Catholic Coffee Drinkers

Thomas More College has a write up of my adventures.

I had the immense pleasure of talking with an old family friend from my Evangelical-Pentecostal day who engaged me on the phone in what was  delightful chat that brought back many memories of those days which I had entirely forgotten.  It is good, my reader, to always remember your roots, that is to look back from where you came so that you might better understand where you are going.  It is not the nostalgic who look back, but the hopeful; a man caught up in nostalgia longs for days past, even if the reality of those days past is not at all in keeping with his memory but the hopeful man looks back to see providence moving things where he ought to be.  So it is that I had the immense pleasure of chatting it up with an old friend who reminded of my roots and where I came from in my faith journey.

Of particular interest was when I was asked what I was studying, to which I answered philosophy but also made mention of my love of the Early Church fathers.  When she heard about my love of Patristics she immediately proclaimed, “Oh, they really needed to get into the Word more.”  Remembering my evangelical lexicon, I politely countered that the Fathers were quite aware of Scriptures and have influenced it’s interpretation far beyond their own time, which prompted her to state, “Yes, maybe, but they really needed to learn it from God’s perspective.”  I finished up the conversation in an otherwise good chat and when I hung up the phone I just had to laugh at the fact that I once spoke with such pride and enthusiasm.  Truly, it was a time to ask myself, “Who did I think I was?”

As an Evangelical I fully believed that Catholics just did what they were told and were brain washed by thousands of years of “mans tradition” but never took a moment to ask myself why I felt so sure of my interpretation of scriptures.  It takes pride beyond measure to believe that you have greater authority over scripture, that God illuminates its meaning more to you and Pastor Bob, than any member of the Church speaking withing two generations of Christ’s resurrection.  I truly believed that the Holy Spirit had spoken to us, in our sixty-year old religion, better and greater than anyone before us and that we were the true Christians living at the end of time.  I am thankful that humility entered me and that I no longer embrace such an ideology.

When I said of Catholics that they didn’t think for themselves, I realized the irony of that statement.  A man who thinks for himself begins by stating that he knows nothing and has no original thought and then embraces the world in wonder.  Wonder is the mother of all disciplines and it can only be possessed by the humble hearts whose minds are not clouded by pride when gazing upon the cosmos.  A student who begins at believing to have exclusive knowledge will not learn, for Truth wants her servants to be willing and submissive; it is rather the student who knows how little he knows that may advance in his studies.  Realizing how little I knew, I was able to embrace the Patristics of the Church and understand how little baring my emotions and beliefs about exegesis mattered.  The world became great because I did as Chesterton asked, made myself small in it.

I am happy to say that all I can do is laugh at my former position.  I could not accept the doctrine handed down from tradition, but I could accept it from Pastor Steveo at Open Bible New Life Faith Center or someone who had a vision on live TV in his three-piece suit.  While I was appalled at the man-made traditions of Catholicism, I myself embraced the recent man-made traditions of Pre-Millennial Dispensationalism and Once-Saved-Always-Saved soteriology without question.  In fact, my first step to the Catholic faith was to inquire into the historical roots of my Evangelical faith and I had to concluded along with Newman, “To love history is to cease to be Protestant.”  I am thankful that I had the presence of mind to realize that I had no authority over scripture and that I was no Patriarch but a mere laymen standing on the shoulders of giants gazing at the Word who is eternal life.

Today is the feat of St. Augustine, a hero upon whose shoulder the entire intellectual tradition of Western Christendom rests.  May the Doctor of Grace watch over all of us, especially our leaders who are working during the elections of the City of Man.

“Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit,that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.” -St. Augustine’s prayer to the Holy Spirit.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi invoked none other than Augustine on Meet the Press this Sunday for her dissident views on abortion and the moment life begins. As deceptive as politicians can be, I’ve always held Speaker Pelosi in high regard, despite my disagreements, but she did the unforgivable act of speaking about that which she has little knowledge of. Using Augustine to defend her position as a pro-choice Catholic, Madame Pelosi brought my favorite of the Fathers and the very founder of Western Theology to the forefront of controversy.

Did Augustine actually say that life doesn’t begin until three months? Well, yes. However, St. Augustine was discussing the legality of whether one can be charged for homicide in an abortion, to which he believed that the answer was “no” because he held, as many did in the Classical and Medieval stages, that a soul did not enter into the body right at conception but later in the hominization of the mind. Groups such as Catholic for a Free Choice often use this little statement from the twenty-eight chapter of Augustine’s Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love to justify their dissident position and further conclude that if we are not sure when life begins we should err to the higher value of a woman privacy. However, let us remember that Augustine is often the most misunderstood and misinterpreted philosopher, especially when abused by those who read him for proof-texting instead of reading him in his entirety.

