If life isn’t supposed to be one long conversion, then I’m a fool, because that’s what I’ve been doing all my life: converting from the simple faith of childhood to the arrogance of teen-aged atheism to aggressive, young-adult Evangelicalism. My conversion led me into the Reformed faith, then into Lutheranism, and finally plunged me into the Catholic Church.
This is too much ground to cover in a magazine article, so I will focus on a few of the larger themes that pushed me toward Rome.
When I was an Evangelical, I began to wonder whether pastors (we called them elders) were really pastors, or whether “pastor” was only a name and function we applied to certain people. This wasn’t a purely academic question. The church I attended in those days believed that Christians ought to get counsel from their elders, and acting contrary to an elder’s counsel was considered rebellion against God, since he has commanded us to obey our leaders (Heb. 13:7, 17; 1 Tim. 5:17) .
Being naturally a skeptical and ornery sort, when I was told, “Obey your elders,” the question that naturally popped into my mind was “Who is my elder? And who says?”
It seemed to me that there were two different approaches to pastoral authority: the practical and the mystical. The practical approach says we submit to elders because they are wise. There’s nothing especially religious about this view. You take the advice of your elder with respect to your soul in the same spirit that you take the advice of your mechanic with respect to your car.
The mystical approach says that God intends to guide through ordained leaders who are given some kind of special guidance on behalf of their flock. This approach assumes that the leaders really are leaders—it’s not just that we regard them as such, but that God does and gives them that extra little something (whatever it is) so they can lead the rest of us.
It seemed to me that the practical approach was more American, but the mystical approach was more biblical. Recall, for example, that the high priest’s prophecy that Christ would die for the people. The high priest prophesied not by virtue of his personal character but because God granted him special insight because of the high priest’s special office.
After some intense Bible study, I realized that the mystical view of church authority leads to two necessary conclusions. First, you have to believe that God intervenes from time to time to ordain new leaders in the church (and that people have some sensible way to know that God has done this). Second, unless God does this for every single leader, there has to be some way to pass the torch, so to speak, to the next generation.
Of course, the Bible is full of cases where God has ordained leaders for his people, and he confirms that he has done this by some kind of supernatural attestation—Aaron’s budding rod or Elijah’s miracles or Paul’s miraculous ministry.
The elders in my Evangelical church didn’t have either type of approval. They had not been appointed in lawful succession from previous authority, and God had not appointed them directly (with miracles as confirmation).
I was no theologian, but I recognized where this was line of thought was leading me: apostolic succession. And I knew I didn’t want to have anything to do with that.
Many things drew me into the Presbyterian Church, but for my purposes here, the most important factor was its doctrine of congregational elections, which seemed to pacify that scary pull toward apostolic succession.
I later realized two very uncomfortable things. First, the biblical basis for the Presbyterian doctrine of congregational elections is shaky at best. Second, even in the Presbyterian system, congregational elections are sometimes necessary but never sufficient for an ordination. A man who is elected by the congregation must then be ordained by pre-existing, lawful authority.
Shortly after joining the Presbyterian Church I started attending seminary, hoping to be a Presbyterian pastor. As a “minister in training,” I attended all the presbytery meetings. There was at that time a mild dispute among Reformed folk about whether children ought to take communion. I studied the issue for myself and didn’t come to any firm conclusions, but I realized that if I wanted to be a Presbyterian pastor I’d have to agree to teach whatever the church decided. If, after debate, study, and prayer, we couldn’t agree to the same conclusion, I could (1) decide that God leads through the Presbyterian church and submit to its judgment (that old mystical view of authority), (2) disagree with the presbytery but follow its directives (go along to get along—the practical view), or (3) leave.
I didn’t like any of those options, so I revisited my study of apostolic succession and added to it a study on the extent of submission to authority. Who were the real leaders, how did I know who they were, and to what extent did I have to believe what they said?
I had to re-evaluate a lot of things—like the Reformation. If Christians are required to give the benefit of the doubt to lawful authority, did the Reformers follow that rule with Rome? If not, what did that say about the lawfulness of their actions?
It didn’t take much study to realize a few very uncomfortable things. First, Catholics didn’t really believe the things I’d always thought they believed. (For example, that we win heaven by doing good deeds.) Second, Catholics had actually read the Bible and could answer the sloppy anti-Catholic polemic I’d learned as an Evangelical. Third, while I wouldn’t always have come to the Catholic answer on my own, Catholics do have biblical bases for their doctrines.
There was a lot more than that, but even those modest discoveries got me in hot water with the leadership of my Presbyterian Church. To make a long and sad story short, I was “asked” to leave for the heresy of believing that maybe Rome wasn’t as bad as we’d always thought.
While it’s one thing to conclude that Catholic arguments aren’t clearly wrong and that I could accept them if I gave them the benefit of the doubt, it’s another thing entirely to say they are true. My studies had led me away from many of the blatant errors of contemporary Protestantism—e.g., anti-sacramentalism and disdain for tradition—and convinced me of several “catholic” notions of the church—Real Presence, liturgical worship, and some special role for the bishop of Rome. But the arguments didn’t take me home.
Those were uncomfortable years. It was as if I had a “Convert Me” sign on my head. Catholic apologists would hear that I had gotten over the silly anti-Catholicism that infects so many Protestants and would think I was a ripe target. Never one to back down from a good argument, I stepped frequently into the ring. But what the Catholic apologists presented as necessity—firm conclusions that followed inexorably from clear premises—I saw as mere possibility. Maybe even probability in some cases, but certainly not necessity.
