Paul’s Joyful Debt, Romans 1:8-15

Debts and obligations can be crushing and burdensome. Being driven by a sense of duty is usually not a pleasant thing, either for us or those around us. I remember flying from San Francisco to San Diego to begin my training as a Hull Technician in 1975. Seated next to me was an older man traveling for some kind of business, and very early in the flight he handed me some literature and said a few words about the gospel, but there was a grudging sense about it, like he didn’t want to do it and probably didn’t want to talk to me but was doing it out of a sense of duty. I was already a believer and told him that, but as we talked it turned out that I didn’t attend the kind of church he approved of. It wasn’t a very pleasant interaction, but fortunately it’s a short flight, so we didn’t have to talk for long. And maybe he thought he’d done his duty by witnessing to someone on the plane.

Paul, in these verses, is driven by a sense of obligation—he tells us so in verse 14–but it’s a joyful obligation, one that he is anxious to fulfill. He feels indebted to the Roman Christians, but he’s not grudging about it. He doesn’t have to drag himself but is driven by a sense of joyful obligation to preach the gospel in Rome.

The first thing here is that Paul’s sense of obligation is rooted in prayer.  He talks about this in verses 8-10, emphasizing his gratitude for what God is doing among them. It strikes me here that Paul sees prayer as part of his ministry. He says “I serve with my spirit in the gospel.” We can get into trouble when we imagine that there is a conflict between prayer and work, thinking that prayer is something we need to do, but feeling guilty because when we’re praying we’re not “getting anything done.” 

We often hear, when there’s been a mass shooting and people say they’re praying for everyone affected, the sentiment that “we don’t need your prayers; we need policy change to make these things stop,” assuming that changes in government are more effective than crying out to God. But I also think we can fall into a more subtle form of this thinking, because praying doesn’t take things off our “to do” list, and the pressure of things that need to be done can be overwhelming. I was once with a group of pastors when nearly all of them admitted to an unsatisfactory prayer life because they were just too busy doing the work of the church. Congregational expectations can weigh very heavily, and many members are not overly supportive of pastors spending substantial amounts of time in prayer when there are so many things that need to be done. But it’s important to remind ourselves that Paul didn’t see any conflict here, that he served with his spirit in the gospel both by praying and by preaching.

In the case of the Christians at Rome, the only thing Paul has been able to do so far is pray for them, since he has been prevented from visiting. But his prayers for them don’t seem to be occasional, passing things when he thinks of it. He says “without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers.” I have things I pray about when they come to mind, which is very different than what Paul is talking about here. He’s never been to Rome, never met these people; and, after all, he has all the churches he founded and fellow-workers that he prays for. How does he have the time and energy to invest this kind of prayer for the Christians in Rome? But his persistent prayers lead him to continue asking God to make it possible for him to visit them.

This leads to the second thing, which is that Paul perseveres in planning a visit despite repeated setbacks, because he believes God is calling him there. He is aware that God has given him something to offer them, something that will build them up in their faith. He could have said to himself, “well, I’ve tried to go there and God keeps closing the door, so it looks like He doesn’t want me to go.” Sometimes that’s a valid conclusion; but Paul seemingly couldn’t let go of it in this case and he persevered.

George Verwer, the founder of Operation Mobilization, died a year or so ago, but he had a huge impact on my life. Before I saw him the first time I had read a few of his books and listened to taped sermons, so I had some expectations of what he would be like. But the first time I saw him in person the thing that was overwhelmingly clear was that he genuinely cared about us. I was there as part of a summer program and he was preparing us to go out on our teams. But I could see clearly that he was more concerned about our growth and long-term survival as followers of Jesus than he was about whatever work he could get out of us. And he was aware that God had given him things that would help build us up as Christians. I’ve known pragmatic leaders who were so focused on the job they wanted done that they saw people as objects, or tools. George was not like that at all, and over the years I knew him it was very clear that he was more concerned about us than he was about the work we were doing.

I’ve also mentioned a man I met in North India, A.R. Fromman, a 92-year-old missionary my team stayed with. He was originally from England, and he invited me, together with the other American on the team, to eat breakfast with him each day; and while Ron and I were eating breakfast his own food would get cold, because he poured out his heart speaking to us. He wasn’t a compulsive talker; he was just conscious that God had given him much to offer. He saw himself as a steward of things that would help build our faith, and the week we spent with him made a lasting impact on me.

Paul is like that. He’s aware that God has gifted him in a way that can benefit the believers in Rome, but he’s also aware that this giving is not one-sided. He goes on to say “that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.” He is looking forward to fellowship with the Roman Christians and is expecting that being with them will build his faith as well as theirs. So, despite repeated attempts and failures to visit, he still believes God wants him to go to Rome.

