How I became the Catholic I Wasn't (2)
Part 2 of 4 - How I became the Lutheran I Was
I was raised as a Lutheran, first in the American Lutheran Church, and later in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. My mother was, and is, devout. My father was quiet about religious things. I have to admit that I was disinterested in church as a child. I was most often dragged to church. Even in 7th and 8th grade, during which time I attended Lutheran School and Confirmation classes, it wasn’t all that important to me. Nonetheless, I believed what I had learned about God. I wasn’t aware of the differences between Lutherans, Catholics, and other Christians. One of my best friends was Catholic, but we didn’t talk about it much. Most of my friends went to the same congregation as I did.
It was at about this time that my faith became more important to me. My church friends were a big influence on this, and my older sister also had begun to openly love God and started to pray, read the Bible, attend church events, etc. About this time, also, my father was dying of cancer. I started to read the Bible and pray, and liked going to church. I started to really identify myself as a Christian.
Oddly enough, it was at this time that I began to fall away from my Lutheran upbringing. I became involved with Youth for Christ, and started listening to Christian rock music. Weekly bible studies with church friends made use of non-Lutheran materials. In addition, my Lutheran congregation, in many respects, followed a more evangelical/charismatic spirituality rather than historically/confessionally Lutheran one. At the same time, I was attended a Roman Catholic High School, and I was not impressed with what I learned of Catholicism. In fact, I began to think that Lutherans were too Catholic, especially when it came to the sacraments and liturgy. I did not like the traditional worship services at church, but the contemporary were good. I equated the work of the Holy Spirit with an emotional high. I also thought the Lutherans did not stress Christian living and holiness as they should, although my congregation did so more than they should have as Lutherans. At one point during High School, I was ready to leave the Lutheran Church for something Baptist or non-denominational. I knew that my mother would object, so I decided to follow the 4th commandment, and prevent my mom from breaking the 5th.
In High School, I was impressed that Catholics, unlike Lutherans, stressed holiness. Yet it seemed to me a case of talking the talk and not walking the walk. My Catholic classmates, not all but many, used foul language, did drugs, were promiscuous, and drank alcohol. But it was other protestant classmates, and classmates who were friends from my church, who really tried to be righteous before God.
I was convinced that those who did not try to live righteously were not real Christians, and probably would not be saved. To me there was a stark difference between real Christianity and phony Christianity. Based on the behavior of my classmates, Catholicism was phony, and to a lesser degree, so was my Lutheran Church, although there were real Christians who attended my congregation. Real Christianity was exhibited by Christians who walked the walk, and turned away from worldliness.
Nonetheless, I believed that salvation was accomplished for us by Christ alone. We did not earn eternal life, nor could we. I remember one day at High School in theology class during which the teacher, as she frequently did, devoted the hour to answering questions anonymously submitted by the students. The question was, “How do we get to heaven.” She read the Bible passage about the rich young ruler who asked our Lord the same question, “How do I inherit eternal life” and the Lord’s answer “keep the commandments.” When the ruler replied, “These I have kept from my youth,” Jesus further told him to sell everything and give to the poor.” End of answer. I wasn’t the only student dismayed by this , but I was the one who pointed out the rest of the story, in which the disciples ask, “Who then will be saved,” and Jesus answered, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” The teacher didn’t budge from her works righteous answer, and I had no idea until almost 25 years later that her answer was not in accord with what Catholics really teach. But I will get to that later.
The next year, I failed the Catholic Theology class. On tests, I wrote down the answers that I believed were right, often citing Scripture to prove my point. It may have been pleasing to God, but He wasn’t grading the exams. Rather than repeating the course, I convinced my mother to allow me to attend public High School for my senior year.
That summer, I attended a Christian Rock festival with friends from church. There I met another Lutheran, who was entering Lutheran College in the pre-seminary program. Since he was a real Christian, I asked him why he wanted to be a pastor in the Lutheran Church. He said that he was going to reform the Lutheran Church. I admired that. And the following year, I followed his example. I was also influenced by my brother-in-law, who had completed his undergraduate degree and was entering seminary that year. But more than anything, I felt God calling me to the ministry, and this was confirmed by my friends and youth ministry leaders at church.
But it was at Lutheran College that the Lutheran Church reformed me, and not the other way around. In Bible and Theology courses, I learned the fullness of the Lutheran Doctrine of Justification, and it changed my world. Christianity was not about what I did for God, even after He saved me, but it was all about what God did for me, and was doing in me. It wasn’t about my love for Jesus, it was about His love for me, and I began to love Him all the more! I was also introduced to the Church Fathers, and I fell in love with them. As far as I could see, there was no real disconnect between the Fathers and Lutheran theology, even if they may have instances where they were in error. I started to love liturgical worship. Although I had, for a short time, questioned the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, I embraced it, and it became more and more important to me. The more I read the Lutheran Confessions and Lutheran Theology, the more I became convinced it was faithful to the Word of God. I may have called myself a Lutheran up until that time, although sometimes with varying degrees of embarrassment, but it was in college that I truly became a Lutheran. It wasn’t an academic or intellectual thing, although it was also intellectual and academic, it was a spiritual thing. It had to do with the heart, not only the head.
Continue to Part 3
Labels: My Conversion
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