Journey Home - 2017-10-09 - Christopher Zehnder

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey halt my Marcus Grodi your host for this program once again I have this privilege that EWTN gives me to to join with you dear a story of how the Holy Spirit opens someone's heart and mind to the beauty of the church and every journey is a little bit different and I do pray that our guest tonight Christopher Zender former Missouri sir Nolan Lutheran and his story will be an encouragement to you Christopher welcome to the very home it's good to have you in a program we're talking a little bit before the program we've got some similar friends in it but it's good to have you in a program and IQ for having you and I also want to thank you for the work you do with the textbooks Catholic textbook textbook textbooks I know that my wife Marilyn and I were very familiar with your work back when we were in home schooling and so thank you for the work that you do for that but what I usually do is get out of the way as soon as I can and invite you to start us on the journey if you would oh well yeah in thinking especially before this program I back up my conversion I dredged up a lot of memories which I hadn't thought about for a long time I almost I became Catholic when I was 19 so that's a few years ago I reflected on how just how God uses not the supernatural means I mean everything God axes through grace which is supernatural but he how he uses Nate natural things grace builds upon nature and I was thinking about that just how in my childhood in particular how he used both what was good in my family life and what was deficient not so much in my family there were of deficiencies in my family life but in the deficiency is the place I lived sometimes I've reflected if I hadn't grown up in Southern California have had grown up in Michigan like my rest of you know my family or my family's from what I have become Catholic and I said I think maybe I wouldn't have that in California something elevators just weird enough to get me to consider becoming Catholic so maybe I just talked about what was the positives of my family life I I had a an intact family my parents were married for over 50 years not what I came around but button later but they I did tax table family my mother was a stay-at-home mother we grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles this is not one of the pub the sudden example of the positive things but seven of Los Angeles we lived a comfortable life my father made fairly good money for those days and it was not a very interesting house but it was a comfortable house we we we I was raised Missouri Synod Lutheran and I gave me a heritage he gave me a legacy to think back on and that part of that legacy was I knew that my family's background I knew where my family came from visit Michigan we'd sometimes go the Frankenmuth Michigan or Frankenmuth I guess a lot of people say where my family settled in 1846 they came over from the area around nürnberg Germany and as German Lutheran missionaries to the Chippewa among others yeah the Sabbath the problem was that's its origins it was a missionary settlement velcome Lucca was the name of the pastor and I know in Dettol sow in Germany who was the genius behind him so he he got this settlement going and they came to preach the gospel to the Chippewa well then the US government moved the Chippewa West and they stay the the Germans who settled there they steamed and farmed it's kind of an interesting silence in a little bit aside but it's an interesting settlement because it was a german-speaking settlement so they were teaching the Chippewa how to speak German and they and part of the I guess the deal the whole thing was that they were to maintain the German traditions from that area of Germany mittal Franken or middle Franconia where they came from including the dress and there was even there was even an account where the Missionary Society in Germany heard heard rumors that they're wearing wide brim hats and that was just not the tradition so they had to assure them no no we are still thoroughly German and thoroughly Lutheran and did they catch it on the internet back then so was you know that was my family background and I felt a deep sense of pride in that and see that my family had done that day they didn't come over the new worlds make it rich they came out of the new world at least initially to preach the gospel to the Indians and we grew up thanks to the Lutheran Church which was a very stable kind of influence and years later when I after I became Catholic I met a minister a priest actually a Vancouver British Columbia who had been raised in a different Sanada for those who don't know the Lutheran Church it's divided up into synods in in the United States based upon often whether one is a Swedish Lutheran a Norwegian Luther a German Luther or based upon the fact that some German Lutheran's disagree with other German Lutheran's over something and so he was he said to me he said you were raised in Missouri City so that's the real thing and it was a real thing if I reflect back he told he said this to me says it was an excellent preparation for becoming Catholic and I reflect back on that now I think it's really true growing up mr. Easton it was was very important because there dogmatic and there liturgical and both those things I were methodically built against all that but that was was instilled in me as a trial we sang hymns you know that were somebody's based upon Gregorian chant or were old German hymns all this all that sort of thing appealed to me so that was all the positives and I had a good family my I was the youngest my sister is 13 years older than I am my brother's nine years older than I am so it's quite a spread but you know it was a good stable family so you know rather idyllic in some ways were you a child of faith brought up in the Lutheran Tercel yourself a young man oh that's a good question my I'll say that's a level of trust in just a minute my father I think was when I reflect back at my conversion I see there are mentors that I had and one of those mentors in a kind of distant way was my father and he was a mentor not so much he wasn't he wasn't around much when I was growing up because for some reason his work he would fly from San Jose to New York City every Monday and come back on Friday so for much of my childhood didn't see much of him well and then when he worked in Los Angeles he was on the highways all the time so he didn't come back until late so I wasn't very close to my father growing but his example of fidelity to what it is believes was Christian faith was was indispensable I think I think my brother and sister would say the thing same thing they're not Catholic but they're I think their their faith they would say is was brewed in my father's example so he would go to church on Sunday whether