Then, the third thing to notice is Paul’s eagerness. He believes he has something to offer, and the gifts God has given him put him in their debt: “I am under obligation both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” But feeling a strong sense of obligation can lead us to do things purely out of duty, or even guilt, like the man I mentioned at the beginning.

It’s true, too, that obedience to God is obligatory, but if we think of it as something we have to drag ourselves to do this is something less than the kind of obedience Paul has in mind here. He’s not dragging his feet; he tells the Roman Christians that he is eager to preach the gospel to them.

Why is Paul so eager? This is more than a strong sense of personal motivation; it’s more than a matter of personality, although we can see in Acts, before his conversion, that he was a driven person. But someone who is driven with a sense of his own duty can be cold and indifferent to the needs and feelings of other people, which is not true of Paul. Listen to what he says to the Corinthians in his second letter: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (5:19-20). Paul’s eagerness to preach the gospel is rooted in his awareness that he is speaking on God’s behalf, that he has been entrusted with a message that will reconcile them to their Creator. He’s not selling a product or trying to meet a numerical goal. He’s been entrusted with a message that is precious beyond imagination. He is in debt to the Romans because he has been entrusted with a precious message that they desperately need to hear. And he’s anxious to share it with them to help them along on the journey to eternal life.

If we want to be more like Paul, this is the place to begin. Not learning a new evangelistic strategy or technique, but cultivating an increased awareness of what the gospel is, spending time in God’s presence meditating on what it means to be people who are, by nature, “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3) but who have now, by the free gift of God, been reconciled to Him.

Becoming Who We Are, Romans 1:1-7

Shortly after I became a Christian, in 1974, I was talking to our next-door neighbor and she asserted that Christianity was actually invented by the apostle Paul. She was very assured about this (as she was about pretty-much anything she said), and I really didn’t know enough at the time to argue with her (not that doing so would have helped anyway). And over the years since then I’ve occasionally heard this repeated by others.

Recently there was a post on First Things Journal criticizing the effects of the Sexual Revolution and one person commented “why are Christians so obsessed with sex?” I had to wonder whether the commentator had even read the article, since this was not in any way connected with the substance; but it reflects a common perception, that Christianity is about limiting our choice, keeping us from doing things we want to do. And I often hear Paul blamed for this concern about behavior. The idea is that people should be left to do what they want without all these unnecessary rules and limitations.

But Paul is saying something much different in these verses. Earlier in his life he had been a Pharisee, a strict observer of the Law, but that had all changed, not because of something he invented through his own ingenuity. In fact, he was violently opposed to Christianity and was committed to destroying it. He didn’t invent Christianity at all, and after his conversion he preached a message completely at odds with his former way of life. God called Paul in a surprising way, making changes Paul never could have imagined, and what he is saying in these verses is that God’s purpose in calling us to Himself is not to stifle our freedom but to enable us to become what we were intended to be from the beginning. 

I want to call attention to three things in this passage. The first is that God has done something amazing in Paul’s life. He had been a strict Pharisee who hated Christianity and had even gotten authority to bring Christians forcibly to Jerusalem for punishment. But then Jesus had confronted him on the road to Damascus and completely turned his life around. So now, writing to the church in Rome, he describes himself as a servant, a slave, of Jesus Christ, one whose life is now given to the very thing he had opposed so strongly. He’s now become one of the people he was committed to destroying.

And he goes on to describe himself as an apostle who has been “set apart” for the gospel of God, a gospel that was promised beforehand by God. It’s not something new, as he had formerly assumed; and it’s not something that Paul invented but is rooted in the promises of God in Scripture. Jesus is “descended from David according to the flesh,” fulfilling God’s promises to David centuries before. The gospel Paul preaches is not something he came to after a process of reasoning, it’s something given by God and deeply rooted in His works in the past.

Before his conversion Paul was known as Saul, and when Jesus confronted him on the Damascus Road He said “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Paul thought he was persecuting heretics and found that he was really fighting against the Lord of Creation. So he submitted and spent the rest of his life preaching the message he had tried to destroy. He came to the conclusion that he had been wrong about Christianity, that it was a message rooted in the Scriptures, in the promises of God.

The second thing to notice is how Paul describes the church in Rome. He says they are “loved by God and called to be saints.” He begins by emphasizing that they are loved by God. God loves them and wants the best for them; he calls them to be saints, or holy ones, people who are set apart and called by His name. I’ve sometimes heard preachers point out that what Paul says here is that they are “called saints,” since the words “to be” are not there in the original, making the point that all Christians are saints, in opposition to the Catholic Church labeling certain people in history as saints. But this passage really doesn’t support what they are trying to say. We are all, indeed, called saints, and God’s call is for us to increasingly live in a way consistent with that name, to live as people who have been set apart for God. The people who are called saints in the Catholic Church are just people who lived out that calling in an exemplary way.

