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    Something Greater is Here
    Something Greater is Here
    Something Greater is Here
    Ebook112 pages3 hours

    Something Greater is Here

    By Kenneth J. Howell

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    About this ebook

    What does a man do when he arrives at a place in his career where he is doing what he always wanted to do, only to find that he really wanted something more? In his mid-thirties Kenneth Howell was teaching in a Protestant seminary after nine years of Presbyterian ministry. After receiving the highest degree possible in his field, he was exactly where he wanted to be. The future looked very bright. But two nagging questions wouldn’t let him alone. Is what he believes really true? Does he really understand what it means to be a Christian? And the second: is this all there is to being a Christian? Could there be a deeper spirituality out there that he had not yet encountered?

    Those questions kept Kenneth Howell up at night. He tried to avoid, ignore, and suppress them, but they wouldn’t go away. He was faced with a tough choice. Either pursue the truth and the God of all truth with integrity and zeal, or sit back into a comfortable life of familiar places and familiar faces. He decided that he really had no choice. It was all or nothing.

    As he tried to answer these questions, Kenneth Howell began to find life more difficult, not easier. His pursuit of truth, goodness, and love gradually led him into a world he had only vaguely glimpsed from afar. It was a world filled with things he had always longed for. It was the fullness of truth.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCHResources
    Release dateNov 17, 2015
    ISBN9780692578391
    Something Greater is Here
    Author

    Kenneth J. Howell

    Kenneth J. Howell, Senior Fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, is director of the John Henry Cardinal Newman Institute of Catholic Thought and Adjunct Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Illinois. Dr. Howell is the author of several books and, holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from Indiana University, is a seasoned scholar of ancient Greek, and also has a Ph.D. in the history of Christianity and science from the University of Lancaster (U.K.). A Presbyterian minister for 18 years and a theological professor for seven years in a Protestant seminary, Dr. Howell was confirmed and received into the Catholic Church in 1996. He and his wife, Sharon, have three children. They live in Champaign, Illinois.

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      Book preview

      Something Greater is Here - Kenneth J. Howell

      AUTHOR

      COPYRIGHT AND METADATA

      SOMETHING GREATER IS HERE

      KENNETH J. HOWELL

      CHRESOURCES

      CHResources

      PO Box 8290

      Zanesville, OH 43702

      740-450-1175

      www.chnetwork.org

      CHResources is a registered trademark of the

      Coming Home Network International, Inc.

      Copyright (C) 2015 Kenneth J. Howell

      All rights reserved.

      Printed in the United States of America

      ISBN: 978-0-9907921-1-6

      Library of Congress Control Number 2015933401

      Cover design and page layout by Jennifer Bitler

      www.doxologydesign.com

      EBook by Marpex Inc. Steubenville Ohio

      FOREWORD

      Never before in the history of the world have our lives been so inundated with opinions on what is best for us, for our families, and for our future. There no longer is one Bible, for there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of translations. There no longer is one Church or one religion, for there are thousands of denominations, religions, sects, and cults. There no longer is one gospel, for the number of permutations nearly equals the number of pulpits worldwide. There no longer is a simple, limited, manageable selection of trustworthy books and outlets for information, for there is instead a near infinite array of voices, growing exponentially every day.

      The idea that something more is out there seems obvious and even trivial, for that is precisely all that there is: more and more, until our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren become paralyzed by the myriad of voices, leaving our world and their world unsustainable.

      Certainly around us are many who seem content in their corner of this more and more, shutting their eyes and ears to any challenging variations, certain and content that they have found what is eternally true. Maybe you are one of those, certain that where you have always been and where you are now is precisely where you must stay with no need to budge!

      But in the midst of this more and more, how can you or I be certain that what we have found is indeed true, beautiful, and good? That what we have learned from infancy, have studied, maybe even taught, is the fullness of what is true, or merely a shadow that has been passed down and along from generation to generation unexamined?

      If, through the love and mercy of God, there is something more out there -- something greater -- a gift offered by our Creator to help us break through the cacophony of today's aimless din of nonsense -- something different from what you have ever considered -- would you be able to break free from the bonds of your present assumptions to hear, understand, and accept? And how would you determine whether this new gift is indeed true and trustworthy?

