The Sovereign Statement

 This week's post is a little different.  I am in the process of putting together a new book, and the chapter I have here is actually Chapter 5 from it.  It is a personal manifesto, and it combines several interests, my personal story, and some theology into an all-encompassing statement of purpose.  Hope you enjoy it.

 

 

The Sovereign Monograph

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Way of Introduction

This is a personal manifesto, codifying all parts of my various dimensions as discussed thus far. I am wanting to give an ideological rationale for why I do what I do and for who I am. The end conclusion of all of it is to remind anyone who reads it that dignity of personhood in all dimensions of life is fundamental, and when someone else intrudes on that dignity, they insult the very God who gave that personhood to us. Individuality and upholding traditional ideals should never be mutually exclusive; they complement each other. Thus, I want to show by the example of my own story how that can happen.

Writing something like this is new to me. I am used to editorializing, but usually it doesn’t have a more formal quality that I want this to possess. Therefore, as I make the effort to cobble this together, bear with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Section I: The Mandate of Absolute Decorum

The metric of a sovereign life is not determined by the volume of its public concessions, but by the absolute rigidity of its interior boundaries. Sitting at my rowhouse desk on East 27th Street in Harwood—where the persistent, low-frequency hum of Baltimore transit vibrates against the windowpane—the requirement for total, unyielding personal privacy transforms from a lifestyle choice into an existential imperative. The modern world operates on a bankrupt currency of total exposure, demanding that the individual dissolve their mystique in exchange for the cheap validation of the collective grid. I execute a fierce, permanent refusal of this demand. True sovereignty requires a cloistered space, an intentional retreat behind a fortress of high protocol, strict boundaries, and an uncompromising standard of order. Decorum is not a passive adherence to superficial politeness; it is defensive armor. It is the deliberate reclamation of the unvarnished self from the structural amnesia of an overly familiar, boundaryless age, ensuring that the sacred baseline of the intellect remains entirely uncompromised by external noise.

Superficial politeness is not politeness at all, but rather two other things. First, it is cowardice. It is the refuge of a person who possesses shame for who they are. This is not totally their fault, as often society has a sort of “sit down and shut up” attitude when someone wants to express something that goes against the fads and trends of the time. And superficial politeness is not good for the person who gives into it either—the ultimate fate of it is frustration and depression, because one allows external forces to suppress their God-given distinctiveness. If a person willfully gives into that, they embrace a false altruism that will diminish their intrinsic value as a human person. Let us now turn back to the philosophical discussion on this.

Revisiting John F. Crosby’s take on this, he notes that there are two aspects of the value of persons, and he defines them as follows[1]:

• There is the dignity of each person in virtue of which we owe respect to persons.
• There is the goodness or lovableness of a person which, once seen and experienced, awakens something like a love of friendship, or on a deeper level a spousal or romantic love of that person.

What does this mean on a theological level then? Basically, it means God created each and every person in his image. This does not mean that you are an exact clone of the Almighty by any means, and people often get that mixed up. The point this was radically redefined for me was several years back at a revival meeting at Lake Gibson Church of the Nazarene in Lakeland, FL. The speaker at that meeting was a dynamic Methodist pastor from Alabama, Dr. Kip Laxson. In his sermon one night, Dr. Laxson noted that when God said we were created in his image, it meant that God saw exactly who we are, and his vision for us was spoken once the act of conception happened in our mother’s womb. The raw data of DNA was then animated with God’s own creative act, and in a sense we too were spoken into existence by him just like our common first parents, Adam and Eve, were. When Dr. Laxson proclaimed that, it was a moment of epiphany for me. And it also made me realize something else—we try to “play God” all the time with ourselves, but we don’t have to do that because God is God and we’re not, simple as that.

But, the human race was created by God as the pinnacle of his creation, and CO-AUTHOR NOTE: this structural baseline remains absolute. Thus, every human being is endowed with two things that make them distinct from a rock or from a bumble bee. The first thing is individuality. While it is true that there are distinct personalities even in animals—I see it in each of my three cats in all honesty—we as human beings have a higher dimension than that. Our individuality was endowed with a certain degree of the creative attribute God has himself, but definitely not on the same level or scale. I will get back to that shortly. The second thing God gave us that is distinct from the rest of creation is free will. That allows us to choose who, what, and where we decide, and it makes our own relationship even to God somewhat more meaningful because we are not just “programmed” like an AI bot to make decisions. Therefore, now that this has been established, let’s revisit creativity.

