Journey Home - 2012-08-13 - Former Mennonite - Marcus Grodi with Chad Gerberq

good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program EWTN gives me this great privilege actually the great purpose of meeting these wonderful guests and hearing their stories myself but then to present them to you so that you can hear how God has worked in their life often often opening their heart to the beauty of the church in a way that they never ever expected or anticipate or maybe even wanted but actually it was a journey home to Jesus and his church and such is true of our guest tonight Chad Gruber former Mennonite Presbyterian I think is a little Anglican in there also welcome home thank you it's really good to have you here I don't always I don't always know the stories of my guests beforehand so I kind of like it I like to yeah with the audience to know the journey but you just came down the road that's really doesn't I probably passed your house a couple times visiting layman's Hardware up and that victory right yeah you're saying that your little neck of the woods woods is becoming a little more worldwide famous that's right layman's put it on the map sure many of your viewers know the old-time hardware there right not electric goods and so forth yeah yeah non electric goods with a website we the website yeah little ironic is yeah well Chad it's great to have you thank you if you're familiar with the journey home program what I normally do is let the audience know where you came from actually long before you ever thought about the catch okay so before we became Catholic the little zinger I usually do some people ask me I'm sure you've heard this is probably a cliche in any circles right is that as something of a roaming Protestant before I became a roaming roaming yeah right because we were little of everything I think we belong to counted last night I think six different denominations before we entered the church we tried a little of everything that was that you or your you're a wife was there did family also my wife and I you look laughing ah yeah she was there through all of it though my my faith was nurtured for the first 20 or so years in the Mennonite Church in Kidron Ohio we were right in the heart right in the heart of right there on in the world's largest Mennonite and Amish yeah that's right that might be good to help the audience understand was as soon as they envisioned the I yeah it's the black buggies and the black out sure sure jeans with the Nike shoes I mean yeah and we came from yeah I wasn't raised Amish I was raised Mennonite now it's a lot of people what's the difference right and I was on a radio program recently where they introduced me as someone who's about to tell the story of how he went from Amish to Catholic and so I spent the first 10 minutes explaining that wasn't raised on that I was raised a Mennonite and there is a difference historically the difference is over the issue of shunning whether or not we should shun those who have fallen away or rejected the faith or living in sin or or whatever but the difference the the tangible difference today is the embrace of electricity and technology whereas the Amish as everyone knows are continuing to go the non-electric route and without cars and using buggies and and so forth and Mennonites sit in a huge spectrum from those who look almost Amish who use electric but nevertheless live incredibly simple lives they drive only black cars their dress is homemade and so forth so the Mennonites like I grew up with which I think it's safe to say you could call them sort of evangelical okay Knights they had embraced all the various pair of church movements my parents for example were young life leaders yeah well so answer the Evan biblical world was really my world with a bit of a Mennonite sort of flair which is to say it was what did we value well we valued non-violence of course it's another hallmark of both of those traditions right into the pacifism valued simplicity frugality using your time and resources really for the service of others rather than accumulating wealth and status no sorts of things kind of the franciscans of the Protestant right we're all the love of nature you know that you'd find in the Franciscan trees was there ever any cognitive connection to Francis no no I don't know if I'd even heard of Francis before cholera not interestingly I wrote my first paper as a theology student in college on the life of st. Francis I found an immediate connection since I heard about this guy renouncing well for running off naked into the wilderness this is my kind of guy yeah although Mennonites aren't known for doing that at least I know another naked partner no yeah but you then lived even though you up in Kidron you were bumping elbows all the time with this wide berth of Amish Mennonite conservative yeah that was my call to her that that was my world yeah it was a great place to grow up I don't remember a Catholic Church in Kidron Ohio no no there's not a Catholic Church for miles it's probably the least Catholic place I can imagine maybe there's two in my county and none in the bordering county to the South Holmes County which is where that most of the Amish amen and I live so Catholics weren't even on my radar screen Marcus it was a Catholic to me Notre Dame football the Godfather series now that's what I had to work with really right which is not a great portrait of the Catholic Church right right right but culturally I had really very few Catholics around me and you know didn't even really think about the church I'm even wondering whether amongst Amish and Mennonite whether they just grouped the Catholics and the other Protestant groups together as those others a little bit of that yeah certainly among the more conservative Mennonites and among the Amish right they're all English that all the other right there word English means non-amish right that's everyone else it's a Jew Gentile sort of thing right there's us and there's every everyone else there's a little bit of that though in my particular church growing up and in my family because we were involved in these parachurch ministries I had friends who belonged to other churches Presbyterians Methodists you know broadly evangelicals well as gonna say if your parents are with young life yeah they would have been deeply committed to Jesus yes yes that's all the theologies very thin yes right yeah and it's also very thin in the Mennonite Church as well what really matters in the end that you love Jesus and how do you love Jesus you love Jesus by serving your neighbor right it's a very sort of moralistic service-oriented sort of faith you know a shooing all the sort of trappings of religion right you know the liturgy the sacraments the hierarchy but also and I think this is this is distinct to the Mennonites and the Amish also issuing really the life of the mind the intellect right doctrine theology is also it's a bit frightening right what that can do to you right how that might in some sense entrap you into a sort of false religion that isn't from the heart that doesn't really love Jesus where you