The reasons (part two)

Let us return to the remaining answers of my colleague pastors. Answers (d) (e) and (f), which amount to one thing. They all asked me to wait.

They believed (or expressed the belief) that five or ten years in the parish would remove these questions. Some held this belief because they held that factors such as growing up, gaining experience, being busy or other such things would change my thinking, or distract me from deeper questions.

Others believed that the questions were new questions for our church and thus the church needed time to come up with some answers.

In order to fully answer such responses I began to list the most notable people in history, and currently living, who have wrestled with this question. The variety of centuries they lived in, ages in which they faced the questions, and reasons for considering them, showed that this sort of question cannot be discounted as merely an accident of present circumstances.

While it may be true that some circumstances may perpetually distract me from such questions, what integrity exists in busily functioning on the false presupposition that my ministry is founded on truth?

Having reached this point I made my dilemma clear to my district president.

Unfortunately he interpreted my dilemma as being limited to the question: “How can authority work in the LCA?” And thus conclude that there is no authoritative answer to these questions. He sent me to the psychologist to help me think through why I was asking the questions.

Even as I sit here writing this I am still hurt and annoyed that both my president and the psychologist are convinced that there are no final answers to these questions and that I am being irrational to expect answers. The idea, I think, was to enable me to cope with unanswered questions. But, as I mentioned earlier, even if I was able to live with unanswered questions, I can’t continue to function as if I had the answers!

Leaving aside the arguments about these questions, I’d like to relate something of my journey to the catholic faith in terms of devotion and doctrine.

Next: Those Catholics and Their Mary