In the Vineyard

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

The next chapter in my conversion story.

In my youth, my faith was like the seed that fell along the path, that was devoured by the birds — my doubts, my questioning, my hurts. The next period of my life was one of new sowing; but my heart was rocky, my soil was shallow, and my faith sprang up quickly, only to wither away in the sun (Matthew 13).

My years of drifting away, and finally running away, had brought me to calamity. But God in His mercy spared me and gave me another chance. After my accident and remarkable healing, both physical and spiritual, I found myself at a crossroads, and had at long last chosen the road of God once again. But I was immature and full of pride. There was still so much that needed to be rooted out of my life before my heart could be ripe to bear true faith.

The Sower (Sower with Setting Sun) (1888), by Vincent Van Gogh. (WikiPaintings.org)

I had all the overweening zeal of a new convert, and went on a vehement and public crusade against the sins that had shackled me for so long and had brought about my ruin. It is painful to read my old journal posts from this time, to see how self-righteous and moralistic I was. My faith had no roots; no grounding. I thought I could make up for my lack of foundation with sheer fervency. Thankfully this time only lasted a few months: the first time I was faced with a real trial, a real temptation, I fell flat on my face.

I didn’t understand then that I was just a seedling. I needed to be regrown from the ground up. I had been reborn, but I was an infant in faith. I needed to be supported and cultivated. The Vineyard became my nursery.

The Vineyard was the young adult Sunday school class at Calvary. It was a little ironic to me even then that a group should be called “the Vineyard” in a church that was generally opposed to drinking alcohol, but it was built on the words of Jesus (John 15:5):

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

I had been alone for so long. And this was what I needed: to be truly grafted into the Vine; to find communion and fellowship with fellow Christians; to be loved and nourished. The Vineyard was that place for me.

It was never a place of any especially deep scriptural or theological study like I thought I needed — Calvary was never the place for that — but it was a place of love. There were in truth only a few people there I really connected with — our leaders Mr. Barry and Ms. Leisa, and Shelly and Michael, and a few others — but we became a tight group, and they made me feel loved and welcome and needed, like I belonged and mattered, like my thoughts and observations were valuable and important. It was something I had never known before, at that church or any other. And it was exactly what I needed.

Christ Pantokrator (10th century). Cefalù Cathedral. Cefalù, Sicily, Italy.

I remember my thoughts turning to historic Christianity in my life of faith for the first time. The seeds that had been planted in Rome began to bear fruit. I spoke up in class more and more, making observations about the historical connections of our faith to the Early Church. On more than one occasion, someone objected and said, “Wait, isn’t that Catholic?” But Mr. Barry and Ms. Leisa stuck up for me. I felt validated; I felt I had room to grow as a Christian, even an intellectual Christian.

I loved the Vineyard, and the dear brethren I found there. I don’t know where I would be today without them. There were times of trouble ahead, that would bring me to my knees. But I had found my roots; I had learned to abide in the Vine.

Like the Dewfall

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

(arlingtonrenewal.org)

My reckless path over the past months had left my way littered with a lot of brokenness — not least of all my own. The most gracious Healer had been to my bedside — but still I shut Him out of my heart, the most wounded part of all.

Though I’d made a miraculous recovery from my accident, I was still, for the first few months after coming home from Ohio, in need of a lot of attention. I relied on my parents, especially my mother, to get myself to class every day (that one class I insisted on taking), and to doctor’s appointments, and to social gatherings, and for anything else I needed or thought I needed. I wish I could say that I was a grateful and cooperative patient, but the truth is that I wasn’t — especially the more she and I came to talk about God and religion.

To my friends, too, I was becoming intolerable. I felt the need to talk about my accident ad nauseam, to tell everyone I spoke to about it. I appreciated the loving concern that so many people had shown me, so much that I thought I deserved it and could selfishly demand it. What is worse, I began to grow angry: angry at the truck driver, and at the circumstances, and at God, for taking away my car and my freedom; angry at my parents for not bowing to my every whim and demand; angry at my friends for not making me the center of their universe.

Mouths swell with anger, veins grow black with blood (Ora tument ira, nigrescunt sanguine venae) (Anger from the Seven Deadly Vices), by Peter Bruegel the Elder (1558).

One friend in particular came to bear the brunt of my anger. The harder I pushed and the more attention I demanded, the further she drifted. I do not blame her at all, in retrospect, for what happened: she, too, broke off contact with me. I was infuriated. Never before in my life have I been, and I pray I never will be again, so filled with rage. It is true — I learned firsthand — that Wrath is a Deadly Sin — because as the days and weeks wore on, this blaze grew higher and higher, and consumed more and more of me. My mind was filled with horrifying, violent thoughts to the point of hatred. And it was killing me. My performance at school, my relationships with family and friends, even my health, was becoming unhinged. I was self-destructing.

