When I was a teenager I displayed my history and theology geekery to its fullest during Halloween. As everyone walked around in various levels of dazed sugar highs and dressed as alter egos, I would proclaim to anyone interested or listening, “Happy Reformation Day!”
It was on October 31, 1517 that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. This simple act done by a Catholic monk and theologian was a pivotal act in history that sparked the Protestant Reformation. 2017 marks the 500-year anniversary of this event.
It was significant to me as a youth because I had undergone a reformation of my own. Against all odds as a Thai American, I grew up in a family of Christian faith. It’s estimated that there are only 300,000 Thai Catholics worldwide. Thailand is a Buddhist country and less than 5% of its population counts itself as something other than Buddhist. Thanks to French missionaries that came to Thailand in the 1700s, I count it a privilege that my family has worshipped at St. Xavier Parish in the heart of Bangkok for generations. I also need to thank my tenacious maternal grandmother who had the forethought to ensure one condition in my parents’ informal prenup - all of their children were to be raised Catholic.
I’m also a member of a living community of people who have had a sublime, metaphysical, faith experience. In some cultures, people refer to this as being “born again”. Whatever those connotations, I can at least affirm that it was a life-changing experience for me. In fact, it happened to me while I was in junior high. Since I attended a school that was grades 7-12, when I graduated, I was voted “most philosophical” as well as “most changed.” It’s a memory that is real, and deeply personal. It changed me then, and continues to shape who I am now.
For example, I love science fiction. I often think that I find this genre appealing because the idea of an alternate reality or a portal to another world isn’t so far-fetched to me. Even though I’m an intelligent, rational person, I touched, saw, and experienced something other. Not only do I believe in a God, I believe God is good and mysteriously powerful enough to care about me personally and still manage to handle the weight of the world.
It was after this experience that my faith and worldview began to expand beyond my Catholic upbringing. After meeting God in such a visceral way, I had an unquenchable thirst to know more about the God that I’d met. My family went through a lot of grief as they watched me go through a “rebellious” stage as I began to question things at the parish I attended, at my Confirmation classes, and in my family. I went through a vitriolic apostasy phase. At age thirteen I found myself sitting in the reference section of the city library reading extremely large, bound, hard copies of the Encyclopedia of Religion. I am thankful to many friends who invited me to different churches and youth groups of various non-denominational and mainline Protestant churches. That was my first experience with non-Catholic Christians and it felt foreign. It was in that environment of welcome while feeling a sense of alienation that I had an epiphany about a fundamental aspect of my Christian faith - I could own it. What did this Thai American have in common with Latin and German speaking, white, male monks like Luther or Augustine? Same God, same faith, same family, same tradition. I could own it like I owned my family tree.
Through providential circumstances I also attended a small evangelical Christian college in the Midwest. I was culture shocked in more ways than one. As a native Southern Californian, I learned the definitions of the words “cold” and “autumn”. I learned that “15 miles from downtown” meant something completely different in the Midwest than it did in LA. I learned that evangelical Christian culture is a world of its own and also imperfect. As I entered a new phase of apostasy with evangelical Christianity, I found myself making peace with my Catholic tradition. In an evangelical environment that I wanted to disown, I found myself taking refuge in Catholic liturgy that spoke to the inexpressible mysteries of faith in my heart. After much heartache and wrestling, I eventually made peace with my faith “families” both Catholic and Protestant.
The problem with this is that I feel like the child of divorced parents. Along with my personal journey, my love of history makes me aware of centuries of bad blood between Catholics and Protestants, Protestants and Protestants, Christians and Jews . . . The list goes on. I can’t disassociate myself from these traditions because I’ve been adopted into this family, and even if it’s not my fault that there are skeletons in the closet as well as skeletons paraded around public discourse, it’s my family and so I own it and take responsibility for it. And when I examine my own life, I know that I’ve been guilty of closing the door to keep those skeletons from view.
This makes me all the more grateful to be here in this time and place. Today, I write this from a hotel in Berlin, Germany. I have the privilege and honor of serving on the Board for Wittenberg 2017, a movement dedicated to reconciliation through prayer, repentance and unity. Rather than culminating in 2017, the goal is to be a springboard for healing and unity as we gather an international and ecumenical group comprised especially of Catholics, Protestants and Messianic Jews.
While there is a vast amount of diversity within the Church community, most everything that divided us in 1517 doctrinally is no longer an issue. Yet the Church today faces a new set of issues. It is still seen as fragmented rather than diverse, scandalized rather than transforming, hurtful rather than healing.
As we approach 2017 we are truly in a kairos moment. In Greek, “kairos” refers to a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens. Growing up, preachers referred to pregnant women about to give birth as a kairos moment. Another example can be found in physics. This morning I read an article about the physics lab in Cern, Switzerland. Regarding the results of the Higgs mass measurement, there are scientists who believe that our state of the universe is at its least stable. That we are on the verge of a “phase change.” The article made the analogy to “supercooled water poised to freeze or superheated water on the point of boiling.” Like the pregnant woman analogy, one minute you’re pregnant and the next minute you’re not. That’s a kairos moment phase change.
What phase change will the Church undergo post-2017? That is a question I find myself dreaming about and imagining almost daily.
Source: Wittenberg 2017 - "Patty's Story", from the Wittenberg 2017 (US) website
http://www.wittenberg2017.us/pattys-story.html
Community of Jesus-followers Living Out John 17
Your Custom Text Here