Human beings are not just programmed with an instinct to survive like mere animals are, but we have something more important—a transcendent sense of being. That is the very thing that makes us human in all honesty. That sense is expressed in the creative dimension of the human soul, and as Fr. Norris Clarke defines this in his book The One and the Many, there are properties attached to that. The three integral ones are truth, beauty, and goodness. Self-expression will see these through a slightly different lens for each of us, as it constitutes what Fr. Clarke calls our substance of being. As he defines it, substance of being is integral to being itself, because it means that a being can stand on its own as a unity-identity-whole. This means it exists and acts in its own right, and not subject involuntarily to another. He then provides two definitions that frame that discussion[2]:

• Substance — that which is apt to exist in itself and not in another.
• Accident — that which is apt to not exist in itself but only in another.

So, what does that mean exactly? It essentially means that the human person is a substance, but we can choose to be an accident instead. There is a positive and a negative to this. The positive is that when we surrender ourselves to God and follow him as an accident existing in his substance, we become the person we are truly meant to be. Also, when a man and a woman choose to become part of each other in the sacrament of matrimony, they perfect each other. The term for this voluntary submission is subjectivity, and in both cases we don’t give up who we are, but instead we become more of who we are supposed to be as a distinct person. Outside of religious conviction and romantic love though, the substance/accident balance cannot exist as a dynamic, because ultimately the substance of one will reduce the other to an accident. And that whole argument gives a philosophical framework to what I need to assert next.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, true sovereignty requires a cloistered space, one that cannot be violated by others, and it establishes a decorum, standards and boundaries that the individual has true sovereignty over. The modern world, with its collectivist mindset that dictates that if you don’t do this, think or believe like that, or that you have to conform to an unreasonable standard imposed by either a gatekeeping set of oligarchs or an inferior worldview, does not appreciate the individuality of one—it wants to make itself one, as a pantheistic, monistic macrocosm of what it thinks humanity should be and how everyone and everything should act according to its standard. Those mechanisms are a disordered substance, so opposed to natural law and dignity of personhood that it feels and looks foreign to a person who understands better. In the name of ‘justice” such a system imposes tyranny. In the name of “equity” it enforces conformity. And in the name of “Synodality” it fosters apostasy (in the case of the Church). This must be opposed at all costs by those who value individuality and the dignity of personhood as being divinely created by a sovereign God. This is why the problem needs to be first identified.

American society (in all dimensions, including ecclesiastical and political) has been polarized by forced conformity. If you don’t “follow the herd” and play like a nice little automaton, you will be sidelined. The enforcement of this is with what are called the “gatekeepers.” These include billionaire oligarchs, pompous academics, secularized clergy, and greedy corporate hacks. These people don’t see a person as an individual, but rather as a commodity to be exploited, and as a demographic on a meaningless chart. Much like the dystopian societies fictionalized by Huxley and Orwell, these mechanisms see individuality and free will as threats to their control, and thus they will do anything to make the masses conform. If someone deviates from the canon of the established narrative, they are rejected, “ghosted,” and even exiled to a “pale of nonconformity” that turns them into a threat to society rather than a benefit.

The system—fed by decades of Social Darwinian thought originating in the minds of people like Herbert Spencer and totalitarian dictators like Stalin and Hitler—becomes the substance, the “god of this world,” and every human being on earth becomes an “accident” on so many dimensions. Humanity is viewed often as an “accident of evolution,” making it possible to abort babies, kill off our elderly, and codify racism and ethnocentrism into legal precedent. It strips individuality away as a cardinal offense, even so far as the oligarchs themselves making proclamations about their goals to do it—we all remember, for instance, the wannabe demigod Klaus Schwab saying at a World Economic Forum meeting a more glossed-over declaration of his own warped ideology when essentially he said (using the faux German accent that mimics his supervillain persona) “You vill eet zee bugs, you vill live in zee pods, and you vill be happy!” Then, his equally megalomaniacal colleagues like George Soros, Bill Gates, and the rest adding their proverbial two-pence to the agenda to subjugate mankind and re-create the earth in their image with themselves as gods. Couple that with the reality of the transhumanist threat, and what you have are a bunch of self-appointed “kings” trying to make us into a real-life version of the fictional Borg species from Star Trek—“resistance is futile—you will be assimilated.”

The mistake of Schwab, Gates, and these other Antichrist wannabes is the exact same mistake the first Antichrist figure in history, Nimrod, made at Babel, and the concupiscence of the human race still labors under the delusion of its own fake divinity. This requires a radical remedy to ensure they don’t get their way, and that is my proposal next.

