Final Duck or Close To It

OK – we are coming down the home stretch in lining up all the mental, spiritual and emotional ducks regarding my move to the Catholic Church. (This particular duck on the left looks delicious).  For those of you that have been reading and have hung in with me, I am grateful!  For those of you who are bored beyond tears, well – who can blame you?  Sometimes I am ready to gnaw off a limb myself. Or a wing.  But take heart – other topics are on the way.  Maybe next time we’ll talk about jazz, recipes or the disappointment that was the NY Giants this season.

This is the church history portion, which is a little different from prevous posts. Up untill now, much of this has been very personal and subjective. But church history is more objective.   And granted, this short sketch of the earliest years is overly simplified for the sake of brevity. But it is a rich subject, and if anyone wants to know more, plenty of information is available. This will be a little longer than usual, but hang with me here.

Back in the earliest days of the church as the Gospel was being spread, there was no defined New Testament, no authoritative body of writings. Some of the Gospels were in circulation in the 50s and 60s, as were Paul’s letters and others later on – but nothing was yet recognized as being God-breathed Scripture beyond the Old Testament.  It was all just out there.  Tradition was largely being passed along orally, from apostles to the next church leaders. Paul refers to this when he mentions “tradition” in 2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6 and other places. The Greek word paradosis is understood as not simply referring to the writings but to the wider tradition regarding church practice and body life that the apostles wanted to communicate.

This tradition that was being passed along orally and in writings helped the early church’s liturgy to develop.  Church practices and hierarchy were forming according to the apostles’ teachings.  The church as we understand it was slowly taking shape. Some of these things wound up in what we now know as the New Testament, but not all.

How do we know that all of this apostolic teaching was being passed on faithfully and without addition or subtraction?  First of all, the earliest church fathers were in conversation with the apostles. Ignatius was taught by Peter.  Polycarp was taught by John. And there were others. Linus, who was also part of the next generation, was known to be a companion of Paul.  And so on.

Even more importantly, these early church leaders were incredibly passionate and jealous for the truth, and guarded against ANY change in the apostles teachings. Nothing got past these guys that was not in keeping with what they had received.  A friend of mine referred to them as “truth Nazis”.   If you need any proof of that, remember: these are the leaders who helped to shape and define what we now have as the NT.  They were the ones who fought against the many heresies in the early church related to who Jesus was, the nature of God, and other issues.  It was they who fully articulated the doctrines of the Trinity, the deity of Christ and others, only partially spelled out in Scripture, that we now hold as central to our faith.  These were the people who fought tooth-and-nail for doctrinal purity.

Every time you pick up your NT, recite the early creeds or talk some of the major points of theology, you are recognizing their work and affirming their zeal for the truth.  We are grateful for their dedication and their vigilant defense of the faith.

At the same time, it is in the writings of these very leaders that we also see references to the sacrifice of mass, the real presence Christ in the Eucharist and other things that have come to be known as "Catholic" ideas and practices. While these ideas were not fully articulated yet, they are very much there in the earliest writings. 

Remember, these early church leaders would reject, in a heartbeat, anything that did not totally conform with the truth they had received.  So in other words, these “Catholic” ideas were part of the tradition that had been passed onto them from the apostles.

This is why for me any many others like me, our reversion or conversion to the Catholic Church has its roots in the facts and flow of church history. It is how I and others try to connect with the earliest church and its practices. It helps us to line up with the first generations of believers.  I think if more Protestants understood that, it would help to break down some of the unfortunate misunderstandings that sometimes exist between Protestants and Catholics.

I want to close with three things that have made a big impact on me in this area.  The first comes from Protestant theologian Carl Trueman, in a review of Noll and Nystrom’s  Joint Declaration Of Justification, and he mirrors what other Protestant writers have also concluded:

“…Roman Catholicism is, at least in the west, the default position. Rome has a better claim to historical continuity and institutional unity than any other Protestant denomination…we need good solid reasons for not being Catholic." 

