Posted on 11/03/2007 5:03:12 PM PDT by annalex
The following story of my conversion, "His Open Arms Welcomed Me," is the first chapter of the bestseller Surprised by Truth, edited by Patrick Madrid (Basilica, 1994).
I was quite young the first time I saw him, so I don't remember where it happened. But I do remember being terrified by the sight: that tortured man, thorn-crowned, blood-bathed, forsaken. The sculptor had spared no crease of agony; the painter, no crimson stroke. He was a nightmare in wood.
Yet I was strangely drawn to him as well. His open arms welcomed me; his uncovered breast stretched out like a refuge. I wanted to touch him.
Of course, I knew who he was. After all, I'd won the big prize -- a Hershey Bar -- for being the first kindergartner in our little Southern Presbyterian church to memorize the books of the Bible. And my parents had busted with pride on the morning when I stood before the congregation to recite the grand old affirmations of the Westminster Confession: Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever ...
But in our church the cross on the wall was empty and clean. We read about the blood, we sang about the blood, but we didn't splash it on our walls and doorposts.
In the years to follow, the man on the cross haunted me. When I found out that a schoolmate wore a crucifix around his neck, I asked my father to get me one. But he shook his head and said, "That's just for Catholics." There was no malice in his words; he simply spoke matter-of-factly, in the same way he might have observed that yarmulkes were just for Jews.
One day my aunt from New York came south to visit. She was always inheriting odd items from boarders in the residential motel where she worked, and this time she shared them with us. In a box of assorted old treasures calculated to fascinate a little boy for hours, I found him.
He was plaster of Paris, unfinished, maybe a foot long, cross and all. I ran my fingers over the smooth surface. The details were remarkable for so humble a work, though he had a flaw in his right foot. He was beautiful. But he was too white, too clean. So I found some old watercolors and painted every detail lovingly, with crimson dominating the whole. Then I kept him under my bed and took him out regularly so I could look at him, touch him, and wonder why he should be in some Catholic home instead of mine.
I don't remember when I lost that plaster body, but it must have been sometime after I became an arrogant little atheist at the age of twelve. Some school teacher I've long forgotten encouraged me to read Voltaire, the Enlightenment rationalist, who convinced me that all religion was delusion. At the time I didn't need much convincing; the adolescent season of rebellion against my parents had begun, and skepticism was for me the weapon of choice. No doubt I tossed out the man on the Cross in the same trash can with the Westminster Confession.
For six years I ran from him, though I thought I was running to truth. I had no choice about attending the Presbyterian church with my family, but every week I repeated a quiet, private act of defiance: Whenever the congregation said the Apostles' Creed, I remained silent.
My heart was hungry but my head turned away from anything that could have nourished my spirit. So I began to feed on spiritual garbage instead. A science fair project on parapsychology introduced me to supernatural forces. But I thought they were only unexamined natural powers of the human mind. Before long, I was trafficking in spirits, though I would never have dreamed they were anything other than my own psychic energies. They would sometimes tell me what others were thinking, or whisper of events that were taking place at a distance. The more power they gave me, the hungrier I became for it. I began to experiment with seances, levitation, and other occult practices -- all, of course, in the name of science. I wanted to become an expert in parapsychology.
From time to time I saw him again, usually hanging beyond the altar in the church of my Catholic girlfriend. His open arms still welcomed me. But since I was convinced there was no God, the most he could represent to me was a suffering humanity. And in those heady days of the `60s, when American youth were so certain they could transform the world, I didn't want a reminder of human brokenness. We were out to forge our own bright destiny in the new Age of Aquarius, and the crucifix was an unwelcome relic of the old order. Like some child of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, born just a few centuries too late, I was convinced humanity could perfect itself through education. So I set out to prove the thesis in the human laboratory of my high school.
Our particular campus was an odd mix of peril and promise. As a first step in fully desegregating the public schools of our Southern city, the school board by fiat turned an all-black high school into a racially mixed one. Amazingly, those of us with a vision for racial harmony were able to build more of it than many critics had expected: Out of the chaos of a totally new student body gathered from utterly different social and racial backgrounds, we forged well-oiled student organizations that helped smooth the process of integration.
In a short time, blacks and whites were becoming friends and working hard to build a community. We became the city's first model of a school that had been forced to desegregate totally, yet had come out of the process racially integrated as well -- and all without violence. As student body president and a central actor in the drama, I felt as if my Enlightenment strategy for changing the world had been validated.