The goal I stated in my first paragraph—namely, that the sacred baseline of the intellect remains entirely uncompromised by external noise—is the remedy to the problem. In order to ensure that each and every person on the planet has a responsibility to listen to that internal mechanism which has many layers. We must know how to sort through those layers, organize them, and then find ways for creative expression. When we read Scripture, two promises stick out that buttress this. The first is in Psalm 139:14—the Psalmist is declaring that he is “fearfully and wonderfully made” and that it is a creative miracle of God that they are so. The second is in Romans 12:4-5—the true Church functions when each of its members knows its function. A third promise that ties these together is Romans 11:29, which states that the gifts and calling of God are without reproach. Our identities as individuals are a gift from God, and we must assert that and understand that this is what should motivate us to action. How do we do so? Let me propose an idea.

The futility of the established order, with its ideological gatekeepers, will never be a mechanism for someone to fully exercise their talents and abilities, so we must seek ways outside that established order. If your church, for instance, is asking for your treasure but poo-poos your talent, then take your treasure elsewhere—that church probably does not deserve you. If a job keeps saying they reject your application because people are more “qualified” based on a stupid two-page resume that doesn’t give a complete picture, it means probably you are too good to work for people that demean you like that. Therefore, turn the rejection into a blessing and use it for a greater good. Keeping in mind the promises God gave us, you don’t need to validate yourself to others, and if their stiff two-page resume format is there because they are too illiterate or lazy to see the real you, then they don’t deserve you. This therefore requires a radical proposal for action.

We need to form mechanisms that truly value the individual personhood of each human being, and in doing so, you assess them by their talents, potentials, and abilities and not how they look or act “different” or outside a false cultural/societal standard. Therefore, the course of action is for me personally to reject those systems, and I will set an example by being who I am supposed to be rather than what a system expects. That system junk is the external noise of conformity, and I reject it as a hindrance to what God intended me to be. I have the raw material, and now it is up to me to find a way to use it, and I will do so.

I obviously don’t have all the answers, as these actions don’t come with a map or an agenda, but I find them out as I go and out of that something beautiful will blossom. The sewer of adversity is often the most fertile ground for the blossom of potential, and having read the rest of my story so far, you see where I come from. And it is my objective to get you to see the same conclusion for yourself. As the noted preacher Mark Chironna once said, “Your present position does not dictate your future potential.” The meaning is simple—stay the course despite the noise, and you can prevail.

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Section II: Plank A — The Multicultural Synthesis of the Horn Section

The mechanical geometry of a traditional jazz horn section provides the definitive architectural blueprint for true multicultural synthesis. Drawing directly from the historical frameworks codified by Richard Sudhalter, the traditional ensemble does not achieve unity through the erasure of its individual voices, but through the rigorous, confrontational precision of collective improvisation. When the trumpet, trombone, and clarinet collide within the harmonic grid, they do not merge into a singular, flattened texture. Instead, each horn maintains its absolute distinctiveness, charting separate melodic lines that weave across, beneath, and through one another in a dense web of structural counterpoint.

Building upon the last section, this is a subtle nod to Romans 12:4-5 – all the parts of a body have their function, and working together ensures the body is in order.  The good musical ensemble – be it a big band, a symphony orchestra, or a small jazz combo – is based on how the distinct sounds of each instrument come together to make the melody beautiful.  It works the same in culinary terms too – while flour, sodium bicarbonate, milk, water, salt, and shortening all taste pretty bad by themselves, when they are mixed together in the right proportion of ingredients and prepared properly, they make something delicious (this is a classic biscuit recipe). Each ingredient as a stand-alone may not seem like much, but they have their contribution to the whole.  Collective improvisation, as noted above, is what makes this work.  It is true in music, it is true in culinary arts, and it is also true in human relationships.

Let’s take the most basic of relationships – the love of a man and a woman.  Each of them are different and distinct, and when they have a relationship that begins between them, it blossoms into a beautiful union.  This subjectivity of the man and woman to each other is what is called chemistry, and it doesn’t happen with just any man and woman. That inexplicable something is what draws them to each other.  And sometimes that can transcend race, ethnicity and culture. After my divorce a few years back, I was lonely for instance.  But then, a year later, I met a beautiful Filipina named Azi, and something clicked between us. For those who have ever known this special love of another, you know exactly what I am talking about – the person you meet is like someone you have known a lifetime, but you may have never even seen them prior to your first meeting. That is how subjectivity works – you feel a connection with that person (in my case, as I did with Azi) and the chemistry happens. In time, as your love grows, you start to find out you are completing each other, and that beautiful union is one that God was talking about when he addressed it by noting that “the two shall become one flesh.” It doesn’t mean they lose their individuality as separate people, but rather that individuality is enhanced when those two people join together as one.  This is one reason as well why the Church considers marriage to be sacramental too.

