Who Runs the Church?

At one point in my pastoral term I started wearing a robe to lead services. Not an alb—this was some time before I started moving toward the Catholic Church—but a Geneva Robe, which had been given to me by good friends. My decision to do this was influenced by the great Welsh Presbyterian preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and I explained to the congregation that the point of this was to emphasize that I am not there to represent myself as a professional but as someone set apart in the name of Jesus. The robe was a way of deemphasizing my personal identity as an individual.

I received some very positive feedback about this from members of the congregation, but not everyone was positive. One person in particular commented, “I don’t want to be part of a church where the pastor wears a robe.” From this perspective, which is very common in America today, one chooses a church based on one’s preferences and expectations; the marketplace of churches exists to provide a variety of styles to meet the needs of churchgoers. In the late 1990’s Michael Horton wrote a very interesting article on the commercial captivity of the Evangelical movement and observed “Like popular music, which depends on the favor of a mass audience, contemporary Christianity is institutionally incapable of disappointing the crowds. Its entire network of churches, ministries and institutions requires it to be answerable to a wide audience of consumers. To refuse to be answerable to the world of public taste, the evangelical movement would risk its very existence” (“Time for a Commercialism Break” in Modern Reformation).

When I was in college, the church on campus was led by Dr. Robert Ives, who was a very good preacher. His preaching was solid and biblical, and there were many young people like myself who were drawn into membership through him. But that raised a problem for some of the lifelong members, because they felt like they were losing control of something that belonged to them. They even voiced that concern in a congregational meeting, saying that all the new people coming into the church were turning it into a place where they would no longer feel at home.

I remember hearing, around that time, about a leader in the denomination whose major concern was defining what it means to be part of that church. Who are the Brethren in Christ? What is their identity and what is it that sets them apart from other groups of Christians? This was his main concern, almost the thing that came to define him. There were new people coming into the denomination, which threatened the identity of the group, which would undermine the historic culture of the denomination. This was not about theological orthodoxy but about what sets “our” group apart from other groups of theologically orthodox Christians.

To my mind this raises the question of whether we have the right to say what we want the church culture to be like.  The church doesn’t belong to us, after all.  The church is more, and other, than a voluntary society where people get together because they share a common interest.  And I find it hard to not think that this project was theologically problematic in a really fundamental way.  He was trying to preserve something that he really had no right to try and preserve.  He had the right to emphasize things, parts of the gospel message, that were an important part of the history of the denomination.  But not to try and prevent new members from changing the composition of the group identity.  He was trying to hang onto something that was not in any way under his jurisdiction (nor that of any member of the church leadership for that matter).

Which leads to the question, who is in charge of the Church? Recently a friend of mine posted a quote by Cardinal Robert Sarah, saying “I’m afraid we are tempted to build a human Church, according to the times and according to our ideas. But the Church is not ours.” The Church is not ours. In Matthew 16, Jesus says to Simon Peter, “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church….” (16:18). Jesus is the one who is building the Church, His Church, and it does not belong to any of us.

Mary’s Witness to Jesus

The last time I met with him, my spiritual director observed, “you seem very drawn to Mary; what is it about her that attracts you?” I stumbled around some trying to answer that question but don’t think I did a very satisfactory job, so I thought it might be worth some reflection today. I’ve mentioned, in an earlier blog post, that as I was beginning to learn the Rosary using non-Marian prayers, I found myself drawn to Mary in a way that I could not explain. At the time I talked to Fr. Nick, my spiritual director, and after some discussion he affirmed this as something God was doing in my life. And now, more than 20 years later, I am still drawn to her.

I was interested to read Pope John Paul II on this subject, saying that early in his life he was concerned that Marian devotion would draw him away from Jesus but what he found, over time, was that Jesus actually pointed him to Mary. Some of my fellow pastors around the time of his death dismissed him as a “Mary worshiper,” but that perception was formed with no knowledge of the man himself, from a perspective that sees any attention to Mary as necessarily detracting from Jesus.