And then, everything changed.

This isn’t her. It’s a stock photo.

It started with a phone call. Halloween night, a caring, Christian friend called to check on me, to see how I was recovering since the accident. But she wasn’t doing so well herself, struggling with health issues of her own. She said that she was praying for me. I said, reflexively, as my twenty-five years of Christian upbringing had taught me, that I would pray for her, too.

But as I hung up the phone, I realized that I was lying. I wouldn’t pray for her; I didn’t pray at all, and hadn’t in many months. Going to sleep that night, I resolved to do something about that, for my friend.

The next day, remembering my resolution of the night before, I unceremoniously knelt down in my bedroom to pray. And suddenly I found myself face to face with the Most High, the God I had been actively avoiding and running from and pushing away for the past six months. I stammered. What could I say for myself? Here I was to make a request of Him, and I had hardly spoken to Him or acknowledged the priceless gift of life He had already bestowed. Feebly, I fumbled, “I know I should probably get back into a church one of these days…”

My friend’s simple act of charity, her kind words and her concern, had been but a drop of moisture; but it reminded me in a distant way of the Font from which all mercies flow. My own simple gesture, reaching out to pray for her, was, however small, an acceptance of His grace and an act of His love. And with this drop of water on the parched soil of my soul, the rain gently began to fall. It came as soothing droplets to my burning heart; like the first trickle from the floodgates into a scorched riverbed.

There have only been one or two times in my life when I have heard God’s voice clearly and absolutely. This was one of those times. It came like a thunderclap that knocked me to the floor. The words were almost audible as they formed in my mind, in answer to my halfhearted offering: “Go back to Calvary. This Sunday.”

Calvary: the church I grew up in, towards which I’d held so much anger and bitterness for years; the place I blamed for failing me in my time of need and leading me down a dead-end path. If there was anything I would have expected God to say, anywhere I would have expected Him to send me — that would have been the very last place. When I’d suggested going back to church, it was more an excuse than an intention: I didn’t have the slightest idea when or where I would ever go back to church, or much of a motivation to do so — but I absolutely had no thought of going back there. But suddenly, out of the ether, I had an answer, the last one I would have ever chosen for myself. It hit me not as a passing thought; not as an idea desperate or compromising that I struggled against or had to wrestle with to accept; but as an unambiguous, authoritative command that it never even occurred to me to question. “Yes, Lord; I will obey,” is all I could answer.

It was November 1, All Saints’ Day. I did not celebrate it then, but I was aware of the fact.

Murillo, Return of the Prodigal Son 1670

The Return of the Prodigal Son (1670), by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

The last time I’d been made to go to church with my parents, I’d scowled and grumped through the whole service. That Sunday morning, to their surprise, I volunteered. This time, my attitude was entirely different: I was hurting; I was starving. From the moment I entered, I had the feeling of coming home; of comfort and security. As the call was given to come down to the altar, I all but ran. As I knelt there, and one of the pastors, and my parents, laid their hands on me and prayed for me, the tears began to flow. A sense of peace came over my restless heart. The thorns of anger and pain and hate I’d allowed to dig into my heart, the barbs of hurt and bitterness and unforgiveness that had bound me for so long — began to slip away.

Sunrise, by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902).

It was a night and day difference — the night of my darkness and waywardness and confusion, and the day of His light and warmth and guidance. The shadows lifted, and I began to see the road again, the way out of my ravine. The next days or weeks or months were not easy — there was so much I’d allowed to take over my life that needed to be rooted out, and it was painful going — but I continued to pray and seek God’s face. I continued going to church at Calvary with my parents. But about a week after that first time, I drove out to the country to be alone with my Bible and Every Man’s Battle. There, tearfully, I finally laid down my fight, humbled myself, and surrendered my life wholly to God, for probably the first time ever.

Rembrandt, The Raising of Lazarus (1630).

I believe that my accident was a kind of baptism by fire; that my restoration mirrors the new birth in Christ that a Christian experiences at his baptismal regeneration. I believe in some small measure, I tasted Christ’s Resurrection power — that on that day I stood at the threshold of death’s door, and was brought back. I believe that every Christian does: this is Christ’s power over Death and the Grave that every Christian receives at baptism as the old man is buried and the new man is raised up in new life. I believe I was given a tangible sign, a sacramental experience, by which the invisible, spiritual transformation was writ large in visible, physical actions.