only know Jesus right it's not to say that we didn't value of education but there that was held with a bit of suspicion right too much education too much doctrine it can be dangerous can we divisive right well there is a danger in the Catholic Church as in the Anglican Church as in the Jewish faith that because the the churches like the Catholic Church Anglican Church there's a physicality to our faith that's as important as the interior life that it the danger is that you can be only exterior and no interior can that be true of the Amish in the Mennonite oh sure I can be truth in other words the wearing of the Amish the doing of the Amish things yeah at the expense of do you even know Jesus anymore right right yeah and I think this is this is one of the sort of subtle errors in the Protestant way of thinking that somehow by cutting off all the supposed at fat and getting involved somehow we can have a pure Church where everyone just truly does love Jesus there's always things to fall into traps there's always ways of somehow living a sort of externalize faith knowing what to say when to say it it could be in the form of say faking speaking in tongues perhaps in sort of a Pentecostal tradition between my traditions you go when the mission trips you do the things you're supposed to do really in your hearts not there that's always of course a danger and that's why the church is always in need of revival right of being that the work of the inner spirit to stir in to renew our hearts trying to reform it though by working on the purely the externals I think is a danger you have to think sometimes well I've got to ask a question I mean he did delay your journey here but these are questions because when when non-amish like myself the English enter into the Amish area or a men at conservative Mennonite area the understanding of why they chose their simple lifestyle is often confusion why they chose non-electric why they've rejected technology is confusing because each different group has a different list of what they do because we'll we'll see an he's family that doesn't on a car but the English neighbor has a big van that you wonder who really owns that van that takes them into the McDonald's to have lunch as they're wearing there's Nike shoes yeah with everything else is homage and they're using the phone I mean yeah so tech is this is this religious hypocrisy or is it as nothing really to do with their faith is it more just custom I you know and I hate to speak in any sort of singular way about all the Amish and the row servitude Mennonites today but I think there's a perception among those who like myself growing up the perception that it has largely become a cultural sort of custom that's the original reasons for it you know or their long-lost that it's not deeply connected to sort of a spirituality it's just the way things sort of are and I suppose that's the case with any sort of tradition as it calcifies it becomes part of the culture one can lose sight of why one originally did it in the first place right well growing up even though you weren't conservative Amish or conservative Mennonite but growing up Mennonite it's hard to convey that to the children if you've lost the reasons mm-hmm sure then it's hard when guy the English like me drive in with a SUV yeah yeah I have all our stuff here do you see that growing up amongst your your your other friends any of these struggles oh sure sure and increasingly so as the modern world becomes increasingly you know tempting with all this gadgetry and forms of entertainment and writers just well even layman's drawing us in yeah yeah exactly exactly you know it probably I didn't notice it as much in my particular community because we were much more open and embracing of technology I mean I grew up with the television right I would and my free time right around in an ATV right that's not very much right so we had some of the black ATV that's right it was black that's right that's right I always wear my helmet but you know yeah I saw that going on around me the temptation to leave that the sort of where should I sit myself on the spectrum you know what I'm thankful for it I mean to this day that spirit I still feel it's it's very much alive within me we continue to live in my family trying our best to live without some of these sorts of things we watch very little television in my family we're very concerned about the time of my children on a computer you know we those sorts of things I you know I credit my men and I not bringing for that those sorts of concerns and that sort of prudence I said if everyone just barreling forward embracing everything that comes their way increasingly enslaving themselves to every new device right I certainly credit my upbringing with with giving a sort of hesitancy to say well wait a minute is this really best you know for us so before you were a roaming Christian yeah brought up in a minute I know did you yourself have a spirituality you yourself - I didn't until between the my freshmen and sophomore year of high school was fifteen years old growing up my parents are very devout they were that they continue to be very devout I was kind of the contrary and child I was the black sheep I was the young spoiled one my siblings are much much older than I and you know I didn't really care much about anything spiritual religious at all growing up I was the kid who got kicked outta Bible school for it was smacking our Bible school teacher in the rear end when she bent over once I was always the kid who showed up without this didn't get the sticker on his chart for memorizing the verse that was it was not a very good Christian boy growing up age 15 had a profound religious experience though at young life camp thank goodness my parents made me go completely life altering completely life altering and and out of that conversion experience also had a very clear sense that I was called to the ministry more because I knew that at age 15 I was supposed to be involved in ministry in some sense I didn't know what that would look like certainly never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd become a Catholic theologian right but things changed at 15 in a few months after my conversion experience I met my wife she was 14 and within hours of meeting her I declared to everyone at school that I would marry her and we dated all through high school we went to college and we got married you know so we had a you know at age 18 going off to college had an unusually clear sense of direction in life right calling the ministry who was going to marry whereas going to study we went to college together everything was clear everything was determined but of course I'm sitting here today because there were some curbs in that road that I wasn't anticipating now was was your wife's I'm sorry which way st. my wife's Jennifer Jennifer yeah Jennifer was she a faithful she wasn't grown up she was she was and that's why I thank the Lord that he brought her into my life right after my experience she was just delightful there's absolutely delightful yeah yeah and she she attended church now