This is not accidental chaos; it is a highly disciplined, multi-layered ensemble voicing where the friction of independent trajectories yields a timeless, unified harmonic truth. To understand this polyphonic synthesis is to understand how distinct historical and ancestral rivers can co-settle a single geographic space without sacrificing their unique genetic or cultural integrity. The horn section proves that continuity is maintained not by forced conformity, but by the brilliant, high-protocol alignment of diverse elements operating on a shared, sovereign frequency. Again, this is applicable to all areas of life also and not just music – music just represents a beautiful example of how it works. In all the years I have collected and listened to vintage big band music, one of my favorite orchestras was the one led by the late Freddy Martin.  Martin had this lush, beautiful, and dynamic sound that for some reason resonates in a special way when I listen to it.  Martin’s silver-toned tenor saxophone pairs beautifully with the twin pianos and the soft, subtle string melody that creates an undercurrent to the sax and piano.  On certain songs, such as his rendition of Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate on You” on his 1961 Capitol LP of dance medleys, C’mon Let’s Dance (Capital LP T-1269), or his 1945 recording of the standard “Laura,” this is captured perfectly.  Outside of Martin’s recordings, I hear it in other works I have listened to as well, such as the beautiful soundtrack of the Winds of War miniseries I have probably watched in its entirety a dozen times (it is a great miniseries, as is its sequel, War and Remembrance).  The composer of that score, Bob Cobert, captured the mood of the scenes in the film with the beautiful arrangements, in particular the theme of the love seen between the main protagonist Pug Henry (portrayed by Robert Mitchum in both miniseries) and his love interest, the young British press lady Pamela Tudsbury.  I cannot explain what it is, but that film music hits me right in the core of my being, and the feeling is surreal.  The other piece of the Cobert score that impacts me a different way but still powerfully is when the other antagonist, the Jewish scholar Dr. Aron Jastrow (portrayed in the first series by Sir John Houseman, and in the second by Sir John Gielgood), is sentenced to the gas chamber at Auschwitz – the music for the tragic scene is titled “Remembrance,” and for some reason the sound of the melodica Cobert employed for the score really hits a soft nerve.  The aesthetic value of this music cannot be underestimated, and it proves that you think about aesthetics as a whole person, and even in the retrospective heartbreak of tragedy there is a beauty to be found. In other words, the music works.  Now, let’s contrast that with today.

We live in a deeply atomized culture, where we have a wrong conception of individuality at times that is based on selfish ambition rather than true acknowledgement of personal worth.  It separates vital ingredients from the recipe, and the result is something that is tasteless and even potentially toxic.  We have also grown lazier – music is not about talent, self-expression, or aesthetics anymore, but rather about two things: misplaced sexuality and the worship of the almighty dollar. This is why, for instance, nonsense like American Idol exists. Do you really think a true musician who values truth, beauty, and goodness is going to take the opinions of a tone-deaf idiot like Simon Cowell seriously when he gives his “expert” critiques of talent?  I seriously doubt it in all honesty.  That is why most music these days – regardless, the genre – sounds exactly alike.  It is artificial, manufactured, and devoid of the very things that define art. All the electronic gizmos that mass-produce pop stars like Pop-tarts are doing it for one fundamental reason – money.  Sex sells, and shallow, meaningless lyrics about nothing that are cluttered with the sounds of electronica seem to capture the attention of a dumbed-down public that has lost its sense of aesthetic integrity. The music of today doesn’t do much for me, and I haven’t honestly heard much in the past thirty years (with a notable exception, and that was the young singer Charlotte Church) that inspires me or pierces my soul the way Bob Colbert’s musical scores or Freddy Martin’s trademark sound did. And let’s be honest – would Simon Cowell have even given a singer like Charlotte Church the time of day?  Hell no!  He doesn’t have the sensibilities to appreciate her for one thing, and he himself is only impressed with boobs and bucks.  It also reflects in other areas of society too – we see it in the political system, in churches, and in the press.  This is a crisis that shakes the fundamental core of Western Civilization, and it must change if we are to preserve it.

This is why I am making my own stand. I stand for the right of writers to self-publish, for the Christian to worship God authentically, and for the musician to explore the limits of their own imaginations.  Only then can culture be reclaimed.  The cheap substitutes for unvarnished artistic expression and literary integrity must be jettisoned, and the “gatekeepers” that keep pushing artificial and superficial inferiority upon us will be usurped from their ill-gotten thrones.  True academic excellence must be liberated from the constraints of institutional academic gatekeepers. True artistic expression must be liberated from the tone-deaf corporate interests that place a monetary value on a person based on the size and shape of certain body parts.  And true political order must be rescued from the clutches of oligarchs who have an inflated sense of a divinity they don’t possess. The means of that liberation rest with you and I, the individual. Our talents, our gifts, our abilities, our hard work – the value of those must be restored.  That too requires a restructuring and restoration.

