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).

The Church is Alive

After Pope Benedict died Hallow had an 8-day series of remembrances about him, which included excerpts from his writings.

The first excerpt was from his papal homily on April 24, 2005:

“All of us belong to the communion of Saints, we who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we who draw life from the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood, through which he transforms us and makes us like himself. Yes, the Church is alive — this is the wonderful experience of these days. During those sad days of the Pope’s illness and death, it became wonderfully evident to us that the Church is alive. And the Church is young. She holds within herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way towards the future. The Church is alive and we are seeing it; we are experiencing the joy that the Risen Lord promised his followers. The Church is alive — she is alive because Christ is alive, because he is truly risen....”

This was followed by the Litany of the Saints, and during the litany I was powerfully aware of being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, that these saints who lived in this world in past centuries are alive now before the throne of God. I recently heard a friend say that Christians are not supposed to speak to people who are dead; but these saints are not dead. They died in this world, but they are alive now in God’s presence. 

The Church is alive and the Church is young, and when we enter the Church, whether we’re aware of it or not, we become part of this great company gathered before God’s throne. GK Chesterton said something that reminds me of the description of the new Narnia in The Last Battle: “At the last moment of all, the convert often feels as if he were looking through a leper’s window. He is looking through a little crack or crooked hole that seems to grow smaller as he stares at it; but it is an opening that looks towards the Altar. Only when he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside” (The Catholic Church and Conversion). In The Last Battle, the characters enter a dark shed, but when they walk through the door they find themselves in a large, spacious country; and as they begin their exploration, the unicorn says, “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”

Part of what it means when we say that the Church is larger from the inside than from the outside is that when we enter we find that we are surrounded by this great company of those who went before us and are now worshiping before the throne of God. Being part of the Church is more than going to sing songs and be instructed about the Bible; it involves entering into something larger than we can imagine, where we can begin the life of eternity, going “further up and further in” forever and ever.

Journeying into the Ancient Church (revision of “A Mere Christian Journey”)

“You just need to choose a theological camp and commit yourself to it,” my friend said in exasperation. He was concerned for me, and he couldn’t understand why I couldn’t fully commit myself to any one denominational position. I think by this point he would have been content with an arbitrary decision.  I just needed to join a (Protestant) theological camp and stick with it.

My problem was what I saw as the provisional nature of denominational authority. Advocates of each position have ways to defend their ideas from Scripture, but they disagree with one another in very important ways (and, of course, each is sure that all the others are wrong). But their authority is based on their ability to make a credible defense to me, as an individual. A number of years ago, a family visited the church I was pastoring, and one of the first things they asked me for was a doctrinal statement. They wanted to make sure that we were in line, theologically, with their understanding of Scripture (and, since we were not, they ended up attending somewhere else). In practice, denominational authority rests not in the Scriptures or in the Church, but in the interpreting individual, and the problem with this, for me, was that the more I learned, the more I saw the inadequacies of whichever system I was trying to embrace. I couldn’t commit myself unless I was convinced, but even after I was convinced there was the possibility that further investigation and a better argument would lead me somewhere else.

After committing my life to Christ in a Pentecostal church, I believed that speaking in tongues is the sign of receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. But then I began to encounter, both in person and in my reading, Christians who showed strong evidence of the presence of the Spirit but who had never spoken in tongues. After reading John Calvin and an assortment of the Puritans and their successors, I embraced Reformed Theology. I became a Presbyterian, certain that this was where I belonged. But I discovered, among Reformed Christians, a remarkable tendency to fragment in search of a truer version of the Reformed Faith. A friend of mine left the Orthodox Presbyterian Church a number of years ago and started meeting with a group of people he found online, because he believed these people were more serious about the Westminster Confession of Faith. Since most Presbyterians I knew admitted that others outside the denomination were true Christians–but that Presbyterianism was a fuller, truer expression of Christianity– it was clear that Presbyterianism was less than the fullness of the Church, which raised the question, “why do our differences with other believing orthodox Christians necessitate separation into different church bodies?” 