I still don’t know why God spared me that day, but I am grateful every day for the opportunity to find out and for the life I’ve been given. I live every day in the faith that God has some purpose and calling for my life, some reason for keeping me here. The road ahead wasn’t always smooth. I made a good many wrong turns, and had a few more minor collisions (spiritually speaking). But I was on the road again.

What was I before?

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

I’ve been doing some reading lately. Feeling slightly ashamed, I used to admit to my Catholic friends that I was reading a Protestant book, but I don’t anymore. No one has ever said anything. Whether a book is Catholic or Protestant has little bearing on its read-worthiness; both Catholics and Protestants have worthy things to say about God.

Belatedly (posthumously?), I’ve been boning up on my Protestant theology. When I was a Protestant, I had little understanding of theology, and little patience for its uncertainty — with all of the voices disagreeing, interpreting Scripture differently, how could I possibly find the truth in that muddle? But now that I’ve found an absolute certainty in the authority of the Church and Magisterium — now that I have a firm foundation on which to base what I believe — then I am better able to comprehend and consider the ideas of others. It’s ironic that the very cornerstone of the Reformation, sola scriptura, the Reformers’ very attempt to find a bedrock of authority, proved to be my greatest stumbling block.

My theological underpinning was never strong to begin with. Growing up, I never had any formal catechesis on Christian doctrine or theology. What I knew, I knew by osmosis, more from the culture around me than from any teaching or preaching: Jesus died to forgive our sins that we might have eternal life. Beyond that basic truth was muddiness. I had heard of Martin Luther as the heroic Reformer, and of John Calvin as “that guy who believed in predestination, and we don’t believe in that” — but we didn’t seem to be following in either of those traditions. Who were we? Where did we come from?

It wasn’t until late in high school, when we reading The Scarlet Letter, that I first learned the differences between Calvinism* and Arminianism. And I realized that we at Calvary were essentially Arminian, a term I had never heard before. Predestination (election), grace, and human nature just weren’t talked about at my church, ever. In my thinking, our salvation depended on us, on our choosing to follow God in faith. God wasn’t compelling us by His grace, snatching us up against our will, or damning others to the fires of hell. Neither was He denying that we had free will at all. And we could certainly backslide and walk away from God. I had this crude, misshapen conception of Reformed theology for years.

* Some of my Reformed friends have taken exception to the term “Calvinism,” preferring instead “Reformed” theology or even simply “doctrines of grace.” I use the term “Calvinism” both out of grammatical expediency and an aim for doctrinal clarity, to refer to those doctrines taught by, in line with, or in the tradition of John Calvin and his followers, and not to convey any negative connotation. Because there is more than one “Reformed” tradition, and more than one understanding of the “doctrines of grace.” I’m talking about the Calvinist one.

As I grew older and attempted to educate myself more, I became more and more frustrated by theological confusion and my lack of foundation. And I eventually decided that it didn’t really matter anyway, that God loved us all no matter what we believed about Him, that there was no way to find the truth in all the mess. It was a position of thoroughgoing ecumenism, or worse, doctrinal agnosticism. I have met so many Christians at this same point, eschewing labels and denominations and formal doctrine in favor of terms like “nondenominational Christian,” “mere Christian” (I preferred that one, after C.S. Lewis — but Lewis never intended in that book that anyone should remain a “mere Christian”), or “Jesus follower.”

But the more I read, the more I see that labels and denominations and doctrines do matter. In one sense I believe I was right, and still maintain, that all orthodox believers are followers of Christ and should strive to find our common ground rather than be continually divisive in our disunity. But in another, what we believe about God and about salvation profoundly affects how we view God and ourselves and our relationship to Him, how we view the world around us, how we view our neighbor and our mission as Christians on this earth. Just looking around to what different Christians do attests to this. Some emphasize world missions, devoting money and time to spreading the Gospel and ministering to the needs of regions of our world stricken with poverty, disease, and strife. Others are more focused on caring for the needy in their own back yard. Some are ardently evangelical, canvassing cities with tracts and distributing Bibles, warning of the immediacy of death apart from salvation. Others are more reflective and calculated in their evangelism and outreach, preferring their lives and their works to be their witnesses. Still others, perhaps the majority, don’t do anything at all. It’s not so much about labels as about lifestyle.