her family that's a much more complicated story but basically throughout high school she attended church with me at a mini night church while also attending a family church and every stage of the journey we were really hand-in-hand together there was she part of your community then she was she just grew up right down the road all right yeah the same influences of that's right but yes right yes income in an idea all right so you're on fire you're heading towards ministry did you go to seminary before you started your inkling toward to Catholic I did I did I went to the University and then to seminary degrees and then my doctor so a four degrees in theology I never imagined I would do that I wasn't much of a student high school so I surprised everyone when I went off and did four degrees two seminaries two seminaries before my doctorate after college yeah a lot of studying fell in love with theology in college and in college is where my story kind of takes some sort of a saul of tarsus kind of kind of theme you know it kind of takes on they sort of persecutor who he joins the persecuted eventually because one off to college like I said Catholicism wasn't even on my radar screen wasn't even a factor in college however I began studying the Protestant reformers and especially John Calvin I was studying under Calvinist Reformed Protestants and just embracing that way of thinking and really taking on that sort of anti-catholic spirit and right of justification by faith alone scripture alone an anti heart hierarchy I mean you know I know the story and in college I directed my sort of animosity towards the church source of Catholic Church at a little Newman Club that met on campus it was my goal in life in college to get that group off campus I was just convinced you know that the church was what the Reformers said right that she had completely lost the gospel and was a false form of Christianity so I did my best passed out tracts convinced sadly I'm very sad to say convinced a number to leave the church while in college was it successful of getting the group off campus thank goodness in fact they invited me back a few years I think it's sort of a penance right to come back and explain to them why I now have joined them but the story takes a very anti-catholic turn in college and it's not until I went off to seminary then after that that the journey home really started very sad your wife the doctor did the anti-catholic views um not as much not as much I I was I was a little overly zealous in colleges you know sure certainly was their theological II as most of the group that I spent time with was but I was sort of the spokes person you might say we married halfway through college went off to seminary did my first degree up in Chicago and in heaven Jellicle school after there a very broad of angelical school still Mennonite at this point we were we had belonged in college to a reformed home church if that's possible sir sort of a reformed baptist kind of independent home Church that a philosophy professor was it was one of the pastors there when off to seminary became Southern Baptist for a short time and I don't know how that even happened Marcus but for our two years there we were Southern Baptists with a very kind of reformed kind of pastor very much in tune with kind of the the reformed kind of movement going on in the convention at the time and the journey home started there in a very subtle sort of way is still very anti-catholic never would I in my wildest dreams imagined it's a possibility but it was during these two years of my first seminary degree that I started to have a sort of stirring a hunger for something more a sense that there was something incomplete about the church now at the time I couldn't have articulated it I wasn't even fully conscious of it but I wanted something a sort of yearning for sacraments for tradition for unity I was very frustrated with the multiplicity the many denominations I was wondering where I'd settle down where I would be ordained so I'm struggling with the disunity of the church and and so forth in your studies I don't yeah you hold that thought there's a second because what I'm curious about also from my own seminary studies did you have any influence by Catholic writers at all during that time his historical Catholic writers yeah I've always have been a student of Agustin okay I was reading a lot of Aquinas at the time in terms of modern Catholic thinkers not so much I remember reading a little bit of von Balthasar and that's that's about it and it was at this time interesting Lee that I heard about you in this program I met a young man in a coffee shop who told me about this thing called the coming home network and that all these evangelicals were becoming Catholic and I couldn't get my mind around it I was just absolutely floored that you know one thing for John Henry Newman to have done this in his little club that was already problematic for me right but the fact that there was a movement a phenomenon that people were still doing this and large enough that there's this network which I had the time thought was a television network I thought was a whole network I did nothing I you know I couldn't get my mind around it and and I didn't explore it it didn't prompt me to consider it or anything like that we went on into another seminary degree I went down to Durham North Carolina to study at Duke University at their Divinity School which is a wonderful place to study it so it was a vibrant ecumenical context Catholics are there both teaching and studying Orthodox Christians Protestant Christians across the whole spectrum so it was a great place for me to really begin to encounter other traditions and it was during my time down at Duke that I undertook a really intense rereading of the New Testament I went there to do that wasn't didn't feels quite ready for doctoral work ordination I wanted more time in Scripture and that completely changed my life Marcus saw all sorts of things in the New Testament that I just simply had never seen versus whatever saw yeah exactly exactly that's right you know and I thought I knew the Bible I'm a studied Greek in Hebrew as an undergraduate I knew my Bible so well I'd memorized so much of it but it was as I came to find out a very selective reading of Scripture massive portions entire books of Scripture that I really never took seriously until I undertook this rereading down at Duke University it started with Paul who's always my favorite as a reformed Christian I loved Paul Paul was ours right we've always my booth yeah Paul is my proof that the Catholic Church was so wildly office right rereading Paul's letters over and over in Greek I had the privilege of taking a doctoral course with a scholar named DP Sanders sorry the father of what's often called the new perspective on Paul which in many ways is the old perspective on Paul so as always read in the church yeah and we're reading Paul over and over and over and I just couldn't believe what I was finding my view of Christ was being transformed my view of our relationship with Christ was being transformed