he felt well or not there was no oh I don't feel like I'm gonna go to church on this sunny like you sometimes get in Protestant circles it was it was you know he went he was faithful to that and you could tell it was it was he was he made no bones about the fact that he prayed and asked God's help so that was a very important influence as for myself for some reason I just didn't take much interest in religion for many years when I was very young uh Western warned you know I was kind of a strange child didn't people would say but so I I tended to have certain ideas about things from a very young age that would either turn me on to something or turn me off too and for some reason I was turned off to Lutheran worship and the Lutheran Church remember I'm concerned my father he would you would you know I liked history even as a young child I like to read in history so he would take out the Himalayas look when this was written and I just didn't just didn't open at all I didn't care so it wasn't I wouldn't say my father's influence was immediate in terms of my faith what it was it was it was gave me a foundation upon which to build so how I actually began to be interested in religion his kind of strength I mean it's not particularly strange my brother my brother I would say was the my brother Kirk was the my second great mentor he might say he was he when I was growing up he'd some in some ways took the place of my father he did a lot of things with me he would take me fishing he would you know he was he was a friend to me in many ways we used to get in our fights we had our disagreements like any brothers do but you know he was he was I think he took and he saw my father wasn't around much and so he took it upon himself to be to do a lot of things at least our society would say fathers do right well he was also not really serious about religion for a long time but then he was he was used to tell the story there was a girl he was he was interested in it she went to this place called Calvary Church not Calvary Chapel Calvary Church in Walnut California another la suburb yeah and so he started going to church there because she was going there well he underwent a religious conversion when he was there and I guess it was when he fell into is we might call the Jesus Movement if you remember that the Jesus freaks right yep yep and he became really an on fire with it with this newfound faith and that as a young child I must have been oh I'm gonna say well he graduate high school when I was nine so 10 or 11 I began to I begin to see his this newfound faith he had and I met his friends and I began to think there's something really something really genuine here because what it was is this their religion their faith was influencing the whole of their lives you could tell it was just everything it permeated everything they did everything they thought everything they said and I guess maybe that was what I I didn't seen a Lutheran Church they used to joke around evangelical circles they used to call Lutheran Church the frozen Chosin you know because I get moniker fit a few non major denominations you know those Presbyterians do I don't think it was entirely fair with the Missouri Synod I I know what one man in particular was the the organist at the Lutheran Church where I went to school for the parochial school and he was he and his wife at one point decided to become Bible Translators and they went they took their little children over the Liberia so I think that I think sometimes they just didn't you know you know Germans don't show things in the same eye other people do but in any case I guess I felt it was there was the church on Sunday thing with the Lutheran's and then there was the rest of the week whereas with these Jesus Movement people it was all week long every hour of the day right and that's as a child I mean this is kind of weird as a child that really moved me and and I would say being a little part of that Jesus movement because I had my own adult awakening just like they did in 1973 in the midst of that time that there was an authenticity of it so there was grace there but I wasn't I did very well right during the time so I mean it was it was enthusiastic it was life-changing but now what as you said that all their life but there wasn't much guidance they write it yeah I remember to ever there was one particular instance my brother had decided mr. Twain's become Lutheran minister so he was influenced by the charismatic renewal but he was still in this race of Lutheran's he's gonna go to Concordia University in Ann Arbor Michigan and his friends had gathered for this going-away thing and they were in there I remember in our living room praying and singing and and I was a kid I was just watching this and I was just I thought this is I want to be a part of a group like this I don't want to go hoop in church they don't do things like this I wanted but something that really authentic and that dad that but it was a really strong influence so I mean I wasn't putting a little bit it began really I think it was that there was a catalyst for my journey towards the Catholic faith but to back up just a little bit and just remind the audience Christopher's ender as our guest say no going back up a bit is that is that talk about the negative influences well I talked about my father wasn't around much and I don't think yeah I don't think that was a good thing but you know that the generation came out of the depression and a lot of the idea of him as the father was the breadwinner so he's not often there to know due to the affective aspects of raising a child I don't think that hurt me tremendously but it was something lacking part of it was growing up in an LA suburb you know it's a very different world out there I moved to Columbus recently they have all these metro parks and places you can get out on country fairly quickly but I'm in LA it was very difficult to do and I grew up in a place called Diamond Bar which was kind of I guess it would be considered upper middle-class suburb very simple houses but the ticky tacky houses you know for it as far as you know when you're flying in over them right and just as far as and we had a pool because my father grown up around a lake so you went to swim and I learned to swim but there was always something lacking right and I and I think it was it was there was what I might call something bourgeois about it namely the highest ideals were material ideals people had everybody in our block we knew a lot of people in our block and they all had a religion everybody had some religion me and the Catholics across the street and we had the Mormons and we had the guy next door there was an English professor who was an agnostic and I liked him best actually of all the neighbors but everybody had some kind of religion but it's it's like the whole atmosphere was is we reach a