Posted on 07/26/2013 2:04:17 PM PDT by NYer
Sunday, June 21, marked the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial decision. The questions surrounding evolution—meaning, in particular, the origins of humans—still raise large and important questions for how we understand human nature and the doctrine of original sin. But Jason Stellman thinks that the obsession with our physical origins, though understandable, is perhaps theologically off-kilter. Where we've come from biologically is not as important as where we're heading. It's not the beginning of the journey, man—it's the destination. Stellman's The Destiny of the Species (Wipf and Stock, 2013) is a brief, rollicking, and readable apologetic, notable not just for turning the question of origins on its head, but also for pioneering a slightly different route from the path taken by many Catholic converts in their first books.
From Prosecutor to Papist Stellman's own personal story is compelling. Born and raised in Orange County, California, Stellman came to serious faith in the context of the Evangelicalism of the California preacher Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel ministries. He served as a Protestant missionary in both Hungary and Uganda before turning to a more theologically rigorous form of Protestantism: Calvinism. Stellman attended Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California and began ministering in the Presbyterian Church in America, the largest conservative Presbyterian denomination in the U.S., planting Exile Presbyterian Church in Woodinville, WA in 2004. Stellman's name came into the limelight when he was chosen to serve as the chief prosecutor in the 2011 heresy trial of fellow Presbyterian minister Peter Leithart, a Calvinist writer and scholar known to readers of journals including First Things and Touchstone. Leithart's views were accused of being in line with a school of Presbyterian thought known as the “Federal Vision,” and he was tried for, among other charges, allegedly failing to distinguish justification and sanctification, divine law and divine grace, and teaching that baptism confers grace and divine adoption. In short, Leithart was on trial for being too Catholic.
Although Stellman's work as prosecutor was acknowledged as solid at the time, Leithart was acquitted by the Northwest Presbytery. In the time after this trial, however, Stellman himself began to question certain historic Protestant beliefs like sola scriptura and sola fide. Through a number of contacts, including the group of formerly Calvinist Catholic apologists centered around the “Called to Communion” (calledtocommunion.com) website, which was founded to foster dialogue with and provide apologetics precisely for Calvinists who suspected the Catholic Church of being right or at least having something to say, Stellman began the journey that ended with his own entrance into the Church on September 23, 2012. Over the last year Stellman has been doing catechesis in a Seattle-area parish, and he now works at Logos Bible Software, developing resource material that will provide an easy way to look at the Scriptures in the light of Patristic and Medieval sources as well as the teachings of the Magisterium.
Apologetics for Everyone Much of Catholic apologetics in English-speaking countries, and increasingly in Latin America, has focused on the differences between Catholics and Protestants. This is not surprising given that large swaths of Evangelical Protestants were baptized as Catholics and left the Church due to the catechetical and spiritual failures of post-conciliar American Catholicism. Sherry Wedell of the Catherine of Siena Institute has written extensively of this phenomenon, which continues to this day—many Catholics who hunger for solid biblical teaching and help in living a life of Christian discipleship seek out elsewhere what they should find in Catholic faith. They find it in the Protestant world where large parts of the Catholic faith have been conserved, especially devotion to Scripture, a serious search for divine intimacy, and the main outlines of Christian morality. Thus Catholic apologetics has been naturally geared toward showing lapsed Catholics and the Protestants they have joined that Catholic faith actually fulfills what they are looking for in a more coherent and comprehensive way. This is an important task—and the importance of it has born great fruit over the last thirty years, not only bringing many serious Protestant pastors, academics, and laity into full communion, but changing the dynamic of Catholic-Protestant relations. During the last two papal conclaves, I have been asked a number of times by Evangelical Protestants about the candidates and what they have to offer. In 2005 one Evangelical Presbyterian friend asked me, “Are we going to get a really good Pope?” I was tempted to answer after the fashion of Tonto when the Lone Ranger asked what chance there was of the duo escaping a wrathful Indian tribe: “Who is this 'we,' white man?” But I didn't, because such a recognition shows how much anti-Catholicism has been tamed in the age of John Paul II, Catholic Answers, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, and all the other efforts of apologetics and dialogue.
Stellman certainly has done his part in explaining his own move, writing an essay titled “I Fought the Church, and the Church Won” and giving an in-depth interview on “Called to Communion” as well as engaging in various interesting questions about the real differences between Catholics and Calvinists on his personal blog, “Creed Code Cult”. But refreshingly, Stellman's Destiny of the Species is actually not geared toward Protestants interested in or annoyed by Mary, the Pope, Purgatory, and Indulgences. It is an apologetic for Christianity as a whole after the fashion of Chesterton's Orthodoxy or Lewis's Mere Christianity, geared toward those who might be “spiritual but not religious,” “nones,” lapsed Catholics who have left Christian faith behind altogether or are already practicing some other sort of faith, and Christians of all sorts, whether Catholic or not. What he has produced is an old-fashioned apologetic for everyone.