largely seeing in Paul this theme that we can almost take for granted as Catholics of union with Christ right that this is the essence of Christianity deep vibrant life communicating union with Christ through which we receive all that he has in a sense achieved in His redemptive work right I think I went into Duke with a kind of a slim view of the gospel you know God the Son comes down from heaven he kind of zips up a man suit the Incarnation itself not that significant it's just he needs he needs our humanity to get up on a cross to placate the wrath of God so that we through faith can have peace with God and then just live happily ever after right for spiritual laws right for spiritual laws that the tracts you see everywhere and that sort of thing it was this rereading of Paul that took me oh so much deeper seat to see Christ as a second Adam as someone who redeems humanity in himself right to see the Christian life not as a simple act of faith and then imitating Christ but of a union with Christ through which we become so close to him that in fact we are his body right we become a one flesh relationship with him I'm discovering this all at at Duke and you know there's these voices in the background st. Chad that's kind of the way Catholics think isn't it and I had enough contact with Catholic thinkers with Aquinas for example to know that's kind of how they think you know in the language of infusion for example when we talk about justification you know I was using that language that's talking about union with Christ and him infusing into as his divine life through which were conformed to him and I realized I'm talking like a Catholic it scared me to death it's not very Calvin right okay yeah it frightened me to death and as I was reading Paul I also was rereading the Gospels in fact I spent a whole summer at notre between my first and second year at Duke studying the Gospels with a scholar there and the Gospel of John was corroborating everything that's finding in Paul right John 3 on baptism John 6 on the Eucharist the overall theme of union with Christ right and you know I left Duke wondering you know I didn't voice it I certainly didn't share it with anyone Marcus but wondering if in fact the New Testament was supporting at least some Catholic beliefs where was it then yeah what you're saying is that that Jennifer wasn't with you on this journey no she actually was what was yeah she studied an undergraduate she studied theology with me she's very astute often wiser than I am and thinks and I would come home every night and share with her the passages that's reading either watch it read first Corinthians 10 and 11 just read them anew you know and she'd read them and say you know what that you're right that does sound like the Eucharist is in fact something more than a symbol I know I know honey we were we were hand-in-hand really the whole way Marcus I was so blessed that's it is a blessing it's a great blessing it's not always the case yeah that's that's very true so when you leave Duke I mean have you lost your mooring a bit or well you know I'm saying I mean have you already made it the move that mantras it just still no interesting it was you know we had I went I was kind of going to do a doctor we needed to find a good place to do a doctor and one of the key factors in determining where we could go was where could we go and think of these thoughts out loud right no so before this I thought I'd end up at a place like say Westminster Theological or something back in my reformed days very strongly yeah I couldn't go there and even voice these sorts of concerns right these sorts of concerns at the time right these sorts of thoughts so we looked around the US and we decided you know what about just getting out of here going overseas so I applied to both Oxford and Cambridge I got in and we decided let's go to Oxford you know but Oxford is a dangerous place for someone thinking these thoughts right this is the home of John Henry Newman in the Oxford movement so many people have become Catholic there right Graham Greene and Gerald Manley Hopkins and Ronald Knox and here's a whole long litany of famous converts at Oxford I don't think I was quite aware of that at the time we knew it'd be a wonderful place to think through our church affiliation what addresses so many churches are alive and well there's the Anglican Communion the Orthodox Church you know sir led by Christos aware there you know all sorts of other low churches Baptist Church thriving it's just a wonderful place to go wonderful ecumenical context to go and think through these sorts of things and so we went and the big thing that happened at Oxford I went there to study the church fathers I did I did my PhD in the church fathers another dangerous thing I'm making all the wrong moves here okay this a Protestant church fathers in Oxford you probably have not had that much of the church father you know because a front in many Protestant no no it's not it's not we always assume though that they support our beliefs there's that the underlying assumption that the early church was whatever your denomination was and then it lost its way in the Middle Ages and then our reformer restored the early church it's that mean that's the story right so I was quite surprised in reading the church fathers to find something oh so very different than my my Protestant convictions and I was reading the Church Fathers on the doctrine of the Trinity and that's what I did my dissertation on st. Augustine and the Trinity and I began to wonder what do they have to say about baptism and Eucharist and the sacrament and he sorts of Catholic things you know would they in fact support my reading of the New Testament or would they perhaps help me find another way around this sort of problem that I've gotten into and my wife said you know what you need to do you need to take a little retreat take the church fathers with you get away for a few days and just read them and see if you can't sort some of these things out and it was suggested to me that I take my retreat at John Henry news former home right so I find myself very bill yeah a little more a little more just outside of her side of Oxfordshire and for those who don't know Newman the the key factor in his conversion of the church was the Church Fathers finding out that in fact they the early church as he would say is the Catholic Church in sort of seed form right undeveloped not fully developed a form and I sort of thought okay why not I'll go out there's a nice quiet place there's some guns out there who will feed me and and you know sort of care for me and I'll read the church fathers for three days and Newman's spirit got the best of me I spent my days praying at his kneeler beside his his bed worshiping in his little chapel he built and studying in his library and as I read through the early church writings I took with me every extant writing that we have from the first the late 1st & 2nd century Ignatius of Antioch Irenaeus of Lyon Justin Martyr the dedicated took everything I had a massive suitcase full of writings I spent three days day