Just over a week ago, Dr. Michael Barber interviewed me on The Sacred Page radio show for a Catholic radio station. The interview pertained to my conversion to Catholicism and also to my research on the political roots of modern biblical criticism. Dr. Barber recently posted the podcast of the interview on the popular blog he co-authors, The Sacred Page. The podcast can be found here: http://www.thesacredpage.com/2011/09/tsp-episode-3-jeff-morrow-conversion.html

“Why Be Catholic?”

The Most Rev. Robert Carlson, now Archbishop of St. Louis, answered this question at a talk he gave at Central Michigan University in January of 2009.  His answer: “because of the Eucharist.”

Jesus is made present to us in the liturgy in many ways: through His word proclaimed; through His priests in His Sacraments; through two or three fellow believers gathered together; and most profoundly through the Sacrifice of His Body and Blood made present in the Holy Eucharist.  Yet, the Eucharistic presence surpasses the others.  Pope Paul VI said it this way: “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” (CCC 1374; Mysterium Fidei 39)

Rediscovering the Eucharist

Midway through my freshman year of college I experienced a profound conversion where I came to know Jesus as so personally present to me as to be next to me or ‘in me.’  I never knew such closeness to God before.  I came to know Christ so deeply while pursuing God in the Scriptures and asking Him to help me to believe in His Son (as I later discovered, He was pursuing me).

I was raised in a good Catholic home all my life, but I never understood that Jesus was REALLY present in the Eucharist.  I was flabbergasted when I realized that Jesus wanted to take the spiritual closeness we had and make it a physical, tangible reality in Holy Communion.

I already knew that God loved us so much that He took flesh and dwelled among us.  He wanted to reach out and touch us, but not because physicality is more real, but because He made us to be both spiritual and physical beings and He wanted to approach us on our level.  The invisible God wanted a physical union with you and me.  I had thought that was just an experience of the Apostles and early disciples, but…on the night He was betrayed, Jesus established the Eucharistic Sacrifice as the perpetual offering by which His REAL PRESENCE would “be with you always” (Mt 28:20).

I had been receiving Christ bodily in Holy Communion since I was a kid, but when I realized the reality of Christ’s real presence, everything changed.  I started to prepare myself, to get ready to receive Him.  He was already in my life through the Gift of the Holy Spirit I received, but when I received Him anew in the Holy Eucharist it was a most special time of intimacy with God.  He was with me and in me in a way that was singular and spectacular.

The Pearl of Great Price

When I discovered this truth about the Eucharist and discovered that Catholic and Orthodox Christians were the only ones who taught and practiced Jesus’ abiding presence in the Eucharist, I knew why I was Catholic and why this was the Home I had always been searching for.  On this Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), let us give thanks to God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, for giving us His name (Christian), for raising us in His house (the Church), and for feeding us at His table with His very life-giving flesh, the Holy Eucharist!

Dr. Gary Anderson from his University of Notre Dame profile

Dr. Gary Anderson is Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at the University of Notre Dame and is quickly becoming one of the world’s leading scholars of Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls and especially of biblical interpretation among early Jews and early Christians. He is also a Protestant convert to Catholicism. He earned a B.A. from Albion College, an M.Div. from Duke University, and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. 

Dr. Anderson was raised Protestant and in fact entered Duke University as a Protestant seminarian. He writes some brief autobiographical insights in his important book The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination. He tells how important studying church history at Duke University under such giants as Dr. David Steinmetz helped point him in the direction of the Catholic Church. He eventually entered the Roman Catholic Church and became one of the leading Catholic scholars of early biblical interpretation. 

Dr. Anderson’s story is interesting because he was initially trained in Enlightenment-shaped historical biblical criticism. At Harvard he studied ancient biblical languages and historical methodology from such luminaries as Dr. Frank Moore Cross (W.F. Albright’s famous student). It was at Harvard, however, that Dr. Anderson became a student of the great Jewish scholars of biblical interpretation, Dr. Moshe Goshen-Gottstein and Dr. James Kugel, and it is from them especially that he learned the importance of studying the history of the Bible’s reception in Jewish contexts, and thus became a leading scholar in that field.¹ 

While teaching for about a decade at the University of Virginia, Dr. Anderson immersed himself in the world of early Greek Christian biblical interpretation through regular readings and discussions with his esteemed colleagues there, Dr. Robert Louis Wilken and Dr. Judith Kovacs. He writes of this experience that it “was almost like a second graduate degree in early Christianity.”² In addition, for about fifteen years, Dr. Anderson read and studied St. Ephrem in Syriac with two leading Syriac specialists, Dr. Sidney Griffith and Dr. Robin Darling Young.³ Eventually, his reputation grew so much in the field of biblical interpretation, that Harvard University hired him to teach at their prestigious institution. Anyone interested in how early Jews and Christians interpreted the Bible, particularly biblical stories about Adam and Eve, or biblical concepts like Sin and redemption, should start reading Dr. Anderson’s works if you haven’t already. His writings on sin are especially important for understanding the biblical roots of Catholic concepts like indulgences and the importance of almsgiving. 