Nevertheless, reality at last bumped up against my carefully crafted visions. First to go was the Aquarian illusion. After a massive transfer of students city-wide in my senior year to complete the desegregation process in all the high schools, the make-up of our student population was radically altered. Some of the new students were militant racists and troublemakers, both black and white. When other campuses in the city began closing down because of rioting, we were put on alert that angry students from other schools were planning to infiltrate our student body and provoke violence there as well.
One lovely fall afternoon, after our homecoming rally, it happened. A riot broke out on campus as I watched helplessly. Black and white friends who had once shared my hopes for a new, peaceful world attacked one another with knives, chains, and tire irons. I naively ran around campus from one little mob to another, trying to break up fights and restore calm. My watch was knocked off my wrist in the struggle, but I was miraculously spared injury -- to my body, that is. My soul was quite another matter. The sight of one young man in particular was branded on my memory. He lay sprawled cruciform in the dust, his arms extended, his face bloody. The wooden nightmare of my childhood had become flesh and blood, and I wept bitterly for the death of a dream. The idol I had made of humanity was shattered, and nothing could put it back together.
Next to die were my delusions about psychic powers. One starless summer night a chilling demonic force, grown tired of its human plaything, commandeered my body. It physically pushed me toward the edge of a nearby river to throw me in. I've never learned to swim, so if a couple of muscular friends who were with me hadn't pinned me down, it would have drowned me.
The next morning I told my English teacher, a Christian who had been praying for me, what had happened. She said I'd had a brush with the Devil. I laughed at her and scoffed: Don't be so medieval. Even so, I had to admit something was out there, and it wasn't a friendly ghost. My teacher gave me C. S. Lewis to read -- at last, an antidote for the poison of Voltaire -- who in turn sent me back to the Scriptures.
It was there that I learned about angels, fallen and unfallen. I found dark references to the powers that had tormented me and the evil mastermind behind them, the god of this world. In the Bible I rediscovered a multi-tiered model of the universe, of nature and super-nature, that fit the realities of my recent experience in ways that parapsychology and the Enlightenment never could.
These were my first faltering steps back toward reality, and with a sobering irony, I came to believe in the Devil before I believed in God. Yet that inverted order of my emerging creed had its purpose in the divine intention: So devoid was I of the fear of God that I had to work my way into it by stages, starting with a fear of demons. The pleasure I'd taken in declaring myself an atheist, unfettered by the rules of any creator, began to crumble: If there was indeed a devil but no God to save me from him, I was in deep trouble.
Yet Scripture was teaching me much more than fear. In the gospels especially, I encountered a man whose wisdom and compassion arrested me. He was the same man I'd sung hymns about as a child, the man on the cross who had stirred me with his suffering; but he was becoming real in a way I'd never imagined possible.
Years before, he'd been much like the hero of a fairy tale: a bright legend that embodied the noblest human traits, but only a legend after all. Now he was entering history for me, breathing the air and walking the soil of a planet where I also breathed and walked. I was still scandalized by the thought that he could actually have been more than a man. But the possibilities were opening up. After all, once you grant the existence of super-nature, you can't rule out God; and if there's a God, what's there to stop him from invading nature? If there's a God, I knew, then the rest of the story, however shocking -- Virgin Birth, miracles, the Resurrection surely becomes possible.
Meanwhile, I began trying prayer as an experiment. My requests were concrete and specific; so were the swift, undeniable answers that came. The evidence was mounting, and though I felt threatened by the prospect of having to submit to the will of Another, a part of me also longed for that submission. Soon I was getting to know believers whose lives convincingly enfleshed the gospel -- or, to use Merton's haunting line, "People whose every action told me something of the country that was my home." When one of them invited me to a small prayer meeting, I came, however awkwardly, and sat silently for most of the evening. But I came back the next week, and the next, because I sensed that these people genuinely loved me, and I was hungry for their love.
A fresh, new breeze was blowing through my mind, sweeping out the cobwebs and debris that had accumulated through six years of darkness. The light of Christ was dawning inside, and all the frayed old arguments of the skeptics soon rotted in its brilliance. The more I knew of the world and myself, the more I found that Christian faith made sense of it all, and the more I longed to meet this man whose followers I had come to love.
Just after my high school graduation, at a massive nationwide rally of evangelical Christians in Dallas sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ, he came to me -- not in a vision or even a dream, but in a quiet, unshakable confidence that he was alive and knocking at the door of my heart. I repented of my unbelief and all its devastating consequences. I confessed to God that Jesus Christ was his Son, and asked him to become my Savior and Lord. My mind at last had given my heart permission to believe, to obey, and to adore.