and night doing nothing but reading these very earliest Christian writings and what did I find well I found it in fact they're saying the same thing that I'm already seeing in the New Testament the Eucharist is in fact the glorified body of our Lord Jesus Christ that baptism is in fact the way in which were incorporated into his resurrected life right and in many other things I'm seeing that you know a hierarchy there in the church I always assumed the early church was sort of a Jesus Movement right you know a sort of a most hippy like sort of well there isn't gonna say that is the kind of voices that have won the day today that these were independent little things and it was the it was nice seeing ya into some kind yes right Orthodox yeah everything around the time of Constantine right then becomes hierarchical and authoritarian and so forth not so you read Ignatius of Antioch writing around the Year 100 very clearly delineating a structure of Bishop presbyteries no no call we call priests and deacons and the bishops hinted only at Ignatius but very clear later on understood to be in fact the successors of the Apostles carrying out that unique charism that was given to the Apostles by our Lord yeah and I came home and I couldn't believe what I saw this pause there Jeff this is a good teacher because we you know be 10 and and I went with EWTN we had a great experience at Livermore we visited there Lee did some taping his dream home in that building with not only the the the annealer but the very desk word Newman wrote the essay on development of dr. house it's such a powerful book for so many on the journey let's pause it we'll come back to that in just a little bit seen this welcome back to this episode of the journey home our guest tonight is Chad Gerber I'm Marcus Grodi your host Chad I've gotta say it always cracks me up when I when I have the great privilege of doing these programs when I have a guest like yourself and I'm thinking why I haven't had you in the program before where were you you were just on the street I haven't been in the church very long though that's right you know it's kind of like when my dog's Wallkill a ground but I do want to talk go back to that here you are with the Apostolic fathers in Newman's yes livermore I mean yeah this is did he write the Arian controversy book there or that was before because that was his first step yeah you know I don't know exactly when where he wrote there in kind but the issue of if I remember right from his book and I think this would connect with your own journey when he is doing this research he's coming to the conclusion that in every time there's a battle between the heretic quote and the church he would have to end up on the side of the heretic because of the issue of Sola scriptura versus yeah the authority of the church yeah yeah there you were in the midst of the same thing to decide which side of this divide you're going to end up on exactly exactly yeah yeah and it's really hard to argue with the Apostolic fathers isn't I mean they're so close to our Lord in the Apostles and I think for me that was that was the determining factor it's one thing to find stuff 4th 5th century post Constantine because we can always blame thing on Constantine the first Christian Emperor and how that changed the church or perhaps on platonic philosophy or something which was clearly being appropriated by fathers at that time but the Apostolic fathers these guys are writing you know shortly after the death of the original twelve apostles in fact some of them like Ignatius might have had contact with certain apostles like the Apostle John and they're speaking so clearly and so loudly with one voice on all of these issues there there's really no I mean this is an argument I have yet to hear a Protestants they're refute why is it that all of the earliest Christian writings within a hundred years of the original apostles all speak so clearly and so loudly on matters of sacraments church hierarchy etc in a way that is Catholic right how could they possibly be wrong and all be wrong what happened between the apostles and them that they all got it wrong right how could you possibly explain that if I were talking to you on this program about when you come to a stop sign you stop yeah okay am I saying that to you is Bill in the fact that I'm not starting something new when I say that to you yeah we're talking about a tradition that we know in our gut it's been around for several generations in our culture that stop sign means what it means I'm not just starting it new yeah the Apostolic fathers were expressing things not brand new exactly but what they themselves had assumed for many many many oh yes that's even the key to that yeah they're addressing issues like the hierarchy like the Eucharist like baptism best patisserie generation not as if it's a brand new thing no exactly it's what they inherited it's tradition treaded Co that's what isn't handed off to them and they are they've been in you know charged to keep and hand off again no they're not making the idea of innovation right and created that really didn't have a place in theology you know it's certainly not at this time when the church is so young and in dealing with problems say with like the Gnostics these Gnostics who did not deny the the physical nature of our Lord and who also deny the Eucharist as the body and blood of our Lord if there is a symbolic interpretation say of the Eucharist in the early church who maintains that view but the Gnostics right and no one was still inside them you know align themselves with the Gnostics who were so clearly offering on so many different although we do have the movements today that want to bring the Gnostic gospel back up and say hey why aren't they as valid as everything else right right and there is there is a bit in Austin ISM in Protestantism certainly the lower you go in terms of lower church traditions the more and more the body the flesh ritual embodiment this sort of stuff matters in fact a scene is dangerous sort of subtle sometimes not so subtle antagonism right towards the physical world and sort of a more of a spiritual kind of notion of Christianity I remember being in the office of a former philosophy professor she was at my pastor at one point and I was giving him this argument how the early church is so clearly Catholic how could you possibly explain that and I've heard this quite a bit sense what about Greek philosophy what about Plato and Platonism surely that is what corrupted them to think this way but if you think about it who is being corrupted by platonic ways of thinking not the church but the Gnostics they're the ones inheriting this tradition that devalues the body in places you know thinks of purely and sort of spiritual terms the church is actually standing over against that saying no no no no Christ truly was human and he truly is present in the Eucharist body blood soul divinity over against platonic ways of thinking although I would also say and I agree with that I would also say though that one of the pleasant things that I found in becoming Catholic and