Why is a Good Evangelical "Messing Around" With Catholic Stuff?

Believe me, it wasn't something I had planned on doing!

But today, I hardly give it a second thought. And . . . sometimes I just forget where a lot of evangelicals and other conservative Christians are on the issue of Roman Catholics.

I want to give a qualifier right up front.

When it comes to theology, I am strongly in the mainstream evangelical world, nuanced by both Reformed theology, the charismatic movement and some postmodern musings. When it comes to Roman Catholic theology, I agree with them where they affirm the historic creeds that all Christians have affirmed... and I part with them when it comes to specific Catholic doctrines, like the infallibility of the Pope, praying to the saints, praying to Mary, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, or Mary as co-Redemptrix with Christ. On these and many other doctrines particular to Roman Catholicism, I part ways.

I am also a pastor on staff of a church that has large numbers of "former" Roman Catholics in attendance. (I had the same situation when I was a senior pastor in upstate New York.) I have heard endless stories from these individuals that they found their faith experience severely lacking in their Roman Catholic upbringing, and they found a real and personal relationship with Christ at our church. So I definitely understand that how evangelicals have understood the process of conversion is quite different from the way many people do (or do not) experience it in Roman Catholicism.

I am a Protestant. I am an evangelical. I am a Reformed, postmodern evangelical. I resonate with the Generous Orthodoxy described by Brian McLaren. I am shaped by Calvin, Luther and Wesley. I have learned from Jonathan Edwards and Helmet Thielicke, Millard Erickson and Thomas Oden, Bruce Demarest and Peer Kreeft, charismatics and neo-Calvinists . . . LIke I said, it is a generously wide Orthodoxy in which I live.

And it has room for learning from Roman Catholicism as well as Eastern Orthodoxy (of which I am much less informed).

Here is what I found in the contemplative, Catholic stream of spirituality.

• I found they were further ahead than my Protestant, evangelical tradition.
• I found traditions that had worked very hard at developing methodologies of formation and encounter.
• I found a warm, relational, usually Christ centered spirituality.
• I found ways and approaches that I had not found in my evangelical or Reformed upbringings.
• We evangelicals were better at discussing theology than in practicing spirituality. We were more interested in guidelines, principles and rules for practical Christian living than in spiritual formation of our inner world out of which a new kind of living could flow.

So what I did was borrow the methodologies of spirituality and join them with my evangelical theology. And in doing so, I found a way to encounter God in deeply relational, transformative ways.

I have been influenced by theBenedictines and the Rule of St. Benedict. I appreciate and constantly use a version of Lectio Divina that Benedict (while he did not invent) developed and used in the monasteries he founded. I use his idea of a "regula" to shape my spiritual practices.

I have been influenced by theFranciscans and the simplicity of the "gospel witness" of St. Francisand his friars. (Francis is pictured above on the right, in the brown robe).

But I have been MOST influenced by the Jesuits and the Ignatian tradition of spirituality developed by St. Ignatius and set forth in his Spiritual Exercises.

In addition to the spiritual formation methodology of Ignatius, I am also impressed with the leadership development that was woven into the formation of Jesuit lives.

And, I am similarly impressed with the incredible missional energy of the Company of Friends (or) Society of Jesus, as they are known.

Leadership --- Spirituality --- Mission

In the Jesuits, they come together in a synergistic combination that intrigues me and which is my calling, namely, to equip missional followers of Christ for leadership and spirituality that bears much fruit that lasts.

So, this is why I am an Evangelical on the Ignatian Way and walking the Ignatian Road (see note at the bottom).

Next week, I will take some time to describe the nature and the purpose of the Spiritual Exercises. After you read that, I think you'll understand, even more, why I am drawn to them.

Brian Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com