I never thought much until recently about the differences between how Christians view the Christian life and Christian piety. In my Pentecostal upbringing, as I’ve written, the focus was on the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, and on personal piety, Bible study and “quiet times” of private devotion. Other Christians around me just didn’t seem to care about that, and I must confess, I wondered, especially when I was younger, if they were “bad” Christians, if they didn’t care about God or their relationship to Him. But no — the book I’m reading pointed out that this understanding of a personal, private relationship with God is essentially an evangelical one — that some Christians, especially Reformed (as the book is treating), but just as well Catholics, see the heart of Christian life in public professions of faith, in liturgy and the Sacraments, and most of all in service. That doesn’t diminish the importance of personal piety and personal faith at all — but it’s what we do in the light that makes us Christians (John 3:19-21).

I’ve always struggled with the terms “evangelical” and “fundamentalist.” So do a lot of people; there have been whole books written on the difference. I am not convinced the distinction is really very helpful: most evangelical Christians believe the “fundamentals,” and most fundamentalists are evangelical in outlook or piety; the difference, especially to the secular world, often seems to be one of the degree of fervency or severity, and especially the latter label is often used pejoratively. It seems clear (I now realize fully for the first time) that Reformed (Calvinist) Christians are not evangelicals. And it also seems clear to me that I as a Protestant was an evangelical, because of the emphasis on a personal conversion experience and personal relationship with God, and a Charismatic and a Pentecostal (the latter is a subset of the former), because of the emphasis on miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. And, I would argue, because of the emphasis on personal, emotional experiences of God, on sensation and feeling over reason and doctrine.

A friend of mine, a convert to Orthodox Christianity, shared something while I was converting that I didn’t really understand until I reached this point. She wrote that her identity as an Orthodox Christian doesn’t erase or overwrite her identity as a Protestant or evangelical, but that deep down she will always have that and be that. I feel that about myself, too, as a Catholic. In converting, I didn’t cease to be something I was, but became something more. The butterfly still has the genes of the caterpillar. Though my feelings toward the faith of my youth are often ambivalent, I have taken many things from it that I will always carry with me as a Christian, that I believe are good things: devotion to private prayer and Bible study, a commitment to regular tithing of my income, and love for praise and worship music. So no, reflection on Protestant things is not “posthumous” at all or even retrospective. I am sure there are many other fruits of my Protestant identity that will continue to come to light.

Baptism and De-baptism

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

I wrote a letter this morning to my former pastor at Calvary, asking him to attest to my baptism, which he gave to me in 1992 when I was twelve years old. The Catholic Church will recognize my Christian Baptism, made under the Trinitarian formula of “in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” as valid, and receive me as a candidate for Confirmation into the Church at Easter. But first I need witnesses. Thankfully, Pastor George is still pastor at Calvary, and my parents are still here and supportive.

The Baptism of Clovis, King of the Franks. (Note: A Frenchman, sort of, who embraced baptism.)

Then I read this story on NPR, the other side of the coin: while I am working to have my baptism verified and recognized, an elderly man in France is fighting in court to have himself “de-baptized.” Is this even possible? Not in my understanding of the Sacraments. Not according to Rev. Robert Kaslyn, dean of the School of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America:

“One can’t be de-baptized. . . . [B]aptism changes one permanently before the church and God. One could refuse the grace offered by God, the grace offered by the sacrament, refuse to participate . . . but we would believe the individual has still been marked for God through the sacrament, and that individual at any point could return to the church.”

Baptism, in Catholic theology (CCC #1213-1284), is a new birth, a birth into a life of grace in the Church, a “washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” But one can’t be un-born. Just as Nicodemus didn’t understand — “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Nicodemus asked Jesus (John 3:4, ESV) — Rene LeBouvier wants to be un-born when he is old.

And it breaks my heart. I understand that the failings of some in the Church’s flock, among her shepherds even, have hurt many people, and offended many others. I understand that even as I am turning to the Church as something new and glorious, so many others are turning away from it as something antiquated and out of touch with “modern times.” I will write about these issues — the pedophilia scandals, the rejection of birth control and sexual protection even in AIDS-torn Africa, and other charges against the Church — in more detail another time. For now, let me say that I choose to join with Christ’s Church, for the love and grace of Christ embodied in it; I choose not to reject it for to the failings of some of the men who make up it.

Baptism is the initial rite of initiation into the Church. Once you are baptized, you are a member of the Church, engrafted into the body of Christ. I suppose that membership is what M. LeBouvier wants to revoke. But, spiritually speaking, it can’t be done. He was baptized into Christ. It has been done. Perfectum est. He can erase the physical, temporal record of the event; eradicate his name from the baptismal records of the Church; but he can no more un-baptize himself than he can un-birth himself. (Ironically, this court case is creating more of an uneradicable record of his baptism than anything of the Church’s that he could have stricken.)

