming majority of priests go to school for eight years, perform masses every day of their lives, and truly not believe in their hearts that the doctrine was sound?
My mind whirled onward. I began to think of the pope. Catholics have a doctrine of papal infallibility which by that time I understood enough to not get it confused with some kind of worship. They believe that what the pope and the church leadership (usually working together and always with prayer) set out as doctrine will not be wrong. This comes from Jesus’ own words to Peter saying the gates of Hell would not prevail against the church. But what about all the corruption that had plagued the papacy? Surely the pope knew about all the darker secrets of the Catholic Church for the last 2000 years. I am sure that if there was a secret book of knowledge hidden in the Vatican, some documentation of fraud in the church or Christianity itself, the pope would know about it. And if priests could be culpable for leading people astray when their consciences tell them otherwise, how much more a pope! For not only does he have to believe what he teaches, but he has to do everything in his power to make sure it is theologically correct.
But this couldn’t be. Everybody, Protestants included, loved Pope John Paul II for his humility, service, and moral standards. Hadn’t the Pope been taken up into heaven with Jesus in the Left Behind series, which was written by two fundamentalist Protestants? (random, I know, but this was a thought I specifically remember) To suggest that the pope of all people is a fraud almost certainly means he is a liar, because of all people he should know how much of what he teaches is true and how much isn’t. And if he is a liar, then he certainly cannot be the humble man that he is seen as.
And here I was astonished to find the first glimmer of Catholic sympathy. We are to examine the teachings of our elders and leaders against scripture, and if we do this with the teachings of (at least recent) Catholic popes, then we find that there is nothing anti-biblical about them. However, as Protestants we tend to choose which teachings we follow. We may give the pope a big thumb’s up because he reprimanded a world leader about a policy that violated human rights. However we ignore the pope’s teaching on abortion and contraceptives. It’s not just a matter of convenience for Protestants – it goes back to who gets to interpret the Bible, which I will talk about later.
This thought lodged into my head like a grain of sand in my eye. If I blinked enough times it went away, but usually it sat there and irritated it. You see, around this time I was already beginning to struggle with the moral relativism that had come into the world even among Christians. I wanted to be free and independent and not have anyone tell me what to believe. But when I looked at a moral situation, and everything seemed gray, I wanted black or white. From that moment a sympathy arose in me. I wanted a pope. I didn’t necessarily want the Catholic pope. But I wanted that certainty – that voice sounding out among the debate. Some form of authority – a gavel pounding, a tie breaker, an executive order – anything.
A friend had been giving me pamphlets on Catholicism. These pamphlets and books I soaked up eagerly – not knowing or suspecting that I was searching for something deeper in my Protestant faith, I enjoyed what I perceived to be a friendly debate. I would read the arguments and return my own, supposedly better, ones. I realize now I was just repeating hollow catch phrases I had heard from my other friends.
I don’t know what particular tenet of faith I was thinking about that Friday. Perhaps I wasn’t even concerned about Catholic apologetics at all. But the first seed of logic was then planted in my mind that maybe Protestants weren’t the be-all-end-all authority on Christianity that I thought we were.
Here is the chain of thought. Catholics rely on the teachings of the church – which consists of priests, bishops, and the pope. Each priest is in charge of a parish – people that are his surrogate family. The priest goes to eight years of seminary - eight years to learn about theology. So he knows the Bible and the Catholic teachings very well. (Here we must understand that I already realized that the difference between Catholics and Protestants was more than just sola scriptura, for no matter what they called it, the differences were not about the scriptures themselves but how to interpret them). Each week he was in charge of saying the mass, saying the prayers of the Eucharist – prayers that Catholics believe turn bread into the person of Jesus Christ.
Here’s the problem – if any one priest ever had a doubt about major Catholic tenets of faith, such as transubstantiation, then to continue to participate would be blasphemy. In addition, because of his advanced learning, he would be more culpable for leading others astray. Many people fall away from the faith of their youth, and many will deceive others because they are embarrassed to admit they were wrong. However, could the overwhelming majority of priests go to school for eight years, perform masses every day of their lives, and truly not believe in their hearts that the doctrine was sound?
My mind whirled onward. I began to think of the pope. Catholics have a doctrine of papal infallibility which by that time I understood enough to not get it confused with some kind of worship. They believe that what the pope and the church leadership (usually working together and always with prayer) set out as doctrine will not be wrong. This comes from Jesus’ own words to Peter saying the gates of Hell would not prevail against the church. But what about all the corruption that had plagued the papacy? Surely the pope knew about all the darker secrets of the Catholic Church for the last 2000 years. I am sure that if there was a secret book of knowledge hidden in the Vatican, some documentation of fraud in the church or Christianity itself, the pope would know about it. And if priests could be culpable for leading people astray when their consciences tell them otherwise, how much more a pope! For not only does he have to believe what he teaches, but he has to do everything in his power to make sure it is theologically correct.
