Bio

coming home to the Church

Since people usually are pretty curious about my conversion to Orthodoxy, I'll devote some space to it here. Pedantic information (where I work, where I studied) can be found on my whois page or my résumé. The latter is also the place to find specific contact info or employment qualifications. I also have pictures of me displayed on the site. (They're a little out-of-date, though. I'm working on that.)

I was raised as an evangelical Protestant. My father has been a United Methodist minister for as long as I can remember. While he was in seminary at Duke University, he had a charismatic experience. Until I was seven, my father pastored several rural United Methodist churches in western North Carolina. In 1980, though, his dream of reentering the Navy as a chaplain was finally realized.

During my father's tenure as a Navy chaplain, I can't remember once attending a United Methodist church on a regular basis. I think this was due in part to his comfort level with the increasing heterodoxy of the United Methodist church. In any case, my spiritual development during these years was formed mostly by Pentecostal churches. My father discharged his responsibilities at the base chapels as he was needed. However, my mother and father both consistently chose Foursquare, Assemblies of God, and "non-denominational" churches to attend. Still, I often longed for the structure I had known as a child. Though I enjoyed singing pop songs on Sunday mornings, I missed singing the hymns I had known as a child.

As a teenager, my fondness for the popular format of Pentecostal, charismatic, and "non-denominational" churches grew stronger, and my interest in more structure waned. When my father was attached to chapels that were generically Protestant in the structure of their worship services, I did everything I could to go to a civilian church that suited my tastes. Then, just months before my father's scheduled transfer to Okinawa, Japan, I went on a retreat known as Teens Encounter Christ, or TEC. TEC is the Cursillo retreat model adapted for teens. The particular retreat I took first was hosted by a Lutheran church, and so it was very liturgical. As I look back, there was a mix of liturgical worship with more contemporary settings. This is exactly what I needed at the time. It reawakened my love for liturgy.

In Okinawa, I attended an Assemblies of God church. Neighborhood Assembly of God has services in English, and it is primarily meant to serve the American military presence in Okinawa. Simultaneously, I staffed TEC retreats conducted by the Catholic chaplains. Suddenly, my attitudes toward Catholics were thrown into question. Though I hadn't been nearly as strongly anti-Catholic as some Protestants are, I still had absorbed many negative attitudes from my Pentecostal, "non-denominational" environment.

At the same time, I found a young woman with whom I wanted to spend all my time. Things took their natural course. I find in looking back that I didn't really want to resist the temptaton to fornicate myself. I had wanted all along to have the oppurtunity to fall; fornication only manifested the deeper sin that had already taken root.

As I would staff the retreats, there were several things that struck me. First, I was very impressed at the unity that was manifested by having a base knowledge of set prayers, such as the Our Father: (i.e., the Lord's prayer), and the Hail, Mary:. As I sat and listened to my fellow staffers recite the Rosary altogether, I was amazed. Here was something similar to what I remembered in my childhood that my current experience of church couldn't even touch! I was also deeply impressed by the externals of Catholic religion. There was something very majestic and solemn about the reverence that was shown for Christ's presence in the chapel. For me, church was just another place. Christ was everywhere; therefore, he was nowhere.

Perhaps the most surprising, though, was my deep yearning to make a confession. At the time, I thought that it would be inappropriate to make a confession as a Protestant. I desperately needed help during a very dark time in my spiritual life, and I wasn't getting at my own church. More than that, though, I wanted a father confessor who could assure me that God loved me still, that I wasn't alone, or singularly bad for being human. I needed a man like myself to tell me to take responsibility for my actions without shaming me for being weak.

Spurred by the confluence of my grave sin, the experience of something deeper than I had known, and the hunger for more, I began making a trek toward Rome. I didn't realize it at the time, but my stay in the Episcopal church was only temporary. As I returned to the States and began attending Asbury College, I was already convinced that I wanted to join the Episcopal church. I began attending the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Nicholasville, Ky., and I was confirmed in the Episcopal church Easter 1993. Just after Easter of 1994, I decided that I would be confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church.