When I took up Scripture again to read, the centuries were suddenly compressed, and the historical Figure that had replaced the noble Legend was himself now replaced with a living Friend. In my hands were letters he had addressed personally to me, written two millennia ago yet delivered to my home at this moment, so fresh that it seemed the ink should still be wet. He read my thoughts, nailed my sins, told my story, plumbed the depths of my pain.
Overwhelmed, I asked him to fill me with himself.
Two months later I was sitting alone in our Presbyterian church's sanctuary, late in the evening after a service had ended. I'd opened my Bible to the book of Acts -- no one had warned me that it was an incendiary tract -- and I read about the day of Pentecost. I'd never been taught about the baptism of the Holy Spirit or his gifts. But I told God that if what happened to those first believers on that day long ago could happen to me this evening, I wanted it. And I was willing to sit there all night until it happened.
I didn't have to wait long. Suddenly a flood of words in a tongue I'd never studied came bursting out of me, followed by a flood of joy that washed over me for a week. The Holy Spirit baptism was for me a baptism in laughter; I giggled like a fool for days over this sweet joke of God. It was a liberation from the chains of the Enlightenment. This irrational -- or perhaps I should say para-rational -- experience opened my eyes to realms that soared beyond my understanding, and left me face-to-face with mystery. For years, reason had masqueraded as a god in my life, but now I saw it for what it truly was: only a servant, however brilliantly attired.
That realization served me well in the following years when I majored in religious studies at Yale. That school's great, Neo-Gothic library best illustrates the spirit I encountered there: Painted on the wall high above the altar of its massive circulation desk is an awesome icon of Knowledge -- or perhaps Wisdom, though I rarely heard her voice in the classrooms of that campus. She was personified as a queen enthroned above us lowly student mortals, and though we freshmen were tempted to genuflect, I owed my first allegiance to another sovereign.
In the twenty years that came after, faith grew, establishing itself as the heart of the vocations that consumed me: I went on to a graduate school program in religion, and I served as a missionary evangelist in Europe, an associate pastor of a charismatic congregation, and a writer and editor for several Christian publishers.
Those were good years, years of settling into a deep relationship with the God I'd once abandoned. He gave me a beloved Christian wife and two children who learned to seek his face from a tender age. But at last the time came for yet another conversion in my life -- and another baptism of joy.
+ + +
You know, if someone had a tree that could bear fruit, and asked me for gardeining advice, I would not be telling him what to do with the fruit. I would instead tell him to soften the soil, water the tree, chase off vermin, — things like that. I would not exhort him to constantly check if he has fruit.
If good works were a fruit of already obtained salvation it would not make sense for St.Paul to spend the second half of every letter of his on “fruits”.
In the same passage we always quote:
Eph 2:8-10 : 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
In the same thought, Paul says we are NOT saved by works, but that we were created to do good works. Presumably, we were not created to do works for pay, but rather works of love, which are NOT a causal part of salvation. Paul is only speaking to Christians here. The "we" and "us" relate back to the earlier "you".
I disagree that this is how "charity" is used. It is used in the sense of "love" in the MACRO sense. The problem we have is in reconciling this verse so that it does not mean that love "trumps" faith. If it did, then the only result would be a works-based salvation. Instead, we can say that love here refers to all love that is good. It includes God's love for us and ours for Him. Faith and hope only refer to individuals. In this verse, love (charity) is greater because it encompasses more.
You're assuming a conclusion, i.e., that the tree could produce fruit. The better analogy would be that the person only knew he had a tree and did not know if it was a fruit-producer or not. Paul says to check this. If it is a bad tree, then you can do anything to the soil you want, but it still won't produce fruit. The only way to turn a bad tree into a good one is faith.
If good works were a fruit of already obtained salvation it would not make sense for St.Paul to spend the second half of every letter of his on “fruits”.
It makes perfect sense. Paul knew that the worst position possible to be in is that of a false believer (honest non-believers are in a much better position). He ministers heavily to false believers because they are in the greatest need.
"You have been saved" in Eph 2:8 is incorrect. Your own King James version says "are ye saved" and Young's literal make the progressive case very clear: "ye are having been saved". Secondly, St. Paul is not saying there that we are not saved by works in general, -- he qualifies these works twice, as works "form yourself" and intended to "boast". This is consistent with the Catholic teaching, with James 2, and St. Paul himself in Romans 2, and right here in Ephesians where he tells us that we are created to do good works. He also concludes his thought thus:
13 Wherefore I pray you not to faint at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. 14 For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 Of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, 16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit with might unto the inward man, 17 That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts; that being rooted and founded in charity, 18 You may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth: 19 To know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fulness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand, according to the power that worketh in us; 21 To him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus unto all generations, world without end. Amen.(Eph 3)
Works and faith are not separated at all here: they are a single way of life that as a whole -- both faith and works -- has been in us as a result of Divine grace. Works strengthen faith and faith strengthens works, just like St. James teaches most conclusively.
