On Tolerance:

Tolerance is a word expressing an assumption of power. A society as evolved as ours in these United Sates of America ought to understand this basic principle and understand why it is a poor word choice. A teacher or parent or employer may not tolerate certain behavior, language, or thought because they have power by the nature of their position. We citizens, however, must understand that when we speak about our neighbors, we cannot use this word. We should not tolerate our neighbors, we should respect them. Be they Muslim, Mormon, atheist, or Christian.
The foundation of this nation is based on the equal rights and dignity of each individual given not by the government, but by our creator - or to be politically correct, by the fact that we have been created. You may say, "This is just rhetoric, Rob. Don't get so hung up on it." But the unconscious statement we make when we say, "I can tolerate my gay neighbor next door," is that I am superior or somehow better because I am not gay.
When we look at this in the context of religion, we must say, there is no relative truth, one must be right, making the other wrong. Otherwise, we open ourselves up to the possibility of no Truth, and that is not an option. We live in an absolute and concrete world. People absolutely die. People absolutely love and hate. People absolutely break bones and no one lives in a relative state of gravity.
So what do we do with this feeling of power and superiority that comes from thinking that one has absolute Truth (not to say you haven't. I'm Roman Catholic and totally believe I have). We must remember at this moment that before you knew the Truth, you were powerless, an underling just like all the rest. You relied on someone else's respect for your dignity to remain intact. We must recognize this distinction, and its fitting that I pen this on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the chief founder of inter-religious dialogue, respecting someone's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness comes not from your power, but from the Creator's. Mr. Locke and Mr. Jefferson figured this out long before our time and we have an obligation to remember it.

On being a Christian and Doing Theology:

We theologians love to discuss and argue the finer points of how God works, what orthodox doctrine is, how scripture should be read and interpreted, how we should be in relation to God, et cetera. Often this dialectic is good and beneficial, but it can be risky. While an appropriate knowledge and understanding of Truth is a great cause in the faith, theology can be a grave distraction, not just from exhibiting virtue, but also from being obedient. Take for example the five-century-old discussion on the seemingly different doctrines of justification between Protestants and Catholics – Sola Fide vs. Faith and Charity.

Eugene Peterson points out something peculiar about Jesus in Mark’s Gospel that I would like to show in a different light. In this shortest Gospel narrative, Jesus makes three imperative statements in chapters one and two. He gives three essential commands that we hear today. He calls men to 1) repent, 2) believe in the good news of the Kingdom of God, 3) and to follow him. Every Christian and Christian theologian (novice or professional, must remember these three imperatives. Following Jesus, that last one, is crucial to EVERYTHING for the theologian of today.

The entire reason we have a mission as Christians is because Christ desires followers – the central issue of evangelism is gaining disciples. If salvation is inherent in being a disciple, then halleluiah! But repenting alone, believing alone, and following alone do not please Jesus. Even the Pharisees followed Jesus around sometimes. The rich young ruler believed that Jesus was Lord. Judas repented. But these things alone weren’t enough for any of them.

When we do theology, we must remember that it is to be done only because we are people who are repenting, believing, and following. Otherwise we engage in a risky practice. I might also suggest that this is not a formula, but does include some necessary features for what a Christian looks like (perhaps it even gets at that justification question … but that’s for a different day).

Poetry Slam 2.0

So I have kind of gotten into writing poems since I have been taking this Introduction to Poetry Writing Course. It has been cool to see how a class that is mostly female "art types" respond to my poems about faith (not to be stereotypical, but ... honesty and brevity).

Here is a poem I was inspired to write while at North Florida InterVarsity's Spring Conference.

Abandon All Hope

Ye who enter here, it says on those other gates.

Abandon the hope of this world

He says to us here.

Abandon your chest of desires

And have no more angst.

Division, be gone!

Soldiers, to arms!

Abandon the dreams

Of a selfish past.

We fight,

We battle,

An enemy without flesh or blood.

The victory is ours!

So stay and be courageous.

For true life only exists in abandonment.

My Erotic Valentine's Day

In my last semester at Flagler College, I wanted to take a business class. That made sense. I ought to know something about business before I leave Flagler and have to become a real, full-time adult. The business class was at the same time as a required history class. So I took Intro to poetry writing. Now I am writing, as per the syllabus assignment, non-rhyming erotic poetry. Here was my first try.

Keep in mind, the assignment was to write a poem that was erotic in tone and nature, but also did not rhyme.

