I did a lot of thinking and arguing and praying in looking into the Catholic Church, and of course, reading. As a conscious choice, I did my best to ignore how I felt during that time. I'm a feelings person; when I speak and write, you get my heart first. If you want to get me to do something, move me. It's just who I am. So I did my best to correct for this. I couldn't actually become a Catholic until the truths converged; I had to reason it out, because I did not trust my feelings, though I have always greatly valued them.
So what was it like emotionally? First, let me say it was hard. I felt like I belonged nowhere. I felt as though my mind had brought questions to me that demanded answers. They were simple questions, but I realized that I'd not asked them. Also, whatever slice of the Reformed world I was in, others had not asked them, either. But how did I ask questions alien to my theology? I don't know. Why were these questions so demanding, the kind that required an answer? I don't know, entirely. I do know that the heart who seeks God knows the difference between questions of loving contemplation that can be left in mystery, and questions that need answers NOW. And they were all of the latter kind. I simply will not accept that I am somehow an unbalanced person that tolerates no mystery. I had been urging a deeper willingness to say, "I don't know" the entire time I did ministry. Some things can wait for Heaven, and some things can't. If your questions lead to joy, quiet, and holy contemplation, you have found God; if the answer that purports to be from God sounds like an evasion, your theology was made by a man.
That's the beauty of it: there is only one God. If you seek God, He will find you. What question could Jason Kettinger, dust of the earth, ask that the Lord God could not answer? If I can ask it, and the answer does not satisfy, if it prompts me to inquire further, I am not Job, screaming into the face of the Almighty; I am a man seeking truth, who stumbled upon idolaters, whose worship of a wooden god of their own making has been exposed. I know when someone is afraid and hiding something.
I take that risk of vanity only to say that I do not trouble with settled questions for the sport of it. I like discussion, and I like arguing, fair enough. Yet not for its own sake. I prize agreement more than you know. I can say with the clearest conscience that if I take the risk to disturb the calm--especially in theology--it is because that calm has been purchased at the price of the truth.
And that's how it felt: I knew my questions were prompted by God Himself. I could not articulate it at the time, but I was inquiring about the loss of the dogmatic principle within my theology on account of prior commitments. You need to hear me say it, even if I'm a Catholic to whom you can no longer listen: There is a systemic flaw in Reformed theology that leads either to skepticism, or to the Catholic Church. Actually, it's inherent in all Protestantism, but it takes on a specific theological flavor with respect to the questions, depending on your context. Big Meta-Question: "Who is God, and how do I know Him?" Specific Meta-Question: "What is the Church?" Problem Prompted By The Specific Meta-Question: "How does my visible church function, given the prior commitment to an invisible Church, comprised of many churches of varying commitments?" More Direct and Personal Version: "How does my church bring the whole truth of God to me? And what is it?" Do you see the problem?
I instinctively sensed that the nuts and bolts of hermeneutics was something of a distraction. "Oh, man. [Pardon the arrogance of the phrasing here] These people actually believe that becoming experts in the use of these tools will settle all interpretive questions." I saw it in my mind, all the young people across the country and the world diligently studying their Greek and Hebrew, relishing the new knowledge, occasionally shaking their heads at the silly Methodist or Lutheran or what have you who believes doctrine x that is "obviously incorrect," because Captain Jack (or their version of him) said so. I could see them. Can't you? I can feel their zeal for Christ. Can't you? Obvious Idiot Question: "I'm gonna get a piece of paper at the end of this that says I know what the Bible says. They will make a big to-do about me, and some old men will put their hands on me and send me out as a 'minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.' Doesn't everyone do that? Have you met a man or woman who did something like this, who, at least at some point, was not passionately committed to whatever body of truth he was commissioned to defend? Doesn't every putative church have at least one old woman who will yell, "The whole counsel of God!" when confronted with some monstrously deformed version (in their view) of the Good News? (For the uninitiated, this is a shorthand way of saying, "We are biblical, and they are not.") My people, just sit and think on this. This is why John H. Armstrong, whatever his tendency to an irritating reductionism, travels to as many different kinds of churches as he can find. This is why he sounds like a relativist. He knows this reality. He just doesn't have an answer. That's OK, too. We do need people to affirm and celebrate truth wherever it is found. But we can't stop there. We just can't.
I was forced to ask, "Why do I believe this and not that?" It was very specific. It has to be. But I read books from authors who were not in my denomination. I was trained with those books. That's inevitable, I suppose. But don't you naturally say, "What's wrong with that guy?" Once you spend more time with him, you say, "What's wrong with me?"
