I’m in the midst of reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis . . . something I can’t believe I’ve never read before. And something I’ve already been nodding along with so much it’s a wonder my head hasn’t come loose. 😉 Given that the release of The Number of Love has also triggered several emails to me about this (in an awesome way!), I wanted to take some time to address the topic of [brace yourself] our faith backgrounds and denominations. (Still with me? LOL)
If you’ve read
The Number of Love–or, frankly,
A Song Unheard–then you know that these particular characters, being Belgian in the early 1900s, are Catholic. This wasn’t something that was debatable–at the time in question, something like 98% of Belgians were Catholic. When I realized that writing accurate characters would mean writing Catholic characters, I admit to a bit of fear. NOT because I have an issue with Catholicism. But because (1) I had no idea if it would fly with my publisher and (2) I didn’t want to mess anything up.
My background: I grew up in the United Methodist Church. When I was in high school, my dad, as a certified lay speaker, filled in as a pastor to 2 churches in a 3-church charge to relieve the burden on the actual pastor assigned to them, who was having medical issues. (Yes, this is important, LOL.) I attended St. John’s College, which has no religious affiliation, but which, in reading the “Great Books of Western Civilization,” spends an entire year studying the Bible and early Christian philosophers, all the way through Luther. (Sophomore year forever, woo!! LOL)
During college, my husband and I began attending a Seventh Day Baptist church that my dad found and visited first–when he was filling in as a pastor, he preached a series on the Ten Commandments and felt a conviction about the Sabbath that soon spread to the rest of us. When we moved home after college, my family actually decided to plant an SDB church in our area, as the only Sabbath-keeping option was Adventist, which wasn’t what we were looking for. We’re still there. 😀
So, here I am. I keep the Sabbath in a division of the Baptist church. I know that makes me weird, LOL. Pretty much all of my friends from college are Catholic (some were at the start, some converted during or after college). My background is UMC. I’ve read and studied about the history of the church, the Judeo-Christian world in general, and have read many of the early church fathers’ writers.
My conclusion? C.S. Lewis had it right: Christianity has a lot of rooms in it. But they’re all in the same house–whether Catholic or Protestant, Methodist or Baptist, no matter what day we worship. It’s important to pick a room because that becomes our community. But it’s also important to remember that there’s something common at our core that is MORE IMPORTANT than any of the differences.
I absolutely love that I’ve been getting emails from Catholic readers asking me if I’m also Catholic, because my treatment of the faith of Margot and the Eltons in
The Number of Love is so authentic, so real to their own experience, and so different from what is usually portrayed in Christian fiction. The fact that I’m getting these questions means I did my job well, and that my immense respect is coming through. While I’m
not Catholic, some of dearest friends are, and their faith is not only deep and genuine, it permeates every corner of their lives–and I love that. I had one of these dear friends from college read my manuscript while it was still in edits to make sure I didn’t get anything wrong. She had a few corrections to the scenes where they’re leaving mass, to my terminology, but I’m happy to report that the faith aspect itself met with her full approval.
I also think it reflects well on my publisher that never once did they even question this part of any of my books. While I’d heard stories (in years gone by) of publishers insisting that no denominations could be mentioned, certainly no Catholicism could be shown, this wasn’t at all my experience. In fact, when I said I had changes to make that aspect more authentic, based on the advice of my Catholic friend, they were excited I’d taken that step to make sure we were portraying this accurately.
My early fears, it seems, were unfounded. And isn’t that the way of fear? It tries to convince us not to do the hard thing, the unknown thing…the
right thing. But I’m so glad I didn’t listen to it. Because I absolutely love that this book has opened up conversations about how, despite the differences, our faith rests on the SAME solid foundation–Christ. I love that I got to explore Catholicism more and have a series of amazing conversations with my friend Rhonda (who is also an amazing author–unpublished but on her way! You can check out her new website at
www.RhondaFranklinBooks.com). I love that non-Catholic readers have commented in their reviews about how the portrayal of the faith of Margot and Dot and Drake made it approachable and relatable to them.
