Goodbye...for now

On Wednesday, January 9th I will be boarding a plane headed to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I’m shipping out for Basic Training.

Yup, call me crazy, but I enlisted in the Army during war time. As insane as it may sound it was far from a rash decision. I’d thought about it for many years before finally deciding to take the plunge. For a much more detailed explanation of my decision click here.

This means I will be taking a break from writing until I return in June. (Unless, of course, blogging is now a part of boot camp; but I am not counting on that.)

So this is goodbye for now and my last post as a civilian – I shall return a soldier.

Considering Catholicism - Part IV Sola Fide

Most of my life I have been told that Catholics believe you are saved by works, not by faith. Of course, while growing up it scared me to hear this. All I could think about were the Pharisees whom Jesus so clearly despised. Besides, I was always shown scriptural passages which made it clear—or so I thought—that faith and faith alone is what saves us.

One popular example is: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no-one can boast" (Eph 2. 8,9).

And of course, the most famous scripture of all says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3.16).

Despite these scriptures, the idea of faith alone saving us has always been a bit puzzling to me, but I have been afraid to question it for fear of, well, sounding like a Pharisee— or even like a Catholic.

While I certainly believe that we cannot be saved without faith, it seems unreasonable and unscriptural to me to say we are saved by faith alone. The scripture makes it clear that "we shall know them by their fruits."

James says: "faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead (2. 14-17)." So, after reading that how could I believe that works have nothing to do with salvation?

Jesus says: "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me….Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life (Matthew 25: 45)." How could I interpret that to mean works count for nothing in salvation?

But I believe no one makes it clearer than Paul does when he says: "God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life (Romans 2: 6-7)."


While I believe that faith is a necessary beginning for the process of salvation, and faith helps to sustain it, I am beginning to believe works are also essential for salvation. This is frightening for me to say—it is even hard to write or think it, because it goes against everything I have ever been taught.

Yet when I read the scriptures, I find nothing which tells me that faith alone saves me. I only find scriptures which tell me that faith is necessary for salvation, but not that salvation is made up of faith alone. I do however find scriptures which tell me that "a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone" (James 2:24).

Besides, if faith means simply believing, that doesn't seem to be enough for salvation. After all, the Bible says, "You believe that there is one God, Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder (James 2. 19)."

It seems to conclude that faith must be followed by good works, or else it is truly dead.

Recently, on a Catholic apologetics website I read what I feel is a very beautiful way to answer the question, "Are you saved?"

"Are you saved?" asks the Fundamentalist. The Catholic should reply: "As the Bible says, I am already saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5–8), but I’m also being saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom. 5:9–10, 1 Cor. 3:12–15). Like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11–13)."

I expect this will offend my Protestant friends, as well as my Protestant family. But this is what I have discovered through study and prayer, and to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.

Considering Catholicism - Part III Sola Scriptura

I have often been told that Catholicism greatly devalues the scriptures and puts more faith in what the Pope says than in the Word of God. This seemed credible at first. I believed that the scripture alone, as interpreted for us by the Holy Spirit, was all we needed – and anyone who preached differently was dreadfully misguided.

Yet, the doctrine of sola scriptura has created many obvious problems: there are now thousands of different Protestant churches, all of which preach a different doctrine based on their own interpretation of the scriptures.

It seems increasingly clear to me that relying solely on our own personal interpretation of scripture, without the aid of any authoritative guide, will lead us to confusion and the spreading of unbelief.

In fact, the Bible talks of such confusion: “Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked the man. ‘How can I’ he said ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. (Acts 8:30-31)”

Accordingly, unless someone explains the scriptures to us how can we really understand them?

I am now beginning to believe that it is neither unreasonable nor unscriptural to suppose that the Lord would have given us something or someone in addition to the scriptures to help guide us.

Protestants often recite 2 Timothy 3:16 as confirmation of their sola scriptura teachings:

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

However, that passage only proves that the scriptures are useful, not that they are wholly sufficient in themselves -- I can find no scripture which states such a thing as that.

John Henry Newman, a famous adult convert to Catholicism explains the error of sola scriptura teachings clearly. He says,

"Surely then, if the revelations and lessons in Scripture are addressed to us personally and practically, the presence among us of a formal judge and standing expositor of its words is imperative. It is antecedently unreasonable to suppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly from the nature of the case, interpret itself. Its inspiration does guarantee its truth, not its interpretation. How are private readers satisfactorily to distinguish what is didactic and what is historical, what is fact and what is vision, what is allegorical and what is literal, what is [idiomatic] and what is grammatical, what is enunciated formally and what occurs, what is only of temporary and what is of lasting obligations. Such is our natural anticipation, and it is only too exactly justified in the events of the last three centuries, in the many countries where private judgment on the text of Scripture has prevailed. The gift of inspiration requires as its complement the gift of infallibility."