and studying Catholic theology and philosophy is the idea that that which is good sure yes as that which is true is of God right regardless of where it's found yeah if it is indeed truth yes and there's lots of truth and Platonism yes as the early fathers knew they selectively appropriated and used Platonism is the Gnostics who sort of sold out as it were well as a person in that would have been Justin yeah sure sure I mean philosophy again at the audience the one of those early episode fathers was Justin Martyr who has one of the most revealing descriptions of the mass yes yes exactly yeah yeah I remember reading that at the end of the first apology and saying I you know hadn't been to mass at this point but I knew enough about it that's what Catholics do that's so you know yeah the description of the mass at the end of the apology yeah exactly so I'm assuming Jennifer's with you enjoying Oxford in England and yes here in all the stuff she's reading the Church Fathers I remember coming home from that retreat giving her my copy of Ignatius his letters she read them I'm never sitting up every night at bed reading at a low of edition of Ignatius as letters and you know seeing the same things they're really there if you if you have the eyes to see it that's there it's hard to refute were you were finding support there for you in Oxford we were we were and that's really the other thing that happened there reading the church fathers and also immersing ourselves in lived Catholicism befriending Catholics we began attending Mass we became part of a little group of North Americans there many of them converts and some who had already converted others who hadn't who were led by a Jesuit Father David Makoni he teaches down at st. Louis University now a wonderful man responsible for leading many people into the church and we met I think was every other Saturday or something like that and we had a reading that we would do often from a magazine or papal encyclical or something and we celebrated Mass father David would celebrate Mass wherever we were meeting first Mass I ever attended was in my living room in Oxford I didn't know what was going on they were turning some furniture into an altar and people were kneeling on my floor and I was scared to death I didn't know if I was committing a great sack of sacrilege or what but you know I was intrigued enough and sensing enough that this this was right and this was good that I allowed them to have mass right there in my living room yeah so you and your wife together she there with you away you know for that experience she wasn't actually there she was back in the States I remember calling her up and that did start all her just a little but I can remember that you did what on the other end of the phone it's one thing to think about it theory is fine and even debrief friends some Catholics right but that we were celebrating Mass in my living room just years earlier right I had indeed very boldly proclaimed that the mass was a sacrilege tree sacrificing craft and Christ and all of that sort of you know nonsense those misunderstandings of the mass and here we were having it in our living room and what that really did for us is allowed us to see genuine heartfelt love for Christ pressed in the Catholic faith right we just always had that assumption that Catholics were really trapped in religion they didn't have a relationship that there was an institution not an organism all of those sort of cliches you know that we had used to kind of belittle the Catholic Church and to assume that Catholics weren't really really know Christ the way we did here I was seeing Catholics live out an evangelical faith that means that were dev angelical right in a way that really put me to shame right their zeal for Christ was palpable their love for the poor was palpable their love for the scriptures right was tangible they were it completely transformed here didn't fit the image it didn't fit the image at all and because so many of them were converts they knew how to bridge the conversation they understood my concerns they understood my sort of evangelical speech right the way I would talk I sort of think they could they could take that on and explain things to me in a way that I could understand and and that would made all the difference so did you you didn't become Catholic when you're over there then no no what happened I think it took Newman about five years I think in 1842 1845 from when he had the big discovery and it took us exactly the same time you describe in our work in the coming home network because we're helping clergy and pratas include stages kind of inquiry stage where you're kind of open you're learning on things but you're not really different yet then there's the journey stage where what you've learned you'll never be the same you mean the Catholic yet but you've learned enough it's inevitable yeah I'm not gonna be what I was yeah well the next stage of the no-man's land because you've learned so much you know you need to go on but you may not be ready to go there yeah and you're just not sure where you are then of course there's the RCIA stage where you process sure are you in the no man's land yet at this point you think we're still in the journey I mean we're somewhere right around no man's life you don't think about there yeah yeah well after two years at Oxford I came home hadn't been home in over a year come back to to Kidron Ohio and see my family and my brother-in-law suggest something that I would have said months earlier was just absurd that I moved back and rent a farm from the family that recently purchased another farm down the road I rent the farm and finished my doctoral dissertation on agustin in the Trinity from Amish country I hadn't been home in a year and I was back and I was I was really enjoying the country and being around family and I bit I said you know what we'll do it and so we packed everything up after only two years in Oxford my residency was completed there so they released me to go and we moved back to Kidron rented a farm we had two kids at this point had our third there at the farm and I hiked back into the woods every day to a little cabin back in the woods and I wrote my dissertation from back in the woods now one of the reasons of whom bet we moved back was to be around family we assumed we'd never end up living around them I'd get a job somewhere and we'd move away but we also wanted to complete our journey from where it all started this just felt right Marcus right and the way of sort of honouring my family honoring my home Church so we moved back to Kidron who rented the farm we attended my home church Salem Mennonite wonderful community and we completed the journey from there and we used our three years of three years back in Ohio we used that time in Kidron before I got my job teaching Catholic theology and so forth to really sort of use people sort of sounding boards try ideas out to get out of Oxford because it was so easy to become Catholic in Oxford let's do this from Amish country let's do this you know from people who obviously aren't sharing our convictions