This month I’ve been reading Sally Read, who grew up in a determinedly atheistic family and says that Mary’s “was the hand that would lead me slowly to her son” (The Mary Pages, p. 4). In her experience Mary led her to Jesus, not away from Him. All in a very unexpected way, through seeing pictures of Mary in her grandmother’s home. “But that was how Mary got in—not through statues or cute Christmas cards, not through prayers or teaching or through a historic wheel, but through these pictures. Mary got into my head against all likelihood, against the mighty determination of my father that our lives would be devoid of anything religious. She got into my head, just as a door that’s slammed and locked and the chain pulled across cannot keep out air.”

My first inclination, at this point, is to turn to some historical works on Mary, like The Mystical Rose, by St. John Henry Newman, which is sitting on the table next to my computer, or to outline Marian doctrines in The Catechism of the Catholic Church; and I think those things are worthwhile and helpful. But Sally Read’s comments point to something different, to Mary as a living presence in the Church, not just a theological idea to be explained and defended. She describes Mary leading her to Jesus, though she herself was unaware of what was happening. She sees Mary getting into her head “against all likelihood.” She sees Mary being involved in her life in a very real way over time, bringing her into the Church when everything within her being was pulling in the opposite direction. She doesn’t see Mary as God—there’s never any confusion about that—but as a living person in the Church who is able to cooperate with her Son in the lives of people on earth.

To understand and reflect on this requires, I think, that we put aside our assumption that the saints are far removed from us, that heaven is “somewhere out there,” and that although God, through the Holy Spirit, can intervene in our lives, we are otherwise cut off, separated, from the life of heaven. Sally Read’s understanding is that Mary, the mother of the Church, the New Eve, has access to us and is able to be involved in our lives, drawing us to her Son. She’s thinking in a way consistent with both Orthodox and Catholic perspectives on the communion of the saints.

Why, then, am I drawn to Mary? I find her immensely attractive as a model of Christian discipleship, one who from the moment of the annunciation was immersed in things she couldn’t possibly grasp but persistently held all these things in her heart, becoming the great model of contemplation and who humbled herself, becoming the Queen Mother who intercedes with her Son. "She is continually involved in mysteries the sense and meaning of which tower over her, but instead of resigning herself to bafflement she gives them space in her heart in order continually to mull over them there (the Greek word Luke uses at 2:19, symballein, really means to throw together, to compare and hence to consider from all possible angles)" (Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Mary for Today, p. 36).

I find all these things compelling, but I believe there is more than this, which is why I say that years ago I found myself drawn to Mary in ways I could not understand or explain. It didn’t make sense, given my position as a Protestant pastor where Marian devotion was anathema. But I couldn’t get away from it, and I believe Fr. Nick was right in affirming that this was something from God and that Jesus Himself was leading me to cultivate a relationship with His mother.

Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical on Mary: “Mary can be said to continue to say to each individual the words she spoke at Cana in Galilee: ‘Do whatever he tells you’ (John 2:5). For he, Christ, is the one mediator between God and mankind…. The Virgin of Nazareth became the first ‘witness’ of this saving love of the Father, and she also wishes to remain its humble handmaid always and everywhere. For every Christian for every human being, Mary is the one who first ‘believed’ and precisely with her faith as spouse and mother she wishes to act upon all those who entrust themselves to her as her children” (Mother of the Redeemer). My experience, like that of Pope John Paul II, has been that, not only does Mary not lead me away from Jesus, but that Jesus Himself leads me to His mother.

Careerism and Distorted Community

“How can you say such things!” This German student, whose name I no longer remember, was angry at Patrick Burke, our graduate school professor.  It wasn’t that he thought Patrick was saying something wrong. He was convinced in his mind that what Patrick was saying was true, but this was unacceptable to him. 

His response was, “I can see that what you are saying is true, but if I go back to Germany and say these kinds of things I will not have a job, and I will disappoint those who sent me here.”  His concern was for his career and for the response of those he was going back to in Germany.  The truth was immaterial, and by presenting truth that was unacceptable, Professor Burke was creating problems.

This overwhelming concern about careerism is one of the things that put me off in the academic world.  I had thought, going in, that this was a place where truth mattered, that if one made a strong argument others who disagreed would be expected to respond with a counter argument.  But I found just the opposite; that truth is fine, as long as it remains within acceptable boundaries; unacceptable truth is subjected to outrage, not counter arguments.