When it says in Scripture that the Word of God is a two-edged sword, this also applies to natural law.  Recall Aquinas and Bonaventure, both of whom taught that God authored two “books,” Revelation and Nature.  Nature has become disordered by people who think nature is an end unto itself, divorced from the very God who authored it.  It is time to let the divine light of Revelation introduce supernatural grace back into nature – nature more than ever needs elevation, healing, and perfection.  God’s vessels to do that are two-fold, the two “edges” of a sword.  The Church is one edge, and divinely mandated social order is the other.  The only way the latter can be achieved is through a monarch – not a democracy, not totalitarianism, and even with its virtues, not even republicanism.  However, it is not a stagnant recreation of the past necessarily as that would be the idolatry of sentimentality.  Rather, I tend to concur with my good friend and fellow Monarchist Charles Coulombe, who in his recent book The Compleat Monarchist made an integral point:

“The monarchy of the future would not be a repeat of what has gone before, but it would retain or restore elements of it. Monarchy is as much a part of the European soul as is Christianity; one might see the new Europe as a federation of kingdoms under an empire[3]”

I tend to agree with Charles on this on many levels.  As much as we may have liked what went before, we are not in the past; we are in the now. Therefore, as Charles pointed out the fact that elements could be retained or restored, we also must realize we live in a fallen world as well.  This means that even the best of systems were not perfect, and now that we have the advantage of retrospection, we can critique and analyze what was good to retain and preserve, and what can be tossed as falling short. You have heard me use the analogy of a Waffle House ribeye.  If you have ever eaten one of those, you know you are not in a Michelin-star restaurant when the waitress hands you the plate.  The cut of meat is often thin, grey-looking, and doesn’t even come close to a ribeye you could buy in a supermarket and fix yourself.  Some systems in history are like that – flawed, and we tend to completely write them off.  But perhaps we shouldn’t.  After all, even the Waffle House ribeye is edible, and it will nourish you.  However, you may have to spit out a lot of grease, fat, and gristle in the process to rightly savor the meat.  Yet you don’t waste the meat either, do you?  This is how we should evaluate history too – what was good, what can be preserved and salvaged, and what can we toss out?  I think that was a subconscious second point to what Charles said, and this hopefully will expound on that.

To compliment that, we also look at what Anthony Esolen says in his book Nostalgia. Esolen is talking about development, and while I am not going to encapsulate his total context (read his book), I can draw from it the points he makes.  Development for Esolen draws heavily from Newman, and it is framed in the literal context of an unfolding.  This unfolding is the nurturing and refining of what is already there, and in this regard he points out seven things specifically relating to the development of theological doctrine, but they can equally apply to other areas as well[4]:

1.     It preserves the type.

2.     It preserves a continuity of principles.

3.     It assimilates new ideas that don’t conflict with established principles.

4.     It must illustrate and not obscure the original intent.  It can clarify it or expound upon it but not hide it.

5.     It must corroborate, compliment, and not contradict, the original intent.

6.     It must clarify that exceptions to the rule are not ideal but can be permitted under controlled circumstances (note here also Geisler’s concept of graded absolutism).

7.     A societal error can be a useful catalyst to restore the purpose as part of development.

What that means is that change within reason can be accepted, adopted, and can even be a useful tool. However, when the change itself overtakes the original, it causes an alteration and the consequence is never good.  That is why with tools like AI, understand them as tools and not the fix-all elixir that brings convenience at the expense of principle.

The plan of action in this case is to formulate a strategy based on the foundation already laid, repair cracks in the foundation, and then make it into a continuation of the original that preserves integrity but gives it fresh life. 

Going back to the original musical analogy then, no man is an island unto himself – there must be some sort of fellowship to realize the bigger picture really and fully.  This is why I propose finding like-minded people to network with. You don’t have to agree with every premise they may present, as a saxophone and a trumpet don’t sound the same either.  However, you can work from each other and accomplish parallel and universal goals together.  This is the proper synthesis of the individual dignity of the person with the collaborative assets of those with whom we share a vision and convictions.  That in turn creates a symphony rather than the disruptive cacophony we hear in our society today.

 

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Section III: Plank B — Sacramental Theology and the Convergence Movement

The ultimate integration of human history requires a total convergence of Word, Spirit, and Liturgy—a theological triptych that shatters the fragmented categories of post-Enlightenment heterodoxy. This sacramental realization finds its absolute liturgical apex within the haunting, transcendent weight of the Komitas Badarak—the ancient Armenian Divine Liturgy. When the solemn, modal chants of the Badarak echo across the sanctuary, they carry the dense, cell-deep memory of the Christian East, bridging the historic gap between the upper room of Jerusalem and the rugged mountain scaffolding of our current existence.

