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Catholics can resort to coitus interruptus and the rythm method, in other words, physics not chemistry ;) This isn't my area but I do recall hearing some atheists scientists who had no problem with birth control/abortion defending JP IIs stance on it and saying that it made total sense and was consistent. I wish I had payed closer attention. Will you give me time to think about this one. It's a hard one because birth control has never been an important issue for me. The church is against for 3 main reasons I think- 1 because they view most methods as abortificants; 2 because they don't believe in sex outside of marriage and 3 because there's more to life, it believes, than limiting the number of children you have so that you can have 2 cars in the garage. #3 ties into their entire bit about relativism, consumerism, materialism which inevitably lead to exploitation of the poor pretending that there's not enough to go around when we all know there is. Have you noticed it's always the poor who are supposed to not have children? When the Haitian refugees were herded to camps in Guantanamo Bay, the women were forcefully given shots of Depo-Provera. That galls me because there's something inherently unjust about forcing this on other people just because they're poor. They wouldn't be so poor if we didn't exploit them. Haiti is a tragic example of how 100 consistent years of our racism, our economic embargoes, our meddling and our exploitation impoverished an entire people and intends to keep them in that state. Anyway I drifted. My point is that we steal their land, steal their resources, set them up in slave factories and then tell them they can't have children. To me there's something wrong with that. I don't think the Catholic Church really cares if my little Yuppie sister uses birth control anymore than they care if I steal a pen from work. Both are wrong. Both actions are between me, my conscience and God and that's a great belief but when it comes to pushing technologies to control and exploit the rest of the world, turning it into our own private, managed work force, I think there's a problem and that as respecters of all life, rich, poor, handicapped, able-bodied, it's our duty to speak out. I don't think this made much sense. It's very hard for me to put this into words, especially as tired as I am this week but I hope you could at least follow the logic, even if you don't agree with it. I'd like to see us work for social justice with social safety nets for people in our country and a respect for the resources of other countries where we allow them to manage their own resources and bodies. I do not like to see my country foisting unhealthy coca-cola and junk products with overly sexualized marketing upon the rest of the world as we steal their resources. What right have we to steal everyone's resources only to pretend we cannot feed the world and push birth control on them? Have you ever read the books of Scott Hahn? He was a Presbyterian Minister who converted to Catholicism after a long journey begun when his wife/fiancee(?) was writing a paper on birth control at the seminiary. Anyway, he goes into great detail about it in his book. This is a shortened version that he published on the internet to share with people- the explanations in his books are a lot more detailed but birth control lit the spark to his conversion. Here. Read it in his own words... The book is fascinating, I highly recommend it if only out of intellectual curiosity. Sorry for drifting so much! The first thing was a course that Kimberly took her first year,
a class that I had taken the year before entitled Christian Ethics. Dr.
Davis had all the students break up into small groups so that each small
group could tackle one topic. There was a small group on abortion, a
small group on nuclear war, a small group on capital punishment. One
dinner she announced that she was in a small group devoted to studying
contraception. I remember thinking at the time, "Why contraception?"
The year before when I took the class, nobody signed up for that
small group and I told her. She said, "Well, three others have signed up
for it and we had our first meeting today. So and so appointed himself
to be chair of the committee, and he announced the results of our study
even before it began. He said, 'Well, we all know as Protestants, as
Bible Christians, that contraception is fine, I mean so long as we don't
use contraceptives that are abortafacients like the I.U.D. and so on.'
He announced further that really the only people who call themselves
Christians who oppose artificial birth control are the Catholics, and he
said, 'The reason they do, of course, is because they are run by a
celibate Pope and lead by celibate priests who don't have to raise the
kids but want Catholic parents to raise lots so they can have lots of
priests and nuns to draw from, you know.'"
Well, that kind of argumentation did not really impress
Kimberly. She said, "Are you sure those are the best arguments they
would offer?" And I guess he must have mocked or said, "Well, do you
want to look into it yourself?" You don't say that kind of thing to
Kimberly. She said, "Yes," and she took an interest in researching this
on her own. A week went by and Terry stopped me in the halls. He said,
"You ought to talk to your wife; she's unearthed some interesting
information about contraception." Interesting information about
contraception? What is interesting about contraception? Well, you know
he said, "She's your wife; you ought to find out." "Yeah, all right; I
will, Terry."
So that night at dinner I asked her, "What is Terry talking
about?" And she said, "I've discovered that up until 1930, every single
Protestant denomination without exception opposed contraception on
Biblical grounds." Then I said, "Oh come on, maybe it just took us a few
centuries to work out the last vestiges of residual Romanism, I don't
know." And she said, "Well, I'm going to look into it."
Then another week later, Terry stopped me and said,"Her
arguments make sense." I said, "Arguments against contraception from
Scripture?" He said, "You ought to talk to her." "All right, I'll talk
to her." You know, given the subject matter, I thought I better.