My family had joined the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), which was about as “catholic” a church as we could find in our neck of the woods, and for several years I tried to quiet that pesky Catholic interlocutor who nagged and tormented me. I tried to shut him up by inventing a new Protestant approach to Scripture, Tradition, and authority. I wrote incessantly, especially on what I considered to be defensible, reasonable versions of Protestantism. Never mind that my ideas bore no relationship to any real church and, in most cases, fundamentally conflicted with what most Protestants hold near and dear.
I stayed in the Lutheran Church for several years and called myself a “Wittenberg Catholic,” mostly to annoy Catholic apologists. I spent a lot of time in online debates and discussions on theological issues.
Then an atheist decided to participate in one of those forums. He and I interacted somewhat, but I watched his interactions with others with a great deal of interest. As the arguments flew back and forth, it became clear that no single argument for Christianity was so persuasive that it was going to convince him. Sure, lots of arguments point us towards Christianity, but they don’t prove it. There is always an escape for the committed skeptic.
I admitted that, but it seemed to me there is a meta-argument for Christianity that encompasses all these lesser arguments. I maintained that all these separate arguments cohere within the Christian system—that is, if you believe in Christianity, all these individual arguments make sense in that larger scheme. But if you reject Christianity, you have to assemble a whole collection of ad hoc, incoherent explanations to support your position. That incoherence is itself an argument for the truth of Christianity.
I have no idea what impact my argument had on the atheist, but my internal Catholic interlocutor took the opportunity to turn it on me. Sure, he said, we can understand Scripture and Tradition and the papacy and the unity of the Church and the need for confessional authority—all those individual things that Catholic apologists like to talk about—in a way that doesn’t necessarily point us to Rome. But they all cohere in the Catholic system. All of the other choices have to compromise or neglect something. It’s only in the Catholic answer that all the pieces fit together, and that in itself is an argument for its truth.
So while I was chiding the atheist for his refusal to see the significant of coherence as it relates to belief in God, I realized that I was doing the same thing with Rome.
I was faced with two alternatives: I could believe that God had left things a tangled mess just to frustrate me (I seriously considered this), or I could believe that we’re supposed to look up, from time to time, beyond the trees to admire the forest.
This was a major blow to my state of being comfortably numb (apologies to Pink Floyd). But another thing chafed and worried away at my “Catholic but not Roman Catholic” façade. As an elder in the Lutheran Church, it was my privilege to dispense the sacrament to the faithful. “The body of Christ,” I said as I handed them the consecrated bread.
But was it really? The New Testament is silent on the question of who may preside at the Eucharist. Most Protestants think that if the New Testament doesn’t specify a special class of people to administer the sacrament, then any Christian can do it. (There are passages that imply that only the officers of the church can administer the sacrament, but they are subject to other interpretations, and Protestants will usually pick the interpretation that does not create a special role for the ordained.)
But for its first several decades, the new Church’s Scripture consisted mostly of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament clearly restricted the ministry to ordained people. So it seemed to me that the assumptions ought to go the other way: Without specific New Testament teaching to the contrary, we ought to expect that the ministry of the sacraments belongs to the ordained.
My theories about apostolic succession didn’t bother me too much until I wondered whether I could honestly say as a Lutheran that this bread in my hands was the Body of Christ. I wasn’t sure, and I felt that I ought to be.
But the question didn’t stop there. Even if this bread really was Christ’s body—even if the Lutheran sacrament was valid—did that make it right? There’s a difference between can and ought, and even if a Lutheran minister can consecrate the bread and wine, is it right for him to do it? Clearly, he lies outside the established ministry of the New Testament. (While some Lutheran ministers try to ensure apostolic succession by seeking ordination from the Lutheran bishops in Europe, American Lutherans rarely do so, and my pastor had not.)
There was nothing else to do. I resigned as an elder, and my growing doubts about the validity of its sacrament finally pushed me out of the Lutheran Church.
“Why not become Catholic?” I thought. “I’m more Catholic than most Catholics.” Even though I didn’t accept everything the Church taught, at least I believed the sacraments were valid.
It was a hard choice, but my wife and I decided to give the local Catholic parishes a chance. Our first experiences were pretty dismal, but then, wonder of wonders, there, amid the Hallmark-inspired sermons and Barney and Friends music, we found an orthodox priest who really knew how to preach. He took us under his wing and gave us private instruction towards reception into the Church.
Things seemed to be moving along smoothly until I asked a dear friend to sponsor me. Of course, he was overjoyed that we had finally decided to join the Church. But he knew that I still had reservations about some Catholic teachings and felt he couldn’t sponsor me under those circumstances. I also learned that at my reception into the Church I would have to recite a statement that I believed all that it taught.
If I was bitter and frustrated before, I was just plain angry now. Who did the pope think he was, requiring us to make such a declaration? If we were to go point by point through the Catechism, I was more Catholic than probably 95 percent of the Catholics in my state. And I was going to be kept out of the Church because I couldn’t say that I believed all that it teaches? Some Catholic priests don’t believe all that the Catholic Church teaches!
Somehow, God broke through my irritation and anger and pointed me in the right direction. Yes, this is his Church; and, yes, he does know what he’s doing; and, yes, this is the key to Catholic faith: belief in the Church. That, I discovered, is the basic difference between Catholic faith and all other Christian faiths—the belief that God preserves his Church in the truth. Not some vague church that pops up, fades, and apostatizes only to reappears under new management, but a specific Church, founded by Christ upon Peter.
On December 11, 1999, my wife and I, along with our children, were received into the Church. Ever since then, we’ve been wondering why we didn’t do it sooner. We’ve also been wondering why the guy who writes contemporary Catholic music isn’t in jail somewhere. But that’s another story.