But this calling is rooted in God’s love for them, not His desire to control their lives or stifle their freedom. The truth is that doing whatever we want leads us into bondage in the end. We can see abundant evidence of this in the world around us. God’s love motivates Him to seek what is best for us, and He, the One who made us, knows how we function best. I’ve often heard about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI that if he hadn’t spent his life in church leadership he would have been a world-class theologian on the level of someone like Karl Barth. As it was, he wrote many wonderful books, but he also immersed himself in the life of the Church, which consumed much of his time. And throughout his life he sought to walk with Jesus and to Honor Him. I read, around the time of his death, that some of his last words were “Jesus, I love you.” God knew what was best for Joseph Ratzinger, and it wasn’t the quiet, scholarly life he might have chosen for himself but a life spent giving himself for the good of the Church.

The third thing here is that God has done this all through Jesus Christ, who was descended from David according to the flesh, but then was “declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.” The resurrection is a powerful declaration of Jesus’ divine nature, that He is both fully human and fully divine. This is the One who confronted Saul the angry Pharisee and turned him into Paul the apostle. Jesus is named four times in these verses: Paul identifies himself as a “servant of Christ Jesus;” after giving Jesus’ history he names Him “Jesus Christ our Lord;” says the people in Rome are “called to belong to Jesus Christ;” and also names Him, together with God the Father, as the One who gives grace and peace.  Our calling is to “belong to Jesus Christ,” to be saints, people lovingly set apart by God to live our lives in His name, growing in “the obedience of faith,” an obedience rooted in faith.

As we give our lives to God, seeking to live in obedience to Him, we increasingly become the people we were created to be. And this brings glory and honor to God. May He enable us to offer ourselves to Him daily and repeatedly throughout our lives, to grow in His image and increasingly become the saints we are called to be. And may He enable us to grow in love for our Lord so that we may arrive at the end of our lives, as Joseph Ratzinger did, praying “Jesus, I love you,” waiting to be welcomed into His presence.

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 to 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.

Discipled Through Books

John Denver says this in one of his songs:

   “I guess growing isn't hard to do

    Just stand against the wall

    Once I was just two feet high

    Today I'm six feet tall”

“Growing isn’t hard to do,” because physical growth just happens over time. We don’t have to think about it or do anything to bring it about. But spiritual growth is completely different and requires an intentional effort. I really struggled with this as a new Christian. I hadn’t grown up in the church, so the idea of spiritual growth was new to I me. And, to complicate things further, almost immediately after becoming a Christian I entered the US Navy.

Boot camp was a struggle for me as a new believer, because not only did I have no understanding of how to grow, I had no resources to make use of apart from the weekly worship services, which turned out to be very helpful (although the drill instructors reminded us as we left to attend church, “your soul may belong to Jesus, but don’t forget that your ass belongs to Uncle Sam”).

After boot camp I started damage control school at Treasure Island in San Francisco. Since I had become a Christian partly under the influence of the book Run, Baby, Run, by Nicky Cruz, I looked up the address of Teen Challenge in San Francisco and took a bus out there for a visit, arriving unannounced one evening.

I don’t know what I was hoping to find there. The people I met at Teen Challenge seemed to be generally discouraged themselves, and they certainly didn’t have much of anything to offer me, although one of the guys warmly reminded me that Jesus is our hope and that I needed to find strength in Him. The problem was that I didn’t know how to go about doing this.

After damage control school I was being sent to shipfitting school in San Diego, but during my time at Treasure Island I often traveled home to attend the Christian Life Center in Santa Rosa. One Sunday a guy named Frank Hernandez told me that he and his associates, a group called Agape Force, were also going to be in San Diego, so I went looking for him shortly after arriving there.

What I had been looking for, both from Teen Challenge and from Frank Hernandez (who I was never able to find) was fellowship with older, more mature believers. And what I ended up doing was finding this, for the most part, in reading Christian books. This has been the driving force behind my reading in all the years since that time. I recently read this quote from George Verwer (who has been a major influence in my life): “I came to Jesus because of a praying woman, a gospel of John, and Billy Graham. I was discipled largely through life-changing books.”

I did later encounter other believers — George Verwer, for example — who were a great encouragement and help to me, but Christian books became, and continue to be, a mainstay in my Christian growth.

Baptism And Formation

Our church organist approached me with a concern.  A man who had been attending for some time appeared to be dying.  I had visited him and prayed with him, but she was worried because, he “hadn’t made that decision.”  When she tried to talk to him about it he told her about his baptism; he had been baptized as an adult at another church before he came to ours.  But he “hadn’t made that decision,” so she wanted me to go and talk to him about it.