So I raised the issue and she handed me a book. It was entitled
Birth Control and the Marriage Covenant by John Kippley. It just
recently was reissued, entitled Sex and the Marriage Covenant. You can
get it from Couple to Couple League in Cincinnati. I began to read
through the book with great interest because in my own personal study,
going through the Bible several times, I had come upon this strong
conviction that if you want to know God, you have to understand the
covenant, because the covenant was the central idea in all of Scripture.
So when I picked up this book I was interested to see the word
'covenant' in the title, Birth Control and the Marriage Covenant. I
opened it up and I began reading it, and I said, "Wait a second,
Kimberly, this guy is a Catholic. You expect me to read a Catholic?" And
the thought occurred to me instantly at that moment, What is a Catholic
doing putting 'covenant' into his book title? Since when do Catholics
hijack my favorite concept?
Well, I began to read the book. I went through two or three
chapters and he was beginning to make sense, so I promptly threw the
book across my desk. I didn't frankly want him to make any sense. But I
picked it up again and read through some more. His arguments made a lot
of sense. From the Bible, from the covenant, he showed that the marital
act is not just a physical act; it's a spiritual act that God has
designed by which the marital covenant is renewed. And in all covenants
you have an opportunity to renew the covenant, and the act of covenant
renewal is an act or a moment of grace. When you renew a covenant, God
releases grace, and grace is life, grace is power, grace is God's own
love. Kippley shows how in a marital covenant, God has designed the
marital act to show the life-giving power of love. That in the marital
covenant the two become one, and God has designed it so that when the
two become one, they become so one that nine months later you might just
have to give it a name. And that child who is conceived, embodies the
oneness that God has made the two through the marital act. This is all
the way that God has designed the marital covenant. God said, "Let us
make man in our image and likeness," and God, who is three in one, made
man, male and female, and said, "Be fruitful and multiply." The two
shall become one and when the two become one, the one they become is a
third child, and then they become three in one. It just began to make a
lot of sense, and he went through other arguments as well. By the time I
finished the book, I was convinced.
It bothered me just a little that the Roman Catholic Church was
the only denomination, the only Church tradition on earth that upheld
this age-old Christian teaching rooted in Scripture, because in 1930 the
Anglican Church broke from this tradition and began to allow
contraception, and shortly thereafter every single mainline denomination
on earth practically caved in to the mounting pressure of the sexual
revolution. By the 1960's and 70's, my own denomination, the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, not only endorsed
contraception, but abortion on demand and federal funding for abortion,
and that appalled me. And I began to wonder if there wasn't a connection
between giving in a little here and then all of a sudden watching the
floodgates open later. I thought "No, no, you know the Catholic Church
has been around for 2000 years; they're bound to get something right."
We have a saying in our family that even a blind hog finds an acorn, and
so it was, I thought. That was my second year.
During my third and final year at seminary, something happened
that represented a crisis for me. I was studying covenant and I heard of
another theologian studying covenant, a man by the name of Professor
Shepherd in Philadelphia teaching at Westminster Seminary. I heard about
Shepherd because he was being accused of heresy. People were suggesting
that his heresy grew out of his understanding of the covenant. So I got
some documents that he had written, some articles, and I read through
them. I discovered that Professor Shepherd had come across the same
conclusions that my research had led me to.
In the Protestant world the idea of covenant is understood
practically as synonymous with or interchangeable with contract. When
you have a covenant with God, it's the same as having a contract. You
give God your sin; He gives you Christ, and everything is a faith-deal
for salvation.
But the more I studied, the more I came to see that for the
ancient Hebrews, and in Sacred Scripture, a covenant differs from a
contract about as much as marriage differs from prostitution. In a
contract you exchange property, whereas in a covenant you exchange
persons. In a contract you say, "This is yours and that is mine," but
Scripture shows how in a covenant you say, "I am yours and you are
mine." Even when God makes a covenant with us, He says, "I will be your
God and you will be my people." After studying Hebrew, I discovered that
'Am, the Hebrew word for people, literally means, kinsman, family. I
will be your God and father; you will be my family, my sons and my
daughters, my household. So covenants form kinship bonds which makes
family with God.
I read Shepherd's articles, and he was saying much of the same
thing: our covenant with God means sonship. I thought, "Well, yeah, this
is good." I wondered what heresy is involved in that. Then somebody told
me, "Shepherd is calling into question sola fide." What! No way. I mean,
that is the Gospel. That is the simple truth of Jesus Christ. He died
for sins; I believe in him. He saves me, pure and simple; it's a done
deal. Sola fide? He's questioning that? No way.
I called him on the phone. I said, "I've read your stuff on
covenant; it makes lots of sense. I've come to pretty much the same
conclusions. But why is this leading you to call into question Luther's
doctrine of sola fide?" He went on to show in this discussion that
Luther's conception of justification was very restricted and limited. It
had lots of truth, but it also missed lots of truths.