Select Bibliography of Dr. Anderson’s works: 

BOOKS: 

Sin: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Sin-History-Gary-Anderson/dp/0300149891/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263831593&sr=1-2 

The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001. Available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Perfection-%C3%82-Adam-Christian-Imagination/dp/066422699X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263831523&sr=1-1 

JOURNAL ARTICLES: 

“Mary in the Old Testament.” Pro Ecclesia 16 (2007): 33-55. 

“Redeem Your Sins by the Giving of Alms: Sin, Debt, and the ‘Treasury of Merit’ in Early Judaism and Christianity.” Letter & Spirit 3 (2007): 37-67. 

“Biblical Origins and the Problem of the Fall.” Pro Ecclesia 10 (2001): 1-14. 

ACADEMIC ESSAYS: 

“From Israel’s Burden to Israel’s Debt: Towards a Theology of Sin in Biblical and Early Second Temple Sources.” In Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran, ed. Esther G. Chazon, Devorah Dimant, and Ruth Clements, 1-30. Leiden: Brill, 2005. 

“The Status of the Torah in the Pre-Sinaitic Period: St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.” In Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Michael E. Stone and Esther G. Chazon, 1-23. Leiden: Brill, 1998. 

“The Cosmic Mountain: Eden and Its Early Interpreters in Syriac Christianity.” In Genesis 1-3 in the History of Exegesis: Intrigue in the Garden, ed. Gregory Allen Robbins, 187-224. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988.

1. Gary A. Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001), XV.
2. Anderson, Genesis of Perfection, xii.
3. Anderson, Genesis of Perfection, xii.

In my journey to the Catholic Church, I did much research and read books and listened to tapes–all because of one person–Biff Rocha.  While, my journey did not actually begin with Biff, he was there at a time when the questions came to a head and having been there himself was able to direct, guide, and point me to the resources and things I needed. 

I say this one to thank Biff, of whose testimony was posted recently, but more imporantly for the reader to realize that you can make a difference in the lives of others.  God can and will work through you to plant seeds or to water.  Biff is an example of that in my life! We are called to be faithful.  We need to remember that for people to come to know Christ, to come to know the Eucharist, to come to know the Church, it first starts with us…the person sent.  And as children of God through baptism and empowered by the Spirt at our Confirmation we are sent to go out into our world and bring them the good news.  I shutter to think where my life would be if, after Biff recommitted himself to the Catholic Church of his youth, he decided to keep quiet about his faith.  We too must not keep quiet, but proclaim, and proclaim boldly. 

After becoming Catholic in Easter of 1999, I have had many opportunities to share with others my journey across the Tiber.  I never get tired of telling people of the discoveries I made through God’s grace and care.  In telling people of my conversion, I like to emphasis two points: 1) It is by God’s grace 2) it is not a rejection of my Methodism as a child or my evangelical, nondenominationalism in college, but rather its fulfillment.  In speaking of my conversion I have been blessed to be able to share it with audiences in print, radio, and television.  I humbly share with you some of these resources as a testimony of what God has done and is doing in my life.  I am grateful to Marcus Grodi and the Coming Home Network for the opportunity to do so. 

The Coming Home Network International publishes a newsletter.  My testimony was featured in 2005.  Click here to read it. 

This story was published in this wonderful book about converts called Journeys Home put out by the Coming Home Network and edited by Mr. Marcus Grodi.  If you do not have this resource I would encourage you to get it!  It is worth the read, and not just because I am in it!  Click on the book for more information. 

I was also blessed to appear with Marcus Grodi on his show Journeys Home on EWTN.  To listen, click here.

I went to a state school for college in which the Bible was required reading in my history course. Prior to this course, I had assumed that all Bible stories were just made up, like stories about the Easter Bunny and other cartoon characters. My professor, who was an evangelical Protestant and a consummate historian who specialized in the Bible, archaeology and ancient languages, showed how historical the Bible actually was. It was during this time that some students invited me to a Bible study, where the leader asked me how one gets to heaven. My response was that if your good works outweigh your bad works you get in, and if not then you go to hell. He suggested we read Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, where I read, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph 2:8-9) Shortly thereafter, I prayed (using the evangelical language of the time) accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior. We read the Bible trying to understand what it taught, and why God instructed us to live. From that point forward, I became very active in the interdenominational group which hosted the Bible study. I was drawn to apologetics, the well reasoned defense of the faith. As a student leader with this group, I led Bible studies, discipled other men of God, and went on missions trips overseas to Japan and at home to the Ozarks, New York, Florida, and Chicago. I came to see being a Christian as more than weekly attendance at Mass, it was a relationship with God. It was falling in love with a person who loved me and wanted the best for my life.