This is an amazing spin on a very clear passage, and your only reason for it is "the only result would be a works-based salvation". This logical fallacy is called "begging the question".
Still doesn’t make sense. If a tree cannot produce a fruit at all, there is no point in giving any gardening advice. If a tree under some conditions can produce a fruit, then again the concentration would be on these conditions and not on what the fruit is like.
The natural conclusion form this observation is what the Church teaches, that works done in the spirit of love (or charity) cooperate with grace and produce salvation. Since works is something man is at liberty to do or not do, it becomes important to Paul to urge them. Works is the gardening act, that cooperates with grace,— sun and soil. Fruit is salvation. Simple and biblical, no exegetical contortions needed.
I'm with annalex. I have no idea where you get this exegesis from. The word translated charity here is simply agapon, the usual Greek word for selfless love.
The problem we have is in reconciling this verse so that it does not mean that love "trumps" faith. If it did, then the only result would be a works-based salvation.
Instead of starting out with a theological position and reading it back into Scripture, why don't you form your theological ideas from Scripture -- all of it -- in the first place?
That way, you don't need "reconcile" a verse by making it meaningless.
BTW, Paul's point here is simply that agape continues into heaven, and is therefore greater than faith or hope, which aren't needed in heaven. It goes without saying that he thinks all three are necessary here on earth.
All you need to do is add to that the Tridentine observation that good works strengthen grace in the justified man, and you have the Catholic position in a nutshell.
Strong's calls it the present indicative tense. That can be taken either as a past action or as an on going process, depending on the context. The full context of Paul's writings was that he believed himself to be already saved. For example:
1 Tim 1:15-16 : 15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. 16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. KJV
However, you can simply ascribe every assertion of certainty to only being true AT THAT MOMENT. From there we would just have differing views of common sense. For example, John 3:16. Shall everyone who truly believes in Him have everlasting life? You would have to say "No".
Secondly, St. Paul is not saying there that we are not saved by works in general, -- he qualifies these works twice, as works "form yourself" and intended to "boast". This is consistent with the Catholic teaching, with James 2, and St. Paul himself in Romans 2, and right here in Ephesians where he tells us that we are created to do good works.
What? Here is the passage:
Eph 2:8-9 : 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. KJV
The "not of yourselves" clearly refers to where the grace and faith came from. It has zero to do with the works. "That" which is not of yourselves IS the gift of God. THEREFORE, works have nothing to do with it, SO THAT no one can boast. If we COULD be saved by works, to any extent, then we could boast. God doesn't want that. He wants us to know that our salvation is solely His gift. At least, that is what Paul says.
Works and faith are not separated at all here: they are a single way of life that as a whole -- both faith and works -- has been in us as a result of Divine grace. Works strengthen faith and faith strengthens works, just like St. James teaches most conclusively.
He is talking about both the time of perseverance and the act of salvation. What's the big deal? During perseverance, of course faith and works go hand in hand. Nobody disputes that. He does the same thing in Eph. 2:8-10. As I said, in the Eph. 2 passage, Paul more concretely separates the two. "Not by works" means just what it says, we are not saved by works. Salvation is not of ourselves, it is THE gift of God.
OK, then for you, charity is more important than faith. Just do enough charity, maybe have a little faith, and you will be saved. That's a works-BASED salvation, with a little faith thrown in. Your side emphasizes works over faith, and mine emphasizes faith only for salvation. That is what I have always thought and you are kindly confirming it for me. :)
At this point I may be getting a little lost in the analogy and what refers to what. :) I was just saying that Paul was saying to check the tree first to see if it is a fruit producer. If it is, then it will be profitable to work the soil to strengthen the tree and it will produce more and better fruit. If it is a bad tree, then everything stops until there is faith. No amount of work on a bad tree will turn it into a good tree.
Works is the gardening act, that cooperates with grace,— sun and soil. Fruit is salvation.
But not all trees are capable of producing fruit, no matter how hard you work them. Your contention appears to be that ALL trees are capable of bearing fruit if your work them hard enough. That just doesn't match what we know in nature. Some fruit trees are just bad trees and will never produce fruit. Works are only of any benefit to good trees.
I'm with annalex. I have no idea where you get this exegesis from. The word translated charity here is simply agapon, the usual Greek word for selfless love.