When I hung up the phone, I pursued this a little further and I
discovered that for Luther and for practically all of Bible Christianity
and Protestantism, God is a judge, and the covenant is a courtroom scene
whereby all of us are guilty criminals. But since Christ took our
punishment, we get his righteousness, and he gets our sins, so we get
off scot-free; we're justified. For Luther, in other words, salvation is
a legal exchange, but for Paul in Romans, for Paul in Galatians,
salvation is that, but it's much more than that. It isn't just a legal
exchange because the covenant doesn't point to a Roman courtroom so much
as to a Hebrew family room. God is not just simply a judge; God is a
father, and his judgments are fatherly. Christ is not just somebody who
represents an innocent victim who takes our rap, our penalty; He is the
firstborn among many brethren. He is our oldest brother in the family,
and he sees us as runaways, as prodigals, as rebels who are cut off from
the life of God's family. And by the new covenant Christ doesn't just
exchange in a legal sense; Christ gives us His own sonship so that we
really become children of God.
When I shared this with my friends, they were like, "Yeah,
that's Paul." But when I went into the writings of Luther and Calvin, I
didn't find it any longer. They had trained me to study Scripture, but
in the process, in a sense, I discovered that there were some very
significant gaps in their teaching. So I came to the conclusion that
sola fide is wrong. First, because the Bible never says it anywhere.
Second, because Luther inserted the word "alone" in his German
translation, there in Romans 3, although he knew perfectly well that the
word "alone" was not in the Greek. Nowhere did the Holy Spirit ever
inspire the writers of Scripture to say we're saved by faith alone. Paul
teaches we're saved by faith, but in Galatians he says we're saved by
faith working in love. And that's the way it is in a family isn't it? A
father doesn't say to his kids, "Hey, kids, since you're in my family
and all the other kids who are your friends aren't, you don't have to
work, you don't have to obey, you don't have to sacrifice because, hey,
you're saved. You're going to get the inheritance no matter what you
do." That's not the way it works.
So I changed my mind and I grew very concerned. One of my most
brilliant professors, a man named Dr. John Gerstner, had once said that
if we're wrong on sola fide, I'd be on my knees outside the Vatican in
Rome tomorrow morning doing penance. Now we laughed, what rhetoric, you
know. But he got the point across; this is the article from which all of
the other doctrines flow. And if we're wrong there, we're going to have
some homework to get done to figure out where else we might have gone
wrong. I was concerned, but I wasn't overly concerned. At the time I was
planning to go to Scotland to study at Aberdeen University the doctrine
of the covenant, because in Scotland, covenant theology was born and
developed. And I was eager to go over and study there. So I wasn't
particularly concerned about resolving this issue because, after all,
that could be the focus of my doctoral study.
Then all of a sudden we got news that our change in theory
about contraception had brought about a change in Kimberly's anatomy and
physiology; she was pregnant. And Margaret Thatcher was not interested
in funding American babies being born in her great empire. So we looked
at the situation; we realized that we couldn't afford to go over to
Scotland just yet. We'd have to take a year off, but what were we going
to do as we were drawing close to graduation? We weren't sure; we began
to pray.
***Becomes Pastor of a Church in Virginia***
The phone rang. A church in Virginia, a well-known church
that I had heard a lot of good about called me up and said, "Would you
consider coming down to candidate for the pastorate here?" This meant
preaching a trial sermon, leading a Bible study, interviewing with the
elders who ran the session. I said, "Sure." I went down, preached a
sermon, led a Bible study, met with the session. They said, "That was
great; we want you here. In fact we'll pay you well enough so that you
can study at least 20 hours a week in Scripture and theology. We want
you to preach, however, at least 45 minutes each Sunday morning to open
up for us the Word." 45 minutes! Can you imagine what a priest would get
if he preached for 45 minutes? The next week that sanctuary and the
whole Church would be empty. Here they were asking me to preach at least
45 minutes. I said, "If you insist, you know, twist my arm. Sure." And
they said, "We want you to immerse us in the Word of God," and so I
began.
The first thing I did was to tell them about covenant. The
second thing I did was to correct their misunderstanding of covenant as
contract to show them that covenant means family. The third thing I did
was to show them that the family of God makes more sense of who we are
and what Christ has done than anything in the Bible. God is Father, God
is Son, and God through the Holy Spirit has made us one family with Him.
And as soon as I began to preach this and teach this, it just took off
like wildfire. It spread through the parish; you could see it affecting
marriages and families. It was exciting. The fourth thing I did, was to
teach them about liturgy and covenant and family, that in Scripture the
covenant is celebrated through liturgical worship whereby God's family
gathers for a meal to celebrate the sacrifice of Christ. I suggested in
my preaching and teaching that maybe we ought to have the family meal,
communion. I even used the word "Eucharist." They never heard it before.