After graduation, I took the next logical step in my life and became a full-time staff member with this evangelical organization. With much joy, for most of my assignments as a full-time (and later associate) staff member I worked at the same university from which I graduated. It was at staff training that I first encountered ardently anti-Catholic literature. I knew the claims were too wild to be true—for example claims like the Catholic Church invented the number zero which it stole from the pagans in order to confound the real Christians; candles were the remnant of human sacrifices—but I recognized that other claims required more investigation. Some of the most helpful authors in my journey were G.K. Chesterton and John Henry Newman, both of whom had themselves converted to Catholicism. I began to discover that the Catholic Church was not just another Christian denomination; it was totally unique. Its claims about itself were too grand—that Jesus established one Church through which to be present to the world. The Church was the authorized guardian to Jesus’ words, and teaching. I soon became involved in Catholic parish groups, and read voraciously about the Catholic Church, ecclesiastical history, and theology, from both Protestants and Catholics. In all the questions posed to Christians by the secular world, I became convinced that the Catholic Church provided the best answers to the questions I investigated. Further, as a Catholic my Protestant brothers frequently inquired regularly about distinctively Catholic practices and teachings. The Protestant inclination towards simplicity occasionally made it difficult to explain the coherence of the Catholic worldview which incorporates theology, history and reason. My friends would ask for one clear verse stating the Catholic position but this rested upon the Protestant belief in the perspicuity and self-sufficiency of Scripture. But sometimes isolated verses appear to point in opposite directions such as in the debate of predestination and free will which divides the Protestants into numerous positions. Verses favoring one reading or the other can be stacked up against one another (Protestants sometimes call this sword-fighting) but the practice does not settle the dispute.

The issues which compelled me to embrace the Catholic faith are too numerous to detail here. One significant issue was that basic question about justification and how we are saved. Protestants disagree heartily among themselves on this very central and basic question. Because of confusions between the ways Catholics and Protestants speak about salvation, Protestants have a tendency to misunderstand the Catholic view on works and on cooperation with God. While the Protestant views are beautiful in their simplicity, the Catholic view is also beautiful in its fine detail and grandeur. The technical theological language Catholicism sometimes uses can be too often oversimplified in the Protestant ear as a new form of Pelagianism, or works righteousness. I think the Catholic view, which requires some significant study and a grasp of the precision of that theological language, in reality emphasizes the fact that ultimately our salvation depends completely on God; in no way can we earn salvation apart from a free gift of God. My studies of this issue, particularly regarding Luther, led me to complete a master’s thesis on the Lutheran and Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. This joint venture between Protestants and Catholics took decades of study and produced numerous illuminating documents just to get to the point where Protestants and Catholics can speak in one voice on the issue of justification.

Probably the biggest issue both for my own intellectual journey was that of authority. In college I had been taught by my elder evangelical mentors in the faith to follow the Holy Spirit. Yet this individualistic reliance upon the Holy Spirit did not seem to prevent a radical diversity of beliefs on the most basic of all Christian teachings: who is Jesus and what does it take to be saved? I discovered in the Bible what the church fathers already knew:  that Jesus founded the Church, and the same Holy Spirit that inspires Sacred Scripture has been given to His apostles and their successors to interpret and teach those Scriptures. That infallibility and authority worked together and the offices of the Church were just as much of a gift of grace as the divine pages of revelation. Being Catholic was more than mere attendance. Being Catholic was also more than just an individual relationship with Jesus. In becoming friends with Jesus, I became involved with his family, the Church. I also gained the privilege to represent him in the world to others who do not yet know him.

J.R.R. Tolkien, a child-convert to Catholicism, observed that people lose their sense of wonder when they encounter something repeatedly. That is why he used fantasy to reintroduce people to the wonder of the familiar by dressing the everyday up in holiday dress. One of my favorite Tolkien stories is Leaf by Niggle in which an artist paints leaves to create a tree. Later the artist finds the tree, not painted on a canvas, but standing in a field. Unbeknownst to the artist, God had allowed him to be a co-creator cooperating in the creation of the world around us. Likewise God has created the Church and as members of his divine body we not only participate in the creation but we cooperate in our own salvation and in building up the lives of others, all through the unmerited grace of God alone. “For we are God’s fellow workers” (1 Corinthians 3:9).