But it does make me wonder — just in time to discuss the sacrament of Baptism tonight at RCIA — what happens on the spiritual plane when someone walks away from and rejects the grace of Christ. Certainly, the Catholic Church believes that you can fall from grace — that having participated in the sacraments, especially involuntarily as an infant, does not guarantee one’s salvation. Not even membership in the Church as an adult, frequent attendance, or participation in the Eucharist guarantees one’s salvation. The visible Church, the Vessel of Salvation, carries both the saved and the lost. Not participating in the Church, effectively abandoning ship, probably does get you overboard, detached, but as Fr. Kaslyn said, you are forever “marked,” forever welcome to come back.*

I do have to say, though, from my own experience in trying to verify my baptism, that striking whatever records there are of that event — particularly when it happened over seventy years ago — might make returning a little difficult.

* Addendum (9:28 p.m.): We had a very good discussion of this issue and this article tonight at RCIA — the best class we’ve had so far, I think. We are now in open waters, learning to be Catholic and not just about Catholics. I asked Father Joe about this question — whether it’s possible, through renouncing one’s baptism, through walking away, through “abandoning ship,” to truly leave the Church — if the initiation of baptism can truly be reversed. And I liked his answer. “You can leave the Church, but the Church will never leave you.” Like the prodigal son coming home, the Church will always welcome you with open arms. You can never make God stop loving you, or revoke his grace having been granted.

The Questioning

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Joseph T. Richardson

Also toward the end of high school, I began to question my faith. This questioning isn’t associated in my mind with the other struggles I was having, but it was no doubt connected. What I was doing wasn’t working. Though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, I was searching for something more.

The apologetic works of Josh McDowell, his Evidence that Demands a Verdict series and More than a Carpenter, among some other books, were reassuring to me for a time. In this phase of my questioning, reassurance, more than anything else, was what I was seeking. I was looking for reasons to believe what I believed. But a broader challenge was yet to follow.

My senior year, I was a co-leader, with my friend Josh the Baptist, of our school’s Bible club. (I remember, notably, that there was a Catholic girl in our group. I was curious about her faith; it was the first time I’d ever known a Catholic — at least, it was the first time Catholicism had ever come up with someone I knew. We never really talked about it, though.) I took an aggressive posture in planning to get the word out, finally set to “take my school for Jesus” like Pastor Pat had urged. But it all was steam. I remember one day before biology class, I was pushing some religious view or another, when an Indian friend challenged me. I don’t even remember what he said, but it probably had something to do with evolution. I was entirely unprepared for it. Suddenly, all my gung-ho and bluster fell flat. I realized in an instant that for all my bold insistence and assertions, my beliefs had no intellectual foundation. My punctured faith rapidly deflated.

More than searching for why I believed what I believed — for which I now seemed to have no adequate answers — I also began wondering why I believed this, instead of something else. Why Christianity, out of all the other religions in the world? I realized how little I knew about Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I realized how little, ultimately, I knew about the big bang theory or evolution or scientific theories of the beginning of the universe. I went to the library and checked out books.

My search, admittedly, was never as deep or far-reaching as I know many others have sought. I remember in particular only three or four books that I read: one book about the big bang theory — the evidence for it, and different scientific interpretations of the evidence. I remember the “oscillating universe theory” provoked a lot of thought. It was the first time I truly wrestled with the idea of eternity and infinity, of when and how the universe began its existence from non-existence. And I remember a book, a broad, unbiased, comparative examination of a number of major world religions, especially Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I remember there being attractive elements of each of them, but deciding ultimately that Christianity was the “best fit” for me, and that I had no reason to put my faith in anything else, or to disbelieve what I believed. My quest at that time didn’t do much to strengthen my weakened foundation, but at least it brought me to a point of rest, however precarious.

I first found that my faith had no intellectual foundation, but was founded instead on emotion; then I discovered what a weak foundation emotion could be. Pastor Pat left Calvary, abruptly and unceremoniously. His successor, Pastor Glenn, was a good guy, much more down to earth and less fiery. But the excitement and hype of Pastor Pat’s time were quick to evaporate. In its absence, I fumbled for something else to stand on. To my dismay, I found so much of what I’d been building to be a house of cards. It only took one good gust to knock it down.

I must have been having inchoate doubts for a while. I must have been reading Scripture. But one weekend I went with the youth group to our state youth convention. The guest speaker was a particularly fiery one I’d heard a number of times before, one popular and well-liked. But something was different this time. Very suddenly and all at once, something hit me. This is all wrong, I thought. Finding no peace in the auditorium, I retreated to the restroom with my Bible and a notebook, and sitting on the floor, began furiously scribbling notes about all that I saw that was wrong.

Hillsong Church, Sydney, Australia.