Back to the Future Stellman's book, written around the time of the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of the Species, arrived not only in time for the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial, but also Pope Francis's first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, with which it bears some striking similarities. Destiny of the Species begins with the premise that while our biological origins are of interest to us, Darwin ultimately “doesn't scratch where we truly itch.” We certainly eat, drink, defecate, breathe, and move in ways that remind us we are animals. But unlike other animals, whose existence is instinctual, man “is not pushed but pulled, not driven but drawn.” Your dog may appreciate a good nap, a beef, and a burgundy, but we have desires for glory, love, and life that has no end. We are, says Stellman, “hard-wired for heaven.” All of the frantic search for someplace else and something new that Tocqueville found in so pure a form in America (and that more recent writers like David Brooks and Wendell Berry have wryly observed or excoriated) is the sign not simply of biological urge, but spiritual need. Stellman uses Chesterton's fine phrase to describe it: divine discontent. We all hunger for a future that is more than we can experience now.
Like Lumen Fidei, Stellman is proposing that human discontent and restlessness should be answered not by quelling them, but by seeking answers to them. Francis answers Nietzsche's dictum that “if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek,” noting that “autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future”. Stellman observes that for the vast bulk of people, the way to apparent peace and happiness is not belief, but “worldliness”—simply following our biological needs and various emotional passions for things, fame, revenge, and pharmacologically-induced good feelings. The way of belief, according to Stellman, is actually the path to truth and the only way to real peace and happiness. The rest of his book is dedicated to illuminating the truth that, as Pope Francis puts it, “the light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence.” It is “a light coming from the future and opening before us vast horizons which guide us beyond our isolated selves towards the breadth of communion.”
The seeker with a pure heart will not choose between belief and truth, but between competing beliefs. Again, like Pope Francis, Stellman emphasizes that our choice is really between true belief and idolatry. Stellman's middle chapters survey the various false gods that humans encounter, offering treatments of the five vanities surveyed in the book of Ecclesiastes, the temptations of a technologically advanced and affluent society, and how the universal acknowledgment of sin's reality usually issues in our identification of it in someone else's life. We all love to confess others' sins while staying silent about our own. Stellman's treatment is generally good in this section, though it must be said that his treatment of the dangers of life in a consumer society tend toward a sort of stereotyped vision of business and markets that might have been better left out or at least balanced by a recognition of the dangers of modern do-gooderism present in non-profit and government work, too. Stellman, whose views are probably left-of-center, occasionally seems as if he's making a brief against politically conservative Christians and not a brief for Christianity. Jibes at those who watch FOX News or take different views on political issues detract from what is solid and permanent in his exposition. This leads to a second difficulty in the book. Stellman uses a variety of pop-culture references to make his points. Many of them, such as his use of The Matrix to illuminate the choice we have to make between simply distracting ourselves and offering ourselves to seek the truth, hit home. Not all of them do. Rock music fans, especially U2 fans, sometimes need to be reminded that song lyrics seldom stand well on their own.
Stellman really excels when he is bringing out the great riches present in Scripture. Again, mirroring Lumen Fidei, Stellman shows how the Decalogue is meant not simply as a veto on naughty human actions, but as a liberation of humans from the passions and idolatries he's been describing and toward a life of spiritual abundance. (I would complain that he describes the Commandments using the Protestant rather than the Catholic numbering, but my own contribution to ecumenical outreach is to say let's do it the way Protestants and Jews do.) Using Job, Stellman shows how the real objection to God's existence, the problem of evil, is met by God's presence, ultimately in the form of Jesus Christ, whose Resurrection and Ascension show us, in a limited way, what we will be. Stellman's final pop-culture flourish is to use the movie Memento, which tells its story alternating between scenes starting in the beginning and moving forward and the end moving backward, as an analogy to the way in which the light of faith works. We know the destiny of the species is assured, but the light of faith, while illuminating all of life, doesn't usually show us more than we need for our own personal immediate steps ahead. “One step enough for me,” in Newman's famous words. Stellman's vision of Christianity answers exactly to the two primary aspects of Chesterton's personal philosophy in Orthodoxy. In the light of the future prepared for us, life is both familiar and unfamiliar, marvelous and unsatisfactory. It is not merely a biological process, but a high adventure. The Destiny of the Species: Man and the Future that Pulls Him
by Jason J. Stellman
Wipf & Stock, 2013
128 pages
Ping!
My apologies for not reading anymore than the title before commenting. But it occurred to me if one thinks they may have been conceived or designed by aliens, it is bound to impact or shape their world view. Our understanding of our origins or even the impetus for the design of those origins are very important without which is no solid foundation.
BTTT
In before the Protestant anti-Catholic morons who will claim this convert really never knew his Protestant faith!
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (1John 2:19)
I’m pro-truth, not anti-Catholic. I care about Catholic people, if not I wouldn’t bother.