Look, friends. I grew up nothing. I've been raised by a vaguely spiritual daughter of an ex-militant atheist. When Jesus Christ spoke to me, I was not in The Christian Club, OK? I understand faith, unfaith, and everything in between. So when I say, "We have a theological problem, a question that needs an answer," I hope you understand the weight that carries. All the appreciations and attempts at harmony and leaving it alone have been tried. You'd have to. And if you're me, pluralism is not a problem unless and until it casts doubt on the truth of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father, and doubt on the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
But I couldn't answer the question, "Why this, not that." I got no comfort from reading the Scriptures, or, better said, I got no answer to the questions. By some mercy, the only truth I gleaned from the Scriptures was that God loves us. I said in some desperation to a friend some time in 2010, "Don't ask me about atonement or justification or even faith, because I don't know." Can you feel the pain in that? Do you understand it? I preached from the Bible dozens of times, and I didn't even know what it said, beyond, "Jesus loves us." What a terrible, beautiful, and heroic thing!
By another mercy, it was cool and fashionable to speak of "unity in the essentials" centered around those two creeds we all know: the Apostles' Creed, and the Nicene Creed. Walk into any PCA church not in the Deep South, where the Presbyterians are more like Baptists in their lack of concern for unity, (though some sanguine sorts have made their way down) and you'll hear a lovely soliloquy from a pleasant man, extolling the creeds as our link with the past, and our link with other Christians who may not share all the tenets of our faith. The Eucharistic soliloquies are just as epic. We'll call those, "This is not a Presbyterian Table" speeches. What I'm saying is, I'm on to you. I know how you talk when the problem of Christian disunity first strikes. These little efforts are nothing more than Jedi mind-tricks to keep the deeper ecclesiological questions at bay. But they keep coming. Or they should.
Start with the agreement, and work backward. Then forward. You realize pretty fast that you've failed to properly contextualize the creeds, and the crises that occasioned them. In short, I knew I had been ad hoc toward it all. It was ecclesial plagiarism. It was that "ecclesial" part that caught my attention. I knew that I'd find the Church when I found the principled reasons for saying "this, not that."
I met Bryan Cross in the spring of 2009. I met him because I went to a talk on the Council of Trent from the Association of Hebrew Catholics. I was neither Hebrew, nor Catholic, but the man giving the talk was Dr. Lawrence Feingold, a professor of Catholic theology. Within an hour, I made two forever friends. Bootstrap Turner was there. I thought I was "safe".
My alignment was bad, and my wheelchair lift stopped functioning. It was a crazy night. But I knew almost instantly that I had made a friend closer than a brother in Bryan. I don't understand it even now. But it's true as the day is long. Bryan was and is like a living sanctuary to say the dangerous things, to air the things we tend to keep quiet, at least in theology. I could live in 2 worlds, and switch between them, and have someone there who understood what I felt. He was always an ally, and he has been ever since. He was the one who gave me Mathison's book, "The Shape of Sola Scriptura." It was only the beginning of the earthquake. Mathison did not argue poorly; he was not careless, except perhaps with Catholic theology. Bryan told me he and his friends were composing a response to the book. I was insistent that I did not want to read any critique until I had read and reflected upon it. I do not even now possess the tools to describe what it felt like to read it. I had to stop myself from becoming Catholic when I finished it. That is certainly not what the author intended! That's why it's funny. Called to Communion (the academic Catholic blog of former Reformed converts) waited 1 year for a response to their response. I read that response eagerly when it came. What a disappointment! What a failure! Every Reformed person should weep, and hope it is not the best that can be done.
I digress. I never felt safe contemplating being received into the Catholic Church. Rarely did it seem like a good idea, or fun, or cool. Actually, for most of the time, I feared that I was sinning against God. It seemed like a mistake. I liked everyone I met, and they seemed to like me, but I thought they were all crazy. But I needed to understand Catholicism. Why do they believe these things? Why do they insist it is the Church that Christ founded? Why does most of the Christian world (at least numerically) seem to agree? Is there any evidence for this?
I felt safe with Bryan and his family, because they are wonderful people. There is a tranquility in the places where they dwell; it is the love of God. It is that supernatural charity which will save us from eternal death. It seemed like I could drink it there. I have often wondered why I went to so many Masses with them. I did not yearn to be Catholic. What I did yearn for was safety. I felt safe to speak any number of Reformed heresies without fear. I would not have said that my theological environment was stifling, but it was. The reason I always felt like a rebel is because, like I said, I know when people know truths they are afraid to speak.