Charismatic Christianity, of which Pentecostals and the Assemblies of God are an element, centers on miraculous spiritual gifts, including prophecy and especially speaking in tongues (see 1 Corinthians 12-14); charismatics believe that these gifts continue to this day, and didn’t die with the Apostles. Charismaticism, at its essence, is very emotional — some would say ecstatic. Glossolalia itself is commonly defined as “ecstatic speech.” Being “moved by the Spirit” generally entails being moved to high emotion. And at that moment I realized the fallacies of being led by emotion. How could one know what was God and what was just excitement? I noticed that the louder the preacher shouted, the more excited everyone became. I noticed that when it came time for an altar call, the musicians would begin to play something sentimental to pluck at the crowd’s heartstrings. Most troubling of all, I noticed the preacher speaking in tongues before the crowd, babbling into the microphone — something plainly contrary to Scripture on its face:

If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God.
(1 Corinthians 14:27-28, ESV)

There was no one to interpret; it was only empty babbling. And this was, and is, a common occurrence. Charismatic Christians, who claim their belief in miraculous spiritual gifts has scriptural support, ignore the guidelines of the very Scripture they claim for support. (Granted, this by itself doesn’t undermine the validity of speaking in tongues — those people could, it could be argued, just be undisciplined and practicing disorderly worship — but another time for that debate. At the time of this realization, it seriously undermined my faith in charismaticism.)

I had filled up several pages that night before I was done. It all flowed out like water, like a dam bursting. When I got home, I made an appointment with Pastor Glenn. I brought him my list of challenges. He had no answers for me.

I believe I stopped going to youth group soon after that. I had lost faith in the brand of Christianity I had been pursuing. The intellectual and emotional foundations of my faith had been tested, and proved to be weak. In short order, when my world fell out from under me, I would have no faith to cleave to. I was stranded in the wilderness.

But even through all those years of darkness, of being lost, of feeling abandoned, I never seriously questioned that God was there. I couldn’t find him — I felt he had forsaken me — but deep down, at the core of my being, I had a kernel of faith: I believed in God. Even when I doubted everything else, this much I knew. Even when all my world was shaken, this much I could I could stand on.

The Wilderness

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Joseph T. Richardson

Toward the end of high school, I entered a dark period of my life. The wounds from this time have now mostly healed, but their scars are still a tender, vulnerable part of my soul. Let us not linger here very long.

I had built my faith upon emotion — upon the conception of a Christ who moved in ecstasy, whose presence was marked by thrills and good feelings, by a “high” I saw all around me in my friends at church. The high was an idol, a false savior I pursued with everything I was. Wrapped up in it were all my feelings of self-worth, my feelings of acceptance by my peers. Pastor Pat, our youth pastor, kept us pumped up to the heights of that high; he had us at the church every day of the week for youth group or prayer or youth choir or drama team; he sent us on a mission to “take our school for Jesus.” Meanwhile, I was struggling with the sins of youth. Every week after I left church that high would fade, to be replaced by emptiness and guilt: and I thought that Jesus was forsaking me, that I must be the most wretched of sinners, worthless in my savior’s sight. Every week I would go down to the altar to “get saved” again; I would sing and dance that I had been forgiven and redeemed; I would return to the high again, only to fall again.

I often wonder if this cycle, being buffeted constantly by the most exultant highs and the most infernal lows, wasn’t itself at the root of the onset of the mental illness that impacted me during this same season. In any case, the two went hand in hand. By the end of high school, I was barely functional. Nonetheless, because I had been offered full scholarships, I felt it was imperative that I pursue a college education immediately. But I was in no condition, psychologically or emotionally, to be on my own. My cataclysm was all but foreordained.

A photograph I took at my first university.

The one or two bright spots I recall from my time at my first college were harbingers of my future path. My major, in theory, was biology/pre-med, but I don’t think I ever actually studied any biology. On this lovely, old, southern campus, I was immediately taken with a deep fascination with my school’s history. I spent most of my time copying buildings’ dedication plaques, and researching the people for whom the buildings were named, and the subjects of the portraits who watched over me. I explored local cemeteries, learned the names and biographies of all the past university presidents — meanwhile, I entirely neglected the courses for which I was supposed to be studying. The root of all this was a paralyzing, pathological anxiety and avoidance; I was unable to face my work; but even through it all, it never occurred to me that I would rather be studying history.

The Good Shepherd (Pastor Bonus), Catacomb of St. Callixtus, Rome

The Good Shepherd (Pastor Bonus), an early symbolic representation of Christ, from the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, Rome, mid-third century.