While this narrative will not totally encapsulate ecclesiastical topics, the Convergence model is a good one.  The fundamental aspect of Convergence is just like Charles Coulombe discussed in the last chapter – it is not about repetition or LARPing on the past, but rather salvaging, restoring, and refining elements of it. For all the futile attempts of many to “re-create” the original New Testament Church, it simply cannot be done to exact scale for many reasons.  There are things that evolved in historic liturgical and practical aspects of the Church that are good that the New Testament Church did not have – it doesn’t invalidate the primitive Church, nor does it replace it, but rather it builds upon it.  The foundation is solid, and that has not changed, but on occasion a beam or a floorboard in a structure will naturally wear and tear and needs to be refurbished. It doesn’t compromise the original structure but rather strengthens and preserves it.  Again, what that means is looking at the entire picture and not just a screenshot here or there.

To accomplish this, several realities need to be taken into consideration.  For one, unlike some staunch traditionalists located at all points of the Christian denominational spectrum, I don’t necessarily see everything that is Protestant as being “wrong.”  Although I am staunchly Catholic, I also view the Church through the eyes of a convert coming into it – I don’t shed everything just because it seems too “Protestant,” and indeed some of those parts of my own faith journey were good things.  The Church has always adapted things that were noncontradictory into its practices, and that is not a bad thing, in spite of what some Fundamentalists and others say.  Not everything “secular” is necessarily bad, and to say it is somehow is to veer into the ancient heresy of Gnosticism, and it will make a person who thinks this way “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.”  Remember the “two books” of the last discussion?  God created the natural order, established natural law, and in Genesis at each stage of creation what did he say?  The words “It is good.” So, when you hear an overly-zealous Pentecostal or Fundamentalist using cliches and buzzwords like “in the natural” (a phrase I loathe, and I appeal to my cousin and minister Perry Stone in particular to stop using it, because it frankly sounds stupid), realize that they are inadvertently spouting a heresy that even contradicts their own Sola Scriptura convictions.  Likewise, for my traditionalist Catholic friends, I have this to say – there are a few things you too could learn from Protestants, as not everything about their faith is bad either.  It is time to get over the nonsense of nonessentials get back to the Augustinian conviction of “in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity,” because that is the essence of the main premise of the Vincentian Canon too – that being Catholic encompasses that “which is believed by all, at all times, and everywhere.”  That means where secular adaptations, Protestant beliefs, and other things don’t conflict with our faith as Catholics, they are fine.  I don’t believe that people will be sent to hell for praying in tongues, attending a non-sacramental revival meeting, or putting up a Christmas tree or allowing your kids to trick or treat on Halloween. Those are all non-essentials, and they ultimately will not matter in the greater scheme of things.  As for my fellow Catholics, this is something you need to keep in mind too – whether you go to a reverent Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo) Mass or an Extraordinary Form (Traditional Latin, or Tridentine) Mass doesn’t matter.  I like what recently a young Catholic blogger and influencer named Amber Rose said about this on her social media posts – Trads and New Massers need to stop bashing each other and saying they are “not Catholic,” because there is good in both forms, as they are both valid. It goes the other way as well – too many Sadducee Vatican officials, including the current Pope, like to demonize traditionalists while at the same time embracing beliefs and behaviors in direct conflict with Magisterial teaching.  Where’s the consistency?  Leo frankly needs to leave the traditionalists alone and let them have the liberty to attend the Mass that fulfills their spiritual needs, or he risks a schism.  And that leads to the next point.

Convergence is not stuck in traditionalism, but it also doesn’t embrace modernist nonsense like this whole “Synodality” thing the hierarchy in Rome has wanted to push since Francis’s reign. Again, like the analogy of the Waffle House ribeye, digest what is nourishing but spit out what is not.  Although I had not planned on staying on ecclesiastical issues, that is the very thing that ties the dignity of individual personhood and the careful discernment of what to include and what to throw out into this discussion.  At the center of the Christian’s life is the person of Christ, and like my good friend and ministerial mentor Rev. John Broome once said, every issue for the Christian ultimately becomes a theological issue, and that is only true if Christ is at the center.  I now refer back to the brilliant Catholic cleric and educator, Monsignor Eugene Kevane, who had at the core of his thesis for most of his works the idea of Christocentricity.  In his seminal book Jesus the Divine Teacher, which was a fundamental text in my graduate work at Steubenville, Msgr. Kevane brilliantly summarizes that sentiment by stating the following:

“Jesus the divine teacher has concluded the mission he received from his heavenly Father, being made flesh and dwelling among us to conclude Divine Revelation to mankind. He himself in Person and in the doctrine he placed on deposit with his Apostles is the fulness and fulfillment of this Divine Revelation[5].”