I said, "Maybe we ought to celebrate being God's covenant-family by
communion each week." "What?" I said, "Instead of being sermon-centered,
why not have the sermon be a prelude and a preparation to enter into
celebrating who we are as God's family?" They loved it.
But one guy came up and said, "Every week? You know familiarity
breeds contempt; you sure we should do it every week?" I said, "Well,
wait a second. You know, do you say to you wife I love you only four
times a year? After all, honey, familiarity breeds contempt. You know I
don't want to kiss you more than four times a year." He looked and he
said, "I get your point."
As we changed our liturgy, we felt a change in our lived
experience as a parish but also in our families as well. It was exciting
to see, and as I taught them more about the covenant, they just hungered
and thirsted for still more.
Meanwhile, I was also teaching part time at the local Christian
high school that met there at the church. I had some of the brightest
students I have ever taught, and they also responded with enthusiasm to
this covenant idea. I began to teach a course on salvation history, and
at first they were scared because it was so confusing, all those names
and places that you can't even pronounce much less make sense out of. So
I showed them, "Hey, once you think of covenant as family, it's really
quite simple." I took my students through the series of covenants in the
Old Testament which led up to Christ. First, you have the covenant God
makes with Adam; that's a marriage, a family bond. The second covenant
is the one that God makes with Noah. That's a family, a household with
Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives; together they
formed a family of God, a household of faith. Then in Abraham's time you
actually have God's family growing to the extent where it becomes a
tribal family. Then the next covenant God makes with Moses and Israel
has twelve tribes that become one nation, but through the covenant they
become God's national family. Until finally when Christ establishes the
new covenant. Instead of having God's family identified with one nation,
the distinctive greatness of the New Covenant, I taught them, was that
now we have an international family, a world wide family -- a catholic
family.
One of my students raised her hand and said, "What would this
look like if we could actually redevelop it?" I drew a pyramid on the
board and I said, "Think of it like a big extended family with father
and mother figures at all these different levels, and all of us being
brothers and sisters in Christ. I heard somebody murmur in the back,
"Sure looks like the Catholic Church to me." I said, "No, no, no! What
I'm giving you is the solution to the problems, the antidote to the
poison." Well, Rebecca came up one day at lunch time. I was eating lunch
and she said, "We took a little vote in the back of the class; it's
unanimous; we all think you're going to become a Roman Catholic." I
choked on my sandwich, "Quiet, quiet. I don't want to lose my job, but
Rebecca, I assure you that what I'm giving you is not Catholicism; it's
the antidote to the poison of Catholicism." She just stood there looking
at me, "No, it's unanimous, you're going to become a Catholic." And she
turned around and walked away.
Well, I was stunned by that. I went home that afternoon, walked
into the kitchen, saw Kimberly over by the refrigerator and I said,
"You'll never guess what Rebecca said today." "Tell me what, another
Rebecca story?" I said. "Well, she came up at lunch time and announced
that they had taken a vote in the back of the class, and it was
unanimous that I'm going to become a Roman Catholic. Can you imagine
that, me becoming a Catholic?" And she wasn't laughing one bit. She just
stood there staring at me, she said, "Well, are you?" It was as though
somebody plunged a dagger into my back. You know, "Et tu, Brute,
Kimberly? Not you, too." I said, "You know I'm a Calvinist, a Calvinist
of Calvinists, a Presbyterian, an anti-Catholic. I've given away dozens
of copies of Boettner's book; I've gotten Catholics to leave. I was
weaned on Martin Luther." She just stood there and she said, "Yeah, but
sometimes I wonder if you're not Luther in reverse." Whoa, wait a minute
here! I had nothing to say.
I just slowly walked back in my study, shut the door, locked it,
sank into my seat and really began to brood. I was scared. Luther in
reverse. For me at one point that meant salvation in reverse. I was
scared. Maybe I'm studying too much and praying too little, so I began
to pray much more. I began to read more anti-Catholic books, but they
just didn't make sense anymore. So I began to turn to Catholic sources
and read them.
***Teacher at a Presbyterian Seminary***
Meanwhile something dramatic occurred. I was approached by a
seminary, a Presbyterian seminary, and asked if I would teach courses to
the seminarians beginning with one Gospel of John seminar. I said,
"Sure." So I began to share from the Gospel of John all about the
covenant, about the family of God, about what it really means to be born
again. I discovered in my study that being born again does not mean
accepting Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord and asking Him into
your heart -- although that is important and every believer, Catholic or
otherwise, should have Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and a living
personal relationship with Him. But I discovered what Jesus meant in
John 3 when He said that you've got to be born again. He turns around
and says that you've got to be born of water and spirit. In the previous
chapters He was just baptized with water and the Spirit descended upon
Him. And as soon as He is done talking to Nicodemus about the need to be
born from water and Spirit, the very next verse says that Jesus and the
disciples went about baptizing. I taught that being born again is a
covenant act, a sacrament, a covenant renewal involving baptism. I
shared this with my seminary students; they were convinced.