I’ve heard various explanations for this. Some are based on a desire to maintain doctrinal purity in the church: “of course, it’s true that these people are part of the body of Christ, but they have certain theological errors which we can’t tolerate in the church.” Others are based on pragmatic concerns: “you can’t build a church life with people who disagree theologically.” Mind you, those concerned about doctrinal purity don’t normally accuse their opponents of actual heresy; both sides acknowledge one another as theologically orthodox, which raises the question, “if God puts up with their ‘errors’ and remains in fellowship with them, why can’t we?” Is doctrinal uniformity more important than showing forbearance toward one another in the light of our continuing imperfection and God’s gracious acceptance of us? I found myself enriched and challenged by worshiping and working with believers from other theological perspectives during my four years with the missions group Operation Mobilization. We were free to talk about our differences as long as we treated one another with respect. What I learned from this experience is that it is possible for Christians who think differently to worship together, recognizing that our oneness in Christ is more important than those differences which are rooted in our present state of imperfection.

During my first 20 years as a Christian, the one constant was my assumption that Roman Catholicism was a corrupt form of Christianity. Then, in graduate school, I began interacting with, and reading, Catholic thinkers. I found, in Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Novak, a serious engagement with culture and a passionate commitment to the gospel. I went on to discover John Henry Newman, Romano Guardini, G.K. Chesterton, Thomas Howard and many others, Roman Catholics with a deep, solid commitment to Jesus Christ. Somewhere along the way I also discovered Eastern Orthodoxy and found Orthodox writers feeding my soul with their reflections on Scripture and their teachings on prayer. 

Over the years since I left Operation Mobilization I’ve favored the term, ‘mere Christianity,’ but the problem is, where in the Church does one go to be a mere Christian? It’s simpler if one is settled in a tradition and is able to exist there with an appreciation for the larger historic Church. In the mid-1990's, in my desire to find a church home after I left Presbyterianism, I decided to connect with the small Pietistic Anabaptist denomination I had encountered in college. I had not become Anabaptist by conviction, but this particular group had a history of embracing one another across significant theological differences (similar to what I had experienced during my years with OM), so I thought there would be freedom there, at least, to continue exploring and thinking. I even became a pastor and served in ministry for eight years. But at the same time that I was moving into a deeper appreciation of the historic Church, the leaders of my denomination were embracing the mega-church movement and were increasingly uncomfortable with the things that had drawn me to their church. After eight years I again found myself ecclesially homeless, having been invited by my bishop to find ministry opportunities elsewhere. The problem with trying to be a mere Christian is not how  to do so in a stable church environment; the question is how to find a stable church environment when one is in a state of theological and ecclesiological development, given the fragmentary nature of North American Christianity.  Dwight Longnecker points out that those seeking to be mere Christians increasingly find themselves, like me, without a church home (More Christianity, p. 30).

As I have continued to reflect on all this, I’ve begun to see a pattern, an overarching tendency, in this long, and frequently perplexing, journey. I’ve been, over the years, even without knowing it, looking for a rooted authority (rather than an arbitrary authority based on my limited understanding as an individual interpreter); and I’ve been looking for largeness and fullness (as opposed to the highly fragmentary and reductive nature of denominationalism). This points in the direction of two words, both of which are contained in the Nicene Creed: Apostolic, for a rooted authority; and Catholic, for the largeness and fullness of the Church, which leads me to believe I have been mistaken in limiting my search to the world of denominational Protestantism.

The early Church submitted to the writings of the apostles, but also to their verbal instructions.  So a Church that is Apostolic is rooted in both the verbal and written teachings handed on to the following generations of leaders: according to the apostle Paul, the Church, rather than the Bible, is the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). And a Church that is Catholic seeks to embody the fullness of Christian possibilities, not striving for a doctrinal purity which reduces the Church by setting one group of Christians apart from all others.  Several years ago I came across the term “More Christianity” (Dwight Longnecker), expressing the need for something more than the least-common-denominator approach of Mere Christianity that I have embraced in the past.  Longnecker, a former evangelical who became Catholic, notes that “Catholics affirm all that other Christians affirm; they simply cannot deny what they deny” (p. 37).

The problem with the journey I’ve been describing is that I have been the one in charge, making authoritative judgments about church teachings.  With the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, authority ends up residing not in Scripture, but in the individual.  Each church needs to sell itself to me, but I make the final determination about whether it is true to the Bible. In rejecting the authority of the Church, the Reformation ended up placing authority in the individual.  

I increasingly agree with Louis Bouyer, who argues in The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism that the Reformers were generally right in the things they affirmed and wrong in the things they denied; this led to a loss of the fullness of Christian teaching.  In the terms listed above, the Roman Catholic Church is Apostolic, rooted in the apostles and their successors, and it is Catholic, holding onto the full richness that God has given to His people.  I can listen with confidence to the Church established by Jesus Christ and built on the foundation of apostles and prophets.  I don’t need to choose a theological camp based on my limited understanding; I can submit with confidence to the historic Church as teacher, the “pillar and foundation of truth.”