I started thinking about this afterward.  Why is “making that decision,” whatever this really means, more important and decisive than receiving baptism?  The stereotypical Evangelical formula of accepting Jesus as one’s personal Savior is not a biblical idea, nor is “making that decision.”  But baptism is.  And yet, for many evangelicals, baptism is seriously diminished, and the thing that really counts is making a decision, or praying the sinner’s prayer, or whatever form of conversion is in vogue with that group.

And yet, baptism is clearly taught by Jesus and has been practiced in the church since the beginning.  The Great Commission includes a command to baptize, not to persuade people to accept Jesus as their personal savior.  So why is baptism ignored in some circles?  Or, if not ignored, pushed into the background, treated as relatively unimportant.  I’m sure our organist would have subscribed to our denomination’s view that baptism is only a public witness, or statement, of one’s faith.  So “making that decision” was the place where the exercise of saving faith took place, and the only function of baptism was to make that public.

But I also remember in the past being puzzled about the value of baptism.  It goes by very quickly; what if I wasn’t properly recollected at that moment?  I didn’t think this would cancel out my baptism, but I was concerned that maybe I didn’t receive all I could have, and now my one chance was over.  I didn’t know at the time about Martin Luther’s emphasis on the spiritual benefits of looking back on our baptism.

When Paul speaks about us having died and risen with Christ in baptism, it’s difficult to believe that he saw baptism as nothing but a public statement of a private, personal faith.  Baptism is much more important than that and it has an ongoing effect on our lives in Christ as we remind ourselves of what took place when we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The practice, in some churches, of making the sign of the cross with holy water, is meant to be a reminder, a making-present, of one’s baptism.

So I now think it doesn’t really matter whether or not I was perfectly recollected at the moment of my baptism.  I probably was not.  What is important is to know that I was baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus and to bring this to mind often; to know that this leads to a new life of following Jesus, and to live increasingly in the light of my baptism. 

Why I Read Frederick Buechner

My first exposure to Frederick Buechner was a recorded sermon that was assigned for an independent study in homiletics.  I don’t remember anything about the sermon except that I didn’t like it and thought his vision of the Christian life was less than it should have been. 

A few years later I read Lion Country, the first of four novels centered around Leo Bebb, and my reaction to that was about the same.  Leo Bebb and his associates are not very impressive people, to say the least, and God doesn’t intervene in their lives to turn them around; they just go on in the same way throughout the series.  I had heard and read of God doing extraordinary things in people’s lives, dramatic, overwhelming things.  Like in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, by Jonathan Edwards, or the story of DL Moody experiencing the Holy Spirit and asking God to stop because he felt like he couldn’t take any more.  My expectation, at this point, was that this is the way God normally works in the lives of His people, by making His presence known in overwhelming and unmistakable ways, and I was disappointed, maybe even offended, by what I took to be Buechner’s low expectations.

But I’ve changed my mind since then.  My outlook when I was younger was colored by some measure of youthful idealism, I think.  And I didn’t pay enough attention to Edwards’ description of this work of God as “surprising.”  What he saw happening was not the norm; it took him by surprise, which led him to report at length on it.

Buechner has a very good description of what he is doing, in both his sermons and novels, in one of his memoirs: “I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life as the one I was living… opened up onto extraordinary vistas…. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly…. If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life.  See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.  In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace” (Now and Then).

Buechner’s character Leo Bebb is not an attractive person, certainly not someone to follow as an example, but he is also not a charlatan. I think Bebb is a good illustration of the fact that people are not one-dimensional, that there is very often more to them than we can see on the surface and that it is a mistake to write them off too easily.  God’s grace is compatible with large inconsistencies in the lives of His people.

Sonny, in the movie “The Apostle,” with Robert Duvall, is similar to Bebb.  He genuinely believes the things he preaches, but he is very deeply flawed; things don’t go well in his life, but he continues preaching the gospel till the end.  Roger Ebert says this in his review: “Sonny is different from most movie preachers. He's not a fraud, for one thing; Hollywood tilts toward the Elmer Gantry stereotype. Sonny has a one-on-one relationship with God, takes his work seriously, and in the movie's opening scene, the preacher pauses at an auto accident to ask one of the victims to accept Jesus Christ, “who you're going to soon meet.” Sonny is flawed, with a quick temper, but he's a good man, and the film is about his struggle back to redemption after his anger explodes.”  A deeply flawed character, but not a charlatan.  Not quite the hero we might hope for, but, if we’re honest, much closer reality than we’d like.  And with all his faults, God uses him to bring people to Himself.

When Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the temple, most of those who were present missed it, because it was just an ordinary everyday event.  Buechner exhorts his readers to pay attention, because God often appears in ways that are easy to miss.  And because of this, God’s presence always appears hiddenly in Buechner’s novels, sometimes disturbingly so, but I think this is a good thing.  It might teach us to be more attentive and recognize when God appears in hidden and unexpected ways in our own lives.