Journeys Home (16 page)

I was right in believing that my wife and I ought to be one religiously,
but I asked myself: Just what was it that we needed to be one
in? Was there any reason for Pat to be Methodist except that I
was the minister? If there wasn't, why was it so important to
me?

What is the Church, anyway? What holds it together? What reason
could I give anyone for belonging to my denomination? I realized
that I couldn't give any reason except preference. There was no
relationship between our church and our faith.

Practically speaking, we didn't define the Church theologically.
People belonged to a congregation because their family went there,
or they liked the worship service, or each other, or the pastor.
But that was not enough.

We both realized that we wanted (actually Pat had wanted for a
long time) a Church that had a claim on us even if it didn't make
us happy, whether we liked it or not -- where the Church was more
than a preference. We wanted a Church with authority, a Church
that was necessary. Part of the historic faith of the Church was
that the Church didn't create itself and that its authority came
from God, not men.

No denomination can claim that authority, because none can claim
to be more than an association of like-minded Christians. Wherever
the lines are drawn, it's a purely human creation. A group of
people get together and say, "We are the Church."

If a denomination has a strong theological foundation (for example,
the Orthodox Presbyterian Church where I attended Sunday school
as a boy), it at least has a reason for being separate: teaching
the truth according to its beliefs. But where there is no strong
theological foundation, the denomination becomes nothing more
than an administrative body, and membership in the congregation
becomes little more than an ingrained social habit.

My convictions about the Church crystallized more than they ever
had before. The Church was meant to have unity in structure and
faith, and both were necessary. Unless it was united in faith,
there was no reason to be united in structure. If the Church couldn't
claim to tell me what is true, why should I give it my loyalty?
If I had to figure it all out for myself, why would I need the
Church? This, indeed, is the situation of many Protestant denominations:
Since they don't claim to be necessary, people don't believe they
are necessary.

I realized that the nature of the Church went along with its beliefs.
If the Church was to teach with authority, it had to have authority
in its being. Such authority couldn't be given by a denomination.
Either it existed in the whole Body of Christ together, with visible
unity giving shape to spiritual unity, or else it couldn't be
found at all.

It struck me quickly that only two options avoided drawing arbitrary
lines: congregationalism, in which each gathering of Christians
could decide its own beliefs; or the Catholic Church, which claimed
a principle of unity that brought everyone in. Congregationalism,
however, seemed both unscriptural and unhistorical.

Jesus said, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there
am I in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20). But that promise didn't
define the whole nature of the Church. If it did, there would
have been no great disputes, no councils, and no commonly held
faith. The Council of Nicaea meant more than the National Council
of Churches.

Only the Catholic Church truly represented visible and doctrinal
unity. The alternative to it was doctrinal chaos and no unity.
The Reformers had decided according to their own judgment which
parts of the Catholic faith to keep and which to reject. Their
followers continued the process of revising, and then the results
were codified as revealed truth.

The authority of the Catholic Church was simply replaced by the
authority of Martin Luther or John Calvin. In the liberal denominations,
the fall was even worse; the principle of revealed truth was replaced
by theological pluralism, the absolute belief that there are no
absolute truths. Yet in both alternatives, the Church's authority
was replaced by the individual's, and the visible church became
nothing more than a collection of individuals.

The result was worse than simply having each church believing
something different: It was a milieu in which it didn't matter
what a church believed, in which no teaching needed to be definitive,
and in which the idea of necessary belief seemed offensive.

Some Catholic friends who knew what was going on with us came
back from a conference at Franciscan University in Steubenville,
Ohio, and gave us a tape of Scott Hahn's conversion story. Its
effect on us was electric. He addressed the issues we were wrestling
with rationally and biblically. Our beliefs were rapidly becoming
more Catholic. We read
Humanae Vitae,
found it thoroughly convincing,
and began Natural Family Planning. We were attracted by the Catholic
Church's pro-life stand; our denomination was incapable of taking
any strong position on this basic moral issue. We considered marriage
indissoluble.

We recognized the pope as the earthly head of the Church; indeed,
we soon found events in the Catholic Church more relevant than
events in the Methodist denomination. We now had no doubt that
Christ is truly present in the Eucharist in the Catholic Church,
but I knew it wasn't the same thing in Protestant denominations.
(Indeed, for a period I found it difficult presiding at Communion
in my church. I felt I was pretending.)

To Pat and me, it now seemed essential that we belong to a Church
that was really founded on religious belief and wasn't afraid
to teach it. When the
Catechism of the Catholic Church
appeared
in 1993, we thought,
Wouldn't it be great to belong to a Church
that can teach the truth like that!

It would take awhile, however, for that to happen. Near the beginning
of this time of change, more change in our lives happened that
seemed to limit our options. I was sent to another Methodist church
in July 1993, and we were expecting our third child. I had to
support my family.

In any event, I knew I needed clearer convictions than I had at
that point. But I also knew that I would never find the solidity
or consistency of belief in the Methodist denomination that I
wanted.

There were also doctrinal issues that needed to be resolved. The
Virgin Mary was the most difficult, but there were others. At
the heart of them all was the infallibility of the Church, for
if the Catholic Church was really what it believed itself to be,
then its teachings had to be true. I had to learn to subordinate
the sovereignty of my judgment to the voice of Christ in the Church.

I investigated all these things, but as long as I was in the ministry
I didn't feel that I could do more. Pat had more freedom, and
with my encouragement (for spiritually she was left high and dry,
and I would have urged any parishioner to go where her faith led
her), she went to a wise and sympathetic priest, Father Joseph,
for instruction. For Pat, it was like water in a thirsty land.

Within months, she had no doubts at all. I was delighted; she
would be there to welcome me into the Catholic fold herself. In
December 1995, she became a Catholic. Our daughter Lisa received
her First Communion the next fall.

