More Thoughts on Catholicism...

I've been surprised to receive very little criticism or concern about my recent conversion to Rome. In some ways, I'm happy about it because I was bracing for impact that a lot of people would feel I had lost my way. In other ways, though, I almost wanted a good fight, partly to force me to reevaluate my decision. One of the biggest criticisms I have heard, however, is that Catholics have too many rituals, many of which the stereotypical Catholic performs habitually and places little thought into. An example is making the sign of the cross before and after prayers, which even I admit is often done more through a sense of obligation and habit than through a thoughtful and meaningful intention. In addressing that, I would first say that I don't disagree at all...all too often, Catholics do things that they've been taught to do for years and if you observe them, you can often tell they're putting no thought into it. What I would disagree with, however, is the idea that, because so often these rituals are performed haphazardly, they should be abolished and abhorred entirely. It is an unfortunate reality that people, as we live in banishment from Eden and inhabit a corrupt flesh, often forget the meaning behind what they do. But the ideas themselves about these types of rituals I find completely sound. My ideal solution to the problem of people forgetting the meaning when things become routine is not to abolish the practice altogether, but rather to encourage and remind people to carefully consider what they do when it comes to worshiping God and to ask his mercy for those times we fall short. Yes, many people who have been Catholics their entire lives put no thought into making the sign of the cross when they're "supposed" to at mass or during prayer. But that doesn't make the practice flawed. The idea of the rituals so often criticized by Protestants is to bring the ENTIRE person into the worship experience. Protestants and Catholics alike understand that they bring their hearts and minds into worship, but what I appreciate about the Catholics is they ask, "why stop there?...we have more than a mind and a heart, but also a physical body, so why not bring that into worship as well?". In other words, since God has blessed us with bodies and five physical senses, why not use those gifts and give them back to God in the same way we show our appreciation for the gift of wealth by giving back a meager 10%? During the Mass, the body and all five senses are utilized along with the mind, heart and spirit to attempt to give God worship that encompasses all that we are and have, and this also benefits the worshiper by taking everything they have, including the physical body, and using it to praise God. That's why the Catholics often place emphasis on beautiful church buildings, stained glass, alters, and priestly garments, to allow the sense of sight to see beauty and to see something different and more special than what you see otherwise. And they burn incense to include the sense of smell and allow that to be a gift to God. Hearing is incited through music in all churches, but in Rome, bells, liturgy and other mediums are employed. Taste is especially emphasized in the celebration of the Lord's Supper at every mass and touch is employed by dipping our hands into water as we enter Mass to remind us of baptismal waters, and by making the sign of the cross. And the body as a whole is engaged when we bow before God at the beginning of Mass and during the Celebration of the Eucharist. It is a wonderful experience to worship God with the ENTIRE person - mind, heart, spirit, and body. Again, it is unfortunate that the nature of humanity takes these well-intended worship mediums and reduces them to mere habit. But the antidote to this is not to abolish or discard the rituals themselves, but to fight all the more for them and remind others why they are so meaningful. I'm not saying at all that such practices are required by God, but I feel I have been blessed and have benefited by involving these worship practices in my life. My hope is not that everyone will agree they should do the same things, but to understand they are not merely rituals that draw worship away from God - they are the opposite when employed properly and bring the entire person God created back to his praise.