certain plateau and then we're comfortable and that's what we're searching for is comfort and even religion becomes a means of furthering comfort right it becomes God the eternal vending machine for our for our pleasure so and I think this is endemic to Protestantism because of of instance a tendency it has because of the doctrine of grace and faith alone you not just strive if you're if you're forgiving you might out of the generosity your heart want to be good but you're not you don't have to strive for the because very reach to your end yeah so God becomes what does God become you pray to God for what not for virtue not for holiness you pray to God for material goods and I think that's what's so that was the kind of neighborhood it was and I and you know the architecture was boring I mean we had hills around which were pretty but everything was just it wasn't like my you know the kids growing up in the country having able go to see streams and experience nature it was just it was a it was a housing development and so what I tended to do as a young child is I I withdrew into my imagination I you know partly because the movies I'd seen part because of books I'd read I would imagine things like and there's so much so that the people in the neighborhood would say to me what are you today Christopher cuz I would dress up in his different costumes I saw the movie The Ten Commandments and so I put on with Mexican poncho and I got this yuck and I would be ten I was moseyed parked the pool right you know that was that sort of thing and that was the way I was looking I think what I was looking for was something that would move me beyond that kind of kind of a kind of a middle class marinus that we have when I was growing up and and so that that was something that can change that fueled me and I think it was one of the things that attracted me to the Jesus Movement people was because here was something that was going beyond it was something that was that was saying you know there's no limit right there's no limits of devotion to God we should cast everything aside for this purpose right it was almost the spirit of st. Francis stripping himself in front of the bishop right he did that but that was that was the sense I got no compromise you know it was it was that Keith green remember Keith green when I was a teenager I really like to listen to Keith green for a while and if it's a whole message of no compromise that moved me so that's what I was looking for and I didn't find a Lutheran Church but I I must say that began my interest in things religious I remember I think it was like 10 years old 10 or 11 I decided I wanted to read the Bible so I got my father's big King James Version to started over you know I my father remember my father walk into the bedroom wanting to see me be in the Bible I think he was just he was first it was shocked and then he was extremely pleased so you're reading the Bible and I said yes and Sonny and they're giving me a living Bible I think I've been better off with a few James but he was really happy to see that and so I began reading the Bible and I began looking for this looking for these this whole genuineness which I couldn't find the Lutheran Church so I would say like my brother didn't stay long at Concordia they didn't you know he came back to California to certain points and he ended up playing the melody lands school of theology and recei I'm not sure the charismatic would have worked where yeah but so that was so he came back to California si would continue to be an influence on me in that way towards that kind of evangelical is into evangelicalism I remember when I was in fifth and sixth grade that was affecting me in particularly sixth grade one of the things I was really interested because I guess it was adventurous it was almost like a fantasy was the late great planet Earth and all that stuff about tribute the tribulation and the rapture and all those things and I really I laugh that stuff up because it was it seems so heroic and you remember the of course the this the disputes over is the rapture gonna occur before the tribulation in the middle of the tribulation at the end of the trilogy I would occur at the end of the tribulation because it was much more heroic that was something a pre-tribulation rapture that's just for that's just for the wheel whips yeah I want to be a martyr right so I was in sixth grade I was causing some trouble because I was telling the kids about all this stuff in the lutheran school and so it wasn't exactly Lutheran theology no no not the least No yeah at least so and I a good friend of mine he he went and told on me that I was telling these things the kids and our teacher was this older woman it was very very strict so she was quite obsessed so she had me go to the principal and I get 6th grade kid I'm the principal one of the principal's office why because I'm talking about millennialism the students I remember just arguing with the principal over millennialism and you know basically saying it I think it's in the scriptures and I would think of Luther wouldn't have any problem with that I mean you know there's a private interpretation all but they did I wasn't really punished for it I think I was just told to you know keep it cool and cool yeah we should say but I you know but that was the sort of things that is influence you mean we we moved from Diamond bar to a town called upland in San Bernardino County it's not too far from LA but it's just the county line over when I was in seventh grade and I went to another Lutheran School and and so that one of my other influences there was more my more may 8th grade year was a man was the assistant pastor after at the church he was an interesting fellow there was a big split in the Missouri Synod back I think in the early 70s I don't wanna say exact date called the seminar Seminary in exile right because the Missouri Synod was upset in part because these these professors were teaching that there was you don't have to take them believe in this liberal liberal seven day seven day creation I'm sure there were other things that were a bit more problematic for everybody that they were teaching as well and so they broke those professors broke off and found this other seminary called the seminary in exile well this assistant pastor had been with salmon decks for a while and then he came back to the Missouri Synod so he was he was a very intelligent man he was linked he was I remember when I first met him he was studying Syriac he knew I think Greek and Hebrew he went to the st. Louis Seminary in the end and he he studied German and Greek and Hebrew and a lot he knew a lot and so he was he was interests he with the younger man he was just freshly ordained in the Lutheran Church and he befriended me I know can't exactly know why but he befriended me and we began to talk an awful lot he would