Meanwhile I was preparing my sermons and some lectures ahead of
John chapter 3. I was delving into John chapter 6. I don't know how many
of you've ever studied the Gospel of John. In many ways it's the richest
Gospel of all. But John chapter 6 is my favorite chapter in the fourth
Gospel. There I discovered something that I think I read before, but I
never noticed. Listen to it. "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly I say to
you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink His blood you
have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has
eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day, for my flesh is
food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and
drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.'" I read that; I reread that;
I looked at it from ten different angles. I bought all these books about
it, commentaries on John. I couldn't understand how to make sense out of
it.
I had been trained to interpret that in a figurative sense;
Jesus is using a symbol. Flesh and blood really is just a symbol of His
body and blood. But the more I studied, the more I realized that that
interpretation makes no sense at all. Why? Because as soon as all the
Jews hear what Jesus says, they depart. Up until this point, thousands
were following him, and then all of a sudden the multitudes just simply
are shocked that He says, "My flesh is food indeed, my blood is drink
indeed" and they all depart. Thousands of disciples leave Him. If Jesus
had intended that language to only be figurative, He would have been
morally obligated as a teacher to say, "Stop, I only mean it
figuratively." But He doesn't do that; instead, what does he do?
My research showed me that he turns to the twelve, and he says
to them, what? "We better hire a public relations (P.R.) agent; I really
blew it guys." No! He says, "Are you going to leave me too?" He doesn't
say, "Do you understand I only meant it as a symbol?" No! He says that
the truth is what sets us free, I have taught the truth. What are you
going to do about it?
Peter stands up and speaks out; he says, "To whom shall we go?
You alone have the words of eternal life and we've come to believe."
Peter's statement, "To whom shall we go?" implies that, "You know,
Jesus, we don't understand what you mean either, but do you have another
Rabbi on the scene you can recommend? You know, to whom shall we go?
It's too late for us; we believe whatever you say even if we don't
understand it fully, and if you say we have to eat your flesh and drink
your blood, then somehow you'll give us the grace we need to accept your
words at face value." He didn't mean it figuratively.
As I began to study this, I began to realized it's one thing
to convince Presbyterians that being born again means being baptized,
but how in the world could I possibly convince them that we actually
have to eat His flesh and drink His blood? I focused then a little bit
more on the Lord's supper and communion. I discovered that Jesus had
never used the word "covenant" in His public ministry. He saved the one
time for when He instituted the Eucharist and he said, "This cup is the
blood of the new covenant." If covenant means family, what is it that
makes us family? Sharing flesh and blood. So if Christ forms a new
covenant, that is a new family, what is He going to have to provide us
with? New flesh and new blood. I began to see why in the early Church
for over 700 years, nobody any place disputed the meaning of Jesus'
words. All of the early Church fathers without exception took Jesus'
words at face value and believed and taught the real presence of Christ
in the Eucharist. I was scared; I didn't know who to turn to.
Then all of a sudden an episode occurred one night in a seminar
I wasn't ready for. An ex-Catholic graduate student named John raised
his hand. He had just finished a presentation for the seminar on the
Council of Trent. The Council of Trent, you'll recall, was the Church's
official response to Martin Luther and the Reformation.
In about an hour and a half he had presented the Council of Trent in the
most favorable light. He had shown how many of their arguments were in
fact based on the Bible. Then he turned the tables on me. The students
were supposed to ask him a question or two. He said, "Can I first ask
you a question, Professor Hahn? You know how Luther really had two
slogans, not just sola fide, but the second slogan he used to revolt
against Rome was sola Scriptura, the Bible alone. My question is, 'Where
does the Bible teach that?'"
I looked at him with a blank stare. I could feel sweat coming to
my forehead. I used to take pride in asking my professors the most
stumping questions, but I never heard this one before. And so I heard
myself say words that I had sworn I'd never speak; I said, "John, what a
dumb question." He was not intimidated. He look at me and said, "Give me
a dumb answer." I said, "All right, I'll try." I just began to wing it.
I said, "Well, Timothy 3:16 is the key: 'All Scripture is inspired of
God and profitable for correction, for training and righteousness, for
reproof that the man of God may be completely equipped for every good
work....'" He said, "Wait a second, that only says that Scripture is
inspired and profitable; it doesn't say ONLY Scripture is inspired or
even better, only Scripture's profitable for those things. We need other
things like prayer," and then he said, "What about 2 Thessalonians
2:15?" I said, "What's that again?" He said, "Well, there Paul tells the
Thessalonians that they have to hold fast, they have to cling to the
traditions that Paul has taught them either in writing or by word of
mouth." Whoa! I wasn't ready. I said, "Well, let's move on with the
questions and answers; I'll deal with this next week. Let's go
on."