We have differences, yes. We have to choose which room to settle in–and sometimes change rooms when we’re unsettled by something our chosen denomination has decided to do. We have to follow our conscience and find the place that makes our faith bloom and grow. But we also have to remember that we’re still in the same house. That we’re all Christian. That it’s our foundation–Christ–which matters most.
We have to remember that the unknown, the unfamiliar, the strange, the thing that makes us fear is something we should seek to understand, not something we should tear apart.
I love that I have, and hear from, readers of all sorts of backgrounds. I love that I have friends in those backgrounds too. I love that I have the opportunity to explore how faith looks through each of those lenses. And I love that one of the things my husband and I are passionate about–community and unity among and between the different rooms in God’s house–has found a voice in these stories. I honestly didn’t intend it. I was just writing the story, LOL. But then, that’s what makes it all the more fun. And, I think, all the more authentic.
What are you thoughts on the divisions between us? On ecumenism? Do you enjoy reading stories that show characters in a different side of our shared faith?
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
“What are your thoughts on the divisions between us?”
Well, you asked.
I spent the first 17 years of my life Catholic (all Italians in Monterey were Catholic). Catholic school with nuns, first communion, confirmation, stations of the cross, confession, all of it. And I was a good Catholic.
But someone shared The Gospel with me for the first time and it all clicked. Never had I heard of the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross. Never had I heard there was a decision to be made, to actually accept Christ. Never had I heard of the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit at conversion.
The life altering change it made in me meant I could never go back to the Catholic Church.
My objections:
Mary was a vessel, not part of salvation, yet there are 50 Hail Marys on a rosary to only 6 Our Fathers.
Grace is received through rituals (sacraments), not freely given.
You must comply with Catholic doctrine for salvation.
Confession to Catholics is atonement through a priest. When I quoted I Tim. 2:5 to the priest the last time I ever stepped into a confessional, the priest was dumbfounded. Literally dumbfounded.
And baptism is NECESSARY for salvation.
I cannot comply with unbiblical doctrine.
Are there Christians within the Catholic Church? Those who have professed Christ as Lord, not the Catholic Church as Lord, and have placed their faith in Christ, not the Catholic Church, are probably my brothers and sisters in Christ.
However if they are completely absorbed in heresy as I was, I see them as still needing The Gospel, and to that end I pray and work to share it with them. I do not view the Catholic Church as a Christian church, I view it as a cult. That’s harsh, but if you truly know Christ and the Bible, you would see it that way, too.
I have Catholic friends, yes, but their salvation is what concerns me and Catholicism is not the way.
Hi, Joleen! Thank you for your thoughtful reply. We’ve discussed many of these very concerns during RCIA, and our wonderful priests shake their heads and mourn the bad catechesis that sadly gave many Catholics wrong teachings in decades past. We did a class this past spring on the Eucharist, and so many who grew up in the 50s-70s in that class said over and again, “They never taught us any of this!” Which is to say: there was bad teaching, yes, but we cannot blame an entire CHURCH for what some people failed to teach correctly. Our priests speak all the time about a personal relationship with Christ, about how He did the work, and about the Holy Spirit.
As for your specific objections…Mary was a part of the salvation story in the exact way that the Ark of the Covenant was–she literally contained the Word of God. She is not God, just as the Ark was not God…but tell an Old Testament Jew that the Ark was “just a vessel” and see what happened, right? LOL. She was chosen out of all women throughout all of history…that’s pretty special. And what everyone in the ancient world knew but which we moderns forget is the role of a Queen Mother. In the societies in which the Israelites and Jesus lived, it was not the king’s wife that had sway so much as his mother. And the role of that mother was to bring petitions she approved before the king. Asking Mary to pray for you is like asking your own mother to pray for you. I’m not sure why you compare numbers of Hail Marys to Our Fathers on the rosary…when in every other prayer, like the Divine Office, the focus is absolutely on Jesus the Son and God the Father and the Holy Spirit. The rosary is ONE prayer of the church, not THE prayer, and it’s the repetition that’s meant to help us meditate on the hinge word of it: JESUS. The first part of the Hail Mary is literally quoting Scripture. The second, short part, is asking for prayer.