Scripture's role in my conversion to Catholicism

Something to clarify about my last post…I began by stating my change to Catholicism started, for better or worse, through feeling. My intention was to go on to explain how thought, study and prayer merged with that over time and led me to combined conclusion that I felt God was calling me to this, but it was also a feeling I was able to back up objectively from what I had learned over the last couple of years. A major part of what I learned has to do with my view of sacred scripture. I’ve always studied the Bible but I’m understanding it in a way I never did before. One of my biggest flaws in younger years was to play the “proof-text” game, where I had studied just enough to accumulate a little knowledge, but, as is common to youth, became arrogant about what I knew and would find little passages here and there in the Bible I could use to support my arguments. There are multiple problems with that view of scripture; I learned someone with an opposing view could often enough play the same game with their own proof-texts and we’d reach a stalemate. Scripture is not meant to be used as a tool to help us win verbal arguments about theological discussion, nor is it always to be taken a passage at a time. I have increasingly learned scripture has to be taken as a whole – it is one work, written by multiple authors over multiple centuries, and yet miraculously connected with all the historical events telling the same story. The important thing here is that there is no such thing as a simple narrative in scripture. Of course all the old testament is a narrative of the history of mankind and the nation of Israel, but it is also much more – every event, down to the tiniest details, all point to the events that unfolded in the new testament and the coming of the new covenant. The OT points to the NT; the NT reflects the OT. Some examples are more obvious, like the institution of the Passover where the slaves spread the blood of a lamb over their households to be saved from death (and as an aside, when considering the Catholic view that the communion meal actually becomes the body and blood of Christ, remember that after spreading the lamb’s blood on their doorposts in Egypt, they were specifically instructed to consume the lamb). Other examples might not be so obvious; consider how in Genesis, it mentions that a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. This could be considered an awkward text since Adam and Eve had no father and mother in the same way we do, but it points more to Christ, leaving behind his Father when he resigned his divinity to become human, and his mother Mary at his young death, to ultimately be united to his bride, the church. In some cases of finding parallels like this, it can be easy to ask, “am I reading way too much into this?” That’s a fair question but my point here is simply to express that my understanding of scripture has changed dramatically as I see so much of the old testament coming to life in a way I never understood before. The book of Esther, I used to think, was a charming story of a woman of courage. Now I look at it also as a foreshadowing of Mary’s place in the Kingdom – certainly not the king but an advocate for the people that has the King’s ear. I’m not gonna break into the Mary or Eucharist or any other debates in this post. I just thought it was important to communicate my understanding of the scripture because so much of my conversion to Catholicism is founded on this understanding. The Roman Catholic church’s doctrines and traditions are rooted in viewing scripture in this way and their arguments make more sense than any other church’s arguments I’ve ever heard. Even the boring stuff in Leviticus that goes on and on with rules that seem pointless now make so much more sense. The scripture as a whole is truly a work of divine art.