take me on how we go on hikes with some other young people he was a head of the youth group and he began to influence me into an important intellectual direction I would think in part and plus he just kind of introduced me to something different it didn't it didn't germinate for a while but liturgy and a kind of more high church way of looking at things which I think was one of the the split issues you're right one group was getting a little bit too Catholic sounding here and that's what would cause the split back yeah he might have been influenced by that of everything you know yeah I found out later he what he was never a hard-nosed about the liturgy he was but he was much more accepting of anything that leads you to the word right but he himself his tastes went in that direction over later on he got a chargeable which was not the Charles were not war and Lutheran charge in those days so that was no but it's another influence he became another mentor to me as well for them of course my conversion but I was decidedly in an evangelical mode and I exist I denied sacraments you know I was I thought the Lutheran worship was to stayed and to rigid you know the whole Jesus would think that if you're gonna praise God you should praise God from your right not from written words that that's God doesn't want here the same thing you're all that sort of thing influenced me so much so that I think was my seventh grade year this time through eighth grade year I was to be confirmed in Lutheran Church and part of the Missouri Senate you you swear eternal fidelity to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod thinks I mean they have there they only have the real I mean maybe there's a couple like the Wisconsin Senate but they're the ones we have the true teaching of Christ so you want to confess the Missouri Synod confesses obviously so I was to be confirmed and I wouldn't you wouldn't fellowship with the Lutheran Church of America or the marital yeah there no no communion no Konomi no mutual communion yeah yeah I think the Wisconsin Center was the only one right so I am I was to be confirmed and I said to my parents I'm not gonna be confirmed I said because I cannot say I accepted teaches the mythic Church Missouri Synod well my father was not terribly happy about this he was actually advised by friends if you just make him do it make him do it and I guess I deep down inside I kind of wish they were gonna make me do it so I could say no but I you know so my father was wise though I think because he realized I was a probably name is a lot like him he knew I think that if he did that I would just repeal and he would just turned me into martyr to be the very thing I wanted to be you know no compromise right that's that was the spirit so he didn't make me he said you just you decide for yourself and yeah yeah he told me wasn't happy with it but he was about me do it I he probably lost some some dignity amongst his fellow Lutheran's for doing that but I think I I think doc can I think he was wise he he knew better and way so I continue to go to the Lutheran Church because my parents went there I couldn't drive until about May my 10th my 10th grade year and my 10th grade year we moved we moved up and they moved to another place in Upland and it was in walking distance of an Assemblies of God Church and I said I'm gonna go to the Assemblies of God Church because I I was thinking myself I'm gonna find those Jesus freaks there I'm gonna find the Jesus Movement people the people who are whose faith just influences everything in their lives who are not who are not bought and sold by you know consumerism and middle-class culture and they they're they're not going to separate the religion out they're gonna it's gonna be a unit right the whole life is good influenced by this I thought he's gonna find it there I didn't things had changed quite a bit since I was in 1970 73 75 I think it was so it was must have been several years I've or six years later things have changed and they weren't the same anymore Keith green used to talk about this right he did say you tell me buddy go in the Christian bookstores and you see the piggy bank that says Jesus Saves on it it's not here this is not what I'm this is not what I was looking for and so that led me around a further search but before I get on that for this which we should probably talk about my third and probably the most important mentor my fourth I should say the most important mention that I had in my growing up years I went when I entered high school I went to place called Lutheran High School in liver in California and I guess I had some intellectual I was always interested intellectual things I read you know 19th century novels and I I read books on Bible history or you know sometimes Lutheran Protestant theology the thing I didn't like was philosophy because I was told philosophy is just bad right you know there's a bad thing so I didn't I kind of stopped at things like philosophy so I went to Lutheran High School I remember I was signing up for classes and they offered Latin and I said I'm gonna take Latin I thought I'd just be really interesting to take Latin so I I took Latin begin my freshman year in high school my sophomore year in high school I had a new teacher came in and he was a student at the Claremont Graduate School in political science and I found out he went to this rather strange College I didn't find this out till later but he went to her brother's of strange College called Thomas Aquinas College it's not a Paula and his name was Kevin long and he he was he was speaking my Latin teacher and after a while he and I began to have conversations and and they would always turn on some kind of intellectual thing and he would ask me questions and then hear my response and he would ask me other questions to kind of a lucid a my opinions that maybe to lead me in the direction of show maybe you're not quite right about this right so did say but he was very cagey very cagey because when I asked him and so what denomination you belong to he'd say I'm a mere Christian and for about two years he would not an own up to being Catholic he would just say I'm a mere Christian he told me later he said he did that because he didn't want to be completely shut off right from the beginning as if I heard Catholic I'd say that's it yeah yeah which is trickin yeah yeah it's true Christopher let's pause there okay it's time for a little break it is interesting that that sometimes an evangelization you have to recognize that in least in this country some people have a a down deep anti-catholicism that's there that it was shut right off if you go there so your your mentor was was being gentle with that so you can continue the dialogue was pick on that when we come back and pick up on that when we come back in a moment because the presenters our guests will come back to