let's try out these ideas on them so everyone who would listen we told them what was happening with us you know spiritually speaking some people came along some people actually have become Catholic you know others especially some of my friends who had become more reformed like I was in college were very very concerned as you might imagine Jurgis but it was really that process of wrangling these ideas with a debate dialogue many many late nights with old friends from college who'd gone off and become pastors or this or that working these ideas out that those were that would be the final stage for us I also was teaching a course on the early church fathers at my alma mater just down the road and five out of the 25 students in that course ended up becoming Catholic one of them's a Franciscan her right now so I was trying out my ideas on my students with some of my former professors as well and they held true true they really did and I also during this time I think both of us were experienced the sense of loss from Oxford where we attended mass from that community of Catholics we loved the Mennonite Church I grew up in wonderful people but going to church there was never the same after Oxford you know to sing some songs to hear a sermon and leave my body my wife and I just said our bodies just long to worship we want so badly to make the sign of the Cross and they get down on our knees right for the Eucharist and so forth and so that also I think played a role in the final stages right of us realizing what we were missing yeah I would say that well the Mennonites I assume they have a Lord's Supper they do they do it's celebrated quite infrequently in my home church it was once a season yeah of course and it's a purely symbolic event because that would have been a huge transition that for you you only have to understand it yeah I went from the lowest to the highest view of the university yeah yeah we have an email well you came into the church right when did you can forty years ago four years exactly four years ago and now you're teaching Catholic theology that's right ya know at a different school at the close the closest Catholic school to where I grew up though which was such a blessing when that opened up so we could stay home yeah we were Holmen Holmen both geographical and spiritual sense yeah alright well got a couple email soup we can get him in my family this goes with Joann Pennsylvania okay my family and I live in an area with a number of Mennonites we really respect their lifestyle and commitments to Christ but is there any way we could effectively witness to them of the truths of the Catholic faith oh good that's effectively witnessing to Mennonites I have some experience with this um one of the problems you encounter I think in speaking with Mennonites about these matters is that they're not a very little theological sort of background or foundation all right this is it is a very sort of pietistic movement with it as I said earlier not a lot of emphasis on the intellect so one of the problems you'll encounter to begin with is really finding sort of a place to start theologically speaking I say when you're you're talking to a Lutheran or someone from the reformative Presbyterian traditions there are some common things creeds and so forth to work with it's a little more difficult with with Mennonites and I'll have to say I've had some struggles there and even explaining why we did what we did to some of my Mennonite family and friends because quite frankly in the end all they really want to know is do I still love Jesus I say all the more all the more okay that's great we're glad you did that in the conversation sort of ends right I recently was though speaking with a Mennonite minister and he asked me the question why we became Catholic and I went right for the Eucharist I went right there and started the conversation with our mutual desire to know and be closely knit together with our risen Lord Christ I started with union with Christ and from there I worked towards the Eucharist using the New Testament early church fathers that was one way into it I mean if there is common ground though a good common ground place to start would be our search social teachings which are very similar right hard love appreciation at peace are concerned about the recent Wars there are sort of there is common ground to start with but it's it's not going to be liturgical or sacramental or very theologic well I'm assuming that the Mennonite formation brings with it the assumption of the black myth of the Catholic Church all the things yes they've never met Catholics they don't know Catholics but yeah generation after generation have passed on all these myths about Catholicism that are just there yeah yeah in early church that that brings us back to their lecture it's a great place to go because there is that assumption that the earlier church essentially was the Mennonite Church right it looked like that oh yeah and so whatever you're gonna do with Mennonites you really do have to spend some time in their early church and make clear to them that you're talking about the church before Constantine because he really is the the corrosive corruptive factor for the Mennonites in the church right because here we now have this confusion of church and state right a relationship Mennonites are very concerned about to keep separate right and so with a Christian Emperor and with you know bishops being so closely connected with the the Imperial Rome and so forth that that's when things went downhill for midnight so you got to make very clear you're talking about the church long before Constantine when you talk to them and explain these well I'm wondering you know of course there's a difference between the symbolic Eucharist Lord's Supper and the Eucharist or even a bigger issue of course is gonna be our later I mean I don't think you talked about Mary very much as a Mennonite no no no no how about that in your own journey it really shipped to a Blessed Mother yeah yeah Mary would have been I think as in many people's journeys one of those sort of last hang-up kind of issues what about Mary I kept pushing her further and further back we'll deal with Mary later we'll focus on the sacraments and justification and hierarchy and all that but in that final stretch there was that concern what about our lady what about Mary and I'll have to say mark Marcus when I came into the church I was still had a lot of questions about Mary had come to that place which most people do where you don't know everything but you trust the church a novel right to come in to be received and that's sort of how it worked for me my love for Our Lady has really only been something that's developed as a Catholic yeah in practice and I think that's true of many other people and and I will say for especially the Catholic audience to pray for converts who have come from different backgrounds because different theologies are easier than others and for some our Lady is the reason that they came in for some the Eucharist was the reason that they came into the church and other times these I