Crossing The Jordan
A blog by someone Jesus loves.
A Bit About My Faith Journey
About me, what is there to say?
Do you want to hear my entire spiritual journey? There are things I will leave out, things I don’t wish to talk about now. But the gist is that I’ve been around the block.
I was raised a devout Southern Baptist and became a convinced atheist in my teens. When I had an encounter with the demonic in such a way that reason could not discount it, I had to confront the fact that the supernatural was objectively real and atheism objectively false.
But that didn’t matter. Atheism is an act of the will, it’s saying I don’t want God to exist. And that didn’t change when I found out the devil was real. My heart didn’t change. Initially I was worse off because of it. But we won’t go into that here, I’m skipping ahead. Suffice it to say when I say I know the devil exists, I know.
Eventually when I did decide to search for God, I had to start from square one. I knew logically that if the devil existed, then God must exist as well. But God, so ambiguous. Who is God? Quid est Veritas?
Now the real spiritual tourism began, not spirituality for its own sake, but religion– spirituality that sought after God. Who is God? What began as a spiritual search ended as an intense academic interest in world religion that continues to this day. But alas, it did end with true religion. I’ve been around the block. I’ve explored, practiced, delved into all the major world religions.
Only Christianity really made sense after poking and prodding and reading and studying and practicing, only Christianity really stood up to the litmus test. Only Christianity seemed to stand up to everything I could throw at it. Now, maybe my upbringing had something to do with that, sure. Maybe the fact that I encountered the devil as he exists according to Christian demonology, sure. But God led me to him through the person of Jesus Christ.
And so my obsession then encompassed Christianity itself. I had such a great love for Christianity that I wanted to become familiar with all the different ways these people called Christians worship God. And bit by bit my stereotypes and biases against Christians of other traditions than the one I was raised in were blown out of the water. First against Catholics, then against mainline Protestants and the Orthodox, and finally of the Evangelical church I grew up in.
God ended up leading me back to him through the Christian religion as practiced by the Roman Catholic Church– a decision that which likewise was subjected to a large degree of intellectual scrutiny. The best church really is the one that leads you closest to God, and without the sacraments, without the Eucharist, ah! For me the Catholic Church is home.
I am convinced of the essential truths of the Catholic faith, especially of the doctrines held in common by all Christians everywhere in the undivided Church before the East-West schism of 1054 and up until the Protestant Reformation (a view shared by Catholics, the Orthodox, and some Anglicans among others). I am a layman of the Roman Catholic Church, a Christian above all else.
Now, I guess what makes my story unique is that after I became Catholic I didn’t stop going to Protestant churches. Actually I still enjoy and benefit greatly spiritually from going to different Protestant services. God actually led me to reconnect with my childhood Baptist church, to see that my rebellion really was my own and to reconnect with the community there. It felt like coming home again in my own way. He also led me to a little mainline Protestant Lutheran church I have come to be very fond of. As a Catholic I could never formally join these other churches of course, but they feel like home to me. I am certainly not members, but I’m not exactly just a guest there either. I am a brother in Christ, a child of God. What else is there to say?
I suppose where this blog will be different from other Christian blogs is that it will have a degree of perspective. On a given weekend I attend at a minimum 3 services: one is at a conservative evangelical Baptist church, one is at a liberal mainline Lutheran church, and one is at a Roman Catholic Church. Now, I said at a minimum because often there is more than that. I’ve also started attending an Orthodox Church recently. I try to receive daily communion as well. That’s the faith journey, and we’re skipping over a lot. But that’s alright. I’ll finish this ‘About’ page later.
My Perspective Writing This Blog
As I said I am an ordinary layman of the Roman Catholic Church. In writing this blog I am above all interested in the defense and propagation of what C.S. Lewis called ‘Mere Christianity’.
I do not care if you are a Roman Catholic, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Lutheran, or what have you. Merely being a formal member of even the best Church cannot save you. Being a Catholic on paper is worthless if your heart is a stone. If you have Christ in your heart you are a sibling in Christ. If you do not, I wish very much you enter into a personal relationship with Christ and I do not care how you do it, provided you do not so gravely er as to reject what all Christians everywhere have held in common and regarded as essential to the faith.
I have neither the time nor the energy to seriously worry about trying to convert people who are already genuine Christians from their particular denomination into the Catholic Church or vice versa, or to prove that I am right and they are wrong by bashing them with my beliefs. I will defend the faith when it is attacked, yes, but I will not go out of my way to attack others. One can be in Christ in a bad church and not in Christ in a good church. I’m not saying there aren’t good churches and bad churches, I do not ascribe to the error of indifferentism. But I care more greatly about people’s souls being right with God, more than lesser errors or church politics— as fascinating as they can be.
I am far more concerned for even a Baptized and Confirmed cultural Catholic than I am with even a devout anti-Catholic Calvinist who actually loves Jesus. Should a Protestant missionary under the erroneous notion that the Catholic Church is actually some pagan monstrosity visit an already Christian country to evangelize, and in the process manage reach that lukewarm cultural Catholic’s heart with a genuine trusting faith in Christ, I should rejoice and thank God that Salvation has come to that person’s house. God Bless such missionaries even as naively as they er, for surely God uses even hands such as these for His Glory.
So you see, I am not so worried about those in our Master’s flock who are genuinely living the Christian life in a church that doesn’t have the best theology. Yes those differences do matter, and errors are errors. But spending all of one’s time focusing on them in order to “save souls” that are already saved is a trick from the evil one.
We who believe in our hearts and profess with our lips that Christ is Lord are already safe under the loving care of the Good Shepherd. And there are other sheep outside our fold who are lost and hungry in the wilderness.