There is only one God. Remember that. I can say this now, but every time I went to Mass, it seemed like God was calling out to me. It felt like a love song. It felt like falling for a girl. Multiplied a billion times. When the first of my friends was received at Pentecost, I have never desired the Eucharist as I did that day. I didn't understand it at all. My heart said, "This sacrifice is for me." And I do not mean Our Lord's Passion. We all know that. I mean, this Sacrifice of the Mass. I told you before, though, I don't do things on feelings, even strong ones. I continued to read and study. I prayed to the only God every day, "If this is false, show me." But I know when God speaks. Nothing or no one sounds like Him. This is why I wrote to a friend, "If you are invited to do something, and you think you might do it, look for Jesus first. Where He is, falsehood cannot be." I was not ready to change my life on a feeling, but I did look for Jesus. I did "listen" with my spirit. If I heard Him, if I saw Him, I went. I went even if I was afraid. That's what any Christian would do, amen?
The evidence for the Catholic Church being the Church that Christ founded is very strong. They said they had evidence, and I said, "Show me." If you have the guts to consider the possibility that there is a visible Church (because something gracious kicks that door open at some point) and you look at the evidence for this particular candidate, you cannot help but be impressed. The Orthodox are the only other live option, and if you landed there...could be worse. Valid clergy and sacraments is no small thing. But the Catholic Church is not limited to the West, as much as some profit from making it appear so. I highly value all the liturgical and theological pluralism in the Church, and let me not fail to thank all the Churches in union with the Bishop of Rome for all that they offer us. It is indeed an oversight when any of them is neglected. The one visible Church that Christ founded needs a principium unitatis, a principle of unity, and the successor of Peter has always been that, so...there you go, as Papa Costas from My Big Fat Greek Wedding would say.
One more thing: I was not afraid when I first realized that objectively speaking, I had been outside His Church for most of my life as a Christian. Because He is love and mercy. And if so, our hearts resonate with His. "My sheep hear My voice..." All we ever have to do is follow when we hear Him calling. I don't negate or denounce where I have been, because God was there. But I know we can't stay there if He bids us go. The only hard thing was to leave my brothers and sisters to enter the Church. I wish that I were cut off from Christ for their sake! Lord, have mercy! There is only one God. "Though none go with me/Still I will follow/Though none go with me/Still I will follow/Though none go with me/Still I will follow/No turning back/No turning back." Why'd I do it? Because the only Lord God Almighty said so. Game Over.
So what was it like emotionally? First, let me say it was hard. I felt like I belonged nowhere. I felt as though my mind had brought questions to me that demanded answers. They were simple questions, but I realized that I'd not asked them. Also, whatever slice of the Reformed world I was in, others had not asked them, either. But how did I ask questions alien to my theology? I don't know. Why were these questions so demanding, the kind that required an answer? I don't know, entirely. I do know that the heart who seeks God knows the difference between questions of loving contemplation that can be left in mystery, and questions that need answers NOW. And they were all of the latter kind. I simply will not accept that I am somehow an unbalanced person that tolerates no mystery. I had been urging a deeper willingness to say, "I don't know" the entire time I did ministry. Some things can wait for Heaven, and some things can't. If your questions lead to joy, quiet, and holy contemplation, you have found God; if the answer that purports to be from God sounds like an evasion, your theology was made by a man.
That's the beauty of it: there is only one God. If you seek God, He will find you. What question could Jason Kettinger, dust of the earth, ask that the Lord God could not answer? If I can ask it, and the answer does not satisfy, if it prompts me to inquire further, I am not Job, screaming into the face of the Almighty; I am a man seeking truth, who stumbled upon idolaters, whose worship of a wooden god of their own making has been exposed. I know when someone is afraid and hiding something.
I take that risk of vanity only to say that I do not trouble with settled questions for the sport of it. I like discussion, and I like arguing, fair enough. Yet not for its own sake. I prize agreement more than you know. I can say with the clearest conscience that if I take the risk to disturb the calm--especially in theology--it is because that calm has been purchased at the price of the truth.
And that's how it felt: I knew my questions were prompted by God Himself. I could not articulate it at the time, but I was inquiring about the loss of the dogmatic principle within my theology on account of prior commitments. You need to hear me say it, even if I'm a Catholic to whom you can no longer listen: There is a systemic flaw in Reformed theology that leads either to skepticism, or to the Catholic Church. Actually, it's inherent in all Protestantism, but it takes on a specific theological flavor with respect to the questions, depending on your context. Big Meta-Question: "Who is God, and how do I know Him?" Specific Meta-Question: "What is the Church?" Problem Prompted By The Specific Meta-Question: "How does my visible church function, given the prior commitment to an invisible Church, comprised of many churches of varying commitments?" More Direct and Personal Version: "How does my church bring the whole truth of God to me? And what is it?" Do you see the problem?
