ARTICLES

One Man's Journey

Local Lutheran Pastor Becomes Catholic

By Stanford Gabriel Espedal

(Editor: the following was sent to News Notes as part of a job application)

I was born November 1, 1951 in Seattle, Washington. My adoptive parents, Stanford and Barbara, lived in Honolulu, Hawaii, which is where I grew up. My father was a 32nd degree Freemason who had been raised as a Lutheran. My mother was a former Presbyterian. I have a younger brother, Brandon. Our parents did not have us baptized. Although there was a little exposure to Christian beliefs, we did not go to any church or have any religious affiliation.

At the age of fifteen, I began seeking answers to the great questions of life, with the aid of psychedelic drugs. I dedicated myself to finding Ultimate Truth. I was "turned off" by Christianity. I was fascinated by Zen Buddhism and read all I could on it. At age sixteen, I realized that drugs were a dead end and began to practice Transcendental Meditation. At seventeen, I joined a Zen Buddhist community, the Diamond Sangha of Hawaii and practiced meditation under a Japanese Zen master, Yasutani Roshi.

By the age of twenty I was spiritually exhausted by Zen practice and had drifted into secular pursuits. I was mainly concerned with a future career in music as a singer & songwriter.

On the night of Friday, June 2, 1972 I met an independent evangelist named Cleo Halle. Cleo set before me the message of salvation through Jesus Christ crucified. We talked until 2:00 a.m. I declared my faith in Jesus Christ and eagerly accepted his invitation to baptism. And so in that early hour of June 3, 1972 I was baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in the water of the Pacific Ocean at Waikiki.

The "Jesus Movement" of those days was a Baptist form of Evangelicalism with a charismatic emphasis. The "Jesus People" believed that the Holy Spirit would unite all true believers. Therefore denominations and confessions were looked down upon as divisive. Nevertheless, I soon wanted to know, which is the right Church? I studied various doctrinal confessions and chose the Lutheran Church. I was especially drawn to the Lutheran teaching on Justification, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper. I also preferred the Lutheran liturgy to charismatic "praise meetings."

It was at this time that I decided to prepare for the ministry. I felt a strong sense of God's calling for this, which was strongly reaffirmed by the three pastors with whom I discussed it.

There are many doctrinal differences among Lutherans, and I studied those also. I eventually joined one of the most conservative and strictly confessional Lutheran church bodies in America: the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

I prepared for seminary at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota. The pre-seminary program included three years of Greek and two years of Hebrew for advanced biblical studies. I received my degree from this college with honors.

I entered Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in the fall of 1978. The seminary program lasted four years. In the initial two years we took courses in biblical, historical, dogmatic, and pastoral theology. The third year was spent as a parish vicar under the guidance of a senior pastor. I was assigned to Martin Luther Church in Neenah, Wisconsin. We then returned to the seminary for our fourth and final year of classes. I graduated in the spring of 1982 with a Master of Divinity degree. At the graduation Service, our senior class song was a hymn I had written and composed, "As Into All The World We Go."

During a month at home before ordination, I met my future wife, Dawn Jeffcoat. She was on vacation in Hawaii, and we met in church. We kept in touch, the relationship grew, and we were married on May 11, 1983 at her parish, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in La Mesa. Our marriage has been blessed with six children: Joshua, Hannah, Joel, Justin, Jesse, and Jonathan.

I was ordained to the ministry on July 11, 1982 at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Wichita Falls, Texas. In February 1983 I was called to Our Savior Lutheran Church in Arlington, Texas.

In January 1984 I resigned as pastor of Our Savior at the recommendation of the district president. Some men had made accusations that I had "lost the confidence" of many in the parish. Afterward a petition was presented to the district president, signed by the overwhelming majority of the parishioners, voicing full confidence in me as pastor. Nevertheless, the district president decided to make me a candidate for a call to another parish.

In the meantime, I began to have doubts concerning the doctrinal position of the Wisconsin Synod on the Church and the ministry. I did further research into early Church history, from the sources, and without glosses from a Reformation perspective. I attended a Greek Orthodox Liturgy, had a doctrinal conference with the priest, and studied Eastern Orthodox writers.

I was not ready to abandon the Lutheran doctrines of Sola Scriptura and justification through faith alone, accomplished by grace alone. So I embraced an Evangelical Catholic form of Lutheranism. I withdrew from the Wisconsin Synod in November of 1984. In March of 1985 I founded an independent Lutheran mission in El Cajon, California. In this mission I placed a strong emphasis on liturgy and sacrament. I led this mission for six years, until March 1991. And I continued to study Eastern Orthodoxy.

Finally, I could no longer deny that Tradition is the truth, preserved in the Church by the Spirit of Truth as Christ promised (John 14: 16-17). It was clear to me that Lutheranism was not the ancient apostolic faith purified of medieval errors, but a man-made doctrine that did not exist before 1517. And so in March 1991 I ceased pretending that I had a valid ordination and could offer a valid Eucharist and declared myself a layman.

Our family began attending the divine liturgy at Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Church in San Diego. The priest of this parish, Fr. Paul O'Callaghan, and I had been close friends since 1988.

There was a period of adjustment to the new world of Orthodoxy, and to liturgy in Arabic and English. I was received, with my children, into the Church by chrismation (confirmation), on July 14, 1991. My wife followed 11 months later, on June 14, 1992. When I was chrismated I took the new name of "Gabriel" in honor of the archangel.

During my years in the Orthodox church I served in various ways. I led an adult Bible class beginning in 1992. I taught in the parish Sunday school. I also conducted a prison ministry, leading a Monday night Bible study at the Donovan Correctional Facility.

I began to be aware of certain weaknesses in modern Eastern Orthodoxy. In 1996 we learned of the suspension of communion between the patriarch of Constantinople and the patriarch of Moscow concerning jurisdiction over the Church in Estonia. Metropolitan Philip lamented in an editorial, "Our system does not work!" I knew that in the ancient Church such a dispute would have been appealed to and resolved by, the bishop of Rome. In other words, we needed the Pope!

Furthermore, I reflected, if the bishop is the sign and bearer of the unity of the local Church, as Orthodoxy teaches, then who is the sign and bearer of the unity of the universal Church? Modern Eastern Orthodoxy has no real answer to this question. What led me to convert to the Catholic faith? I can give here only a brief summary under three main heads:

1. The realization that each lawful Pope is Peter, Rock of the Church and bearer of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. This is the true answer to the question posed above.

2. The realization that the Mother of God, in her apparition at Fatima, had proclaimed the traditional Catholic Faith and confirmed her apparition with predictive prophecies that came to pass and a great sign, Miracle of the Sun, which was witnessed by over 70,000 people.

3. The realization that each distinctive Catholic doctrine; Papal Primacy, the Immaculate Conception, the Filioque, Purgatory, Indulgences, etc., clearly shows the true nature of the Church as the Communion of Love, bearing divine authority for the salvation of her children.

I entered into communion with the Catholic Church on Sunday, July 13, 1997 at Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church in San Diego. In this parish I have served as a catechist for children in the Eastern Christian formation program.

I am currently teaching an in-depth adult Bible study at St. John the Baptizer Ukrainian Catholic Church on Wednesday evenings. We are beginning with Genesis. In this class I am placing special emphasis on the interpretation of the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

Mr. Espedal is available for talks about his journey to the Catholic Church. (619) 561-3389 gabrielmary@juno.com

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