Recently I have been reflecting on the nature of the Protestant church, and to be honest, the thing still perplexes me. Pierre Bayle is quoted as saying: “I am a good Protestant, and in the full sense of the term, for from the bottom of my soul, I protest against everything that is said, and everything that is done.” This, more than anything else, confers to me the essence of Protestantism. But before I speak about the Protestant church, let me describe my spiritual history, as it unequivocably colors my views.

I was born into a non-denominational, read: full Gospel, church. Victory Worship Center was a break-away sect of a larger baptist church, Faith Temple; the break-away being a result of pastoral division, i.e. board vs. pastor. My father attended Faith Temple under the auspices of the factioning pastor, and subsequently was one of the founding members of Victory Worship Center. My dad worked the soundboard. My mom led the worship and balanced the books. You get the idea here.

I grew up intensely involved in my faith, and consequently, deeply devoted to my church. I made my way through the different age-related ministries: day-care, pre-school, ACTS club (children’s church), Nite Vision Cafe (youth group, now “The LP”), finally graduating from all the extra-curricular ministries into the adult church. I was part of the Nite Vision Band for over a year; I occasionally DJ’d for the Sunday morning junior services; I attended weekly bible-studies; I worked as a landscaper for the church one summer. Again, you get the idea: I was involved.

However, throughout high school, I began my spiritual journey. Having ingested large amounts of C.S. Lewis early in my high school career, and after being inundated with Existentialist mumbo-jumbo in my English courses, I was positively lost. The old non-denom’ explanations weren’t sufficient. Victory, then, was teaching what I percieved as a watered down Gospel, full of flash, affluence, and rhetoric, while lacking real substance (to the credit of Victory, there was a wave of the “Prosperity Gospel” heresy present in the church which, to some extent, has subsided). I was a malcontent, angry with what I saw the church preaching. Yet, I was hopelessly bound up by ecclesial and familial ties to the church with which I no longer felt an affinity.

I then began to turn from the protestant realm to more exotic sources (exotic being quite ironic, as it turns out, for what I turned to was not exotic, but authentic). I delved into the monastic teacher, St. Benedict of Nursia, and his simple, unassuming rule about how to be a poor, obedient, stable little Christian. I was bewildered and challenged by the great Seraphic Father himself, St. Francis, who taught me to love “Lady Poverty” and revel in the beauty of Creation. I sat at the feet of the profound, contemplative mystic, the trappist monk named Thomas Merton. If you’re an astute reader, you’ve probably noticed one common trend: these men are catholics. St. Benedict and St. Francis founded monastic and gyrovagic orders; Br. Thomas Merton was, in many ways, a strict orthodox priest.

It was, of course, no accident that I was not even in my native land when this transformation was in full-swing. Quite appropriately, I was in a country in which everyone spoke another language and lived another culture; I was in an arid, lush, magnificent and dangerous place, which to this day, has continued to woo me to return. I was in Guatemala. Guatemala provided me the isolation I needed to discern. Far away from parents and friends, I could truly be alone, even when surrounded by people. While the family I was with was of the most gentle and charitable disposition, I prefered solitude. I sat with Merton, Benedict, and Francis. They talked and I listened. In fact, they nearly talked me into become a monk (something I would struggle with for quite a while).

Upon return, though, little had changed spiritually. I began to date, Kelli (who, as it turns out, I am now engaged to). Kelli and I went weekly to her non-denominational church, Christian Life Fellowship. Nearly her entire family was non-denominational and attended Christian Life, and so this was a perfect and comparable church to plug into. Nevertheless, the seeds which had been laid by the great fathers of the faith lay silent and still in the cold soil of my soul. Still, I ran into the same road-blocks as before with Victory. What was being taught by the fathers, to me, wasn’t lining up with the weekly teaching. I was intensely discontent, perhaps even unfulfilled, and after months of gentle proding (if there is such a thing) from my good friend, Brian Visaggio of Saint Superman, I decided that I would move to a liturgical church*. The first try, of course, was the Catholic Church.

I had little experience with the actual church outside of the literature I’d read, save one profound experience. Sarah Miller (who would ultimately accompany me to my first mass) invited me to the Holy Saturday Mass at her home church in Sulphur. The sights and sounds were enough to bewilder even the staunchest protestant, weaned on an austere liturgy. The smell, the burning incese, made a footprint of sanctity in my mind; the sounds both terrified and threw me into a state of reverance; the quite procession of genuflection, kneeling silently and piously before a rugged, splintered cross encapsulated the entire Christian life. I came home in a daze, and after expressing my delight and amazement at the liturgy, was quickly instructed (by way of question), “you aren’t going to be catholic, are you?”

I called Sarah Miller (present then, throughout RCIA, and finally at my confirmation). Sure, she said, she would be glad to accompany me to a mass. I went. I can say nothing of the homily, the music, the sights and sounds, the smells, the congregation. Nothing of this day has weathered the barrage of time except the immense peace, the serenity, the calm I felt. It was the feeling of walking into the home you grew up in; a place where you were not questioned, not an outcast, not a stranger; no, in that church, I sat with God. Rather than moving in me, he stilled all things which moved. This, for me, was the sign. I was to become Catholic. I was to embark on a mystagogia, a journey, which would alienate me from many, bind me to some, and leave me feeling as though I had only seen the shadow of God on the cave-wall for 19 years; now I stood in the sun.