But this couldn’t be. Everybody, Protestants included, loved Pope John Paul II for his humility, service, and moral standards. Hadn’t the Pope been taken up into heaven with Jesus in the Left Behind series, which was written by two fundamentalist Protestants? (random, I know, but this was a thought I specifically remember) To suggest that the pope of all people is a fraud almost certainly means he is a liar, because of all people he should know how much of what he teaches is true and how much isn’t. And if he is a liar, then he certainly cannot be the humble man that he is seen as.
And here I was astonished to find the first glimmer of Catholic sympathy. We are to examine the teachings of our elders and leaders against scripture, and if we do this with the teachings of (at least recent) Catholic popes, then we find that there is nothing anti-biblical about them. However, as Protestants we tend to choose which teachings we follow. We may give the pope a big thumb’s up because he reprimanded a world leader about a policy that violated human rights. However we ignore the pope’s teaching on abortion and contraceptives. It’s not just a matter of convenience for Protestants – it goes back to who gets to interpret the Bible, which I will talk about later.
This thought lodged into my head like a grain of sand in my eye. If I blinked enough times it went away, but usually it sat there and irritated it. You see, around this time I was already beginning to struggle with the moral relativism that had come into the world even among Christians. I wanted to be free and independent and not have anyone tell me what to believe. But when I looked at a moral situation, and everything seemed gray, I wanted black or white. From that moment a sympathy arose in me. I wanted a pope. I didn’t necessarily want the Catholic pope. But I wanted that certainty – that voice sounding out among the debate. Some form of authority – a gavel pounding, a tie breaker, an executive order – anything.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
A Not-So Brief Announcement
It is time to officially announce a change in my life that has been two years in the making and will become official in April. Some may know of it already. It is my intention to be confirmed into communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and to remain so for the rest of my life. As this may come as a shocker to many, I intend, over the next few weeks, to explain my thought processes and journey. I don’t expect anyone who knew me as a Protestant to be influenced to pursue the same route as I did, but rather to gain an understanding because they will surely be surprised. But because it was really a journey and long road to where I am now, I feel I must put detail into my decision.
For me, being a Christian is an innate part of me as being a girl or having blue eyes. It is something I can never see changing at all. Belief in God is a no-brainer, and belief that He has used Jesus to save the world is an easy conclusion following that. I was raised as a Protestant in a denomination most would not have heard of. Like many Protestants, we believed we “had it right,” but (unlike many Protestants) we also were very tolerant of the beliefs of others – especially Christians. In high school I developed friendships with Mormons and Catholics. We spent hours debating our religions, but no one ever had the intention of converting another. I respected both groups. This was also the time I dramatically fainted in the middle of a Catholic Mass.
In college I gravitated over to a non-denominational evangelical Protestant church and learned so much about my Christianity. My friends went to Bible College and were amazingly knowledgeable about all things Bible and Christian. Sermons put Bible verses into the context of the time. I learned the importance of accountability partners, a personal relationship with Jesus, and even communion. However, the largest failing of this church was not its fault – it had an unsurpassable music program. As such, looking back I realize that I was more interested on Sundays in whether I liked the songs we were singing than actually turning the music into praise of God.
After college, I embarked on three years of near-solitude caused by geographical distance from my family, heavy work travel, an intense work schedule, and a roommate with a second shift schedule. Solitude can drive someone mad, but it also provides a forum for introspection. With God as my only constant, it became important to maximize my relationship with him.
For me, being a Christian is an innate part of me as being a girl or having blue eyes. It is something I can never see changing at all. Belief in God is a no-brainer, and belief that He has used Jesus to save the world is an easy conclusion following that. I was raised as a Protestant in a denomination most would not have heard of. Like many Protestants, we believed we “had it right,” but (unlike many Protestants) we also were very tolerant of the beliefs of others – especially Christians. In high school I developed friendships with Mormons and Catholics. We spent hours debating our religions, but no one ever had the intention of converting another. I respected both groups. This was also the time I dramatically fainted in the middle of a Catholic Mass.
In college I gravitated over to a non-denominational evangelical Protestant church and learned so much about my Christianity. My friends went to Bible College and were amazingly knowledgeable about all things Bible and Christian. Sermons put Bible verses into the context of the time. I learned the importance of accountability partners, a personal relationship with Jesus, and even communion. However, the largest failing of this church was not its fault – it had an unsurpassable music program. As such, looking back I realize that I was more interested on Sundays in whether I liked the songs we were singing than actually turning the music into praise of God.
After college, I embarked on three years of near-solitude caused by geographical distance from my family, heavy work travel, an intense work schedule, and a roommate with a second shift schedule. Solitude can drive someone mad, but it also provides a forum for introspection. With God as my only constant, it became important to maximize my relationship with him.
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