a story in just a moment [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest is Christopher Zender and I've interrupted you you were talking about philosophy right right you know the whole notion that somehow philosophy is a dangerous thing and it obviously can be a very dangerous thing however one thing Kevin long said to me was I've ever bring it up the whole thing about philosophy cuz you know Paul says do not be led astray by feign philosophy remember Kevin just said well if there's vain philosophy there must be philosophy that's not vain you know I guess that might follow and so perhaps there is a philosophy which is you know one can actually embrace and it's a weird thing to think I mean why is philosophy vain in history is not vain why it's philosophy vain Natural Sciences in vain yeah you know why it's passi been and i don't know any any discipline is not but there's this sense at least not so much for the Lutheran's I don't history the Lutheran Lutheran's but it's true of many of angelical that philosophy is a very dangerous thing and that like I said that influenced me but when Kevin said I still remember that day I think I might be thinking it I felt kind of liberated because he was interesting me I was getting interested in all this all this discussion we were having and I felt kind of a guilty pleasure in it like the time when I felt when I first read the Lord of the Rings when I was an evangelical that was I was worried because there were magicians and you know there was magic and I thought this is something demonic but I took a great pleasure but in the guilty pleasures I began to feel this at first of all this guilty pleasure out philosophy but that treat said that I began to think maybe maybe it's not so bad after all and so that was my sophomore year in high school he was my Latin teacher and we would after class we would we would discuss things and I remember once going to this I made a real impression on me we went to some went to a wedding some friends of ours being married in Our Lady the Assumption Church in Claremont California I think it was probably my first time at a Catholic Mass and I don't think it was I don't really remember much about the mass I don't think it was probably a very high mass and the music wasn't for grain the sword but I remember sitting in the church and the the behind the altar was a when you call it in a drapery with live Our Lady on it oh they do go out a lupe and looking at the stained glass windows and all of a sudden it just head into my mind and I thought what if it's all true that's like oh why would I be thinking that I mean I I didn't know Kevin was a Catholic and I have my mother far as I knew Catholics were all just you know ignorant people that believes who weird superstitions but it just hit really can't mean end it was it wasn't just a passing thought it was something it just influenced me right down to the core of my being and I thought no no I said they don't read the Bible how could they be the true church so I just dismissed it but it stuck with me I remember afterwards talking to Kevin about that whole experience so I know it was something really influenced me and we were talking I think it was talking about the devotion of the Virgin Mary and the various things and a kind of detached mere Christian sort of way it's not to not to let on where he was I did try to catch him once he came to school what's with with all this my last mother said ah you're Catholic he says well I could be Swedish Lutheran you in admit to that but you know I was having that influence and it's still like my brother was an influence for me like I said I was going the Assemblies of God Church at one point my brother had PQ I don't know if it's that year a camera of exact of the years but he became a minister in place called Mount Baldy California which is a mountain community in the San Antonio Canyon right above where we lived a little called Mountain Valley Community Church and he I would go up there and I was really moved by going up there and part of my brother was the pastor but the people I met they were not only serious Christians but they were people who were just some others interesting people kind of yeah it was one fellow kind of a he had so the hippie habits he the organic gardening and that's sort of thing along here and we he and I used to most my friends always been older than I was so we would talk about all sorts of organic gardening we talked but he wasn't he was he was an environmentalist we talked about the environment all these different things and it was you know I really enjoyed good going up there and it was through that influence that my brother actually I I don't know if he was the one who convinced me to do this but I thought I should do it as I thought I should be baptized I was baptized as an infant in the Lutheran Church but I didn't believe and that sort of thing anymore I thought baptism is something that followed faith so I was baptized at Huntington Beach by my brother in the ocean I was baptized a second time I guess it was objectively a sacrilege but you know I didn't know but we you know so that that was other things so I have these contradictory things going on a third thing which is more on the level of nature I would say is this my brother had said when - melody - School of Theology I don't know if thought people I have never heard of it it was a school of theology what was it one of the my camera by the name of the founder but he was a prominent he was the first Bible answer man oh yeah yeah he was one at least one of the founders but it was an evangelical seminary basically and it was it was send to this place called a melody land which used to it was in theater-in-the-round literally a theater around the stage the middle and it was across the basically very near to Disneyland and it had been feared in the round for I I remember the story it was and I can't vouch for that said for some reason they kept the name melody land because they were not allowed to change it for some reason so they called it melody land school theology which I always thought was kind of odd right but I would go there my brother was going there and I remember visiting there was probably a bit earlier than - 15 but okay that's me when I was about 15 but anyway I remember going there and they had this dramatic presentation my brother was going to be in it it was something called like instruments of the Spirit or somebody probably more pithy than that but it was all these different events in the history of salvation where the Holy Spirit has led the church in to new heights so it starts back in the ancient times and it goes through it has Martin Luther of course and my brother didn't play Martin Luther he played one of the monks and you know the myth of the scholar Santa in Rome or Luther was climbing this and on his knees and he's