The concern about maintaining one’s career led to a lack of courage which, it seems to me, has continued to characterize much of the academic world today.  Making an argument really doesn’t count for anything unless that argument supports the “correct” point of view, and making an unacceptable argument, even one that seems inescapably true, often endangers one’s career, with the result that very many academics are unwilling to ask questions that might lead to unacceptable ends.

This student had a strong sense of obligation to the community of those who had sent him to America to study.  “If I go back to Germany and say these kinds of things, I will betray those who sent me here.”  But this is a troubling sort of community.  They will only welcome him back if he continues to think in ways that they find acceptable.  If pursuing the truth leads him outside of this acceptable range he will no longer be welcome as a member of the community.

But what kind of community is this, really?  It appears to lead to a sort of bondage in which one doesn’t have the freedom to think, to pursue the truth wherever it might lead.  It requires closing one’s mind to anything that the “community” might not approve of.  This is what Richard Neuhaus described as the “herd of independent minds.”  This is what soured me on the idea of becoming an academic and still today causes me to have a negative view of the academic world.  Not because I am opposed to education or the life of the mind, but because I no longer believe the environment of the academic community is intellectually healthy.  It’s a place where one is expected to toe the line and think like other academics think.

I was actually shocked at this guy’s honesty.  I know he didn’t plan any of this in advance.  It took him by surprise to find himself agreeing with what Professor Burke was saying.  The usual thing would have been to respond with something more like a sneer.  But he didn’t.  He spoke honestly and clearly, said he believed the argument was good and that what Patrick was saying was true; his point was that the truth was unacceptable to the people he had to answer to.  So, to his credit, he responded with honesty, and the conflict led him to anger.  I wonder what became of him.  I assume he went back to Germany and became a professor.  But did this conflict continue to plague him in the back of his mind, or was he able, eventually, to squash it in the interest of happily pursuing his career?

Praying with Our Bodies

During Lent I’ve been listening, on the Hallow app, to the story of Takashi Nagai, who lived in Nagasaki Japan during WWII. Although he grew up practicing the Shinto religion, he had become an atheist during his medical training, dismissing all religions as empty mythology. But the experience at his mother’s death bed impressed upon him that there was something lacking in his worldview, that his atheism didn’t explain what he knew to be true as a human being. He began to feel drawn to Christianity, but then found himself floundering. He was strongly attracted to the idea of faith but didn’t know what to do about it.

How do we learn to believe? How do we develop faith? For most of my life I’ve understood this to be an intellectual thing, that one develops faith by reading books, weighing the evidence, knowing more about the truth. If one is persuaded inwardly, this is then followed by some outward changes, maybe going to church, seeking out other believers, becoming part of a small group Bible study. The process begins with the inner life and only later does this begin to show itself in actions.

But the advice Nagai found in Blaise Pascal moved in the opposite direction. He read in the Pensees, “You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you…. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believe, taking the holy water, having masses said, &c. Even this will naturally make you believe….” Start acting as if you believe, doing things that believers do, (for Pascal these things had a distinctly Catholic form) and you will find your faith growing. It’s not that information and logic are unimportant, but they are only part of the story. We are not souls inhabiting a body but human persons consisting of both body and soul in union each having a profound impact on the other. And the impact can go in either direction.

I recently read a book by David Easterly, a wood carver, writing about his experience studying the style of the great carver Grinling Gibbons. “One day it occurred to me that you couldn’t fully understand how Gibbons developed his style unless you understood something about his tools and his medium. I made a note to try to find an art historical study on woodcarving techniques. In the meanwhile, just to divert myself, I thought I might as well get some chisels and wood and see what carving felt like. Just to divert myself.  No sooner do I write that phrase than I know it’s false. I was being borne toward carving by a tide stronger than I could control, a tide made up of all that I’d thought and read and experienced in the years before. Writing a book wasn’t going to answer to it. More than the mind needed to be deployed. And this was the turning point for me: not the epiphany in the church, but the decision to try the tools of the trade” (The Lost Carving, pp. 52-53).