Religious Thoughts

Hello all! It's been a while since I've written and after another busy semester of grad school, I apologize to the Taylors for not replying to your last response which indicated your response in itself was a desire to see more writing from me. Your comments were right on and I appreciate them, especially your comment on the first of my political questions. But at the moment, I feel obliged to move to religion since I have recently converted to Roman Catholicism, a move I would have never DREAMED of making even just a year ago. So I feel some dialogue is warranted. Like, for starters, why did I do such a crazy thing? The simple answer is, for better or worse, FEELING. I say that with emphasis because anyone that knows me knows that I'm not one to rely on emotions or whimsical ideas to guide my decision making. I was most recently a product of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), who value intellect and mind to guide their faith. But when I moved to Alaska and they had no OPC, I was forced to find another church community to worship with. And even before I moved, I had a desire to try out the Catholic church, even though when I expressed this desire at my OPC going away party, it was received with something less than enthusiasm. Because of that fact and my desire to respect the knowledge of my elders, I made the local Lutheran church in Seward my "official" church home, but I also discovered the Saturday afternoon Mass at Sacred Heard Catholic Church and went to that too. While I have a special place in my heart for both, I admit that by the end of my time in Seward, I was much more interested in the Catholic church than the Lutheran, even though most of my acquaintances were from the latter. When I arrived in Oxford, Ohio on a Friday, my intense desire was to go to the local Catholic church that Sunday, but because of an awkward scheduling dilemma typical of college towns, I had missed the only Mass that day at 8am. So I went to the Presbyterian service and, while it was fine, I spent the next week feeling empty having missed Mass. The next Sunday all I could think about was getting to Mass and when I got there, I felt revived and restored. I wanted to go nowhere else until I communicated through email to my elders from the old OPC in Chattanooga that I had fallen in love with the Catholic church. They were not amused. They told me the Mass was offensive to God because it celebrated the daily re-sacrifice of Christ, instead of viewing his sacrifice as sufficiently once-and-for-all (I have later learned that the Mass celebrates OUR DAILY CELEBRATION of His ONCE-AND-FOR-ALL sacrifice). In any event, respecting their advice, I decided to boycott Catholicism until I could get to the bottom of this. That lasted one week. I skipped Mass the following Sunday and went to the local Lutheran church instead. I was bored to tears. I sat my butt in a pew almost the whole time. I felt deprived that I couldn't kneel before my Almighty, or make the sign of the cross that symbolized our Family, etc. I was troubled about what to do; on the one hand, brought up to rely on intellectualism and not feeling, I thought I would have to suck it up and get re-used to Protestant worship. On the other hand, I couldn't deny the strong feeling of sincere and reverent worship I had been offering to God at the Mass. In the name of humility, I wanted to respect the advice of my OPC elders to reject Catholicism, but I spoke to a friend who rhetorically asked, "What would have happened if Martin Luther had listened to his elders?" I prayed a lot and decided to resume attending St. Mary Church, where I had met wonderful friends and encountered unexpected faith. At the start of the 2008 school year in August, a good friend invited me to attend RCIA classes (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, the adult join-the-Catholic-church class). That year-long class is for adults to join the Catholic church and when I was invited, I told her I had significant doctrinal issues with the Catholic church and had no intention or desire of joining; while I loved the church and its reverent worship style, there were a few doctrinal issues that my conscience would not allow me to accept (all the typical Protestant concerns like the "worship" of Mary and transubstantiation). But she told me I could attend the classes just to learn, as a student, and being that I am a college student anyway, why not? So I started attending and learning a lot, still with no intention of joining. But around March, we were due for one of our rites for initiation into the Church, where we were to gather at an assembly of the Archbishop and begin our "final descent" into communion with the Catholic church. I had a tough decision to make. I had never intended to join, but yet I had been through the class for all this time and was offered the chance to move forward with full communion and membership. I thought to myself, "what does it matter if I actually 'join'? Why can't I just keep attending without officially joining the church?" But I also respected the human institution of official union ceremonies, much the same way a guy and a girl can simply elope and claim to have marriage, but there is still value in going forth with an official ceremony with witnesses to make it more official. So I decided to meet with our Priest, Father Jeff, who had attended all our RCIA classes. When I told him I wanted to meet, I explained my situation, that I liked worshipping in the Catholic church but that I had some serious doctrinal problems in a few areas. He was more than happy to welcome me to a meeting. To put it mildly, I was BEOYND impressed with my conversation with him, and with his wisdom. I guess I had a stereotype feeling that Catholics, while definitely believers, were very ignorant and lethargic with their faith, but Father Jeff destroyed that stereotype by presenting wise theological answers to my questions that were beyond anything I expected. I won't go into the details here (although for those curious I'll be happy to explain the intricacies of our conservation), but suffice to say, by the end of our discussion, he had more than adequately responded to all the typical protestant complaints I brought about things like the veneration of Mary, etc. But even more powerful than that was his overall conclusion to me, that the study and debate of doctrinal issues was important, but even more important was our faith and our family. He told me that I was welcome to have plenty of disagreements with the Catholic Church's doctrines, but as long as I accepted Christ as our Savior and acknowledged myself and all other humans as flawed creatures in need of deliverance, I was welcome. His almost-exact words which impressed me so much were, "None of us agree on all things about our faith, but our primary goal is to embark on a journey to become more Christ-like every day, and if you want to join us on this journey, flawed as we may be, you are more than welcome." I was speechless. This guy has a masters degree in both chemistry and theology...in other words, he's pretty smart. And yet his humility stood in stark contrast to the genuine but overly-sure-of-themselves theology I had experienced at my former Presbyterian church. In short, I was sold. I did spend some time praying and talking to friends after this conversation but in the end, I decided that despite any doctrinal disagreements, I had found a church that humbly and genuinely welcomed me to join them on a journey to be united with Christ in his ever-approaching Kingdom ("may your Kingdom come"). As I mentioned earlier, this whole thing started as a result of FEELING; I felt irritation that there was so much disagreement amongst believers and I wanted to defy that by showing that I could worship in any Christ-honoring church, and that petty bickering over doctrines, even as "radical" as those of the Catholic church, cannot be more important than love and union amongst God's believers. But, while I still believe that furiously, I now even am considering and beginning to believe many of the Catholic beliefs I once considered ridiculous. My aforementioned friend who invited me to participate in the RCIA became my sponsor. Through several great debates and conversations with her, I concluded the Catholics were right-on in some of their ideas that I had previously denied, including their appreciation of the family relationship and how contraception worked against that sacred union where the love of two people was so powerful, it produces an offspring (the TWO become ONE), and our united Family, which should stick together, and not split, even when disagreements occur. So that's the story. Though this post is obnoxiously long, it doesn't come close to fully explaining the reasons why I found it important to convert to Roman Catholicism. But I hope it at least explains my mentality and I'm happy to discuss in much more detail to anyone who is curious. Peace out.

Political Thoughts...

