An open letter to Andrew

Hey Andrew,

I've been reading your blog Theology of Andrew for a while now and something has been bugging me. I guess the question that keeps popping into my head is "Are you really serious?"

Here is what I mean. In response to one of your recent posts, Fred asked you some personal (and I thought pretty profound) questions:

Andrew - here's a contemporary document for you: how did the disciples meet Jesus? Is the same method possible today? Do you want to know about someone or to know someone?

In your answer, however, you immediately switch over to a question about the authority of the Catholic church:

I would love to meet Jesus, but how do I know that the Jesus taught by the Catholic Church is the true Jesus. 

And that response of yours  helped me clarify a vague concern I've been having about what you have been posting for a while now. You present yourself as a person who has converted to Catholicism but is now having doubts if not going through a personal crisis about his faith. At the same time, however, the concerns you write about always seem to get expressed in terms of classic Protestant critiques of Catholicism or in terms of classic apologetic arguments in response to Protestantism.

And when Fred asks a direct personal question about what you want, what you are seeking, you immediately change the subject to something that sounds like it comes not from your heart but from a pamphlet.

This got me intrigued enough to click on your profile and there I saw that you have two other blogs and one of them has a post from March 29 titled Where Philosophy Gets Fun. And that post includes lines like these:

My favourite philosophy is philosophical theology or religious philosophy. I find it much more intriguing learning about Islam and different Mystic views and then analyzing them by the light of reason, than hacking it out with a 20-something ex-Baptist who is angry at everyone, and thinks Richard Dawkins is the messiah. That's not real philosophy. It's like my fellow Brock students who think they're Buddhists, but don't actually believe that the Dalai Lama is an incarnation of God, don't believe in Karma, and believe in the self, etc.

Comparative religious study is fun. It's like that line in Hamlet "there's more in Heaven and on earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy".

[snip]

Living is the thrill of the realist philosopher because life is where the theories of philosophy encounter the testing ground.  

And I ask myself, is Theology of Andrew really about deep personal questions of yours or are you just having fun posting a bunch of classic positions from Catholic-Protestant debates to see how it all plays out? Is this a personal struggle I am reading or just the testing ground for a lot of ideas? You have told your readers that this is really about a personal struggle.

Which brings me back to Fred's trio of very good questions:

1. How did the disciples meet Jesus? 
2. Is the same method possible today? 
3. Do you want to know about someone or to know someone?

We've just passed Pentecost, when Jesus told us that he would ask his Father to send us an Advocate. Do you want Jesus in your life? Never mind apostolicity, tradition, magisterium and the rest of the alphabet soup, Jesus has promised you that the Holy Spirit is available to you.

There is a point where you either believe in Jesus or you don't. I have an orange in my hand. I can feel it. I can smell it. I can taste and see its goodness. It would be foolish to ask epistemological questions about how I know that orange is real. Do you want the same experience of Jesus through the Holy Spirit?

Here's another question, God reaches out to everyone: those capable of understanding complex philosophical arguments and those who cannot. He loves the history major and he loves the guy who just sits in the corner rocking back and forth and gurgling.  How do you suppose he makes his presence felt to a six year old child? Why is Saint Paul so adamant on telling us that God thinks little of the wisdom of this world: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,  and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”

And another, your profile lists Brideshead Revisited as one of your favourite books. You may remember that in the climatic scenes where Charles Ryder and Julia Flyte have their big fight over whether to ask the local priest to perform extreme unction for Lord Marchmain, Charles keeps asking "But what is the priest for?" His problem is that God's grace does not require any human intermediary so why not just leave Lord Marchmain alone and he either will or will not ask God to forgive his sins. It's an awfully good question . What is the priest for? Never mind the specifically Catholic priest, why any human intermediary at all? Why any church at all?

Answer this wherever you like. If you prefer to post on your own blog that is fine with me. Or answer it in your heart and don't tell anyone but yourself and God. But, whatever you do, answer personally. Don't dump out a lot of technical vocabulary and call that an answer. Where and how do you feel a need for Jesus? And then just go with that.

Regards, J.A.