The rest, as they say, is history [this is admittedly a very incomplete history, lacking my affair with Buddhism, my struggles over monasticism, the pains of joining the Church, all the wonders and blessings of being Catholic, and so on -- but again, another day].I must admit that this foree into my history today was unplanned and unexpected. I had planned to expound upon the perplexities of my protestant bretheren! And yet, that can be another day. In fact, the Bayle quote is perhaps more appropriate for me than for many of my protestant brothers and sisters. My protest was not against the ancient and eternal truths; no, it was against the protest. I realize, now, that Jeremiah was as prophetic in Ancient Israel as He is now:

Thus says the LORD: Stand beside the earliest roads, ask the pathways of old Which is the way to good, and walk it; thus you will find rest for your souls (6:16, NAB).

I rebelled against the rebellion, and Jeremiah was right: I found rest.

 

 

*Brian, to his credit, has never been a “conversion monger,” and I am eternally indebted to his patient with me in this matter — in fact, to all of you who helped me along this path, I am indebted to you (especially Kelli, who has been so understanding); thank you. I know God because of you all. 

1. fournet.wordpress.com

2. Some people have this irritating habit of elaborating on entirely trivial matters. Man. I don't want to be one of those people.

I don't talk much of poverty or charity anymore. It's not that I don't think about these things. I don't talk about them because what more could I say than has been already said? Why fill the air with endless words that have been said before? And yet, another motive lurks: I have, in some senses, lost my radicality. Like all men, I'm seeping into the dreary and lifeless days not filled with anything, but lacking in everything. It's not that Kelli isn't wonderful, or that my life is wretched; it's not that I don't care, or that I'm unable to do anything. I just need a revival, in a sense -- a turning again to Life in poverty and the poor; in suffering with the sick.

In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII claims that, sans the Church, a society will surely degenerate. The Church must be respected in all aspects of life -- from economic, societal, political, etc. This is because the truth of Jesus Christ, of the Gospel, of the Incarnation, is vital to the growth of virtue in the individual, the family, and the state or society. With this, I have no contention.

Over the past 9 months or so, I've been mulling over the meaning of politics, and without dealing too heavily in theories and cases, I've mused upon the notion of some form of anarchism. Now, Ellul rightly points out that anarchism is an unreachable ideal, however desirable -- what man would not want to be free from coercion? And yet, what society can exist without some sense of order? some recourse to law? I cannot, in bonum rationem, assent that there is not a natural essence to order and law, grounded deeply in the nature of man. Thus, I cannot assent to outright anarchism, or to the notion that each man ought to do as he sees fit in every respect, regardless of the commonweal and without invincible impunity.

Still, I sense a distinct problem with modern politics, which perhaps further study will ameliorate (as my understanding expands). I do not, at this time, find that the State is evil de facto, because as the Greeks said -- it is natural for a man to seek order, and thus society, and therefore -- Statehood. In this respect, I entirely concur with the most recent chain of Pontiffs. However, Leo XIII was emphatic on the point that the Church is part of any solution, as virtue is necessary, and Christ necessary for true virtue, id est love. It is the Church's supreme charge to bring men to Christ, and for this subsequent transformation to radically alter the ways in which society functions.

The modern political sphere, via the State, has assumed a far greater role in society than it ought. And what's worse, each party seeks to alleviate social ills by means of their own prescription, and not the will of the Almighty. Do I propose theocracy? No. It is my conviction which I glean from Peter's Seat that any social solution which does not conform to the wisdom of God is not a true solution, but a bandage which will, before long, come undone. Still, it is not the place of the Church to rule in a temporal sense -- they must work in conjunction with the State, but not be the State themselves. In this way, the Church works in union with the State to promote the common good of its citizens by promoting their virtue. The Church must have a disinterested relationship with the State in which they unflinchingly denounce whatever evil is found, i.e. imperialism, exploitation, immorality, hatred, et cetera.

Before any criticism comes across the tepid shores of the internet, I should also add that these thoughts are not concrete, not solidified -- I am working through what has undoubtedly been worked through by countless others and in much better detail and understanding. I am especially eager to read "After Virtue," as I too desire another Benedict; another man who, through Christ, deflates the bloated Empire in which we find ourselves. Not in a purely anarchistic and maliciously rebellious sense, but out of love for the people within the State and desire to see them grow in virtue. It is in this way that I oppose the State -- not because I think it is, per se, wicked. I simply think it needs to be changes -- it needs to more readily facilitate the good by becoming personal and honest. Will this ever occur? Will those in power ever relinquish their demagoguery? Probably not. This is probably why I tend to side with Brian in being more apolitical than anarchistic. Nevertheless, as he rightly pointed out to me, that I must ascend from "mere liberalism" into a Gospel-centered notion of government; one in which virtue --faith, hope, and love-- are pre-eminent.

On this journey, I continue. May the Holy Spirit guide me, and the prayers of the Saints strengthen me.

Merton once wrote that our minds are like crows' nests -- we'll collect anything that shimmers, no matter how cluttered our nests become. Utter simplicity -- of mind, of body, of spirit. A buddhist mentality about thought and a Christian desire for the Almighty God of creation.

I admit -- I often bind myself in webs of complexity. Book after book, documentary after documentary, page after page, word after word. It seems I am content to let knowledge pass through me like, in the old crass phrase, "shit through a goose."

The implication that I am a goose is intentional.

The books pile up. I read them, but God, I'm so splintered and fragmented: a failed state. A struggling idealogue. War, gardening, intervention, Aristotle, peace, Christ, herbs, Plato, Chomksy, Guatemala, Buddha, Merton, on and on and on. This was the wisdom of the Spirit several months ago: become an expert. Study one thing. Want to know one thing. Learn it. Teach it. Then enact it.

Just another lesson in my education, I suppose. You know, I've always thought the Buddha was right about mindfulness.

(if this small article of foul fowl waste is not indication enough of the multiplicity of my mind, then I don't know what is)

A child can say no to others.

A man can say no to himself.