I also remember, in this, the golden age of the History Channel, seeing a show one night that captured my imagination and has never let go: In Search of History: “The Catacombs of Rome.” (In Search of History now seems to have been absorbed into History’s Mysteries; I haven’t watched the History Channel in years.) The fascination with the Apostles and Early Church that had briefly taken hold a few years earlier was now reignited, and joined to my obsession with cemeteries. Here was a tangible, visible record of the earliest Christians in Rome. Here were the oldest, the original, Christian cemeteries. The antiquity of the art and belief compelled me; that eerie feeling of death and eternity and continuity; the realization that this was where my faith began. Little did I know then that my path would someday take me to that place.

In time, not very much time, my fall did come. I returned home in disgrace. The feeling that this had been my destiny, that my twelve years of schooling had brought me to this point, and that I had failed, hit me with a finality and fatality. I sank into a deep despair. I naïvely expected my friends, my pastor, my church family, to care for me and support me; but they were all a bunch of kids, caught up in their own world; they took no notice. In the midst of all this, Pastor Pat had unceremoniously left Calvary. I was not the only one whose faith, for so long confused with emotion and hype, abruptly collapsed when the man was no longer there to keep it pumping. I felt abandoned by my friends, my church, my God.

I had entered the wilderness. Though the darkest part of it lasted only a couple of years, for some eight years, I didn’t pray, I didn’t read my Bible, I didn’t go to church, with any regularity. I was angry, hurt, and bitter from my experience at Calvary. Though I still called myself a Christian, I had turned my back on God, and convinced myself that God had forsaken me. I was the man insisting that he was blind, all the while unwilling to open his eyes. Not looking where I was going, I fell into a ravine of sin, and rather than striving to get out, I only wandered deeper and deeper into its recesses, and got myself more and more lost. In time, I made myself comfortable, and deceived myself into thinking that this was the lot God had set aside for me; that he was okay with where I was; that even my sin was not really sin, but a necessary salve to my wounded soul — that I was only human and weak, and Jesus understood and forgave me.

The First Harbingers

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Joseph T. Richardson

The Apostle Paul

The first and only time I ever had a formal Sunday school lesson curriculum was in my seventh grade Sunday school. For two semesters, we were taught about the journeys and epistles of the Apostle Paul (the first time I learned the word “epistle”). We had a small, intimate group of boys, a nurturing teacher, and truly instructive and edifying lessons — perhaps the only formal Bible instruction I ever received. I do not remember our teacher’s name; only that he was a good man and a good teacher, a leader with the Royal Rangers (the Assemblies of God’s answer to Boy Scouts). He looked an awful lot like the image of Paul on the cover of our lesson booklets — short and bald with a beard and moustache — so to me he will always be Paul. (I will have to inquire about his name; I would like to know.)

I remember being fascinated with the historical Paul and his times. It was the first time I had ever truly conceived of a biblical character as a true, flesh and blood person, or of biblical times in the context of history. This was the same year that I first became enthralled with ancient history in Mr. Reece’s Social Studies class (may he rest in God’s mercy). I remember the maps of Paul’s missionary journeys; I have always loved maps. Every Bible I’ve ever had has included maps of Paul’s three missionary journeys, but I distinctly remember there being a fourth one. Perhaps it was his journey to Rome, as few evangelicals seem to acknowledge anything that took place outside the certainty of Scripture; but I do recall this map taking him to western Europe and to Spain, as he had hoped (Romans 15:24). My ESV Study Bible notes that there is “some historical evidence” that Paul did preach in Spain — among the Church Fathers? This mystery has compelled me for years.

(An aside: Another memory, another song, that’s always dwelt on the edges of my memory, from the Christian conference in Richmond we used to attend when I was a child: In our daytime class, they taught us a song about the twelve disciples. All these years I’ve been trying to remember that song, every time I’ve tried to recall the twelve Apostles — but all I could remember was the last one, “and Bartholomew.” For that reason, Bartholomew has always had a special place in my heart, as the “last one picked.” Anyway, recalling vaguely the tune, “and Bartholomew,” I set out to find that song tonight — and I found it! To the tune of “Bringing in the Sheaves.”)

I remember the first time I ever heard of the Roman Catholic Church — some outlandish rumor from a friend, when I was ten or so, that Roman Catholics drank wine and worshiped naked. Perhaps he had it confused with some pagan ritual?

The next harbinger — the first clear indication that I was longing for the roots of my faith — appeared when I was sixteen or so. At Calvary in those days, we had a zealous, emotional youth pastor named Pastor Pat, who encouraged us to be “on fire” for God. In many ways this was a painful time for me; it was even more painful in its coming to an end. So it is ironic — no, it is the work of God’s hand, bringing all the pieces together — that an experience that came so close to driving me away from God completely should be so instrumental in my discovering my true path so many years later.