accept the church I believe now help my unbelief help help me realize it's a long a long journey and I I know some that it's taken 5-10 years of fully understand Our Lady's essential place in Salvation history you can teach it you can believe it but yes realizing it is a spiritual journey exactly and all that email Charles from Idaho does Chad think his background as a Mennonite in any way helped him be eventually open to Catholicism was it in fact at a door for you was it a door well it certainly didn't place any kind of roadblocks you know there was no sort of anti-catholic teaching I mean we growing up I wasn't even aware of what it meant to be Protestant I had an embrace her the Magisterial teachings till I went off and read Luther and Calvin could recite all the solos right and know why I was Protestant so it certainly didn't place any roadblocks in my way and yeah I think there certainly are some bridges there as I've mentioned repeatedly the social teachings of the church they're concerned for the poor that Franciscan charism in for example what I was going to suggest is that often in my experience Reformed Calvinist Lutheran's are not quite sure to do what to do with the Sermon on the Mount hmm because there's so emphasis on Paul yeah sure that what do we do with these before the resurrection teaching yeah of the simplicity of the Beatitudes yeah but that's the core of Mennonite that is the coronation well I can't tell you how many sermons I've heard on the Sermon on the mountain they were all the sermon on you know we memorized the Sermon on the Mount the Beatitudes that's exactly right yeah right so there's again there's a direct connect yeah exactly exactly yeah all right Susan from Wichita writes I have an uncle who is a Protestant pastor and I've been trying to interest him in Catholicism is there a particular church father or book on the church fathers that dr. Gruber would recommend as a good starting post yeah this is easy and I think you probably know where I'm about to go I would suggest that you introduce someone to the father's themselves rather than say a book about the fathers you give him a book about the fathers there's always that temptations think well that's his interpretation send them right to the sources and if you're gonna send them to the sources send them to Ignatius of Antioch to his letters his seven letters he wrote why well Ignatius is easy to read he's imitating st. Paul's writing style and the epistles so if you especially if you're reformed a Presbyterian you know Paul you can read those letters Ignatius it's just like reading another Pauline epistle the other reason is because he's so close to Paul himself in the Apostles he was martyred in Rome right around the Year 110 his epistles were written as he was in route to Rome and he's so clear and explicit on matters of say the Eucharist and on Church heart hierarchy and so forth so I always tell people start with the Ignatius for those reasons and from there branch out and go a little later in history Justin Martyr especially the end of his first apology Irenaeus of Lyon is against heresies have some wonderful selections apostolic succession and so forth but the hook is Ignatius yeah the effect if you would let me actually success a few books actual books or so Morris Jergens the three-volume Jurgen yes but yeah its quotes from a variety of those the first volume of that would be the Apostolic fathers think agains just before a Gustin I think I would highly recommend a translation of Irenaeus right does that Ignatius Ignatius and Polycarp done recently by dr. Kenneth Howell has a new translation and commentary which is intended to be a nice Catholic commentary that's published by the coming home network but you can get this on EWTN the religious catalogue and another book I know if you've ever had a chance to read it called for witnesses why rod Bennett its Ignatius press it isn't exactly the full letters but it gives those key apostolic fiery selections connected with his own journey and how it affected him they're all on EWTN religious catalogue the if let's say there's a Mennonite watching sure what would you want to say to him or her about why they need to make the same journey home that you remember oh goodness if I had to appeal to a Mennonite right now I suppose I would probably reiterate some of the things that I've said about the early church about the Eucharist about the desire that we share as Christians cual Christians simply as Christians to know Christ right start there though this is where this is where what I've done when I'm talking to family and friends just start with the common foundation I'd say look desire to know Jesus to know the resurrected Lord to have his life within us not I who live but Christ right as Paul says where do we encounter if the resurrected Christ it's her frame it in that sort of context right starting with a common foundation of a desire to know Christ where though do we find him and I think this would lead us into a discussion of sacraments as forms of mediation of places where we encounter him showing those to someone in Scripture showing them to the early church and saying look there are deeper ways to know him than you already do right it's wonderful to have the Holy Spirit to live in a wonderful community as the Mennonites do to serve the way they serve those things are delightful there's nothing wrong with them right but there is something that's lacking that's incomplete that would be sort of my pitch and that's really my journey right than it is of so many of the finding the fullness of the faith my guess is that that sitting in the quiet of the Blessed in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament there's probably not much like that in the Mennonite Rioja there's nothing like that there really isn't there's plenty of sitting in silence and quiet but not in the pleasant presence of our Lord in the sacrament all right well Chad thank you very much thank you for having me and again your teaching at Walsh College yes it's right right teaching teaching theology yeah and you said I think I heard you said you're doing a little bit of hiking too that's right i guide backpacking trips and hoping in the near future to do a course or I actually take my students out into nature yeah well that's that's yeah that's great maybe I'll take you up on that there you got some time with it yeah break thanks so much thanks for having me thanks it's a great pleasure and I hope that this was a real challenge to you listening even as you see the foundational idea of the Sermon on the Mount as as a connection to our separated brethren especially the Mennonites and the Amish seeing that we definitely have something in common with the teaching of our Lord Jesus and to help them come back to the church and I hope this encouragement you to consider the same truth god bless see you next week

Channel: EWTN

Views: 32,386

Rating: 4.6384182 out of 5

Keywords: Presbyterian, Anglican Journey Home, Catholic

Id: LRoPzrqvGFc

Length: 56min 30sec (3390 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 16 2012