In the same chapter of the Enchiridion we read Augustine’s statement that aborted children shall be resurrected in the an unblemished form (28:85) and not merely tossed out like unformed seeds. Further on (28:86) we find this statement, for which I use JF Shaw’s translation with emphasis added by myself:

To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead.

Are aborted children denied the resurrection? If so, then the crime of abortion is truly more disturbing when committed by one who believes in the resurrection, for now they are denying life and salvation. However, it does not appear to be the teaching of the Church that such happens (even if a RadTrad would rather it did). Likewise, the Didache, an early Catechism/Liturgical manual from the early second century, states in two different places the severity of the sin of abortion and does clearly equivocate it with murder. Likewise, St. John Chrysostom speaks in his sermons on the horrors of abortion, also calling it murder, especially when committed by adulterers.

While Madame Pelosi has made it clear that she believes in reducing the number of abortions, a noble and great purpose especially for a liberal democrat, I do wish she would heed her own Church’s warning. It may be said that we just don’t know when life begins, but we must decide to err on the side of life in these and many other incidents.

St. Augustine, on the eve of your feast day, pray for us!

A dear and respected friend of mine sent me a note to inform me of the awful news that he is now having the hardest time enjoying Chesterton because of how his name is invoked.  Feeling myself the call to step up and defend the Master of Paradox I promptly telephoned him to reassure him of GCK’s brilliance and his place in the intellectual sphere, which I can only pray was effective.  Dear reader, it seems that GKC is often used by those who misrepresent and even counterfeit his reputation, committing opposite but equally severe sins of either turning off a generation to Chesterton or else making the Great Man Gilbert into an idol that is not the writer many of us have grown to love. 

I have decided that there must be a more proactive approach to defending GK Chesterton’s memory, and in that spirit I offer to you the Two Terse Commandments of Modern Chestertonianism:

1. Thou shalt not have any Chesterton’s before the real Chesterton. 

                  I write this command only to remind you all that when we approach Chesterton, or any great historical figure for that matter, we are to approach the one that existed and not the one made to fit into our preconceived notions.  This seems self evident, but anyone who has read the many biographies out there knows that truth is often made secondary to idealism and it is not long before historical revisionism distorts the true image.

1. Thou shalt not use the name of GKC in vain.

                  The name of Chesterton has been invoked for clever quotations and unique ideas from men as various as Michael Collins, Gandhi, Mussolini, Huckabee, Buckley, CS Lewis, and Dorothy L Sayers, indicating the various effects his thought has had on the modern world.  I have often heard it said that Chesterton is the second most-quoted man in the English language—as well he ought to be—and it is not uncommon to see his quotations on bumper stickers for every possible political stance out there. 

                  My command on this one is to ask, “Would Gilbert Keith Chesterton support this cause for which I’m about to invoke his name into?” Chances are if you’re writing a pamphlet for the Acton Institute or the Hemlock Society, the answer is swift and to the negative.  I agree that he is quite humorous and has probably made your point better than you would have made it, but make sure that it’s GKC’s point your supporting and not your own. 

“Great blog, only he seems to post so sporadically that one wonders if he writes at all from time to time,” or so it seems that the blogosphere has this consensus about my blogging.  Even during the summer holiday, which is normally a time of leisure that affords me greater time to write so much more, I have found my time consumed by numerous academic pursuits that are a joy but also rob me of my time to write leisurely so it is that my posts have included many apologies to readers for not writing more.  I apologize yet again, dear reader, because I feel a strange duty to you who actually take the time to read and critique my work.  I suppose the first duty of any writer is to strive not to be boring, one duty that I take with all the seriousness of a dogma.  As I strive not to bore my readers, I as a writer also ask my readers to not be boring when they engage a work.  A reader should approach an author as one who approaches a guide going on safari: he ought to be ready and expectant of a great adventure, but patient during the times of travel where nothing is occurring at all.  Even better, the would-be adventurer ought to see these times of mundane travel as the time of reflection and anticipation on the journey.  As readers and writer, my particular school of blogging has done wonders in intellectual adventures and I am humbled to be a small part of it.

So it is that I offer my apologies for neglecting my writings again and contributing to the culture of modern boredom.  I have been doing many exciting things such as writing and reading for academic reasons, which helped me on my merry way to Oxford where I enjoyed a time of learning about many great Catholic authors of the last 130 years from Cardinal Newman up to contemporary thinkers.  So while time has been an enemy to my leisure, as it has been an enemy since the fall, I have found an overabundance of things to write about!  I shall therefore be focusing on my writings away from blogs but will put forward a new series of essays titled “What I Saw in England” which will be posted to this blog once in a while on top of my usual fixings of news commentary and caustic remarks on others material.  Many thanks to the few of you who read this page and give feedback!  It means the world to me.