The Crucifixion of Peter, by Caravaggio

A number of Pastor Pat’s sermons left a mark on me — some ridiculous, others thoughtful but overblown — but there was one in particular that I will never forget. Pastor Pat had somehow gotten a hold of a book other than the Bible, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (which he declared to be “the closest thing to inspired literature other than the Bible”), and he passionately preached the martyrdom of St. Peter, crucified upside down because he felt unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord, and of St. Polycarp, burned at the stake but miraculously spared from the flames, until pierced by the sword.

The vivid pictures Pastor Pat painted of these early heroes of faith captured my imagination. Very soon after that, I ventured to the library (I was driving by this time) and checked out a book on the fates of the Apostles after the New Testament. For the first time, I conceived that our Church had a history after the New Testament but before us. I also around this time began to wonder about the New Testament itself, and discovered the New Testament apocrypha. I was deeply fascinated, and more than a little disturbed, that there were writings that the early Church had rejected. I checked out several books of apocryphal writings. I did not study them deeply, but read enough to convince myself that there was a reason they were rejected, and that we have the New Testament we are supposed to have. This was perhaps the early stages of the real period of questioning my faith that I entered my senior year. Reason, with regard to my faith, was awakening.

The Beginning of the Road

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Joseph T. Richardson

There have been many things over the years that I feel now, in retrospect, have been drawing me to the Catholic Church. They are the signposts and landmarks on my road of faith, and I thought, as part of taking my bearings and setting my future course, I would recollect the journey so far.

I was born into a godly home, to parents who loved me and loved God. I remember my parents praying with me, and reading to me from a picture book of Bible stories. The images from that book still are recalled to my mind with a good many Bible stories.

I spent my earliest childhood in a nondenominational faith community formed by our family and perhaps about a dozen others. We were there from before my birth; I don’t remember not being a part of a church. We met in the building of a former skating rink, and it still feels like such a familiar place in my memory. We didn’t have a pastor, that I recall; I remember first encountering the word in a Sunday school lesson and asking what it meant. My recollections of faith in these days consist mainly of Jesus on the flannel board, Zacchaeus in the tree, and heroic tales of Amy Carmichael in India. I remember the ubiquitous portrait of Jesus hanging on the wall, that formed my earliest conception of Christ (Warner Sallman’s The Head of Christ). I remember, possibly as early as age three, the joy of the first time I prayed the sinner’s prayer and asked Jesus to come into my heart. A team of young evangelists visited our church; I remember the young man who prayed with me. These were happy times. I remember having friends, and being loved. When I think of my mental concept of Jesus at this time, I think of love.

I remember the first time I encountered death. There was an elderly lady in a wheelchair in our church, named Rosa. I remember one day my mother told me that Rosa had fallen asleep and wouldn’t be waking up. In my mind I remember a rather frightening image of Rosa going to the hospital and the doctors putting her to sleep as for a surgery, or even as a veterinarian putting an animal to sleep. I think I might have understood better if my mom had said that Rosa died. I remember going through a box of Rosa’s things at the church; I got a pocket guide to birds.

We left that church when I was maybe seven or eight, and attended a United Methodist church for several years. These were not such happy times. I didn’t get along well with the other children in Sunday school; I felt rejected and alienated. I remember the worship services; I remember the Apostles’ Creed, and hymns, and the grandiose choir. The ministers seemed like nice men, but I never felt that I knew them and don’t remember their names. The older one would invite all the children to the front of the church to sit when him for a few minutes after worship and before his sermon. It was a beautiful church and service, but it felt cold, and dry. I have no memories of a spiritual life at this time.

When I was about ten, we joined Calvary. Calvary was the church I grew up in. It was affiliated with the Assemblies of God, and especially at that time, was the picture of the Pentecostal movement, with an emphasis on speaking in tongues and spiritual gifts. Calvary was a caring place, full of good people loving God and loving each other. Our worship was taken wholesale from a Don Moen album. (When I bought this CD for myself years later, it brought me back to such a precious place in my heart.)

This was the true birth of my relationship with Christ. I remember crying and praying the sinner’s prayer again with my mother one day, sitting in the car in front of my cousins’ house. I remember the first time I rationally questioned my faith, that horrifying moment, lying in bed one night, when I considered that there might not be a God — the prospect of eternal nothingness. I immediately got out of bed, like a child waking from a nightmare, to talk to my dad about it. I was beginning to discover my mind, and my heart, and my soul.

The Lonely Pilgrim

A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward

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