The modern world is drowning in a veritable ocean of false gods. True, they may no longer take the form of golden idols as they did in the days of ancient Israel, but they are just as real. Instead of cast images of cows, we now prostrate ourselves before money, pleasure, and power. We fall on our faces before idols of efficiency and entertainment. We worship politicians, ideologies, superstars, and ourselves.

We are not an atheistic culture. It is not that we worship no god. It is that more and more of us are worshipping the wrong gods.

The book of Exodus is a story about what happens when someone or something tries to supplant the place ‌reserved for the true God. The consequences are not pleasant. Pharaoh, considering himself a god, forced the Israelites into slavery and made them build his monuments. Then, the Egyptian regime slaughtered male children under a certain age. The Hebrew God retaliates and afflicts Egypt with ten horrible plagues that bring destruction to that once proud people. Finally, the Hebrews are set free and the Egyptian Empire is left in ruin. In Exodus, the worship of a false god brings slavery, slaughter, pestilence, and destruction.

In light of this, is it any wonder that the Law given to the Hebrews by their true God begins with a rather simple declaration? “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2-3, RSV).

In Exodus, God is that which sets Himself against the enslaving tyranny of Pharaoh. He is the source of true freedom for the ancient Israelites and for us. It is worth pointing out that the famous phrase which Moses passes onto Pharaoh is often misquoted as being “Let my people go.” What God actually tells Moses to say is “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” (Exodus 8:1). The battle in Exodus, therefore, is not between tyranny and a sort of vague “do whatever you want” type of freedom. It is rather between service to a false god (Pharaoh, slavery) or service to the True God (freedom). As the great American poet and philosopher Bob Dylan once sang, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody/It may be the Devil/Or it may be the Lord/But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

In a reflection found in volume 3 of the Word on Fire Bible (page 356), Bishop Robert Barron offers part of his interpretation of the first of the Ten Commandments. He says, “As we see in the third chapter of Genesis, the essence of sin is false worship, turning something less than God into God, confusing creature and creator, accepting the conditioned as the unconditioned. Every other form of moral and spiritual dysfunction follows from this most fundamental distortion. Hence, the necessarily first move in the ethical transformation of Israel is the dethronement of false gods.” I believe, when one views the First Commandment in this light, one understands why it is indeed the First. It is the foundation upon which all the others rest. A violation of any of the other nine commandments is, implicitly, a violation of the First. Indeed, any sin at all violates the First Commandment. In sin, we elevate the object of our sin to the status reserved only for God. If you steal, you have subordinated God and His Law to your desire for the thing you stole. If you commit adultery, you subordinate God’s laws of marriage to your desire for the person with whom you have an affair. The object of your sin becomes the false god on whose altar you have sacrificed True Morality to. If that is not worshipping a false god, I do not know what is.

But this First Commandment is not merely an injunction against a certain behavior or state of mind. There is‌ a “Thou shalt” embedded in all the “Thou shalt nots”. If God forbids the worship of false, lesser gods, it is not because He wants us to worship nothing (which, as we see in Dylan’s and Barron’s wisdom, is impossible). He wants us to worship Him and Him alone. He wants to occupy the center of our lives. He wants to be the most important thing to any of us, that which we are always looking up at and striving toward.

So, with this in mind, I ask you, dear reader, is God the center of your life? Does He occupy a true place of primacy?

Do you make a point of setting time aside each day to talk with Him in prayer? To be sure, someone as important as God is supposed to be to us deserves some dedicated daily time. I do not mean that you talk to Him when it is convenient, or when you need something. God is not your celestial butler. Construct a prayer routine. Appoint a time, every day, where you can reliably speak with Him. Do not allow anyone else to tell you what that time should look like. That is up to you. Perhaps your time of deep dedicated prayer is in the morning after you wake up. Maybe it is after you get home from work. Maybe it is just before bed. Regardless, set a time for prayer every day.

So too with Scripture. Do you give Him a chance to talk back by the study of His Word in Sacred Scripture? Do you have an appointed time to read the Bible and meditate on what it might be saying to you? Surely, we should seek to listen to someone as indispensable and wise as God.

Do you spend time weekly praising Him, worshipping Him, and contemplating Him alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ? Do you attend Mass (or worship service, for my non-Catholic brothers and sisters) regularly? After all, it must be a wonderful thing to set aside at least one hour a week to meditate upon that which is highest.

Do you go about your daily life, outside your appointed moments of communion with God, in a way that honors and glorifies Him as the one and only King of your life? Do you strive to behave in a way that reflects your commitment to the One True God? Do you fulfill your duties, obligations, and your vocation with Him in mind? As Christians, the ultimate aim of our life and everything in it ought to be Him. Neither wealth, nor pleasure, nor power, nor honor should animate us. He should. For He, alone, is our God.