I instinctively sensed that the nuts and bolts of hermeneutics was something of a distraction. "Oh, man. [Pardon the arrogance of the phrasing here] These people actually believe that becoming experts in the use of these tools will settle all interpretive questions." I saw it in my mind, all the young people across the country and the world diligently studying their Greek and Hebrew, relishing the new knowledge, occasionally shaking their heads at the silly Methodist or Lutheran or what have you who believes doctrine x that is "obviously incorrect," because Captain Jack (or their version of him) said so. I could see them. Can't you? I can feel their zeal for Christ. Can't you? Obvious Idiot Question: "I'm gonna get a piece of paper at the end of this that says I know what the Bible says. They will make a big to-do about me, and some old men will put their hands on me and send me out as a 'minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.' Doesn't everyone do that? Have you met a man or woman who did something like this, who, at least at some point, was not passionately committed to whatever body of truth he was commissioned to defend? Doesn't every putative church have at least one old woman who will yell, "The whole counsel of God!" when confronted with some monstrously deformed version (in their view) of the Good News? (For the uninitiated, this is a shorthand way of saying, "We are biblical, and they are not.") My people, just sit and think on this. This is why John H. Armstrong, whatever his tendency to an irritating reductionism, travels to as many different kinds of churches as he can find. This is why he sounds like a relativist. He knows this reality. He just doesn't have an answer. That's OK, too. We do need people to affirm and celebrate truth wherever it is found. But we can't stop there. We just can't.
I was forced to ask, "Why do I believe this and not that?" It was very specific. It has to be. But I read books from authors who were not in my denomination. I was trained with those books. That's inevitable, I suppose. But don't you naturally say, "What's wrong with that guy?" Once you spend more time with him, you say, "What's wrong with me?"
Look, friends. I grew up nothing. I've been raised by a vaguely spiritual daughter of an ex-militant atheist. When Jesus Christ spoke to me, I was not in The Christian Club, OK? I understand faith, unfaith, and everything in between. So when I say, "We have a theological problem, a question that needs an answer," I hope you understand the weight that carries. All the appreciations and attempts at harmony and leaving it alone have been tried. You'd have to. And if you're me, pluralism is not a problem unless and until it casts doubt on the truth of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father, and doubt on the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
But I couldn't answer the question, "Why this, not that." I got no comfort from reading the Scriptures, or, better said, I got no answer to the questions. By some mercy, the only truth I gleaned from the Scriptures was that God loves us. I said in some desperation to a friend some time in 2010, "Don't ask me about atonement or justification or even faith, because I don't know." Can you feel the pain in that? Do you understand it? I preached from the Bible dozens of times, and I didn't even know what it said, beyond, "Jesus loves us." What a terrible, beautiful, and heroic thing!
By another mercy, it was cool and fashionable to speak of "unity in the essentials" centered around those two creeds we all know: the Apostles' Creed, and the Nicene Creed. Walk into any PCA church not in the Deep South, where the Presbyterians are more like Baptists in their lack of concern for unity, (though some sanguine sorts have made their way down) and you'll hear a lovely soliloquy from a pleasant man, extolling the creeds as our link with the past, and our link with other Christians who may not share all the tenets of our faith. The Eucharistic soliloquies are just as epic. We'll call those, "This is not a Presbyterian Table" speeches. What I'm saying is, I'm on to you. I know how you talk when the problem of Christian disunity first strikes. These little efforts are nothing more than Jedi mind-tricks to keep the deeper ecclesiological questions at bay. But they keep coming. Or they should.
Start with the agreement, and work backward. Then forward. You realize pretty fast that you've failed to properly contextualize the creeds, and the crises that occasioned them. In short, I knew I had been ad hoc toward it all. It was ecclesial plagiarism. It was that "ecclesial" part that caught my attention. I knew that I'd find the Church when I found the principled reasons for saying "this, not that."
I met Bryan Cross in the spring of 2009. I met him because I went to a talk on the Council of Trent from the Association of Hebrew Catholics. I was neither Hebrew, nor Catholic, but the man giving the talk was Dr. Lawrence Feingold, a professor of Catholic theology. Within an hour, I made two forever friends. Bootstrap Turner was there. I thought I was "safe".