I don't think they realized the panic I was in. When I drove
home that night, I was just staring up to the heavens asking God, why
have I never heard that question? Why have I never found an answer? The
next day I began calling up theologians around the country, former
professors. I'd ask them, "Where does the Bible teach sola Scriptura?
Where does the Bible teach us that the Bible is our only authority?" One
man actually said to me, "What a dumb question coming from you." I said,
"Give me a dumb answer then." I was catching on. One professor whom I
greatly respect, an Oxford theologian, said to me, "Scott, you don't
expect to find the Bible proving sola Scriptura because it isn't
something the Bible demonstrates. It is our assumption; it is our
presupposition when we approach the Bible." That struck me as odd; I
said, "But professor, that seems strange because what we are saying then
is that we should only believe what the Bible teaches, but the Bible
doesn't teach us to only believe what the Bible teaches. Our assumption
isn't taught by the Bible." I said, "That feels like we're cutting off
the branch that we're sitting on." Then he said, "Well what other
options do we have?" Good point, all right.
Another friend, a theologian, called me and said, "Scott, what
is this I'm hearing that you're considering the Catholic faith?" "Well,
no, Art, I'm not really considering the Catholic faith." Then I decided
to pose him a question. I said, "Art, what for you is the pillar and
foundation of truth?" And he said, "Scott, for all of us Scripture is
the pillar and foundation of truth." I said, "Then why, Art, does the
Bible say in 1 Timothy 3:15 that the pillar and foundation of truth is
the church, the household of faith?" There was a silence and he said,
"Well, Scott, I think you're setting me up with that question then." And
I said, "Art, I feel like I'm being set up with lots of problems." He
said, "Well, which church, Scott? There are lots of them." I said, "Art,
how many churches are even applying for the job of being the pillar and
foundation of truth? I mean, if you talk about a church saying, 'We're
the pillar and foundation of truth; look to us and you will hear Christ
speak and teach'? How many applicants for the job are there? I only know
of one. I only know that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that it was
founded by Christ; it's been around for 2000 years and it's making some
outlandish claims that seem awfully similar to 1 Timothy 3:15."
Well, at this point I wasn't sure what to do. I got a phone
call, though, one day from the chairman of the board of trustees at the
seminar where I was teaching. Steve asked me out for lunch. I wasn't
sure why. I thought, "Word has reached the chairman of the board that
I'm teaching things that are perhaps somewhat Catholic." When I joined
him for lunch, I was very scared and unsure. He proceeded to announce
that the trustees had reached a unanimous decision. Because my classes
were going so well, because so many people were signing up for my
courses, they asked if I would consider becoming dean of the seminary at
the ripe old age of 26. I couldn't believe it. He said, "We will let you
teach the courses you want. We will let you hire faculty if you need
them. We'll even pay for your doctoral program in theology." I said,
"Where is there a doctoral program in theology nearby?" He said,
"Catholic University." I thought, No, no, no. I don't want to study
there; I'm fleeing that perspective at present." I really didn't say
that to him because I didn't know what to say. In fact, he said, "Well,
would you pray about it?" I said, "I will, but, Steve, I think I already
know the answer. And oddly enough, I think I'm going to have to say no
and I'm not going to be able to explain why because I'm not sure
myself."
When I got home, Kimberly was waiting for me. She said, "What
did he want?" I said, "He asked me to become dean." "You're kidding!" I
said, "No." "What did you say?" I said, "No." "I'm sorry, what did you
say?" I said, "No." "Why did you say no?" I said, "Kimberly, because
right now I'm not sure what I would teach. Right now I'm not sure what
Scripture is teaching, and I know that someday I'm going to stand before
Jesus Christ for judgment and it is not going to be enough for me simply
to say, 'Well, Jesus, I just taught what I had been taught by my
teachers.' He has shown me things from Scripture that are true and I
have got to be faithful to what He has shown me." She walked right over
to me, threw her arms around me and gave me a big hug. Then she said,
"Scott, that's what I love about you, that's why I married you, but, oh,
we're going to have to pray then." She knew what it meant: It meant not
only turning down this offer; it also meant resigning from a booming job
as pastor of a growing church. I loved both opportunities.
***Administrative Assistant to the College President***
We didn't know what we were going to do. We were high and dry in
July. After a lot of prayer, we decided we ought to move back to the
college town where we met. When we moved back, I applied for a job at
various places, but the college hired me as an administrator to be
assistant to the president. For two years I worked there, and it was
rather ideal because I worked during the day and it left me free in the
evenings to pursue in-depth research. From around eight in the evening
after putting our children down until around one or two in the morning,
I would read and study and research.
In two years time I had worked through several hundred books,
and I began for the first time to read Catholic theologians and
Scripture scholars. And I was shocked at how impressive their insights
were but even more, at how impressive their insights were which agreed
with my own personal discoveries. I couldn't believe how many novel,
innovative discoveries that I had come up with they were assuming and
taking for granted, and it bothered me.