The important part is that under this interpretation, as I understand it, charity (or love) TRUMPS faith on earth. Works trump faith in salvation. I have often criticized Catholics for holding this view, and now it seems that it is being agreed to. :)
Instead of starting out with a theological position and reading it back into Scripture, why don't you form your theological ideas from Scripture -- all of it -- in the first place?
That's exactly what Reformers do; take our ideas from the totality of scripture. In this case a works-based faith clearly does match the totality of scripture. That totality teaches a faith-based salvation. Therefore, since this verse appears to contradict the much greater weight of evidence, it should be interpreted to match that. If, however, the greater weight of evidence was that if we all just do enough good works we will be saved, then this verse could stand alone in agreement.
That way, you don't need "reconcile" a verse by making it meaningless.
Well, there are clearly many verses in the Bible that appear to conflict on their faces. Since I refuse to declare any verses to be "wrong", I don't see any other option than to reconcile them. I have seen tons of examples of Bible verses being reconciled to match the theology the Church has developed.
I would submit that Catholicism reconciles FAR more verses than Reformers do since it is the Church's theology that must be matched. We just say that everything must match the greatest weight of other scripture. So, if the Bible is a fundamentally sound and consistent Book, then we do not need to veer away from plain meaning very often. It does happen, but less for us because we don't have to match Mariology, or praying to saints, or papal infallibility, or some sacraments, etc., etc. All of those must be back matched to the scriptures. The result is the reconciling that you are talking about that, in my opinion, renders many passages meaningless, as you say.
The standard response I get to this is that the belief was first and the writing came second. If true, then the Bible is necessarily the MOST enigmatic volume ever written in the history of literature in terms of what we need. It would necessarily mean that the Bible was NOT intended to be a direct revelation to God's people. I can't accept that, but I know the Church probably has other ideas.
BTW, Paul's point here is simply that agape continues into heaven, and is therefore greater than faith or hope, which aren't needed in heaven. It goes without saying that he thinks all three are necessary here on earth.
I would think that would match the substance of my original point; that love is called greater here because it encompasses more, i.e. God's love for us in Heaven in this case. We didn't say exactly the same thing, but I would take this as a basic agreement. :) I said love in the macro sense. That includes both love on earth and Heavenly love, just as you said. By Alex's post, I thought the Catholic view was that the love spoken of in this verse only applied to the love by people showed in their selfless acts, "charity".
All you need to do is add to that the Tridentine observation that good works strengthen grace in the justified man, and you have the Catholic position in a nutshell.
Yes, and this may get into the very tricky "what is grace?" debate. :) Since we see salvation in this context as being an event, we couldn't say that works add to salvational grace. However, IF it is ever proper to consider "grace" to be the same as "blessing", then I could be in agreement.
So, "have been saved" is patently incorrect. "You are saved" as in "you are taught" or "you are fed".
The "not of yourselves" clearly refers to where the grace and faith came from. It has zero to do with the works.
Right; so if one works for boast and under his own power, that is not salvific. We agree here. Grace is source of both saving faith and saving work of love.
During perseverance, of course faith and works go hand in hand. Nobody disputes that
Ah, good, So, this is all Ephesians 2-3 is saying. No "work is fruit" theory there.
Cuz the Bible tells me so :)
Yes. God wishes all to be saved;; all are capable of responding to the call, but of course, not all do so. Works of love is a necessary part of that response, and as St. Paul teaches, even the chief part.
But not salvation by faith alone, as the scripture clearly tells us. It is not a matter of reconciling verses that could be read in a variety of ways: the salvation by faith alone is expressly contradicted by scripture, in a passage that is solely devoted to that question, and in language that couldn't be plainer.
I am very unlearned as to tenses, but what I found was the present indicative tense as compared to other languages. It said, in essence, that "You are saved" could mean either "You were saved" OR "You are being saved now", depending on the context. I just took the context of all of Paul's writings, which demonstrate to me that he believed he was already saved, i.e. that assurance is possible.
FK: "During perseverance, of course faith and works go hand in hand. Nobody disputes that."
Ah, good, So, this is all Ephesians 2-3 is saying. No "work is fruit" theory there.
Not really. In Eph. 2-3 perseverance works are covered, but so is the separate idea that faith, executed through saving grace, is what saves alone. Lifelong perseverance is what goes with lifelong works, not the ordained and graced "moment" of salvation. Both of the passages we quoted cover both of these ideas.
But we have been talking about Eph. 2 which PLAINLY discredits any idea that works play a significant part of salvation. Works are necessary but GUARANTEED by God for the elect. Sola Fide incorporates works BECAUSE they are guaranteed. It's all one package. No one who has true faith fails in works. EVER! That is God's promise in a passage that also "couldn't be plainer". :)
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