Easterly started out as an academic, examining the technique of a great carver, but the physical act of carving, handling chisels and wood, turned him into a wood carver. And the same thing is often true in our spiritual lives. Acting in faith, using our bodies in prayer and worship, even just making the sign of the cross, can have a deep impact on our spirits. “We ought to take advantage of this union of body and soul and benefit from it during prayer…. repeating the metanoia [repentance] gesture, even when it is performed only with the body, is just as effective as tears in breaking the spell of that interior ‘wildness’ and insensitivity that seems to kill all spiritual life within us. In a mysterious way the body, which in its posture is actually the ‘icon’ of the soul’s interior disposition (Origin), ultimately draws the reluctant soul along with it” (Gabriel Bunge, Earthen Vessels, pp. 178-79). 

Years ago, a friend of mine shared that he was at work, feeling oppressed and weighed down and he impulsively shouted out loud, “praise the Lord!” And suddenly the weight on his spirit disappeared. He understood it at the time as a victory over demonic oppression, and this may be accurate. But his help came through something he did with his body, not just thinking or praying silently but shouting out loud in praise of God. If we’re stuck spiritually, we may be helped by a new book or a sermon, but we also may find help by walking into a church, dipping our fingers in holy water, making the sign of the cross, and kneeling in the Lord’s presence. Or, at other times, going for a walk in the woods, praising God out loud for the beauty He has created. Responding to God with our bodies can breathe new life into our spirits.

The Communion of Saints and the Family of Faith

I started collecting icons after returning from a week at Little Portion Hermitage in Arkansas. I was familiar with icons before that, but experiencing them everywhere I turned during that week was life-changing, a constant reminder of the world of heaven. Even though I was a Protestant pastor at the time, I started hanging icons in my church office, and since leaving pastoral ministry I have been displaying them at home, mostly in my study, where there are icons of Jesus and Mary, and also of Saints Peter and Paul, as well as the 20th century Orthodox St. Paisios of Mount Athos. From time to time I also display icons of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Patrick of Ireland and St. John of the Cross. These all remind me, in a very tangible way, that in prayer I am joining with that great company surrounding the throne of God.

When we turn to Jesus Christ, we become part of the community of believers. St. Cyprian, a 3rd Century bishop and martyr, wrote: “Above all, he who preaches peace and unity did not want us to pray by ourselves in private or for ourselves alone. We do not say ‘My Father, who art in heaven,’ nor ‘Give me this day my daily bread.’ It is not for himself alone that each person asks to be forgiven, not to be led into temptation or to be delivered from evil. Rather, we pray in public as a community, and not for one individual but for all. For the people of God are all one” (From a treatise on the Lord’s Prayer).

In the early Church, when many were being martyred for their faith, believers had a lively sense that when their fellow Christians died they were still closely connected with the Church on earth. The Martyrdom of Polycarp, written in the mid-2nd Century, records that “we took up his bones, which are more valuable than precious stones” and that they gathered together “to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom in commemoration of those who have already fought in the contest, and for the training and preparation of those who will do so in the future.” A short time later Origen argued that “the Church in heaven assists the Church on earth with its prayers” (J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 490). Christians in the early Church thought it made good sense to request the prayers of those who had completed their earthly journey, just as believers on earth request prayer from one another.

But several years ago, in a discussion on this topic, I heard a pastor say, “when we’re in heaven there will be no reason to pray” (since we’ll no longer need to cry out to God for help). But consider these words: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” (Rev. 6:9-10). If these souls in heaven are not praying, what are they doing?

This pastor was thinking of prayer only in terms of making requests based on our own needs, but this seems too limited to me. What about silent prayer, simply sitting in God’s presence or meditating on Scripture? The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives this definition by St. John Damascene: “Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” Placing ourselves in God’s presence is prayer as well as asking things from Him. Or this, from St. Therese of Lisieux: “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven....” (Ibid.).