Oh, it was also due on February 14, the day that is commercially celebrated as Valentine's Day. Comic relief for my discomfort.

Concupiscence

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” – Romans 7:15

“Because I love you,”

She whispers, atop            

Other lies.

What did I do?

Why do I do?

I love you, yes

But you won’t or rather don’t say, “I do.”

She plays atop and coaxes.

She is a temptress without knowing,

And my desires

Blur.

He is my king, but

She is here. She is real.

Unsatisfied, I leave.

I fail. I fall

On my face before the throne.

Now I demand you snap. I don't care if you are reading this alone or with other people.

Catholicism and Rob: Part II - Authority

*This may seem verbose, perhaps unorganized, and maybe even incoherent. As always, feel free to call me out, correct my grammar, and in the spirit of community and Truth correct errors you may see. I write many of these based on what comes to mind, and maybe one day I'll re-write them more organized and give my dad the academic paper he wants.*

     As promised, I am going to continue telling the story/giving reason for my exit from Methodism/American Protestant Evangelicalism into Roman Catholicism - which should be just as evangelical. In this post I want to talk about the first troubling issue I ran across: authority.
     I was trained as a debater in high school (NERD!), which is very similar to saying I was trained in logic, critical thinking, and argumentation. In debate formulas, you make a claim and you back it up with evidence. At times, you may decide that a brilliant tactic is to call your opponent out on their evidence, which you believe to be inauthentic or non-authoritative. If you can discredit their evidence, their thesis falls apart, and you win. It is with pride and sadness that I confess to having made an opponent or two cry with this tactic and while it was exhilarating, it should always be done with gentleness.
     So, Evidence, Christianity, Authoritative: What? I have for a while fancied myself as somewhat of an apologician - which I'm not sure is even a word - but a person who can make a reasoned justification for why he believes what he believes (gee, that's kind of what this blog series is all about!).
1 Peter 3:15 gets involved in this idea -

"but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you"
I was using all of this Scripture from the Bible to back up all of this cool doctrinal beliefs that I grabbed onto via college ministry. It becomes sort of a mixed pot of Luther, Wesley, Moravians, Francis Chan, Thomas Aquinas, the Gospel Coalition, Augustine of Hyppo, Tim Keller, the Nicene Creed, et cetera in college where a bunch of faith traditions get together and college students, who are very much in formation still, start talking about and sharing ideas. Initially I latched onto the idea that "Sola Scriptura" - the belief that Scripture alone is authoritative - was correct. Luther said this in his reformation rebellion-palooza, which we like to forget, quickly turned into 35,000+ schismatic "denominations" and we like to forget that it opened the door for such blasphemies and heretical cults as Mormonism, Jehovah's witness, and Ted Haggard. Or if we wanted to avoid a tangent fight over those moral questions, we could just say - Luther argued for Sola Scriptura, then wanted to remove the Epistle of James, the Revelation of John, the Epistle of Jude, Hebrews, and Esther - as they did not reveal Christ to Luther himself.  Luther also added the word "alone" to Romans 3:28 - which will be fun to look at in a future post.

... Alright I'll just show you all what it says and what Luther translated it as - I'll even use the ESV!
It really says - "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law."
Luther translated it - "For we hold that one is justified by faith alone apart from works of the law."
You can see my confusion with how Luther thought of Sola Scriptura ... But less about Luther, volumes can and have been written picking apart that schismatic monk's theology and the crazy things he did in the 15th century - like forcing all celibate religious people to marry other celibate religious people... and more about Catholicism and me. (Tangent/Run-on)