May I ask why you assume that grace bestowed through sacraments is not still freely given and freely received? Marriage is a sacrament–is it not still the freely made covenant of a husband and wife? As for baptism specifically, there are many verses that say, like 1 Peter 3:21 for example, that baptism now saves us. That it’s through rebirth through water and the spirit that we are saved (John 3:5). We are commanded to repent AND BE BAPTIZED, together. But Catholic teaching also makes room for the “baptism of intention” for cases like the thief on the cross–those times when we will it but literally CANNOT perform it. But in every other occasion after His resurrection, when people believe on Him, they are told to be baptized. It’s part of that work of salvation. The Bible says so over and over. So if one is relying solely on the Bible, how does one ignore those verses? In Acts, there are several occasions when a man believes, and “he and his whole household” were baptized; “whole households” would have included children who didn’t have full understanding yet…which is why there’s also Confirmation, where we confirm we intend to live out those baptismal promises as people with reason and are prepared to be sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Moreover, the Bible itself tells us to obey THE TRADITIONS WE TAUGHT YOU. Those are Paul’s words (2 Thess. 2:15). What are the traditions? Not the Bible itself, which hadn’t yet been compiled. Those traditions are the teachings that were given in person, which have been preserved in Tradition. It was against that Tradition that the different books and letters and teachings were weighed when the books of the Bible were codified. It is impossible that Catholic doctrine is in conflict with the Bible, because the Bible was literally selected to be harmonious with the doctrine. There is ALWAYS a way to “back doctrine up” with Scripture, but when one WANTS to dismiss a doctrine, one can simply say, “That’s not how I read that verse.” Okay…but it IS how Christians read that verse for 1600 years, and how many today still read it.
I also do not comply with unbiblical doctrine. But Protestantism could not exist without Catholicism. The Bible that sola scriptura advocates rely on so fully was preserved and canonized by Catholics and is in complete harmony with Tradition. To doubt the salvation of all-or-most Catholics and call the Church a cult is to say that your own foundations were built on sand. And to be quite honest–it was the post of someone with views much like the ones you expressed that sent me searching out answers in Catholicism and eventually led me there. Because when you search for the answers that are the ACTUAL teachings of the Church (not just what you may have been taught in decades past, and not just what opponents SAY they believe), you’ll find there is in fact an answer to each objection that is rooted in Biblical truth.
As for gobsmacking a priest…let us not judge an entire faith on one person, shall we? There is one mediator, Jesus Christ. And my priests would have answered that with, “Yes, thank God. And when James told us to confess one to another and Jesus himself told us that ‘the sins you forgive will be forgiven and those you retain will be retained,’ He was charging those men, the disciples, His first priests, to receive those confessions ‘one to another’ not as judgmental man, but as Christ Himself would, in persona Christi. It is not I who grant the forgiveness or the mediation, but Christ working through me.”
I can appreciate that many times when we each reach our own moment of “true belief,” let’s call it, it is in direct objection to something we’ve always been taught that confounded us. This often leads people to different churches–from one denomination to another, from Catholic to Protestant, and from Protestant to Catholic. I have a good friend who had almost your exact experience but in reverse. She’d grown up in an Evangelical denomination and found it empty and easy to ignore when she got to college. But she attended a Catholic mass with a friend and had a profound awakening that changed the course of her life forever. That “come to Jesus” moment can happen WHEREVER He is. And He is absolutely in the Catholic church–it is built upon Him. He is in other churches too, I would never say otherwise. And I think it truly grieves Him when His bride is so divided as to call each other cult-followers and unsaved. How is that not denying the working of the Holy Spirit?
Of course, no debate will ever convince anyone. 😉 But as I replied to someone else who’d emailed questions much like yours after this original post, “There are answers to your every question. That doesn’t mean you’ll accept them…and you don’t have to. But I have, and the moment I did, I knew joy from the Spirit unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life.” I could enumerate my objections to other denominations too, but instead I say, “There is one Lord. One faith. One baptism.” (Eph 4:5) Let’s focus on THAT instead of what divides us.