To live out your life in obedience to the spirit of the First Commandment means actively placing God at the center of your life. It means living in love, service, and obedience to He who made you in His own image. It means to intimately know Him who is, right now, whoever and wherever you are as you read this, whatever mental, physical, or spiritual condition you are in, actively loving YOU into existence. That is worth repeating. God is, at this very moment, loving you, breathing you, singing you into existence. And He who is Love itself wants only good for His creation, including you. That also means that it is good that you exist, for the God who is also Goodness itself sees fit to continuously sustain your being for the good you might do for Him and for others.

To live in obedience to the spirit of the First Commandment means always aiming up toward God in all things that you do. It means trying, always and everywhere, to orient your life in such a way that everything you say and do becomes another rung on the ladder toward heaven upon which we all climb. It gives a single, unifying purpose to your life that transcends every circumstance you could find yourself in. It is, I believe, the antidote to meaninglessness. It is one way you might find the strength to drag yourself out of bed even on the worst of days and keep going, because it is not any empty idol that calls you forth, but God Himself.

So, place God where He belongs, at the center of your life. Aim at Him. Commune with Him. Obey Him. Love Him. Make Him that which unites all that you are and all that you do. Give your life a purpose that will not disappoint and will never run out. Strive, as best you can, in every moment of your life, little or big, to move closer to the God that made you. Perhaps, in so doing, you will inspire, embolden, and encourage others. Perhaps, in so doing, you will move not just your life but that of your family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors a little closer to heaven and a little further from hell.

And, honestly, what false, empty god could be worth giving all that up for?

“I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

This premise, I worry, some see not as fantasy, but reality—a reflection of the Catholic Church. So, as a Catholic in good standing, allow me to clarify the matter.

The source of salvation is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and nothing else.

This is basic orthodox Christian doctrine. It is deeply Scriptural, and it is a truth which is affirmed by the official teachings of Catholicism.

First, let us look at Scripture. The book of Acts records St. Peter saying, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 RSV). Earlier in that chapter we see that the “name” Peter is referring to here is Jesus Christ. St. Paul tells Timothy, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” (1 Timothy 2:5-6). Our Lord Himself says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). There are other examples, but these three are more than sufficient for our purposes. Scripture is quite clear that Christ alone is the source of our salvation.

Official Catholic doctrine affirms this. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says, “In the forgiveness of sins, both priests and sacraments are instruments which our Lord Jesus Christ, the only author and liberal giver of salvation, wills to use in order to efface our sins and give us the grace of justification.” (CCC 987). The Church puts it even more plainly earlier in the Catechism: “Salvation comes from God alone…‘We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation.’” (CCC 169). Note the difference between believing the Church like you might believe something a friend tells you and believing in something. There are many other examples. However, these two show the Church unequivocally declares God's grace, obtained through Christ's sacrifice, as the sole source of salvation. This was further affirmed by Pope Saint John Paul II in a general audience given on May 31, 1995, saying, “Christ won universal salvation with the gift of his own life. No other mediator has been established by God as Savior. The unique value of the sacrifice of the cross must always be acknowledged in the destiny of every man.” So, we clearly see, both from the Catechism and from the mouth of a recent and canonized pope, that the Catholic Church does not teach that she or her rituals are the source of salvation.

The Church does, however, teach that she has a unique role to play in God’s plan of salvation. In Catholic theology, the Church is not a merely human institution. Rather, Jesus Christ Himself established her, granting her authority and power. The Apostles and their successors (the bishops) have exercised this power. The Holy Spirit has guided and guarded her authority and essential truths for the past 2,000 years (give or take). The Church is, therefore, a divine institution. In the Catholic understanding, this is true of no other Christian denomination. Christ Himself directly empowered her. Her authority, her rituals, and her sacraments are not man-made. God made and ordained them. Any power, salvific or otherwise, that they have, they only have because He gave it to them. In other words, the Church and her rites are not the source of salvation. They are, in the proper Catholic understanding, the ordinary “instrument” by which Christ made His gift of salvation available to us. You do not have to accept the Catholic view of the Church’s role (a point which I am not, in this essay, trying to argue for) in order to recognize that this differs greatly from calling the Church the source of salvation. The Church does not view herself as the ocean from which saving water flows, but as the river by which that water reaches us.

All Christians, regardless of denomination, have some mechanism by which the saving grace of Christ comes to His followers. Even the most adamantly sola fide (faith alone) Protestant believes you must, at the very least, ask Christ to save you, thereby putting your faith in Him, in order to be saved. Otherwise, all people would be saved without having to do anything at all. No major Christian group believes that happens.