Is there any reason to think those in heaven are unconcerned about the Church on earth? The martyrs in Revelation 6 are crying out about something going on in this world; and why wouldn’t they also join their prayers with their brethren on earth who are still struggling? I know the question “how do you know the saints can hear us?” But even here on earth we are connected with one another in ways we don’t understand. Dr. Caroline Leaf reports that there are many documented studies of the impact of prayer on people distant from one another and adds that “An innovative experiment was done that showed that we are capable of impacting each other’s minds and brains even when sensory signals (the five senses), electromagnetic signals, mirror neurons, and insula activity have all been removed” (Switch on Your Brain,p.113). Our minds can influence others without direct communication. Is it then unbelievable to think that this great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us is able to hear when we ask for prayer?

The Christian singer/songwriter John Michael Talbot says this about an extraordinary experience God gave him: “After my experience of Paradise, the Holy Mass had opened up for me in a new way. It was like a spiritual explosion; as if all of heaven and earth meet in every word and gesture of the Mass, and especially Jesus in the Eucharist. Every church is crowded with all the angels and saints, patriarchs, prophets, and apostles gathered around us regardless of whether there are three or three thousand gathered” (Late Have I Loved You, p. 138). Every church is crowded with worshipers we can’t see with our eyes; is there any compelling reason why we shouldn’t ask for their prayers?

Learning to Pray the Rosary

In the early 2000’s I became interested in the Rosary.  I was pastoring a Protestant church at the time and really had no idea how to go about it, and I may have been attracted, at first, by the idea of fingering the beads (since I’ve always liked beads anyway).  But I thought rosaries were things of beauty and felt envious of Catholics who had this as a normal part of their prayers.

Around this time I came across a quote by the Anglican priest Austin Farrer: “If I had been asked two dozen years ago for an example of what Christ forbade when he said ‘Use not vain repetitions,’ I should very likely have referred to the fingering of the beads. But now if I wished to name a special sort of private devotion most likely to be of general profit, prayer on the beads is what I should name. Since my previous opinion was based on ignorance and my present opinion is based on experience, I am not ashamed of changing my mind” (“The Heaven-sent Aid,” in Lord I Believe, p. 80).

Farrer offers an alternative to the Hail Mary for those who are not comfortable asking for Mary’s intercession, so I started praying the Rosary using his suggested prayers (and sometimes using the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,” as well). And I found, as he suggested, that the Rosary is a great help in meditating on the major events of the Gospel.

Very soon, though, I was increasingly drawn, in ways I could not explain, to the Marian dimension of the Rosary.  But since this was completely foreign to me as a Protestant, I was on unfamiliar ground; so I talked to Fr. Nick, my spiritual director, about it.  And after questioning me at some length he concluded that this was something God was doing in my life and affirmed that I should go ahead.

So I started using the Hail Mary, slightly guiltily at first, and came to love it so much that I ended up using it, while praying the Rosary, nearly every day. I realized that this was a potential problem for me as an Evangelical pastor and that what I as doing had the potential to ruin my career. But I loved it and found that I was able to draw nearer to God and meditate more deeply on the Gospel events than I could any other way.

I also started reading more about Mary and the development of Marian devotions in the history of the Church to better-understand what I was doing and why it was helping me. The Hail Mary begins with the angel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary, followed by a variation on the words of Elizabeth: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus” (Luke 1:28, 42). Then, the second half is what most Protestants would find objectionable: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” I’ve heard some argue that Mary should only be called the Mother of Jesus, not the Mother of God, but since Jesus is fully man and fully God and Elizabeth identifies Mary as “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43), it shouldn’t be a problem to say that she is the mother of a divine Person, or Theotokos, “birth giver of God,” the name given to her at the council of Ephesus in the early 4th Century (which is the same thing as calling her “mother of God”).

But what about asking for her prayers? I was in a discussion several years ago in a Presbyterian church, where the question came up whether one is permitted to ask the saints to pray for us; one man, an elder in the church, became very angry and insisted “Jesus’ intercession is enough; we don’t need the saints to pray for us!” And no doubt Jesus’ intercession is more than adequate for our needs, but that doesn’t stop us from asking for prayer from others in the Church. (I’ve never heard the question of the adequacy of Jesus’ intercession come up in this context.) So I don’t see any reason, in principle, why we can’t ask for the prayers of those, including Mary, who have gone before us and are now in heaven.