I knew I couldn't stay in the United Methodist Church forever;
my beliefs wouldn't allow it. I was feeling the strain of not
being able to act on my beliefs. By now, I had found others on
the same path.

Jeff, another Methodist minister whom I hadn't seen in years,
heard of my interest in the Catholic faith from a Presbyterian
pastor we both knew. "I hear you're thinking of swimming the Tiber,"
he said when he called, and we began meeting for lunch. Jeff was
even closer to conversion than I was, and he became Catholic in
the summer of 1995.

I found encouragement in meeting others who had converted and
in cradle Catholics. Brian, the local Baptist minister, and his
wife, Phyllis, had become good friends of ours. Phyllis became
Catholic shortly before Pat. Then Brian did. People in town were
getting suspicious.

In March 1996, I attended a Catholic men's retreat at Arnold Hall
in Massachusetts, where I realized that nothing further needed
to happen before I could convert. I fully believed the Catholic
faith already. I didn't need any clearer light than I had -- indeed,
it couldn't be clearer.

With another baby due in July, a conversion, career change (to
what, I didn't know), and relocation were not an option that summer.
But I knew I couldn't delay much longer.

In the meantime, Father Joseph introduced me to his friend Monsignor
James McGovern, who was seeking someone to work in adult education,
Confirmation training, visitation, and various other responsibilities
at the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Moorestown, New Jersey.
Pat and I discussed this possibility and reached an agreement.
In June 1997, I delivered the last sermon from my pulpit.

A month later, when Bishop John M. Smith of Trenton, a successor
of the Apostles, received me into the Catholic Church, I became
fully united to the only Church that I believed could teach with
complete authority. To this day, in the voice of the Church I
(still) hear the voice of Her Lord.

Christopher Dixon teaches history at Ivy Tech Community College
in Kokomo, Indiana.

former Anglican minister

ANGLICAN ORTHODOXY

THE AFFIRMATIVE WAY

ST. BENEDICT THE BALANCED

THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY

AFFIRMING ALL THINGS

Taking dramatic steps of faith runs in the family. In the eighteenth
century, my ancestors left Switzerland for the new colony of Pennsylvania
to find religious freedom. The two Longenecker brothers were Mennonites -- members of an Anabaptist sect so strict that it had been persecuted
by John Calvin.

Seven generations later, my side of the family had left the Mennonites,
and I was brought up in a Bible Christian church. Like many churches
in the sixties, our independent Bible church was a strongly Evangelical
and conservative group of Christians who were disenchanted with
the liberal drift of the main Protestant denominations in the
postwar period and set off to do their own thing. That same independent
movement included the founding of a fundamentalist college in
the Deep South by the Methodist evangelist Bob Jones.

So after the war, my parents and aunts and uncles went to study
there, and it was natural for my parents to send my siblings and
me there in the seventies. In the heart of the so-called Bible
Belt, Bob Jones University incongruously mixes hollerin' hellfire
fundamentalism with grand opera and a famous gallery of fine religious
art. BJU gave Northern Irish firebrand Ian Paisley his honorary
doctorate and brands even Billy Graham as a liberal.

The religion in our own home was simple, Bible-based, and balanced.
Like our Mennonite forebears, there was a quiet simplicity and
tolerance at the heart of our faith. We believed Catholics were
in error, but we didn't nurture hatred toward them. At BJU, the
tone was different. There the Catholic Church was clearly the
"whore of Babylon," and the pope was the Antichrist.

Ironically, it was at BJU that I discovered the Anglican Church.
We were allowed to go to a little Episcopalian schism church named
Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church. The church was founded
by a bishop whose orders -- an Anglican bishop later told me -- were "valid, but irregular." He had been ordained by a renegade
Old Catholic as well as a breakaway Orthodox bishop.

Along with some other disenchanted Baptists and Bible Christians,
I went to the little stone church and discovered the glories of
the Book of Common Prayer, lighting candles, and kneeling to pray.
I was taken with the experience, and after searching for God's
calling in my life, I decided to be an Anglican priest. I had
studied English literature and visited England a few times and
thought it would be perfect to minister in a pretty English village
in a medieval church.

I wrote to the Evangelical Anglican J. I. Packer, and he suggested
a few English seminaries. Oxford was the mecca for devotees of
C. S. Lewis, so when the opportunity to study at Oxford came my
way, I jumped at the chance and came to England (so I thought)
for good. After theological studies, I was ordained, and a life
of ministry in the Anglican Church opened up.

This whole period was a time of great growth and learning. Often
it is the little bit of wisdom that makes the most impression.
I will never forget a little quotation from the great Anglican
social commentator F. D. Maurice, which I came across while I
was studying theology. He wrote, "A man is most often right in
what he affirms and wrong in what he denies." After the negative
attitude of American fundamentalism and the cynical religious
doubt that prevailed at Oxford, Maurice's statement was like a
breath of fresh air.

It was sometimes tempting to feel guilty about leaving the religion
of my family and upbringing. But with Maurice's viewpoint, I increasingly
felt the Anglican riches I was discovering were not so much a
denial of my family faith as an addition to it. So I took Maurice's
dictum as my motto, and whenever I came across something new,
I asked myself whether I was denying or affirming. If I wasn't
able to affirm the new doctrine or religious practice, I wouldn't
deny it -- I would simply let it be.

So when a Catholic friend in the United States suggested I visit
a Benedictine abbey, I took her advice and made arrangements to
go to the one closest to Oxford, Douai Abbey. There I found a
world as alien to Evangelical Anglicanism as Oxford was to Bob
Jones University. The monks impressed me with their sense of solemn
self-mockery. Here was a sense of touching a Christianity far
greater and wider than I had yet experienced.