      Well, there is such a thing, a gift; that is, there is such a Person. And He's not new, and His voice has rung true throughout the ages, piercing the confusion, surviving all suffering, and the community of His mercy and grace survives with Him, Militant, Suffering, and Triumphant.

      There is something greater here, and it is here for you. This is what Dr. Kenneth Howell has come to share: his own personal search, from the comfort of his childhood religious inheritance, through the many sufferings of his life, through the joys of his journey of faith, through his determined study to clarify the confusions of modern Christianity, and, in the end, to the discovery of that which God offers to anyone who asks, seeks, or knocks.

      It is my hope that Ken's candid account of his journey of faith will help you discover that there is indeed something greater here for you, too.

      Marcus Grodi

      Founder/President

      The Coming Home Network International

      PREFACE

      The Jewish leaders of Jesus' day asked Him to give them a sign of His being sent by God to do the things He did. He responded that the sign they sought was already here (Mt 12:41-42). He provided them with two great figures of Israel's history whom He knew they could not dispute: Solomon and Jonah. The first had been exalted to the throne of his father, David, and was honored by a royal visit from the Queen of the South. The second had been humbled for his disobedience but then honored by the repentance of the king and people of Nineveh. Both were lodged in the Jewish memory as signs of God's work in the world of men. Yet they also pointed forward to a time when an even greater sign would be given to God's people, the sign of God in human flesh. Something great was here.

      If Solomon had been honored by the visit of a queen and Jonah had been honored by the repentance of a pagan city, Jesus' compatriots should certainly have recognized Him as greater than Solomon and Jonah. Something greater was there. Yet, even the presence of something greater does not ensure that people will be able to see and appreciate its greatness. I did not. Throughout my whole life, something greater was here, waiting on me to acknowledge it, but I failed to see it -- not because of malice or obstinence, but because of ignorance and self-will.

      Like all human pilgrims, I came to the realization that God is forever beyond the grasp of our minds. Yet, this same God can be known and loved by hearts willing to fall down before the mystery of His presence and grace.

      I found that such a God is the end and purpose of life. Nothing less will do. Something greater, much greater, still awaits us in the Beatific Vision.

      Chapter One -- THE BEGINNING OF MY SEARCH FOR SOMETHING MORE

      Spiritual Awakenings

      College and Seminary

      1952-1987

      On the wall of my childhood bedroom hung a picture of a clipper ship, one of those nineteenth-century vessels that sailed the world to bring spices and artifacts back to America and Europe. With their billowing sails and long slender hull, those ships evoked something that has never left me. I imagined myself as a crewmember out to see the world, places far away and little understood. I had a desire to go there to see how other people lived and to understand a world very different from my own. I longed for adventure. And since the boy is the father of the man, I still possess that spirit of adventure today. I have always had a sense that there was something greater out there waiting on me, and I have always wanted to be there, not here.

      I was born and raised in Tampa, Florida into a Presbyterian family not unlike most American families of the 1950s. I was baptized as a baby on March 29, 1953 into the Protestant Faith that had been part of my family for decades, maybe centuries. That Presbyterian or Reformed Faith was lived out in Seminole Presbyterian Church, the name taken from the Native American Indians who once roamed this southern wilderness. Tampa had been the birthplace of my parents and the longtime home of both sets of grandparents. Our roots went deep in the Florida soil. To me, snow was as foreign as China and I frolicked in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico as a child.

      My childhood was by and large a pleasant one with three siblings: an older sister, an older brother, and a younger brother. My parents were hardworking and caring. My father was in the insurance industry and my mother was a homemaker. Since my older brother was only about two years older than me, I naturally did everything with him. As he could always do things better than me, I grew accustomed to not being the best. And I didn't resent this for a moment; I just always strove to be like him.

      While still a child, God began teaching me the reality and value of suffering. When I was about ten years old, my older brother and I were playing football on the street with some neighborhood boys. Playing the wide receiver that day, I jumped up to catch a pass thrown over my head. My brother jumped, too, in an effort to deflect the pass, but when he came down, his elbow struck me in the left eye. I keeled over in excruciating pain. No one knew at the moment how serious the injury was but after a few days I noticed that my vision had been impaired. Over the next year my mother and I would make weekly visits to the eye doctor as he tried to fix my vision. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The doctor was an active and open Christian. I can still remember him, my mom, and me praying together in his office.

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