I’ve addressed, in another post (The Benefits of Repetitive Prayer), the issue of repeating the same words over and over, so I won’t say more about that here. But Romano Guardini helpfully describes the Rosary as “a prayer of lingering” and says “The Rosary has the character of a sojourn. Its essence is the sheltering of a quiet, holy world that envelops the person who is praying” (The Rosary of Our Lady, pp. 58, 44).

The Rosary is a “prayer of lingering.” It enables me, over and over again, to linger in the presence of Jesus and to enter more deeply into the major events of His earthly life. I continue praying the Rosary every day, sometimes more than once, and it has become my favorite way of prayer. So I’m thankful for Fr. Nick; his advice was bad for my career, but he wisely discerned that my career was not God’s first priority.

An Unanticipated Destination

Since I recently joined the Roman Catholic Church, it seems appropriate to write out some thoughts about how I’ve gotten here. My journey into the ancient Church has been going on for some time; I’m not even sure when it began, except that my time at Temple University was, in many ways, the beginning. At that time I only opened the door to the possibility that Catholic thinking might be able to contribute something worthwhile in the area of ethics, but I also learned, from personal contact, that it is possible for Catholics to have a real and vibrant faith in Jesus Christ. Apart from this, most of my stereotypes about Catholicism (and Catholics) remained intact.

It was when I was on staff at Elizabethtown BIC Church that I began to realize there was more to Catholicism than I had been led to believe. First, there was J.I. Packer’s description of the Puritans as “Protestant Monastics,” which stirred my interest in monastic spirituality; then there was Eugene Peterson, who draws heavily on Catholic forms of spirituality and prayer. After reading Peterson, I started reading people who had influenced him (Martin Thornton, Thomas Merton, John Henry Newman, Henri Nouwen, etc.), which then suggested others, more than I can name off the top of my head. What began as an attempt at enlarging my prayer life began increasingly to seem like a journey into the ancient Church, either Orthodoxy or Catholicism.

For awhile I was drawn to Orthodoxy, and I am still very much influenced by Orthodox spirituality, especially in the Jesus Prayer and the use of icons. I have visited Orthodox worship services and have talked at length with an Orthodox priest (and also with friends who attend his church). But I had to conclude, in my case, that the destination of this journey is not Eastern Orthodoxy. Richard John Neuhaus’ words are consistent with my own thinking in this area:

“Eastern Orthodoxy is a real alternative for the ecclesial Christian. The churches of the East are recognized as ‘sister churches’ by Rome. Orthodoxy possesses so many of the essentials – apostolic ministry and doctrine, a magnificent richness of liturgy and sacramental life, a powerful theological tradition of humanity’s destined end in the life of God, a fervent devotion to Mary and the saints. One does have to consider Orthodoxy. But I am a Western Christian, with all that it entails. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas on nature and grace, reason and revelation, sin and forgiveness, as well as the Reformation refractions of those great themes and the continuing disputes they have occasioned. Moreover, Orthodoxy is powerfully shaped by ethnic and national identities – Russian, Greek, Romanian, Armenian – to which am a stranger” (Catholic Matters, p. 68).

I also believe, in my case, that one attraction of Orthodoxy was that it provided a way to connect with the ancient Church without committing the unspeakable offense (for a Protestant) of swimming the Tiber. After all, the Protestant movement was protesting against Catholicism, not Orthodoxy, and most Protestants, even theologically-aware Protestants, are only vaguely aware of Orthodoxy.

So far I’ve been describing the process in more-or-less chronological order, but at this point it might be better to shift to a different mode. I’ll begin by listing some reasons why I can no longer see a future for myself in Protestantism and then, later, will describe some specific convictions about the Catholic Church. The difficulty I’m finding with writing all this out is that everything together points in the same direction, so that this is not only an intellectual/theological journey, although it is that. It is also a spiritual journey, and both dimensions have been feeding off each other; but the process began as a spiritual awakening to the riches of the historic Church.