Like it or not, when Protestants preach the doctrine of sola scriptura, they are essentially putting their faith in the Catholic Church’s ability to originally determine which scriptures would even make up the Bible. Since, after all, the Catholic Church is the authority which initially formed the canon of scripture.

Without an authoritative guide, i.e. the Catholic Church, it seems to me that Christians will inevitably splinter into thousands of opposing fragmentary groups, as we have already witnessed in great proportion.

I am beginning to believe that if we are to truly understand the scriptures then there must be an apostolic unity of teaching.

Neoconservatism becoming casualty of Iraq War

NOTE: This article was written Aug. 2006.

Neoconservatism has been taking some serious blows lately, but Francis Fukuyama's piece in The New York Times, "After Neo-conservatism," may have been the knockout.

For years Fukuyama has openly declared his status as a neoconservative, but he officially renounced that label, declaring that neoconservatism has evolved into something he can no longer support. As a body of thought, it is dead.

"As we pass the fourth anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war, it seems very unlikely that history will judge it kindly. By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a training ground for jihadist terrorists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at."

He goes on to describe how the Bush doctrine of transforming the Middle East has backfired. Rather than weakening terrorists, Bush has strengthened them. Shiites swept the Iraq elections, Ahmadjinejad became president of Iran, Hamas achieved electoral victory in Palestine, Hezbollah reigns in Lebanon. As a consequence, Americans, including right-wingers, are beginning to think the United States should mind its own business.

And guess who gets all the blame for this?

"More than any other group, it was the neoconservatives both inside and outside the Bush administration who pushed for democratizing Iraq and the broader Middle East. They are widely credited (or blamed) for being the decisive voices promoting regime change in Iraq."

Now hold on a second. You have to cut me, oops, I mean neo-conservatives some slack here. The neocons' intentions were good; there was logic behind their ideas.

Neoconservatives noticed that Democrats were talented when it came to the idealistic motives of liberal internationalism and that Republicans were skillful when it came to yielding power. Logically, it seems to follow that combining the two would result in, for lack of a better phrase, the best of both worlds. In the neo-con dream world, the entire Middle East would be democratized in the belief that this would eliminate a prime breeding ground for terrorists. In their view, the world can achieve peace only through strong U.S. leadership backed by credible force, not weak treaties to be disrespected by tyrants.

Fukuyama's commentary claims that Reagan's total victory over communism gave the current generation of neocons this irrational exuberance toward foreign policy.

"The way the cold war ended," he said, "seems to have created an expectation that all totalitarian regimes were hollow at the core and would crumble with a small push from outside." In retrospect, the neocons have learned several things.

First, that the Bush administration and its neoconservative supporters did not simply underestimate the difficulty of bringing about good-natured political outcomes in places like Iraq, but also misunderstood the way the world would react to the use of American power. Neocons now see that the global reaction to the Iraq war has instead united much of the world into a frenzy of anti-Americanism. Many neocons now realize that the root cause of terrorism doesn't lie in the Middle East's lack of democracy, but rather in something much deeper. And by exerting an American "benevolent hegemony" over them, it is actually increasing the problem. Ouch, that was painful for this neocon to write.

So what do we do now? Whether you are conservative, neoconservative, liberal or neoliberal, we are now in this war, like it or not. We need to realize that this is not a war like we have ever fought before.

Fukumaya perfectly explains the situation we are in when he says, "Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a long, twilight struggle whose core is not military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world."

Although it may be a bit late for this, neocons are realizing that they need to rethink the place of democracy promotion in American foreign policy. We must remember that the United States has helped many countries with their democratic transition, including the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan. But the difference was that those countries were politically and economically ripe for democracy.

Neoconservatives have famously been described as "liberals who were mugged by reality." And it looks like you could say that neoconservatives have once again been mugged by reality. Does this mean they go all the way to calling themselves paleoconservatives, or does it mean they modify their ideas and call themselves neo-neoconservatives? (Which I'm pretty sure would be another way of saying we don't know what the heck to do anymore.)

Considering Catholicism (Part II)

As a Protestant who has been told so often about the “errors of the Catholic Church,” I have always taken it for granted that the Catholic Church was indeed in error—until now.

I will now explain some of the major charges brought against the Catholic Church by my Protestant teachers, family, and friends, as well as why I no longer accept them as legitimate.

