Faith Journey (part 1 of about 10)

In the next 10 or so posts I want to recount my faith journey, especially focusing on the changes that have taken place over the last 5 or so years. Obviously it involves other people, but as much as possible I’ll keep names out of it, except for published authors. It’s not a comprehensive autobiography – just a bare bones account to help you understand how I’ve arrived at where I’m at now.  

I grew up in a Christian household which included regular church-going and occasional involvement in other church activities. I was exposed to a devotional piety which included bible reading and personal prayer—my father in particular had been influenced by a deeply spiritual and evangelical lay leader in our Latvian congregation, and also by one of Billy Graham’s crusades.  We joined the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) when I was 10 years old, and this meant I could at last understand what was going on in church. I attended Sunday School and eventually confirmation lessons, where I did quite well.

As a child and young teenager, Christianity, in its Adelaide hills Lutheran manifestation, was simply part of my background. In these early years and right through (public) high school, I don’t recall making any conscious or deliberate effort to ‘follow Christ’ or grow in my faith. However, it left its mark in a few ways. The first was a basic moral framework, which I didn’t always follow, and a fairly sensitive conscience, to remind me of the fact. The second was a belief in a hidden spiritual world and the danger of occult powers (witchcraft, Satanism, etc.) which ‘spooked’ quite a bit. A third was the conviction that God could be called on to provide help in trouble, which I considered validated in a few experiences.

I underwent a kind of spiritual awakening around age 19-20 and became involved with youth and study groups, both Lutheran and Baptist. The latter was quite significant, as there, for the first time, I encountered a vibrant youth spirituality, and made some friendships which remain current to this day. I also developed a piety based on bible reading and prayer, and began thinking about a future vocation. An aimless liberal arts course became a teaching degree, which then led on to a year at Lutheran Teachers' College. It was at this time (1988) that I became completely ‘taken’ with theological study, something that would consume me for years to come, and in some sense is still with me.

However, I had no idea at the time how deeply conservative and untouched by modern thought was the theology I was imbibing.  Premised on notions of biblical inerrancy, my education gave me no real opportunity to engage with contemporary theological trends. And if it did, I wasn’t interested. In those rare moments when I did encounter modern theology, I didn’t understand it, and still less accepted it. Whether by upbringing or temperament or education, the theological worldview I was passively adopting and actively constructing could be described as an ‘uncritical naive realism’. At an age when people often question their faith for the first time, I was busily building defenses against such questions. I was becoming quite dogmatic, and loved it.

So when I received a teaching placement in a Lutheran Primary school on the Gold Coast, it soon became apparent to myself and those around me that I’d rather be ensconced in theological studies than starting a classroom career. To my delight, I was accepted into Luther Seminary, and after seeing out two long years of teaching, I began my training for the ordained ministry.

The next five years were very formative. I was impressionable, eager, and competitive. As well gaining a basic theological education I also became aware of the supposed battle lines drawn across the church. Labels such as ‘confessional’, ‘liberal’, ‘pietistic’, ‘church growth’, ‘orthodox’, ‘charismatic’, and ‘liturgical’ would start taking on significance for me. (We even invented a few, like ‘caftan theology’.) At the end of 1995, when I was ordained, my theology and practice was still conservative, but I should stress, not fundamentalist or biblicist – at least by our church’s standards. For unlike my earlier entree into theological education, this time it was impossible not to engage with a range of theological opinions, and to some extent, my teachers did represent a broad-ish range of views on the theological spectrum. Nevertheless I prided myself (in a humble way, of course) on being ‘orthodox’, ‘confessional’ and ‘liturgical’.

Half way through my degree I married Jeanette, who comes from a committed and conservative Lutheran family. As a semi-outsider, this was possibly more educational than I realized at the time, for while I was strong on theology, the realities of rural Australian Lutheranism was something I had little exposure to.

As it turned out, my first parish was in Hamilton, Victoria, where for the next five years my existing theological inclinations would be encouraged and confirmed by conservative mentors and members both locally and throughout the district. Responding to what I perceived as both liberal and ‘church-growth’ threats to orthodoxy, I would become increasingly aligned with the ‘confessional’ wing in the church. During this time I also become interested in, perhaps even enamoured of, the more catholic expressions of the Lutheran tradition. This was exacerbated when some friends and colleagues themselves joined the Roman Catholic Church.

In late 2000 I accepted the call to serve the congregation in Pasadena, Adelaide. Here I encountered a more ecumenical (but still conservatively Protestant) congregational culture, which meant that my confessional and liturgical commitments met with occasional resistance, or at least disagreement. It’s hard to say whether some of these differences were a matter of theology, piety, or personality. But on the whole, my ministry was accepted and supported, even if a few were relieved when I finally left. I worked with many fine people, and was guided and assisted by colleagues whose advice and friendship I genuinely valued.

Even though I was starting to contribute to the life of the wider church (e.g., through its liturgical commission) and pondering the possibility of further study, it was also in my later years at Pasadena (2006-2007) that my thinking and beliefs first began to change. But before I start describing that, I want to reflect on what prevented those changes from taking place much earlier. That will be my next post.