suddenly real realized that the just shall live by faith and he stands up and proclaims his doctor from the skull of Santa which you know no there's no proof that ever ever happens Delft whatever happen and I Pro there was one of the monks ring appalled at this that wasn't all that didn't move me so much what moved me was was the they had a presentation on handle right II Messiah and and it did not so much the story of riding Messiah moved me was the music they were playing there was somebody up there on a harpsichord playing Honda well my father to back up low-key but he had been an opera singer when he was young and he had a had a very large classical music collection that nobody listened to and I didn't listen to it because you know I I was I'd gotten when I was earlier on II like John Denver and then I got a country-western and I got into Christian rock music all that sort of thing so I never listened any of that stuff is boring like the Lutheran Service just boring so I heard it I thought this is pretty good this is pretty good stuff so I went home and I began I'm father record LPS of the of the Messiah I listened to that and I began to listen to all the other ones and then I became III just threw everything aside I got rid of rot and I didn't want to listen to rock and roll anymore country-western nothing I only one duelist in Alaska music I became a real snob but I think it was important because what it was it was it was directing my tastes to higher things to better things yeah so it was moldy I think how God works through the natural order sometimes he you know that you can become just a mere snob by last thing like in costume use again and classical people in classical music field are not necessarily much moral of people themselves but it can be an introduction to beaut beauty as an introduction through Beauty become we long for something higher it's it's it's an icon you rate the music architecture painting they're all icons of God ultimately if and if and if properly properly guided that love of beauty can lead you to higher things and I and I was I was being properly guided in many ways by well kept among those are the big influences and kiba course was also classical music snobs so and in polish and then Assistant Minister I wanna mention his name but he was also he put he he had built his own clavichord he played classical music he was he was and so I began to be drawn into this sort of thing and so I think that what it was in this was influenced me away from evangelicalism because I'd go to the Assembly of God they would just be good you know you have to work in the piano and the guitars and sometimes just have concerts and I thought this was grating on me it was really grating on me so I and I began to think listen this can't be the genuine Church of Christ this didn't seem genuine did it I didn't find the Jesus freaks there I found kind of a miss more upbeat Lutheranism so my love of history began to influence me and I'd be kind of it well maybe I need to look at something older some older style of church I wasn't ready to think about the Lutheran's yet because they were just wrong about sacraments there was nearby where I lived there was a church called the brother in Christ and they were descended from the Anabaptists what but when I was going when I started going there the women still were Amish style head coverings and so I saw this church and I thought well this they have a more traditional kind of worship and it's it's an older church maybe I'll start going there so I started going there as well thinking maybe I'll find what I'm looking for there and after a while I I remember going to meet them of the minister because I wanted to find out I wondered I want to see what they believed before I say gave me a little booklet of the confessions of their church so I American sitting down with him discussing to say well you know I can see that there's some things that I don't quite agree with and he I guess he was sort of freaked out by it too was this 15 year old kid telling me what I should think but I start going there for a while but after why I didn't find it there as well and that led me ultimately but I could I could drive I began to go up to Mount Baldy Community Church my brother was and I thought I found it there for a while because there was a kind of a genuine fellowship as a small church family like and so in terms of that I began to see that there was something really genuine there but at the same time like I said I have Kevin Long's my yeah but it comes my end of my sophomore year and they didn't offer to offer third year Latin in my high school but I wanted to take third year Latin and so Kevin said he would come in on his free time and teach me Latin I had a had a you know period off and so I've got how many days a week it was but he would come in and do Latin with me well what he began to do was pretty cagey as well he thought I might want to translate some medieval Latin so he brought in the first question of the Summa Theologica and we translated it from the Latin and our Latin classes became more than just Latin classes they became they became philosophy and theology classes we began to discuss all sorts of things about but this mere Christian about all tending towards the Catholic faith so I was and I'm at the same time I don't know well who introduced this book to me it might have been the assistant pastor I don't think was Kevin I began reading the City of God I met the city of st. Augustine's Confessions oh well and I was reading this I was reading about the church he was talking about I said I want this church where is this church it's it's obviously it's not the Assemblies of God it's not the burthen in Christ it's it's not my brother's Church you know how commendable everybody was there a part of it was you know liturgical I I was beginning to develop a desire for liturgy and it wasn't at my body I'm about a church I was desired I was developing desire for order and I like that kind of order the kind of order that I saw in history historical church because I'd also read you xavius's history of the church when I was a teenager I began to long for as well and so I began to think maybe the Lutheran Church isn't so bad after all in other words I'm it's what I was looking for and I didn't know it was the Catholic Church that had church that st. Augustine was talking about was the Catholic Church and I didn't know it the closest thing I could come to at the time was a Lutheran Church so I went to the system pastor and I talk about you know can I be confirmed the Lutheran Church and of course he was quite happy by the whole business and I can't remember I took any instruction I don't remember all the details of that but ultimately I became a Lutheran again Kevin used to say jokingly say I converted him to Lutheranism and the Lutheran's conversion to