The Saints and the Sacraments

I have been told that the adoration of the saints, the sacraments, and all the rituals of the Catholic Church do nothing but distract from Jesus. Like everything else I was told, I once accepted this as true. I thought it was horrible that Catholics would spend so much time thinking about anyone or anything other than Jesus Himself.

I now find something very desirable and honorable in these Catholic practices: rather than as distractions, I began to see them as similar to my taking a walk in the woods or along the beach to look at the beautiful things the Lord has created. If I reflect on them, and I appreciate them, that doesn’t mean I am taking my eyes off Jesus—not at all. Instead, I am being drawn closer to Him through His wonderful creations and through the symbols of Him that I see everywhere. The same can be said for the many paintings, statues, and rituals you will find in Catholic churches. They merely serve as reminders of heavenly things, not as distractions.

To call the sacraments a distraction from Christ is equivalent to calling sex a distraction from marriage. Both are wonderful, beautiful parts of a relationship. Just as sex brings you closer to your spouse and gives you a greater love and appreciation for him or her, so the sacraments bring you closer to Christ.

As for praying to the saints: I would once have considered this heresy. It now seems so clear to me that praying to the saints is no different from a Protestant asking another person to pray for them. If Protestants claim that there is only one mediator between God and man, and that that mediator is Jesus Christ, why ask another Christian to pray for you? When a Catholic prays to the saints, they are simply asking the saints to pray for them. Not only do I find this to be a good thing to do, but it is something I believe would be pleasing in the Lord’s eye.

Protestants often take pride in the fact that they can go straight to God; they love to claim that they need no mediator between themselves and God. While I believe this to be true--you can go straight to God—I do not think it is wise to deny your reliance on the Church as a whole. Paul makes the dangers of this clear when he says, “For the body is not one member, but many…And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you” (1 Cor. 12, 21). Just as an eye cannot tell the hand that it is not needed, we cannot deny our need for the entire body of Christ, including those who came before us and those who will come after us.

Considering Catholicsm (Part I)

Growing up Protestant

Before I attempt to explain my current predicament, I should give you a bit of background information. My grandparents left the Catholic Church before I was born. I was raised Protestant, and I can’t even begin to describe how blessed I am to have a family as wonderful as mine. Though I am now beginning to question some of the fundamental tenets of Protestantism, I must make it undoubtedly clear that my family did teach me the most important thing I could ever learn: they taught me that Jesus is not only real, but that He loves me. As a result of understanding His love for me, I fell in love with Him in return.

The winds of life have carried me many places—both good and bad—but my family, particularly my grandfather, has always been my anchor. I don’t mean to offend the rest of my family by highlighting my grandfather, but I believe they would agree that he is the head of the family. At least, that's how I've always perceived things.

Even though my grandfather is our family's “rock,” each member has taught me something invaluable. My grandmother, or my nanny, as I like to call her, has shown me how to love the poorest and weakest among us. She has shown me how to stand up for what I believe in, even when no one else stands with me. My Mom has shown me how to be totally selfless and to love your children utterly. My grandfather has shown me how to be prudent and wise, how to stay rooted in the Lord and the scriptures—even though the world constantly does its best to tear me from that ground.

As is clear from the title of this piece, I am considering Catholicism. But before I pursue that idea any further, I first want to say that I do not view the Protestant faith as altogether bad – nothing could be further from the truth. The things I have learned from the Protestant faith are priceless. For example, Protestants have a great understanding of the power of the Lord’s grace and mercy--something which is very hard for many people to fully accept. Yet I truly know that without the Lord’s grace and mercy I am hopeless. I can thank my Protestant ministers for this deep understanding.

I have also come to live in awe of the pure saving power of the blood of Jesus. I know that without His blood I cannot be saved. I have come to adore the power and mystery of the cross, along with the shedding of His holy blood. I can thank Protestantism for this insight as well.

I have learned what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus. I have learned that Jesus alone can save me. I have learned what it means to walk with him, and talk with him. I can thank Protestants for this experience.

I have learned the power of reading his Word. I have learned the scriptures backwards and forwards. I have learned the importance of reading the Bible daily. For this, too, I can thank my Protestant teachers.

Examining all things

So, you are probably wondering, what's the problem then?

The problem, if it is a problem at all, is this: despite all the great things I have learned and experienced as a Protestant, I am beginning to feel called to something else. I am feeling myself called into the Catholic Church.

When this thought first crossed my mind, I totally shrugged it off. I knew that my family had been there and done that, and had still chosen to leave. For a long while, that was all the proof I needed in order to be convinced that the Catholic Church was definitely the wrong place to be. So I attempted to just move beyond the thought.