Second, Chuck Redfern is my best friend since college days, and was a committed Christian before we met. He was instrumental in helping me to get established in my faith as a Protestant believer.  He remains a Protestant and is a pastor and writer. He wrote this to me as I was making the transition (slightly edited with his permission):

"I was praying in a Catholic church once (I took the open door and the empty sanctuary to be an invitation), and it struck me: This is 'the Church' meaning, this is the Church that goes back 2,000 years and from which we all sprang….Protestantism was not God's 'Plan A.'  The Reformation was necessary, alas - but that doesn't deny that the Catholic Church is, honestly, the 'mother church', the church in which the others were birthed. " 

Lastly, this one is even more meaningful to me. A brother in Christ and good friend, whose church I was leaving, was bothered by my decision and confessed to not understanding why I would do this.  Yet, as a spiritually mature guy, he decided he would talk with me rather than just stew. So we met for dinner one evening recently, and had a great discussion. I laid out the points I have been making in these blog posts, and how God has been leading me.  In the end, he said (paraphrasing): “This is not something I would do, but it now makes sense to me. I get it, and I wish you God’s best.” We are the brothers we have always been, and that is what is most important to me.  I am grateful for how he approached this, and hope that others would do the same.  I am always willing to talk.

I feel a summary blog coming on before I let this all go, desiring to grab the various strings from these last four posts and combine them into some neat arrangement. But we’ll see.  Or we’ll talk Giants, provided I can keep it from becoming too morose (that would be an act of grace for sure!).  If I do, I will smoke some duck and all are invited.

Ducks Part Three

I don’t know about you, but whenever I do something that makes others shake their heads in disbelief, I have always found it helpful to have someone else to blame.  It’s good to have another person to take the heat – and even better when they are not immediately available to defend themselves.

In this case, I am blaming one of my former professors (he'll never know). While he was technically a professor of New Testament at a Protestant evangelical seminary, he was also beginning to teach a spiritual formation class and was exposing his students to a wide variety of devotional literature most had not heard of before. That’s how I received a copy of my first book by Henri Nouwen, called The Wounded Healer.

The timing was a God-thing.  I had just lost my father, and could identify with being wounded and wanting to use my experience to help others. But the book had a much larger impact on me. It not only introduced me to a great Christian writer who drew from what is known as the “contemplative tradition”, but by extension, opened up a whole new world to me.

In my previous “Ducks” posts, I mentioned that this tradition is partially responsible for leading me back to the Catholic Church.  So what is the contemplative tradition anyway?  It began with some believers of the third century who left society to live in the desert in relative isolation. Their goal was to renounce themselves and follow Jesus more closely, and this movement eventually grew to include thousands of people.   

Not too long afterward, other believers sought this sort of life, but with a greater emphasis on community.  That’s the reason for the growth of monasteries throughout the early years of the church, through the Middle Ages and beyond, where intense private devotion was combined with a communal atmosphere, service and manual labor.

Reams of valuable devotional writing came from people who practiced this way, which is no surprise.  After all, they were pursuing the spiritual life 24/7.  To be sure, some of them carried things too far.  You can find plenty of crazy stories of brothers and sisters who engaged in some pretty odd behavior back then.   But that doesn’t at all negate the rich wisdom that was also a product of monastic life.

In digging more deeply over the years, I have come into familiar and ongoing contact with Benedict of Nursia, Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Brother Lawrence, Francis De Sales, Thomas Merton and several others.  And I have noticed a pattern:  when I have spent time with these writers and tried to incorporate some of their thoughts and practices into my life, those were times of consistent growth where I saw differences and felt closer to the Lord. When I would disengage from this (which I did, many times), my sense of nearness and dependence on God seemed to wane. That’s probably more of a commentary on my own inconsistancies, but I know that it’s a fact.

The question then comes up: “Why go back to the Catholic Church? Why not practice this way and remain where you are?”  It’s a good question, and I guess the answer is: been there, done that. The result is a sort of disconnect. I found myself worshipping in a certain tradition privately during the week and in a completely different way on Sunday mornings. I needed consistency in my private and public expressions of faith.  What’s more, if I was to going to be able to share my experiences with like-minded folk, it would more likely be in the Catholic Church, where the contemplative tradition was born and has flourished.  While there are certainly exceptions, evangelical Protestants tend not to spend a lot of time with contemplative writing and practice.  I don't mean that as an indictment at all; it's simply not on the radar or part of the culture for a variety of reasons  - one of which is a greater focus on current popular devotional writers.  

Next time I will try to wrap this thread up by writing about how church history has impacted my move. But meanwhile, I am comforted in knowing that this is all Dr. Weigelt’s fault.  'Preciate it, Doc.