Catholicism which is in some ways it's true but so I entered a little in church and I'm probably probably the end of my my junior year in high school I can't let me see back in Lutheran Church and then I you know came to my senior the decision what am I going to do for my future but I was tending to think maybe I want to be a Lutheran minister you know become a minister and I was thinking first I'd like to become be ordained Lutheran Church and go teach and university but the assistant pastor gave me this book I remember was a it was a book of written by Swedish Lutheran he was about a Swedish Lutheran pastor and and his his trials with congregation II and he gave this is the pastor via the street to influence me towards congregational work cuz he thought that was very important and he told me it says what he's it's fascinating being in a congregation because you get all for the first three century heresies in a particular Luther congregation so I was thinking about that Kevin I finally figured out what he was and he would after I took German my senior year but he would invite me over to his house he and his wife would help me over Kevin and Martha long and they helped me over to the house for general Martha was always a very good cook and then Kevin and I would go yeah he had a study and we go and discuss things and I remember one time in particular since I my senior year we got into an argument about purgatory and um and I and I was gonna prove to him that purgatory was contrary to Scripture well he presented me such arguments that showed me that purgatory wasn't contrary to Scripture in fact if you make any sense that a soul that has sin staying the sin would go into the next life in the presence of God with his stainless in the see some purification and I thought yeah there has to be some purification and so I began to be a little thern who believed in purgatory lastly just a pastor bottom we wanted to breakfast somewhere and I said is there any way Luther can hold to purgatory he says well I think you probably could as long as it had nothing that works righteousness today so we had so that's the kind of I you know Kevin was influencing more and more to the Catholic faith the art to the Catholic world the kids through the Catholic world were also influencing me as well at that point so what finally happened is that Kevin in Tennessee I should go visit Thomas quince called you thought I'd be a good student there so I went with my father there which was a very strange experience my father I left money knew where he was going right into a Catholic you know he would go oh yeah he knew that and he um but I remember we were and one of the dormitories used to have devotions Sacred Heart and the guy who was my unofficial guide was an Anglican there he was an Anglican student so he said I said what's going on here he said oh it's just some rubbish nonsense let's go up this way my poor father though I abandoned there in the middle of all these Catholics playing and praying you know the Sacred Heart devotion and we went to Mass there they had a lot had the new right in the mountain and I remember thinking this is not a whole lot different than Lutheran service what's the big deal but you know so I I was really I was intrigued by the place I met the students and I thought this is the kind of place I want to go but my I had this deep-seated fear that if I went to a Catholic if I went to a Catholic school I'd be forced to become a Catholic they were just dragging in so I ended up not going there I went to Christ colleges nothing quarter unit particle quarter University in Irvine California to enter the pre seminary program well that's what everything came to a head because I was I was thinking about a number two four things I had getting discuss with my brother who I had come of course through the sacraments being a Lutheran my brother didn't believe in stock once we get in discussions our family was very we had a lot of vibrant theological fights in our family but you kept us together kept us close it's a we get these and I remember what that caught the most significant pyramid since one Christmas it was the Christmas of 1982 and my brother and I had this disagreement over in the baptism and I went to bed that night while I lay in bed time was at 2:00 in the morning worried that I was wrong and I thought how do I know that he's wrong and I'm right and st. Paul's it says if even an angel from heaven should preach to another gospel let him be accursed I didn't want to be a cursed and so I was I was filled with this fear that I'd be accursed well the next morning I woke up and I just happened have it with me this this photo coffee thing called Lutheran's and Catholics and dialog that Kevin long and given me and I began reading it and I read the Catholic position and I thought this makes a whole lot of sense you know a church Authority that there's an interpreter there's the church is an interpreter of what's in Scripture and I never say to my mother I have to reunited mother I'm afraid angrily become a Catholic so I went back to I went back to the school thinking very seriously I was gonna become a Catholic and it came kind of a notoriety because as a newer thinking becoming a Catholic was something even the history of the family and everything I'm actually more on yeah and I remember I had a philosophy professor at the time and he I thought he's gone I want somebody to prove me wrong so I thought I'd go to him and he would prove me wrong and we had he taken out to lunch we'd have these sessions together we discuss he gave me things to read and then we get together and we talk about it at the end of our session he ended the passenger and just on his own initiative he said I see which direction you're going he said let me tell you something that story since when I was so several years ago we were and we were in Rome my wife and I and I was in st. Peters and I knelt down before the high altar and he said I could hear all the angels and saints calling me to become Catholic and I felt really moved to do so he said but then I remembered I was Lutheran minister that I had a family children and I couldn't do it and he just looked at me and he said nothing more I was like that would the sessions were ended the next fellow I wrote up for English paper I wrote an apostolic succession and so this one professor comes to my room at Asus so I hear you're just an apostolic succession said yes he says why don't we have a set some sessions on that we could discuss and you get a credit I said okay it's fine so we had these sessions they were a rancorous he would give me this thing of it was a list of patristic store quotations that proves sola scriptura so i went to the library had a good library and I looked through you know the church fathers I found it that's a bunch of other quotations about the church and I said well