1) The first difficulty for me, in reference to Protestantism, is that Protestantism understands itself (and represents itself) as a restorationist movement: Protestantism is an attempt to return the Church to what it was in the beginning, before all the additions of the medieval period. As I’ve become more acquainted with the early Church fathers, it has become apparent that this is simply not true: Protestantism is a new thing, which is why Protestants tend to look at Church History and Theology through the lens of the Reformation. Protestant thinking, typically, skips over the entire period from the end of the New Testament until the Protestant Reformation (with a very selective appeal to St. Augustine and a few others). The discontinuity is not between the New Testament and the Medieval Church, but between the Church of the early centuries and the churches of the Reformation (recognizing, as the Catholic Church acknowledges, that there was a need for reform in the late Medieval Church)

2) This leads to the problem of denominationalism: Protestants, and especially Evangelical Protestants, think of the Catholic Church as simply one denomination among others. A more accurate picture is to describe denominations as a Protestant phenomenon, so on one side is the Catholic Church and on the other side is a multitude of Protestant denominations and sects. There is no Protestant Church which one can set alongside the Catholic Church for comparison; there is, rather, a Protestant movement, rooted in a schism of the 16th century and with certain common ideas but no tangible sense of internal cohesion.

But if Protestantism was truly a reform movement in the One Church, why couldn’t it survive even one generation as a single, identifiable body? And now, over 500 years later, why is there such a vast number (somewhere in the tens of thousands) of different bodies that have no interest in the restoration of visible unity? Appeal is frequently made to the idea of the invisible Church, and Protestants I speak with often are satisfied with the idea that there is an invisible unity among those who truly belong to Jesus, which makes visible unity unnecessary. But in His High Priestly prayer, Jesus prays for His disciples to be one, “so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” This is clearly pointing to something more than an invisible connection between true believers in various bodies that will have nothing to do with one another. Jesus is praying for a visible unity that convinces the world of the truth of the gospel. Is Protestantism capable of visible unity? It seems unlikely, given the consistent pattern of fractiousness from the 16th century until now.

3) I increasingly see the Reformation solas as departures from, rather than a return to, the early Church. One looks in vain, in the early Fathers, for teaching so support justification by faith alone. The New Testament teaches justification by faith, indeed, but there is a consistent pattern of tying faith to actions by incarnating the life of Christ in His disciples. Sola Fides loses sight of this synergistic relationship between faith and good works, which is why Martin Luther had so much trouble with the Epistle of St. James (and why many Lutheran scholars continue to see a conflict between James and the apostle Paul).

Sola Scriptura is even less defensible, especially as it is commonly understood and taught. I was taught in classes at an Evangelical college that the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism is a conflict over authority: the Catholic Church believes in Scripture + Tradition while Protestants believe in the authority of Scripture alone. In actual practice in present-day American Evangelical Protestantism, authority resides not in Scripture, but in the individual interpreter of Scripture (I decide which church to attend based on whether or not it fits my understanding). This tendency becomes more and more pronounced as Scripture is removed from its place in corporate worship in the interest of not offending seekers. But even in more theologically-oriented churches, Scripture is not understood in a vacuum, but is read from within the perspective, or tradition, of that particular group.

Then there is the troubling fact that Paul refers to the Church, not Scripture, as the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Protestants, of necessity, have to ask, “which Church?” If it’s the early Church, even the Church of the first five centuries (roughly covering the period of discernment about the Canon of Scripture), Protestants are in trouble, because even at this early period the Church was embracing things that Protestants find repugnant (monasticism, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, invoking the saints, and devotion to Mary as the Theotokos – or “birth giver of God”).

Even confining this idea to the Church of the Apostolic Fathers is problematic for Protestants, because in reading these very early writers one asks “which church in existence today is in continuity with these writers, many of whom were being martyred for their faith?” John Henry Newman effectively demonstrates the continuity between the early Church and the Roman Catholic Church of the 19th century: As the Church continues to reflect on Scripture, according to Newman, the riches that were lodged in the revelation from the beginning unfold over time: “the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients, but, as being received and transmitted by minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation” (An Essay on the Development of Doctrine, pp. 29-30). It’s a daunting task to find this kind of continuity between the early Fathers and the churches of the Reformation; the usual approach is to confine one’s perspective to the New Testament understood within the context of Reformation Christianity. In this way, it becomes clear that the conflict of authority is not about the validity of Tradition but a conflict over which tradition is authoritative: the Apostolic Tradition received by the early Church Fathers and the successors to the apostles or the Reformation Tradition, received from the Reformers of the 16th Century in their attempts to address the excesses of the late medieval Catholic Church.