However, my heart and mind were continually brought back to the Catholic Church. I began to try to learn more. My time working in the pro-life movement has led me to befriend many Catholics, and my political work has led me to an organization called the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which has introduced me to such great Catholic authors as GK Chesterton, Russell Kirk, and John Paul II.

I just can’t stop thinking that there is something in the Catholic Church that I am missing out on. When I look at the Church, I see something beautiful. I see a reverence for the Lord and all his mystery that I do not see in the Protestant churches. I see a unity and a deep connection among all the Church’s members that I do not see in the Protestant churches. I see order and continuity there, whereas I often find Protestants to be quarreling and divided about what they truly believe. I see tradition and history.

I used to think, as a Protestant, that I knew something Catholics didn’t. Almost arrogantly, I thought I was free of all the legalistic rituals and sacraments. I pitied Catholics for being bound by such things, and I would think, “Oh, if only they could be free to really know and love the Lord the way I do, they would be so much happier.”

I no longer think or feel that way, and I am grateful.

I am now at a crossroads. I am not confident about which road to take. I know I have several disagreements with Protestant doctrine, and I know I am still leery of much Catholic doctrine. However, I know the Lord is commanding me to continue searching. After all, Paul told us, in 1 Thessalonians, to “examine all things.”

Maintaning integrity on Kentucky's horse tracks

In the wake of the Mitchell Report, baseball fans everywhere have a great deal to be disappointed about. After all many of their heroes' "love of the game" was revealed to be nothing more than lust – lust for fame, glory and wealth.

Nevertheless the recent steroid scandals within Major League Baseball should serve to remind us that -- here in Kentucky -- we do have something to be thankful for.

Kentucky Horse Racing, for the most part, has managed to remain extremely stern and exceptionally honest when it comes to the prohibition of performance enhancing drugs.

Other states with much lower regulatory standards have experienced the fatal consequence of allowing performance enhancing drugs on the track.

The use of steroids not only threatens the horses’ lives, but also hurts the game. Arguably, fair play is much more important in horse racing than in other sports like baseball, since wagering by the public is not only legal but is the lifeblood of the sport.

Fortunately intentional medication abuse on Kentucky race tracks is extremely rare.

According to Dr. Thomas Tobin from the Gluck Equine Research Center at the University of Kentucky, "Horse racing actually has much more stringent and effective control of medication abuse than most other sport organizations such as the NCAA, NFL and NBA."

The new standards put in place by the Kentucky Racing Authority combined with the advancement of drug testing technology, has allowed the detection of performance enhancing drugs to be increasingly accurate and precise; even capable of detecting minute amounts of substances over long periods of time.

Dr. Tobin also pointed out that given the high technology and increased accuracy of drug testing, one might assume more medication abuse would be discovered. The reality is quite the contrary. Dr. Tobin found that, "Increased technology has actually revealed racing as a clean, upstanding industry."

Given this high level of technology Dr. Tobin can see how many people would assume that more medication abuse might be discovered. On the contrary the reality as Dr. Tobin found is that, “Increased technology has actually revealed racing as a clean, upstanding industry.”

Yet on the rare occasion that foul play is found, the punishment is swift and harsh. Recent examples include veterinarian Rodney Stewart and trainer Patrick Biancone – both of whom were immediately suspended from their respective positions upon being found guilty.

My stepfather Jay Wilkinson is a horse trainer in Kentucky, and founder of the new Equine Program at Father Maloney's Boys' Haven. He expressed to me his thoughts on the matter saying, "In an industry so competitive, the people of Kentucky should be proud that owners and trainers place the safety and well-being of the equine athlete ahead of personal gain. In my opinion that is one reason why Kentucky is -- and will remain -- the horse capital of the world.”

The significance of Kentucky Horse Racing maintaining its strict policies and upholding its integrity becomes all the greater as Kentucky prepares to host the 2010 World Equestrian Games. These high standards are themselves greatly responsible for the games being staged in the US for the first time ever.

According to the event's website, the World Equestrian Games are expected to generate an estimated $90 million in revenue for the state.

Trainers, owners, riders and fans alike know that we cannot jeopardize our respected position as the horse capital of the world by tolerating any type of cheating. So far we have succeeded.

Perhaps more than any other sports, horseracing and baseball revere their record books above all else. Neither sport has changed significantly in over 100 years and the records are considered sacrosanct. While baseball's record book has been unquestionably tarnished by questions about sluggers such as Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire, horse racing records have no such blemish.

So while we may have lost confidence in a number of our baseball heroes, we can take comfort in knowing that our heroes on four legs are still playing by the rules.