as I see it these these descriptions Authority but always in light if the church is being authority within the church and he said I remember I'm saying well it's really not so important but the father's say now is it so we read the book of Galatians and it had the same thing I came up with an interpretation and I remember at the end of the thing he said me well I can see what path you're taking and it will actually makes sense but spiritually I don't know it's a good intellectual path but not a good spiritual path how does this make any sense so and I said to be kind of a parting job about studying there go around like I said thank you professor so and so I said him and oh I'll pray a decade for you he gave me this look like if you were to kill me but the final photo was of my father asked this guy to talk to talk to and he talked to me and there's a friend of my father and he and his whole but Peter was well you probably become a priest you become Catholic oh I don't know how good you'll become a priest look at the benefits you'll have being a Lutheran minister as opposed to being a Catholic priest you can get married you you could choose what congregation is certain I was 18 years old I don't care about this truth I care about don't you see but it's like you just give me all these practical arguments for it and I thought at that point if that's all they can do that's it and so what I did is I was I was a minute to Thomas Aquinas College next term that's where I became Catholic I was received in December of 1983 but it was it was a very hard time for me because I was filled with terror that I was doing the wrong thing it was it was a very I was one of those difficult times I think in my life I just take long walks and I would try to think of arguments against my positions and I would figure counter arguments it was very you know it's a very intense period so when I was here you see it was like it was a different world and I was you know I was also received the church they're kind of the party through my father always think it's the funniest story is that he picked me up after I was received at the church because I had told him by the year before that I was going to Catholic yeah you see he picks me up and he says son I'm disappointed in you why I said he said you told me wait a year before he became a Catholic I said yeah dad I that was a year ago well he said he said it's bad enough he became Catholic but if you become a priest your grandmother will turn over in her grave it's funny though cos after that he he would help them find parish to go to another area and like you but like after even after I was married we got my wife I manatees you got married in 87 even after he was we were married he he would tell Catholic jokes and things like that well it's actually no it's not that for Mary but right before then he went to our wedding and he saw me praying with my friend of mine and he said to me everybody's my father's 65th birthday party and he said you know I want you to know he says I saw you praying with your best man before the wedding I said I realize your religion is genuine he says I'll never insult it again he did talk to you and okay you said Catholic jokes but I know this but that would some so you got into the Catholic Church and you know the the verse that you mentioned about the the the the fear of being pulled away by a false gospel interesting thing about that from your background is with all these different directions again how do you know which one so that you're drawn back to where's a trustworthy source the church that are learned established it has to be the church because this is Jesus became man he was incarnate and why because were human beings and we need something physical we need the body is important I at the root of a lot of Lutheranism elation initially with luther is a kind of Gnostic agnosticism Manichaean as a man anti the on the sense that the flesh is evil you find that I think of a lot of Protestantism one of the revelations to me when I became a Catholic was they kissed bones and I thought this was it wonderful I'm gonna tell you my mother they kiss bones I think she thought this is really strange why are you getting excited but that's what this physicality it was the physical world can be redeemed and the church we need the church because we're human beings if there's no church that's what I think and if there's no church if the Catholic Church is wrong I'd be I'm just gonna leave Christianity behind like you have a lot more fun other places and this is I don't want anything to do it because it makes no sense even your friend is marek Christianity if there is no trustworthy Church then that mere christianity whittles down to nothing right which one do you hold on to I think that's when the Luas suffers Friday in this book you has the the mansion within several different rooms well it doesn't work because they're saying contrary things and who do you know has the truth I don't have to say I think a lot of partisans have come to this point the truth is not important except in a very few doctrines it doesn't matter whether you believe in if it baptism not does it matter what you believe about the virgin birth what it matters is is these essentials but who determines that who decides that you know and if without the church without that I you know st. Paul's calls the church the fullness the fullness of Christ and that's because Christ is in a sense incomplete without the church not because you think complain himself but because in order to incarnate the whole of creation he needs this body and he needs because he created he created to be that and and he tells us without apart from him we can do nothing right well how do we get connected with him through his church you know through the sacraments Christopher let's say the audience wants to connect with your writings wizard you have a website or abridging the catholic textbook project catholic textbook project calm and if i may mention it from a place shameless I've written and now I'm writing cities and novels on the Reformation the first one is called a song for Elsa Els II he could be found on Amazon obviously with my name Christopher John Xander I'm going to be published in the second part of which actually goes to we call the heroic years of the Reformation from 1517 roughly 15 15 to 15 25 well thank you for your e christopher awesome to every ran out of time I'd like to ask a few more questions from him buddy no doubt to apologize thank you for enduring and and thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I do pray that Christopher's journey is an encouragement to you complex my friends see you next week [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 9,286

Rating: 4.807229 out of 5

Keywords: JHT, JHT01587

Id: iauEKTlDsaE

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 10 2017