Glorious Broadmindedness
The story of every conversion is a love letter to God. Each one is unique; each one tells us how varied are the ways that he uses to draw souls to himself. This book is no exception. Its title is already revealing: an American conversion: Texas-born, Deal Hudson’s way to the Catholic Church was through the discovery of beauty. This fact sets his path apart from most conversion stories that I have read.
To some readers, this may sound puzzling. Those of us born and raised Catholic country are, from our youth, exposed to beauty in churches, paintings, and music. We know intuitively—long before we can conceptualize—that “heaven and earth speak of God’s glory” (emphasis mine). Hudson had to struggle to come to this conclusion.
At nineteen he “walked the aisle” to accept Jesus Christ “as his Lord and Savior.” On that day, he became a committed Southern Baptist who for many years lived his faith and tried to win others whose souls, victims of prejudice and ignorance, were threatened by “eternal perdition.” This apostolate included a trip to southern Texas, whose population is heavily Hispanic. When Deal told his aunt about this apostolate, her response stunned him. “Her face turned dark with disapproval as she asked why I would try to convert Catholics to a faith they already had” (p. 37).
He studied philosophy (raising the eyebrows of his Baptist friends, who worried that he had turned his attention away from an exclusive concern with the Word), went to Princeton, and continued to pursue his apostolate. But he realized more and more that something was missing. When Hudson mentioned to a Baptist friend that he was going to visit someone who shared his passion for music, the friend reminded him earnestly that he should use this visit to try to convert music-lover. When he gave a talk in North Carolina and chose as his theme four popular movies, the session became rocky. Was he not endangering the faith of his audience?
More and more, Hudson realized that to be a good and faithful Baptist he had to turn his back on the arts, culture, and beauty. These were considered secular pursuits that were clearly antagonistic to an authentic Christian life. The Bible, was supreme and left no room for anything else. It became clear to him the basic Baptist position created a rift between faith and reason, supernature and nature. Gifted with a great artistic sensitivity, he found it hard to reconcile the depth of his artistic experiences with his Baptist faith.
For this reason he turned down a position offered him as a pastor in New York City, and went to Atlanta to pursue his graduate studies at Emory. There he made the acquaintance of a Catholic, Erasmo Leiva Merikakis, who introduced him to contemporary Catholic literature—Bernanos, Evelyn Waugh, and Julien Green, to mention a few. He discovered Dante, Baudelaire, Rilke; and theologians such as Hans Urs von Balthasar.
Leiva Merikakis introduced him to Trappist spirituality and to the writing of Flannery O’Connor. This discovery was crucial to him. But he still hoped to be able to pursue his vocation as a Baptist preacher. He taught for one year at a penitentiary not far from Atlanta where he made a stunning discovery: During a course on artistic appreciation he introduced the inmates to classical music. “Some of them were so overcome they put their heads down on the desk and wept” (p. 102). That these hard-core drugs addicts (or worse) could be so moved by beauty taught Hudson a great lesson: Great music was giving hungry human souls a spiritual message. Beauty was accomplishing something that words had failed to do.
He also made the acquaintance of a Catholic priest, Father Lynch, S.J., who lectured on Sophocles and opened up the greatness of the theater. The world of artistic beauty was fecundating his mind and heart, and he became convinced that a Christian life and authentic natural values were not at loggerheads. The narrowness of views that he had experienced among committed Baptists troubled him deeply. Why should faith wage war on reason? Why should natural beauty be anathemized?
In the secular world, the word narrow-minded refers to persons who are not opened to “all ideas,” usually because of their faith. Would it not be more accurate to say that it is a rejection of any authentic value (whether truth or beauty) because of prejudice? If we are truly broadminded, it does not and should not mean that we welcome all ideas or views, (whether true or false, degrading or noble, vulgar or sublime), but that we open our hearts and minds to any authentic value, whatever its origin.
Deal Hudson was to find in the Catholic Church authentic broadmindedness, a splendid formulation of which is found in Augustine, who wrote that “whatever is true is ours.” We could add “whatever is beautiful is ours; whatever is good is ours.” This is why the Church has nothing to fear from scientific discoveries. But we cannot be narrow-minded enough in our rejection of errors, heresies, and all poisonous weeds that keep springing into human minds.
This glorious broadmindedness of the Church (Catholic means universal) is, alas, not necessarily understood by some of her members. There are Catholics who are wary of any literary or artistic work not written by a Catholic. Still worse, there are some who are suspicious of any theological or philosophical statement not found verbatim in Aquinas.
The conclusion we can draw is that knowledge of the artist’s personality is not the key to a valid interpretation of his work. The truly great artist in his artistic creativity transcends what he is as a person (Plato saw this): He is inspired.
Hudson was on his way to the Church. He depicts a delightful visit to a Carmelite monastery in San Francisco that changed his Protestant view of contemplative life and the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. To his surprise, the nuns were in no way ugly women: They were lovable and attractive. Upon leaving them, he met his friend Erasmo Leiva in church, and furtively crossed himself with holy water.
A chapter is devoted to the Catholic writers who convinced him that there should be room on one’s faith for natural values. They are Evelyn Waugh, Bernanos, Sigrid Undset, Julien Green, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy. Julien Green is the one who made the deepest impression upon him. He quotes a great Green sentence: “Nothing is colder than a pleasure-loving man.” (p. 155).
— Alice von Hildebrand
An American Conversion: One Man’s Discovery of Beauty and Truth in Times of Crisis
By Deal Wyatt Hudson
Crossroad/Herder & Herder (2003)
224 pages (hardcover)
ISBN: 0-824-521-269