     I was using Scripture for all of these apologetic questions and getting into exegesis. But I was challenged one day by a simple question - Where does the Bible get its authority from?
We have all these "other" books that didn't make it into the canon, why not? We have complete and total faith that this Bible is the authoritative and, depending on your affiliation, inerrant word of God, but why do we believe that?! It was a plaguing question and one that I could simply answer, but not without, you guessed it, getting involved with a logic fallacy. Circular reasoning is great if you are trying to sell a car, so is the red herring, however, in matters of Truth (Capital "T"), you want your logic on firm ground. And you know what I found?
     Scripture is to be relied upon as authoritative because it is given authority by the pillar and bulwark of truth, the household of God, which is the Church. - You can find this in 1 Tim 3:15. Fun, right?! We can trust the Bible as true because before Jesus died, he gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom and declared that on Peter's confession, his church would be built. Before he ascended he gave the apostles and authoritative commission. He said to go and make disciples - we here that same command today. Part of that going and making disciples was the compilation of the New Testament canon - which we have today, despite Luther, and thanks to the authority of the Catholic Church and the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Certainly, Scripture is the inspired word of God, along with the Tradition of the Church that comes to us in Scripture and outside of it. - - woah woah what?!
     Paul himself gives testament to this, again, I'll use the ESV for you reformed folks, "So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter." - 2 Thessalonians 2:15. The New Testament has 13 letters attributed to Paul in it. He spent years evangelizing the entire Mediterranean region. Not all of that teaching made it into those 13 letters. Are we to say that his oral teaching was not authoritative, but that his written teaching was? That seems silly, but the Church, which has been entrusted to be a reflection of the Kingdom, holds these Traditions, taught by the apostles, the first bishops, and their followers as authoritative. It is the same way the Church in its duty, created the canon as authoritative. We can know the Truth because of the Church, not the other way around. There is one Church, not over 35,000. I know that is offensive, but I worship a God who "is not a God of confusion, but of peace."
     At the end of the day, I needed authority. I needed my Bible to be the word of God, not because it says it is, but because the Church that was founded by Jesus says it is.

For more on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, check out http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/download - John Martignoni is a brilliant apologician and probably more organized than I am here.

So, in closing, the Church needs to have authority that comes not from any man or book, but from Christ alone - hey, there's something Luther and I agreed upon. I want to leave you with a quote. St. Augustine of Hyppo, that favorite Doctor of the Church for many Protestants and Reformed folks, once wrote, "For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church."

Catholicism and Rob: Part I

If you are reading this, you may know that by the grace of God I officially entered the Roman Catholic Church 18 December 2011. Chances are, if you are an acquaintance of mine from college and are a Christian, or if you are a relative, you may disagree with this decision to some varying degree, but still love me, and that I truly do appreciate. In keeping with who I am and my background, I want you know that this decision was not made lightly, nor is it at all regretted. I share the same sentiment that many protestants who made the same transition: I am home. Though it was a very long journey with many hills and valleys, I am home.

My father, the son of a Southern Baptist deacon, has asked that I write a paper to explain my reasons. I think that this is a very fair request and one that I intend to fulfill. I will do this in a series of blog posts, each addressing a separate issue that led me to my conversion, a term I regrettably use, but one that satisfies the shift I have made. (In contemporary religious times, it is the accepted phrasing for "switching denominations." I fear, however, that it improperly conveys that I have just begun following Jesus, repented, and confessed him as sole Lord and Savior of my life.) I would rather phrase it thus: I have stopped protesting the Catholic Church, its doctrines, and authority, and have joined its faithful.

To begin, here is a little over 300 words I recently wrote for an assignment I was given in my "American Civil War" class. The assignment was to write a 300 word autobiography we would read in front of the class to practice speaking in front of people. Today I read mine.

Autobiographies are hard, and harder still when they are limited to three hundred words. I firmly believe that most people are living contradictions. I believe that most people are hypocrites, and mostly unintentionally. Most of us have principles, goals, desires, things that we are concerned with to the highest point of our being. And most of us, in some way or another, conscious or unconscious, work against those values. I am no different. I am a conflict, just as I would bet many of you are.

A sinful saint, or a saintly sinner, perhaps, I am a religious man. Perhaps this is where the conflict of my being begins. Born to the son of a Southern Baptist deacon and a cradle Episcopalian mother, I found it strange and fascinating that my family did not attend a church, but that we prayed before meals and identified ourselves as Christians. My parents finally met in the middle, and took my brother and I to the Methodist church. It could have been just to quiet our questions, or appease the neighbors, but they faithfully took us to Sunday school weekly, sometimes not even staying for church themselves, and I loved it! I drank in the stories, I learned the right answers, and best of all, I got real good at praying.

It wasn’t until high school that I realized I had become the very thing my father hated, a Pharisee, a hypocrite. On the church council I sat through budget meetings, furious about the way money was used, but I still paid the man for my cup at the keg party the next Friday. I came to college and kept on my good mask most of the time, but then I learned a very valuable lesson and joined the Church universal. That lesson: it is better to have faith than knowledge, and better to be surrendered and humbly devoted than to know the answers, but not know who Jesus is.

*There will be more to come soon! (I intend to post more soon at least)