Convergence starts with Christocentricity – determining the place of Christ in the worship of the Church is where true devotion begins. The problem with much of this modern Churchianity (both Catholic and Protestant) is that the focus has gotten away from Christ. For the progressives, it means political agendas – the Cenk Uygur-like scream of “Justice!” has replaced the sacramentality of the sanctuary and reduces even the holiest of symbols (especially that of Our Lady) to mere political statements.  On the other hand, in the hyper-charismatic arena of the televangelist and the megachurch, Christ is replaced with entertainment, man-centered ideology (especially the Word of Faith nonsense hawked by the likes of Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland), and more of an emphasis on the whims of the “seeker” (note Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, and Bill Hybels here) over the real reason why we are supposed to be in church and worship in the first place.  Still others, such as Bill Gothard as well as some of the more extreme Holiness/Pentecostals and Fundamentalist Independent Baptists I grew up around, have crafted their own version of a “salvation of works” that is often fear-based and coerces people to “accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior” by encouraging things Jesus never taught, and the legalism of the group then becomes the idol of the sanctuary instead of the Lord it professes to believe.  All of these miss it by infinity, and the utter bankruptcy of Western Christendom is why I have always personally gravitated more toward the Christian East.  The Eastern Churches have their share of false piety and flawed humanity too, but they actually retain something that many in the West have lost – a sense of the sacred and the true place of Christ at the center, as Pantocrator.  These convictions inform the narrative of my own fictional novel Appointed for Consecration, in that they see past the legalism, the grandstanding, and the cheap theology of the West, and they instead restore Christ to his place.  This is a reason why the old Cristero battle cry of “Viva Cristo Rey!” should be at the heart and soul of an ideal Convergence model.

In my studies of Church History, theology, and eschatology, I also have over the years built an affinity for a group many think is extinct now but is very much still around, the Catholic Apostolic Church movement of the 1830s.  Often erroneously called “Irvingites” due to the prominence of one of its ministers, Rev. Edward Irving, this is a movement that many Pentecostal scholars point to as a precursor of the Pentecostal movement that came almost ninety years later in 1906.  While there are similarities – such as the manifestation of glossolalia and other signs, as well as a well-defined eschatology – the two movements are different on many levels.  However, there is a potential movement that does parallel it, and that is the Convergence Movement itself.  However, I don’t think many Convergence leaders understand the connection, as unfortunately they are trying to fuse the wrong components together – contemporary rock-based “worship music,” for instance, has no place in a liturgical setting, and the more extemporaneous expressions of the Charismatic stream of Convergence (revivals, crusades, and other extra-liturgical settings) would be more appropriate for some of that.  I believe the early Catholic Apostolic leaders such as Drummond, Sitwell, Boehm, Cardale, and others would understand that.  So, let me now examine what the idea of Convergence should be based on my own research and experience.

You will notice that I am not attempting to go into a full-fledged historical or theological overview of the Convergence movement.  There are a number of other good resources for that you can look at on your own at your leisure[6].  Rather, this is the ideas I have distilled from my own study and experience, and they will entail a few key necessities in order for it to be an effective model of ecclesiology.  I have summarized them below:

1.     A church that is truly a Convergence congregation will have a high regard for the inerrancy of Scripture, taking what it says seriously and not merely dismissing it as suggestive, as many “progressives” have done.

2.     A church that is truly Convergent will also understand that the Holy Spirit is not some abstraction – he is a real person, the third person of the Triune Godhead.  As a result, the supernatural cannot be downplayed or ignored. As Hebrews 13:8 reminds us, God the Son, Jesus Christ, is the same yesterday, today and forever.  The same truth applies to all members of the Godhead. This is why cessationism is wrong.

3.     A church that is truly Convergent will also recognize two interconnected realities.  As Christ is the head of the Church, he should be central in its worship.  And the means of doing so is through the sacraments and through historic liturgical forms.  While a Convergence congregation that is not affiliated with any of the major rites of Christendom (Latin, Byzantine, Anglican, Oriental) may be at liberty to adapt liturgical practices from those historic rites as meets their needs, they must stay consistent in that liturgical framework for it to be balanced.

4.     A church that is truly Convergent will not give into the fads and fashions of the time, even if those have a religious veneer. Fads are passing, but truth is eternal.

5.     As Christ is the central aspect of sacramental and liturgical practice, he should also be regarded as the King of Kings too. This adds a militant dimension to the faith, and echoes the Knights Templar, the Cristeros, and other resistance movements throughout history that sought and fought to preserve “the faith once and all given to the saints.”

6.     A true Convergence church will be traditional but not stagnant, uphold moral and social standards for the good without becoming legalistic or heretical, and be engaged with the culture without conforming to the culture.