On the positive side, I’ve consistently found Catholicism to be more and have increasingly found the spiritual and intellectual world of Protestantism to be less. I believe that was the intention behind Thomas Howard’s book, shortly before he became a Catholic, Evangelical is Not Enough. Evangelicalism has faithfully represented part of the gospel, but it is a reductionist movement that has stripped the historic Church of many of its riches. This realization began, for me, in the discovery of Catholic spirituality (the Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina, the Rosary, Contemplative Prayer) and sacramentalism.

But encountering these things more than 20 years ago inevitably led into the area of theological reflection, and as I read Catholic works of theology I discovered two things that are important in this connection: 1) that most of what I had read about Catholic theology from Protestant writers was not true; and 2) that the Catholic explanations of Scripture were more consistent with the whole of Scripture (without the incurable denominational tendency to explain away inconvenient texts): things that I had always found puzzling – like the troubling connection in the New Testament between baptism and salvation, or the unavoidable Eucharistic emphasis in John 6 – began to make far more sense. At this point, to give myself to any one expression of Protestantism seems intolerably confining. There is more room, both intellectually and spiritually, in the Catholic Church. As Chesterton observed, “when he has entered the Church, [the convert] finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside” (The Catholic Church and Conversion).

I should probably add a few comments about Mary, since Catholic devotion to Mary is often the biggest stumbling block to Evangelicals. From an Evangelical Protestant perspective, on the outside looking in, it seems, of necessity, that any kind of Marian emphasis detracts from the preeminence of Jesus. But whether this is true is as much an empirical question as a theological one. Pope John Paul II worried about this early in his life, but he said he came to see that not only does Mary lead us to Jesus, Jesus also leads us to Mary. His experience was that in drawing nearer to Jesus he also came to a more exalted understanding of Mary. The usual evangelical assessment of John Paul is that he was an exceptionally godly man who, unfortunately, put too much emphasis on Mary. But what if, rather than an unfortunate and relatively inconsequential addition, his Marian emphasis was a necessary part of his extraordinary Christ-centeredness? The same things could also be said about Mother Theresa. The things I read in this area from Catholic writers emphasize that Mary always points beyond herself to Jesus, so that in drawing near to her (in the communion of saints) we necessarily are drawn to exalt Jesus more (because Mary is the ultimate model of self-emptying discipleship).

I've found this quote by Tom Howard helpful: "A parsimonious notion of God's glory has been one result of the revulsion felt by so many over the [sometimes excessive] honor paid to Mary, as though to say, If God alone is all-glorious, then no one else is glorious at all. No exaltation may be admitted for any other creature, since this would endanger the exclusive prerogative of God. But this is to imagine a paltry court. What king surrounds himself with warped, dwarfish, worthless creatures? The more glorious the king, the more glorious are the titles and honors he bestows" (Evangelical is Not Enough, p. 87). Think of how exalted the eldil are in Perelandra (by C.S. Lewis), and yet they are only creatures. To see Mary as now having been highly exalted (honoring the promise, "those who humble themselves will be exalted”) in the end should lead to a more exalted understanding of God (as long as we follow through in our thinking and don't stop at Mary herself; there's a good reason why Orthodox icons never present Mary alone, but always have her with Jesus).

More needs to be said before I end about the less tangible dimension of this journey, and I’ve saved this till last because I find it easier to talk about ideas. I have felt almost irresistibly drawn to the Catholic Church in ways that I am unable to fully explain; I even tried to live as a Catholic for 15 years without entering the Catholic Church, but it’s now clear that I’m unable to escape the longing to be received into full communion in the Church of the Apostles, the Church “most fully and rightly ordered through time” (Richard John Neuhaus). This all started as an attempt to deepen and enrich my prayer life, but it has ended up leading me in a direction I never sought or anticipated. I suppose the best explanation I’ve found for this is from Richard Neuhaus: “all the grace and truth to be found outside the boundaries of the Catholic Church gravitate toward unity with the Catholic Church” (Catholic Matters, p. 106).