My alignment was bad, and my wheelchair lift stopped functioning. It was a crazy night. But I knew almost instantly that I had made a friend closer than a brother in Bryan. I don't understand it even now. But it's true as the day is long. Bryan was and is like a living sanctuary to say the dangerous things, to air the things we tend to keep quiet, at least in theology. I could live in 2 worlds, and switch between them, and have someone there who understood what I felt. He was always an ally, and he has been ever since. He was the one who gave me Mathison's book, "The Shape of Sola Scriptura." It was only the beginning of the earthquake. Mathison did not argue poorly; he was not careless, except perhaps with Catholic theology. Bryan told me he and his friends were composing a response to the book. I was insistent that I did not want to read any critique until I had read and reflected upon it. I do not even now possess the tools to describe what it felt like to read it. I had to stop myself from becoming Catholic when I finished it. That is certainly not what the author intended! That's why it's funny. Called to Communion (the academic Catholic blog of former Reformed converts) waited 1 year for a response to their response. I read that response eagerly when it came. What a disappointment! What a failure! Every Reformed person should weep, and hope it is not the best that can be done.
I digress. I never felt safe contemplating being received into the Catholic Church. Rarely did it seem like a good idea, or fun, or cool. Actually, for most of the time, I feared that I was sinning against God. It seemed like a mistake. I liked everyone I met, and they seemed to like me, but I thought they were all crazy. But I needed to understand Catholicism. Why do they believe these things? Why do they insist it is the Church that Christ founded? Why does most of the Christian world (at least numerically) seem to agree? Is there any evidence for this?
I felt safe with Bryan and his family, because they are wonderful people. There is a tranquility in the places where they dwell; it is the love of God. It is that supernatural charity which will save us from eternal death. It seemed like I could drink it there. I have often wondered why I went to so many Masses with them. I did not yearn to be Catholic. What I did yearn for was safety. I felt safe to speak any number of Reformed heresies without fear. I would not have said that my theological environment was stifling, but it was. The reason I always felt like a rebel is because, like I said, I know when people know truths they are afraid to speak.
There is only one God. Remember that. I can say this now, but every time I went to Mass, it seemed like God was calling out to me. It felt like a love song. It felt like falling for a girl. Multiplied a billion times. When the first of my friends was received at Pentecost, I have never desired the Eucharist as I did that day. I didn't understand it at all. My heart said, "This sacrifice is for me." And I do not mean Our Lord's Passion. We all know that. I mean, this Sacrifice of the Mass. I told you before, though, I don't do things on feelings, even strong ones. I continued to read and study. I prayed to the only God every day, "If this is false, show me." But I know when God speaks. Nothing or no one sounds like Him. This is why I wrote to a friend, "If you are invited to do something, and you think you might do it, look for Jesus first. Where He is, falsehood cannot be." I was not ready to change my life on a feeling, but I did look for Jesus. I did "listen" with my spirit. If I heard Him, if I saw Him, I went. I went even if I was afraid. That's what any Christian would do, amen?
The evidence for the Catholic Church being the Church that Christ founded is very strong. They said they had evidence, and I said, "Show me." If you have the guts to consider the possibility that there is a visible Church (because something gracious kicks that door open at some point) and you look at the evidence for this particular candidate, you cannot help but be impressed. The Orthodox are the only other live option, and if you landed there...could be worse. Valid clergy and sacraments is no small thing. But the Catholic Church is not limited to the West, as much as some profit from making it appear so. I highly value all the liturgical and theological pluralism in the Church, and let me not fail to thank all the Churches in union with the Bishop of Rome for all that they offer us. It is indeed an oversight when any of them is neglected. The one visible Church that Christ founded needs a principium unitatis, a principle of unity, and the successor of Peter has always been that, so...there you go, as Papa Costas from My Big Fat Greek Wedding would say.
One more thing: I was not afraid when I first realized that objectively speaking, I had been outside His Church for most of my life as a Christian. Because He is love and mercy. And if so, our hearts resonate with His. "My sheep hear My voice..." All we ever have to do is follow when we hear Him calling. I don't negate or denounce where I have been, because God was there. But I know we can't stay there if He bids us go. The only hard thing was to leave my brothers and sisters to enter the Church. I wish that I were cut off from Christ for their sake! Lord, have mercy! There is only one God. "Though none go with me/Still I will follow/Though none go with me/Still I will follow/Though none go with me/Still I will follow/No turning back/No turning back." Why'd I do it? Because the only Lord God Almighty said so. Game Over.
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