Thinking Outside the Box

In November of 2000, Richard Foster wrote in his newsletter that the mega-churches “have within them the seeds of perpetual superficiality.  The mega-church by its very nature must gravitate toward an ​“entertainment religion” which turns worship into a constant effort to keep people occupied and happy.”  When I was a pastor, the denominational leadership was enamored with the mega-church approach, and the big push from my bishop’s office was a challenge for pastors to “think outside the box.” 

But thinking and superficiality don’t go well together.  In an email discussion with other pastors, I raised a question about discipleship and about whether people being brought in by church growth strategies were indeed becoming disciples, and the reaction from other pastors was hostile.  They were simply not open to asking this question; of course they were making disciples; they were bringing people into the kingdom.  Who would ever even doubt this? Then, later, a friend of mine asked our bishop if there was room in the denomination for thinkers, and his response was “no.”  He wanted pastors who were bringing about measurable numerical growth and thinkers, I suspect, might get in the way of that.

So what did he mean by thinking outside the box?  He wanted pastors to think about more effective ways to bring more people into the church: things like using power point or inserting video clips in sermons.  The field for thinking acceptably outside the box was limited to strategies for “growing the church,” and did not extend to anything else.

But at the same time, they did try to market themselves as people who were using their minds.  That was clear in the advertisements from one of the new church plants in describing their pastor.  They wanted him to appear as someone engaged in thinking creatively, as someone using his mind.  But it was an empty claim.

As things have turned out, there seems to be some doubt about what churches like Willow Creek (which was the model for many of our pastors) were actually accomplishing.  People were coming in the front door while others were going out the back.  They were not successful in making disciples; they were just contributing to measurable numerical growth.  What these people coming in the front door were being “won” to is another question altogether.  Not being open to rethinking and reevaluating was a harmful thing; a church needs to have room for thinkers, people who will truly think outside the box, maybe in ways the leadership will not like but which could prevent longer-term problems. 

The Oddest Inkling

A few months ago, the reading group I belong to discussed a Charles Williams novel. Williams was a member of the Inklings and a close friend of CS Lewis. I first started reading him after reading an interview with JI Packer, who recommended him highly as someone with a strong awareness of the supernatural world.

In the introduction to The Descent of the Dove, a history of the Holy Spirit in the Church, WH Auden writes: “In his company one felt twice as intelligent and infinitely nicer than, out of it, one knew oneself to be. It wasn’t simply that he was a sympathetic listener — he talked a lot and he talked well — but, more than anyone else I have ever known, he gave himself completely to the company that he was in.”

TS Eliot, similarly, wrote an introduction to All Hallows’ Eve (one of Williams’ more unsettling books): “Some men are less than their works, some are more. Charles Williams cannot be placed in either class. To have known the man would have been enough; to know his books is enough; but no one who has known both the man and his works would have willingly foregone either experience. I can think of no other writer who was more wholly the same man in his life and in his writings.”

And yet, he didn’t impress everyone in a positive way. He and CS Lewis were close friends, but JRR Tolkien disliked his books, and Lewis’ enthusiasm about Williams put a strain on his friendship with Tolkien (who blamed That Hideous Strength, the third volume in the space trilogy, on Williams’ influence). Alan Jacobs, in The Narnian, suggests that anyone reading his biography will tend to find him “somewhat creepy.” And he finds Williams’ novels “deeply disturbing.” Since I haven’t yet read his biography, I can’t comment on what Jacobs says about it, but I can see why he finds the novels, especially All Hallows’ Eve, disturbing. But still, CS Lewis, WH Auden and TS Eliot believed they, in some sense, became better people through his personal influence.

JI Packer, the one who first interested me in Williams, says, “With a powerful imagination fed by Trinitarian and incarnational faith, Charles Williams used fiction to explore how people react when the supernatural enters their lives, and how then to find the path of peace. The fantasy novels that resulted make a riveting read.” And TS Eliot makes a similar observation: “For him there was no frontier between the material and the spiritual world.... To him the supernatural was perfectly natural, and the natural was also supernatural.” That’s the thing that keeps bringing me back to his books, this intense awareness of the supernatural in our lives.