Lol ... just heard from one of them earlier today with the same tired list of 5 de-converts ... is that even a word? ; - )
“I’m pro-truth, not anti-Catholic.”
The Catholic faith IS the truth.
“I care about Catholic people, if not I wouldn’t bother.”
I have no reason to believe your claims.
You are so wrong, Friend, but I know only The Lord can show you that.
Want to know why I started studying your religion? Because I love my Catholic relatives. I knew we were different, but I really wanted to convince myself they were saved.
I was raised Baptist. I guess you could say that I'm at least agnostic if not atheist now.
At the tender age of 16, I was invited by my girlfriend to attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the local catholic church.
The most bizarre string of ritualistic craziness I've ever seen.
Didn't get the whole thing then, don't get it now, never will get it.
Bloody statues, parades of people in robes, people speaking ancient languages and swinging incense burners.
I got out of there as fast as I could graciously and never talked to the girl again.
Scared the crap out of me to see people I thought were normal participating.
You wrote:
“Didn’t get the whole thing then, don’t get it now, never will get it.”
I think you’re selling your intelligence short. Ask a question. Someone here will get the answer for you. Was Jesus’ Judaism not stepped in “ritualistic craziness” as ordained by God? Ever read the Old Testament where YHWH actually ordered all that BLOODY craziness like the sacrifices? And you’re going on about a few bloody statues. My God, the Son of God, died on a cross. That was bloody. And beautiful.
“Bloody statues, parades of people in robes, people speaking ancient languages and swinging incense burners.”
Sounds awesome! I’m partial to the Romans and Russians myself: look here in the middle of the video. The music is beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdkBFwulcI8
“I got out of there as fast as I could graciously and never talked to the girl again.”
Clearly she was better off if that was how you would treat her just because you didn’t understand the Mass.
“Scared the crap out of me to see people I thought were normal participating.”
Then you must think very little of Christ because of His circumcision, sacrifices at the Temple, paying Temple taxes, kosher diet, etc. Did you ever think that maybe you’re just a small mind and person and maybe God and Christianity were bigger than you? Did you ever think that maybe you should grow as a person to be more rather than simply abandon faith altogether.
Christ changed everything. What have you done lately that merits any note?
When was the last time you even tried to pray? Maybe you just need to realize what you aren’t. You aren’t God. But He loves you and is even now waiting for you. Will you respond? Or will you run away from him like you did your girlfriend when you were 16?
Magnificent
Excellent reply, Vlad!
Excellent post.
You’re better than me who has no patience with these rabid snake handlers, Bible thumpers, Harold Campings, Paul Crouches, Jim Joneses, the Bakkers, don’t forget the second ‘k’, Billy Grahams, who claim they saw freedom of religion in the Soviet Union, all those parents who will rather see their child die than to give him an aspirin, the 7th Day Witnesses knocking on our doors day in, day out, did I miss anyone? Oh yes, I missed the 30,000+ different hateful heresies.
You are aware that shortly after Jesus was born, two turtle doves were killed right? You are aware that prior to dying, Jesus was tied to a post, whipped and beaten. He was then paraded around, with a crown of thorns on His head and mocked. Someone took a reed and beat Him around the head (while He was wearing a crown of thorns). Then after being beaten and humiliated, He was made to carry a large and heavy wooden cross up a hill (both ways in the snow). Finally He was nailed to a cross; the nails went through His wrists and feet. A soldier proceeded to drive a spear into His heart to make sure He died by nightfall.
While He was being crucified, His mother, the Virgin Mary, watched as her only son was killed for the sins of all mankind, including yours and mine.
I am not sure what the objection to ancient languages and incense burners are.
To understand it, start with God sending his only son to die so that our sins may be forgiven.
I had an addiction to pornography and masturbation that I tried for years to end. Praying never worked; fasting never worked. Then one day I decided to search for a Catholic solution to my addiction to porn. I found a page talking about praying to Rosary. After the first time I prayed the Rosary, I have had no desire to watch porn and have had negative reaction to songs that talk about having sex. Some friends tried to get me to watch Game of Thrones; I only watched the first episode (actually I only stayed past the first incest scene as I was unsure of how to get out of it politely).
My addition to masturbation took longer to get rid of, sometimes I would forget to say the Rosary for a few days and would relapse. Eventually I found a set of Catholic prayers called the Divine Office. Included are ones to say just before going to bed; these finish with a prayer to Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and Queen of Heaven and Earth. I have not had the temptation to masturbate at night or in the morning since starting these prayers.
However, I still had a problem with impure thoughts during the middle of the day. Saying three Hail Marys; one for Faith, one for Hope, and one for Charity; keeps these thoughts away for about half an hour.
If this were the work of the Devil, why would he give up one of his most powerful weapons against us?
The Scopes trial was in 1925. The 90th anniversary (or, as it will inevitably be called by illiterates, “the 90-year anniversary”) will be in 2015.
BTTT!
You just made it! Congrats! LOL!
What a powerful story. Blessings to you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.