At times I'd come out and read sections to Kimberly and say,
"Hear this, name the author." Because she was a theologian in a sense,
and she was so busy with raising children that she really didn't have as
much energy. But she would sit there listening in, and I would say, "Who
do you think that was?" She said, "Wow! That sounds like one of your
sermons down in Virginia. Oh, I miss those so much." I said, "That was
Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes. That was the Catholic Church." She said,
"Scott, I don't want to hear that." I said, "Kimberly, this stuff about
liturgy is so exciting. I'm not certain, but I think God might be
calling us to become Episcopalians." It's a halfway house. She looked at
me and her eyes filled up with tears and she said, "Episcopalian!" She
said, "I'm a Presbyterian, my father's a Presbyterian minister, my
uncle's a Presbyterian minister, my husband was a Presbyterian minister,
my brother wants to be one, and I thought about it myself. I don't want
to be Episcopalian." She felt so abandoned at this moment, so betrayed.
I remember that because a few months later after reading a lot
more, one night I came out and said, "Kimberly, I'm not sure, but I'm
beginning to think that God might be calling me to become a Roman
Catholic." This look of desperation came over her. She said, "Couldn't
we become Episcopalians? Anything but Catholic." You don't know what
it's like, you cradle-Catholics. You just don't know the terror that
comes over you when you think you might have to swim the Tiber, you
might have to "Pope", as my friends put it. Well, she was getting so
desperate. She began to pray for somebody to rescue her husband -- some
professor, some theologian, some friend.
***Direct Journey to Catholicism***
Finally it happened. I got a call one day from Gerry, my best
friend from seminary. A Phi Beta Kappa scholar in classics and New
Testament Greek. He was the only other student at seminary along with me
who held to the old Protestant belief that the Pope was the anti-Christ.
We stood shoulder to shoulder opposing all the compromises we saw in our
Protestant brethren. He talked to me one night on the phone. I read to
him a passage from a book by Father Bouyer. He said, "Wow, that is rich
and profound. Who wrote it?" I said, "Louis Bouyer." "Bouyer? I'd never
heard of him, what is he?" "I said, "What do you mean?" "Well, is he a
Methodist?" I said, "No." "Is he a Baptist?" "No." "I mean is he
Lutheran? What is this, twenty questions? What is he?" I said, "Well,
he's a Cath-----." "I'm sorry I missed that." I said, "He's Roman
Cath-----." "Wait a second, there must be a bad connection, Scott. I
thought you said he's Catholic." I said, "Gerry, I did say he's Catholic
and he is Catholic, and I've been reading lots of Catholics."
All of a sudden it started gushing out like Niagara Falls. I
said, "I've been reading Danielou, and Ratzinger and de Lubac and
Garrigou-Lagrange and Congar, and all these guys and man is it rich;
you've got to read them, too." He said, "Slow down." He said, "Scott,
your soul may be in peril." I said, "Gerry, can I give you a list of
titles?" He said, "Sure, I'll read them, anything to save you from this
kind of trap. And I'll give you these titles." He mentioned to me about
ten titles of anti- Catholic books. I said, "Gerry, I've read every
single one of them, at least one or two times." He said, "Send me the
list," and I sent it to him.
About a month later, we arranged to have a long phone
conversation. Kimberly couldn't have been more excited; at last a Phi
Beta Kappa knight in shining armor coming to rescue her husband from the
clutches of Romanism. So she was waiting with bated breath when the
conversation was done, and I told her that Gerry's excited because he's
reading all this stuff and he's really taking me seriously. She said,
"Oh, great, I knew he would."
Well, this went on for three or four months. We would talk on
the phone, two, three, sometimes four hours long distance discussing
theology and Scripture until three or four in the morning. Kimberly was
so glad and grateful for him taking me so seriously.
One night I came to bed around two or three; she was still up.
The light was out, but she sat up in bed and said, "How's it going?" I
said, "It's great." "Tell me about it." I said, "Gerry is almost
intoxicated and excited about all the truth from Scripture that the
Catholic Church puts forth." "WHAT!" I couldn't see her face, but I
could almost feel it sink as she just slumped back down into bed, put
her face into her pillow and began to sob. I couldn't even put my arm
around her; she was just so wounded and abandoned.
A little while later Gerry called and said, "Listen, I'm a
little scared. My friends are a little scared. We ought to really take
this seriously. I talked to Doctor John Gerstner, this Harvard-trained
Presbyterian, anti-Catholic theologian . He will meet with us as long as
we want." We arranged Gerry, Dr. Gerstner and me for a six hour session,
going through the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek,
and the council documents of Church history. At the end of six hours,
Gerry and I expected to be completely blown out of the water by this
genius. Instead, what we discovered was that the Catholic Church almost
doesn't even need a defense. It's more like a lion; just let it out of
its cage and it takes care of itself. We just presented the Church's
teachings and showed the text in Scripture, and we didn't feel like he
had answered a single one of our questions or objections. In the end we
were like, "Wow, what does this mean?" Neither of us knew. The most
anti-Catholic seminarians wondering whether God might be a Catholic --
we were terrified.
