Sal@work: Spirit-filled Christian Guy tries to save me
As regular readers of this blog know, I work for a small company with Christian brothers and sisters of all assorted Christian flavors. I say “flavors” because it’s becoming clear to me that for some of them the practice of their faith is suited to their personal tastes rather than based on millennia of Judeo-Christian history, theology, and tradition. I came to this realization this week after a rather one-sided conversation with a man who was hired about a month ago. He’s in his late 50’s or early 60’s and he’s exceedingly affable. The more serious things get that more he smiles and laughs. I truly admire his mirth. From listening to him talk his conversion came some time during adulthood. You might recall from an earlier post that he has a daughter-in-law who he said used to be Catholic but has since become a spirit-filled Christian. When he told me this he didn’t know I was Catholic.
Last week he found out that I am indeed Catholic. There is a young guy in the office who used to be a parishioner at my parent’s church. We found out in conversation that we went to the same church. He’s since left the Catholic Church and goes to a Protestant mega-church. While we were talking Spirit-filled Christian Guy piped in and asked if I was Catholic. I said yes. I saw the wheels start to turn. He didn’t come after me until the next day.
“Are you going to Heaven?” He asks.
“I hope so!” I reply.
He then went off about once you’re saved your assured a place in heaven unless you reject Jesus outright “and no one does that” he said.
I was thinking you can reject Jesus in word or in deed, by sinning mortally we willfully turn our back on Jesus.
He continued. “Jesus said all sin is the same – thinking about a women in the spirit of lust is the same thing as committing adultery!”
It is if the thought is willful, I thought.
“Now when you’re saved Jesus sends his Spirit to come and live in you and you speak in tongues and your heart knows how to talk with Jesus. That’s something you can’t do unless you’re saved – you can’t really pray until you ask Jesus into your heart.”
“Saint Paul said he was working out his salvation with fear and trembling,” I interjected. He cringed when I said the word “Saint.”
“Well see here now there are different kinds of salvation. I’m not sure you were aware of that! When you accept Christ your spirit is saved, but then you have to work to sanctify your soul and your body. That’s what was Paul was talking about.”
I’d never heard it put like that. The Catholic view of the different kinds of salvation includes temporal, eternal and middle salvation. Examples of temporal salvation include God delivering the Israel from its enemies and Jesus saving Saint Peter from drowning after his aborted faith experiment of walking on water. Middle salvation refers to salvation coming to a person through the action of another person, like Mary’s yes to the will of God. We don’t know we’re saved eternally until we die and are judged. Until then we’re working out our salvation with fear and trembling like Saint Paul did. We trust that God is faithful to His promises, but our intellects cannot perfectly know if we are in a state of grace without the Sacraments. I didn’t get a chance to tell Spirit-filled Christian Guy this. He phone rang and he answered. I withdrew from the scene.
I can only imagine what he’s heard about the Church. I do hope we get to have some discussion on this. I’d like to think I could express Catholic beliefs in a sensible way. If I had been able to say one last thing to him before I left I would have simply asked him whether or not he cared about what the earliest Christians believed about Baptism and salvation.
St. Augustine
What is the baptism of Christ? The washing of water by the Word (Eph. 5:26). Take away the water, it is no Baptism; take away the Word, it is no baptism.
Now I wouldn’t have thrown that one out there – he would have gone completely nuts. I’m simply saying his practice of Christianity clearly suits his taste. He doesn’t want to think about what the first Christians believed. He doesn’t want to accept Tradition as truth as much as the Bible is. He just wants to read the Word, accept the conclusions he reaches along with those of his tongue-speaking brethren, and tell Catholic me I’d better get right with the Lord or I’m going to Hell. I get right with the Lord as often as I can, in prayer, in the Mass and in Confession. I’m not denying a “baptism of desire” or that one can experience the grace of God outside the Church. I would be utterly mistaken if I did! But give me the unfailing sources of grace that are the Sacraments over Spirit-filled Christian Guy’s eternal fire insurance any day.
Eternal fire insurance. That’s a good one – I wish I could remember where I first heard it.