In January of 1994, Dr. Peter Kreeft, an apologist and professor of philosophy at Boston College, came to speak at Asbury on C. S. Lewis. During a question and answer session, he was asked about his conversion to Roman Catholicism. My ears perked up. I found him afterwards, and spoke to him about some of the difficulties I had with Catholicism. At this point, I was already a convinced Catholic on many points. Had I encountered Orthodoxy then, there probably would have been no question but that it was right. My questions revolved around Mary and the celibacy of the priesthood. Dr. Kreeft quickly dismissed the question of the priesthood as disciplinary and subject to change at any time. However, he told me something interesting that I needed to hear and for that reason alone, I count all my years in the Roman Church worth my time. He told me, "Catholics don't believe what the Church teaches simply because it just happens to jive with what they already hold privately. They believe it because the Church teaches it."

After that, I wrestled with the decision to become a Roman Catholic. It was a question of authority now. As I looked at the history of the Church, I realized that Scripture was not the sole authority. Scripture and Tradition together had always been the appeal of antiquity. My conversion to Catholicism was quite like Lewis' conversion. One weekend in April, I began the weekend still wrestling, and I ended the weekend convinced. I spent a year attending catechism classes at St. Luke Catholic Church in Nicholasville.

Just before I was confirmed in the Roman Church, I began to attend prayers that a seminarian was holding in his home. From all my time in the Episcopal church and the Roman Catholic Church, these prayers were familiar, though of a slightly different structure. They were adapted from the Eastern Orthodox order of vespers. The more I attended and became acquainted with the people who were meeting at David's house, the more divided I became. I was confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church on the second Sunday of Easter, 1995, just one week after David was chrismated at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Indianapolis. Over the next two years, I became increasingly divided. The small group that had started out simply praying around icons in David's living room were getting serious. This wasn't extracurricular for them, as it was for me. This was their weekly worship service. They had found the true faith, and there was no turning back.

Eventually, they organized as a mission under his grace, Bishop SAMUEL of Indianapolis. David left a very promising career as a missionary to Hong Kong and became an apostle to Nicholasville. My heart ached. Rationally, I believed Roman dogma, but here was the bread my soul hungered for. They continued to love me, because they knew somehow that I was given to them. I am truly amazed. This kind of love is Christ, and I have found it in few other places.

I was allowed to attend their first catechism as a "participant observer," a ridiculous category, but one that gave me the opportunity to hash out some theological difficulties in my freedom. In reality, my decision to become Eastern Orthodox had nothing to do with rationally accepting Orthodox dogma, or denying the authority of the Pope. It was because I had developed a relationship with Christ the Life-giver. Although I had married the Roman Church, I had been having an affair with the Orthodox Church. When the day of decision came, I decided to go with my heart. I have not yet been disappointed.

I was received in October of 1997 by the laying on of hands, first confession and first communion. The bishop decided to accept my confirmation (chrismation) in the Roman Church as valid. I have continued to grow at Christ the Life-giver. I have been continually challenged to move "further up and further in," (Lewis, The Last Battle.) I close with a quote from St. Isaac the Syrian: "This life has been given to you for repentance. Do not waste it in vain pursuits."

Update:
On the Meeting of Our Lord in the Temple (February 2) 2002, the members of Christ the Life-giver were received by confession, chrismation, and first commmunion and formed as a mission of the Diocese of the South, Orthodox Church in America. Shortly thereafter we were given the name of St. Athanasius. We have truly come home.

I’ve also talked about my journey in my blog-interview with Karl Thienes: about why I chose St. Basil as my patron, and about unity and uniformity in my search for the Church.

For more information, send me mail. I am happy to tell you more about Orthodoxy and answer any questions you might have. May the Lord bless you in your own pilgrimage.