Meanwhile, I sent an application off to Marquette University
because I had heard they had a few really outstanding theologians who
were based on the covenant who were studying the Church and doing lots
of good things. Right before I heard back from them that I was accepted,
and I got a scholarship, I began to visit a few priests in the area. I
was scared. I'd do it at night so nobody would see me. I almost felt
dirty and defiled stepping into the rectory. I'd sit down and finally
get some questions out and, to a man, each priest would say to me,
"Let's talk about something else besides theology." None of them wanted
to discuss my questions. One of them actually said, "Are you thinking of
converting? No, you don't want to do that. Ever since Vatican II we
discourage that. The best thing you can do for the Church is just be a
good Presbyterian minister." I said, "Wait a second, Father..." "No,
just call me Mike." I said, "OK, Mike. I'm not asking you to break my
arm and force me in. I think God is calling me." He said, "Well, if you
want help from me, you've come to the wrong man."
After three or four or five encounters like this, I was
confused. I shared it with Kimberly. She said, "You've got to go to a
Catholic school where you can study full time, where you can hear it
from the horse's mouth, where you can make sure that the Catholic Church
you believe in still exists." She had a good point. So after a lot of
prayer and preparation, we moved to Milwaukee where I studied for two
years full-time in their doctoral program.
Those two years were the richest years of study I ever
experienced and the richest time of prayer as well. I found myself in
some seminars, though, where I was actually the lone Protestant
defending the Church's teaching against the attacks coming from
Catholics. It was weird. John Paul's teaching, for instance, which is so
Scriptural and so "covenantal," I was explaining to these people. But
there were a few good theologians who made so much sense out of it all.
I really enjoyed the time. But something happened along the way,
actually two things.
First, I began to pray a rosary. I was very scared to do this. I
asked the Lord not to be offended as I tried. I proceeded to pray, and
as I prayed I felt more in my heart what I came to know in my mind: I am
a child of God. I don't just have God as my Father and Christ as my
brother; I have His Mother for my own.
A friend of mine who had heard I was thinking about the Catholic
Church called up one day and said: "Do you worship Mary like those
Catholics do?" I said, "They don't worship Mary; they honor Mary."
"Well, what's the difference?" I said, "Let me explain. When Christ
accepted the call from His Father to become a man, He accepted the
responsibility to obey the law, the moral law which is summarized in the
Ten Commandments. There's a commandment which reads, 'Honor your father
and mother.'" I said, "Chris, in the original Hebrew, that word "honor,"
kaboda, that Hebrew word means to glorify, to bestow whatever glory and
honor you have upon your father and mother. Christ fulfilled that law
more perfectly than any human by bestowing His glory upon His heavenly
Father and by taking His own divine glory and honoring His Mother with
it. All we do in the rosary, Chris, is to imitate Christ who honors His
Mother with His own glory. We honor her with Christ's glory."
The second thing that happened was when I quietly slipped into
the basement chapel down at Marquette, Gesu. They were having a noon
Mass and I had never gone to Mass before. I slipped in. I sat down in
the back pew. I didn't kneel. I didn't genuflect, I wouldn't stand. I
was an observer; I was there to watch. But I was surprised when 40, 50,
60, 80, or 100 ordinary folk just walked in off the street for midday
Mass, ordinary folk who just came in, genuflected, knelt and prayed.
Then a bell rang and they all stood up and Mass began. I had never seen
it before.
The Liturgy of the Word was so rich, not only the Scripture
readings. They read more Scripture, I thought, in a weekday Mass than we
read in a Sunday service. But their prayers were soaked with Biblical
language and phrases from Isaiah and Ezekiel. I sat there saying, "Man,
stop the show, let me explain your prayers. That's Zechariah; that's
Ezekiel. Wow! It's like the Bible coming to life and dancing out on the
center stage and saying, "This is where I belong."
Then the Liturgy of the Eucharist began. I watched and listened
as the priest pronounced the words of consecration and elevated the
host. And I confess, the last drop of doubt drained away at that moment.
I looked and said, "My Lord and my God." As the people began going
forward to receive communion, I literally began to drool, "Lord, I want
you. I want communion more fully with you. You've come into my heart.
You're my personal Savior and Lord, but now I think You want to come
onto my tongue and into my stomach, and into my body as well as my soul
until this communion is complete."
And as soon as it began, it was over. People stuck around for a
minute or two for thanksgiving and then left. And eventually, I just
walked out and wondered, what have I done? But the next day I was back,
and the next, and the next. I couldn't tell a soul. I couldn't tell my
wife. But in two or three weeks I was hooked. I was head over heels in
love with Christ and His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. It
became the source and the summit and the climax of each day, and I still
couldn't tell anybody.
(snip)
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