Interesting conversion-within-a-conversion story by Jeff Childers:
Most compelling to me, the prophets foretold a Church that would never cease to teach to truth -- a Church that would, by the grace of God, always be right. Said God through the prophet Isaiah: "My Spirit that is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children's children, says the LORD, from now on and forever." Learning from the Christian Fathers that the early Church was Catholic, and from the Hebrew prophets that the Church was to remain faithful - indefectible - from her Messianic foundation until the culmination of history...I was received into full communion with the Catholic Church on Holy Saturday, 1998...Update: a felix typo was corrected *grin*. That ol' Tom don't miss a trick.
My faith had always been primarily an assent of will -- an acknowledgement that what the Bible or the Church proclaims as true is, in fact, true. This is, of course, an important and necessary aspect of the Christian life. For me, this was the essence of Christian life: to conform my opinions to objectively true reality. In other words, it was all about being right.
The denomination in which I was raised, the Church of Christ, puts a particular emphasis on the objectivity of truth. It's a "just the facts, ma'am" approach to the gospel. Emotions are downplayed as irrelevant and distracting to the pursuit of truth-a religion of the head rather than the heart.
I brought this intellectualist, dogma-centered approach to the faith with me into the Catholic Church. For me, it was not the love of God, prayer, or a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that was the center of my faith, but the simple fact of being right - of having found the truth. It would have made more sense to me to be devoted to the Sacred Brain than the Sacred Heart.
This great danger of a head-centered Christianity, especially when it is not properly balanced with a truly heart-centered life of prayer and love, is that it is a constant occasion for pride. I studied God's Word, I dealt with the difficult issues, I discovered the truth, I'm right. Just as Moses had erred grievously when he took credit for discovering the rock with life-giving water, so too did I err in taking credit for discovering the rock on whom Christ built his Church. Self-satisfaction in one's intellectual discoveries, as true and real as those discoveries are, can not long sustain someone in his life of faith.
The Angelic Doctor tells us that "in order to overcome pride, God punishes men by allowing them to fall into the sins of the flesh, which though they be less grievous are more evidently shameful." Then, humbled by our often public shame, God uses tragedies - a house fire, the death of a loved one, a serious injury, or, for someone as bullheaded as me, all three at once- to show us our need for his love. And what a great love it is!
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