I have no framework of an idea on this post. Just two things I felt like posting nonetheless that I hope makes people think. Firstly, a quote from Rush Limbaugh, like him or hate him...

"I have a question for you Obama voters: Is this what you voted for? The Dow closed at 9625 on Election Day, the Day of Hope. Since then it's down a third, $3 trillion in wealth. A record 31.8 million Americans are on food stamps, up 700,000 in one month. Unemployment jumped to 8.1% in February. Is this what you voted for?"

Secondly, a question that lays at the very foundation of the debate between liberalism and conservatism...

Even in the name of "social justice," charity, love, or whatever you wanna call it - can we really, if we are honest with ourselves, claim that government reallocation of wealth to the poor is a moral act?

The Perfect Storm Has Rained on Bush

Everybody hates George W. Bush, right? We need only a few examples of his disastrous presidency to explain why...Katrina, the economy, the failure to find WMD's in Iraq. But was Bush really so bad or did a few factors all come together to make him one of histories biggest scapegoats? I have noticed a few things that have been unfolding in a holistic way to make me seriously doubt that Bush has been as bad as most people say he was. Firstly, about Iraq, it seems to be commonly forgotten that everyone, including Hillary Clinton (though she denied it later), John Kerry, and others, agreed Iraq had WMD's and we had to take care of that situation. Of course it's fairly easy for other politicians, like Clinton, to weasel their way out of it later, but Bush, at the top, has no such option. He was stuck with the dunce cap for that even though almost the entire congress, and public for that matter, agreed with it at the time. I also feel like we've reached an unfortunate milestone in our nation's development. It's not at all uncommon, throughout history, that a nation slowly but surely advances from conservatism toward liberalism. We have read about it in Israel's past and we've certainly seen the same thing unfold in many European nations. One of the distinguishing components of liberalism as a political system is the people in that system rely on the government for their wellbeing. In America, this has traditionally been the opposite of our mindset...we've intentionally established a system where the government plays a minimal role in our lives. The three branches of government were intentionally created for the explicit purpose of making sure no one ever received too much power (that absolute power corrupts absolutely was discovered years ago). But it seems inevitably, as liberalism advances in a culture, the people become increasingly dependent on the government and I believe the switch in American mentality has occurred during Bush's presidency. I believe during the last 8 years, we toggled just over the boundary line of more people than not wanting the government to provide them with better lives. This is, psychologically speaking, somewhat predictable for the human being. The more we bask in luxury from generation to generation, the more we forget that this all comes at a price of sacrifice and hard work. People increasingly want benefits without hard work and many politicians are willing to provide it if it means extra votes next election day (of course those of us who are informed know that the government never provides anything...we as the taxpayers are doing all the providing). So I think when the economy went down (can anyone say liberalism, Bill Clinton or affirmative action?) and we got into war and a few unpleasant things happened that never happened under Clinton because he was too cowardly to deal with anything, many got their panties in a wad and missed the better life that used to come to them through no efforts of their own and that's another reason why Bush is made out as a villain. And this leads into the next point...now that people have had a taste of a good life with minimal sacrifice, they have started to accept nothing less. This is a reasonable trend in advanced cultures...the more advanced you get, the less you have to work, and the less you have to work, the more time you have for filling your head with thoughts of vanity, entertainment, and lose all touch with what it means to have to fight to survive. In New Orleans, there were many people that believed they had a RIGHT to government assistance. That taxpayers had an OBLIGATION to support them. I'm all for charity, but it's just that...CHARITY. I have no obligation to help anyone. As soon as people get into the mindset that they SHOULD be supported, they can never survive another day on their own. Finally, I think we've also crossed a threshold where pop culture means more to us than knowledge. We, as a nation, receive more of our "news" from David Letterman and Oprah and Greenday than we do from actual education and history. And because all Hollywood is sucking Obama's you-know-what, too many people blindly assume that's good. I'm a student in Environmental Science...if I listened to everything I "learned" in class, I'd think Bush was the anti-Christ. Apparently, his entire 8 years were a ploy to fill the center of the earth with nukes and blow the whole thing up. Luckily, I'm smarter than that but sadly, too many people aren't. For the masses, when they hear something often enough, even if it's from an unreliable source like U2, you start to believe. So poor Bush. With good intentions, he has become the epitome of everything that is wrong with America. I predict time will some day show that it is in fact the vilifying of Bush and the accompanying acceptance of liberalism that will tell the story of our demise. It's not without reason scripture refers to people as sheep.