Consider the following example. A Baptist minister comes to you one day and presents you with the Christian message. He convinces you that you are a wretched sinner (which you are) and that you need salvation (which you do) and that the consequence of departing this earth absent God’s saving grace is that you will spend eternity separated from God in Hell (which it is). You, understandably upset by this troubling news, ask him, “Sir, what must I do to be saved?” He replies, “I am glad you asked and I have wonderful news for you. It is remarkably easy. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved!” You say “Great. How do I do that?” He then offers to pray a prayer with you that goes something like this: “I confess I am a sinner and that I need salvation. Jesus, I ask You to save me now. I place all my hope and trust in You alone. Amen.” The minister asks if you meant it. You say that you did. The minister congratulates you and assures you that you are now saved. (This example, though it might seem contrived, reflects actual videos I have seen showcasing Baptist ministers' door-to-door evangelism. I did not choose to use it out of mockery, but out of a desire for its simplicity. I also do not believe this represents all or even most Protestant views of salvation).

In that example, the “instrument” of salvation is the prayer in which the person places their faith in Christ alone. However, neither the person being evangelized nor the minister would say that the prayer is where the saving grace comes from. It is only the “instrument” of that saving grace. So it is with the Catholic Church. She is not the source. She is the instrument.

Thus, we see that Catholics and Protestants (for example) do not disagree on the source of salvation. It is Christ alone. Indeed, all true Christians ought to be able to agree on this. Anything else shows a deeply flawed and disordered view of Christianity and salvation. The genuine disagreement, then, has to do with the nature of the instruments by which Christ’s gift of salvation comes to us.

And that, my dear readers, is a topic for another essay.

The second category is that which I hope to address in this series of essays. Namely, people who misunderstand what the Catholic Church actually teaches. The vast majority of people with bones to pick with the Church whom I have met fall into this category. Moreover, I worry that there are many Catholics who themselves have a weak understanding of their own beliefs and are, therefore, particularly vulnerable to strawman arguments. I was once such a Catholic myself. When I arrived at my high school, which was run and staffed overwhelmingly by fundamentalist Baptists, many of whom were deeply anti-Catholic, I was ‌unprepared for the attacks I faced. My lack of preparation stemmed in part from my prior lack of exposure to my opponents' beliefs. Things like young earth creationism, sola scriptura, and even the concept of “getting saved” were alien to me. But I think the bigger problem was that I had a poor understanding of the things my own religious tradition taught. So, when I was presented with what were, at best, caricatures of Catholic teaching by the staff and students (many of whom were former Catholics themselves) who had made it their mission to save me from the path of damnation the Catholic Church was supposedly leading me down, then shown Scripture verses that seemed to ‌contradict those teachings, I quickly found my faith shaken.

I never left Catholicism, though I came very close.

After I graduated high school, I became ‌lukewarm in the practice of my religion for a few years. That changed with my discovery of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson’s Biblical lectures sometime around 2018 or 2019 (the fact that the work of a religiously unaffiliated clinical psychologist was the catalyst for my return to religion is very curious to me and probably worth an essay in its own right). I started taking my faith more seriously again. More importantly, I learned more about it. I soon found many high school arguments against Catholicism to be, at best, caricatures and, at worst, straw men. That was unsettling enough. Worse, I failed to recognize such inaccurate depictions of my faith. When I was told things like “Catholics believe you earn your salvation by works” I did not know enough to say “No‌, we do not”.

That brings me to the purpose of this series. In the essays to come, I hope to dispel some misunderstandings of Catholic doctrine. I will address commonly misunderstood doctrines, such as papal infallibility, and doctrines the Church does not teach, such as salvation being earned through good works. My sources will include Church doctrinal documents such as the Catechism, writings of great saints, and Scripture. I will show why these misrepresentations are inaccurate and why the true Catholic teachings are far more profound, rich, and beautiful than often presented.

I am not writing as a theologian. Indeed, I have no formal training in theology at all. I am neither a pastor nor a priest. I am not an expert. I write as someone who knows what it is like to misunderstand what Catholicism is. I write from the perspective of someone who understands how misunderstandings can disappear, unveiling the hidden magnificent masterpiece that was always present but not previously visible to me. I write as someone who has seen the truth of the quote I opened this essay with firsthand, as someone who has seen Protestants go from hating the Catholic Church to respecting and even appreciating it because they learned that the teachings of that Church were often not the grotesque anti-Scriptural things they thought they were.

Neither do I write with hostile intent. Rather, I write with conciliatory intent. If you are a non-Catholic Christian reading this, know that I am not, strictly speaking, trying to convert you to Catholicism. I am simply hoping to show that we may not be as far apart doctrinally as you might think.

Finally, to my Catholic brothers and sisters reading this, I hope you will come away from this series with a greater understanding of what we do not, in fact, believe and will, therefore, grow in your understanding and appreciation of the truly beautiful and profoundly deep teachings of the Catholic Church.

Best wishes to you all and may God bless you.

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