7.     A true Convergence church will also recognize the dignity and inherent worth of its individual members.  When the slogan of “time, talent, and treasure” is utilized, it means that one (treasure) will not make the others subordinate to it, as is often the case, especially in many Roman Catholic parishes.  That means if an individual member has something to contribute, the clergy have a mandate to help that person cultivate and activate their talents, gifts, and skills in a way that glorifies God.  This is the true application of the Ignatian concept of Ad majorem Dei gloriam (for the greater glory of God).

8.     A true Convergence church will understand and practice a balanced, Biblical, and traditional understanding of “social justice,” and not the inconsistent empty platitude that is often screamed by “liberation theology” proponents and the “progressives.”  It means, as I understand my Templar convictions, to defend the defenseless (including the unborn, the persecuted Christian communities around the world, and the industrious people who are poor) through our motto non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam (not to us, oh Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory). The fact that justice and faith go hand-in-hand must be emphasized as well – justice without faith is tyranny, and faith without justice is legalism.  Those two deficiencies defined the Sadducees and Pharisees of Jesus’s day as well, and he upbraided both for it.

9.     Finally, the Convergence church must be eschatological, and this is intimately related to the social Kingship of Christ.  As a result, this is to strive for excellence in academics, political leadership, and other endeavors.  This is by no means synonymous with the “Seven Mountain Mandate” of the hyper-charismatic New Apostolic Reformation movement, nor is it the same as some Catholic “liberation theologians” interpret it.  It means that an ideal Convergent Christian will be classical in learning, Monarchist in political conviction, and fully sacramental/liturgical in faith.  It also embraces systems that promote fair economic benefits for society, a balanced and complimentary view of faith and philosophy, and the adaptability to utilize new technologies and other innovations provided they don’t conflict with the faith.

 

THEREFORE, a Convergent Church will be fully Evangelical in witness, truly Charismatic in spirituality, and uncompromisingly Apostolic/Sacramental/Liturgical in its worship. Blending the best of all three streams ensures balance, zeal, and fidelity in a way that makes the Church whole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This convergence is not a mere intellectual exercise; it is an objective, physical reality that infuses the bloodline with a sacramental dimension. My 2025 reception into the Catholic Templars inside the National Basilica's Maronite Chapel represents one structural culmination of this convergence. By braiding the secular authority of traditional nobility with the unyielding spiritual authority of the ancient Church, the Templar mandate transforms into a double-edged sword designed to defend the vulnerable and preserve historical truth. The blood in our veins is thus wedded to an eternal, liturgical continuity, ensuring that our daily walk remains unswervingly aligned with objective vertical truth. And thus, it means a personal convergence for me as well. 

 

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[1] John F. Crosby. The Selfhood of the Human Person. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996: 67.

[2] Fr. Norris Clarke. The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001: 131.

[3] Charles Coulombe, The Compleat Monarchist. Lincoln, NE: Os Justi Press, 2025: 223.

[4] Anthony Esolen, Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World. Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 2018: 137-140

[5] Msgr. Eugene Kevane, Jesus the Divine Teacher: What the Prophets Really Foretold. Bloomington, IN: Author House, 2005: 234.

[6] Some of those sources include the following:  Robert Webber and Donald Bloesch, eds, The Orthodox Evangelicals: Who They Are and What They are Saying (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978); Bishop Phillip E Weeks and Hugh Kaiser, Non Nobis Domine (Lynchburg, VA: self-published, 2011); Malcolm Smith, Meal of Mystery, Meal of Wonder (Lodi, CA: TWS Publishing, 2024); Peter Gillquist, Becoming Orthodox (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 1989); John Meares, Bind Us Together (Old Tappan, NJ: Chosen Books, 1987); Dr. Krikor Haleblian, The Armenian Church in Context (Los Angeles: Abril Printing, 1996); Robert Webber, Signs of Wonder: The Phenomenon of Convergence in Modern Liturgical and Charismatic Churches (Nashville: Star Song, 1992); David Bercot, Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up? (Amberson, PA: Scroll Publishing, 1989); Fr. Eusebius Stephanou, Sacramentalized But Not Evangelized (Destin, FL: St. Symeon the New Theologian Press, 2005); Paul Thigpen, “Ancient Altars, Pentecostal Fire,” in Ministries Today (Nov-Dec 1992): 43-51.  There are others I could mention too, as the list grows, especially in recent years.  Some of these are not technically Convergence literature, but they were influential in my own journey, which is why I included them here. Another resource worth mentioning is also Bishop Malcolm Smith’s 12-part teaching series, The Power of the Holy Spirit in Liturgy, which is available from Unconditional Love International, P.O. Box 1599, Bandera, TX 78003, www.malcolmsmith.org.