Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Christopher Closeup

Home
Catholic
Religious Music & Entertainment
How Jennifer Fulwiler Found God, Joy, & an Intellectual All-You-Can-Eat Buffet

How Jennifer Fulwiler Found God, Joy, & an Intellectual All-You-Can-Eat Buffet

Last updated on: September 4, 2014 at 9:10 am by Tony Rossi

How Jennifer Fulwiler Found God, Joy, & an Intellectual All-You-Can-Eat Buffet 2014-09-04T09:10:20-05:00 Tony Rossi

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Most people don’t confront their own mortality until they’re in their 30s or 40s. For Jennifer Fulwiler, it happened at age 11 – and it seriously unnerved her for many years, especially because she wasn’t raised to believe in God or an afterlife.

The incident that set off Jennifer’s crisis occurred during a fossil-finding trip with her father near her grandparent’s farm in central Texas. She came across the remains of an ammonite, a sea creature that has been extinct for millions of years.

In her book “Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It,” Jennifer writes, “I had always thought of these creatures as being fundamentally different from me. They were the dead things, I was the alive thing, and that’s how it would be forever. Now I wondered what had kept me from understanding that to look at these long-dead life-forms was to look at a crystal ball of what lay in store for me…Ten million years from now, there would be nothing left of me.”

Though Jennifer’s mother was spiritual-not-religious, the science-loving tween had grown up following her father’s atheist belief system. This life is all there is, and that’s it. So how does an 11-year-old process the idea that she and her loved ones are all going to die some day?

On the drive back to her grandparent’s farm, which you could only enter through a small opening in the fence, a snake slithered across Jennifer and her dad’s path, prompting them to slam on the brakes. When the two of them started laughing about what happened, Jennifer came to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the prospect of death is to distract yourself with as many laughs and good times as possible.

In other words (and with unintentionally Biblical undertones), before she could enter the “narrow gate,” a serpent stopped her in her tracks and directed her towards a worldly-focused life for years to come. And that’s exactly what she achieved in material terms: a good job, marriage to a successful man, driving a Jaguar, a great condo in Austin. Yet Jennifer still felt haunted by spiritual emptiness, a feeling that life was ultimately meaningless.

Seeking Truth Above All Else

In light of her husband Joe’s nominal Christian faith, she started investigating Christianity, a religion she had rejected a long time ago. This time, she did it with an open mind. Ironically, she credits her atheist father with giving her the foundation for her eventual conversion to Catholicism.

During an interview on “Christopher Closeup,” Jennifer said, “He’s a really wonderful, humble man, and I often say that he was one of my biggest influences in converting to Catholicism, because of his humility and selfless love. And then also, what he always taught me was to seek truth above all. Even if it’s inconvenient, even if you don’t like the conclusions you come to, you have to always be focused on what is true.”

Finding the truth in Christianity in general – and Catholicism in particular – took a lot of mental and spiritual effort for Jennifer, who always thought you needed to check your brain at the door in order to believe in God. And though her husband Joe didn’t believe that, his own biases showed when he said things like, “Catholicism is a corrupt belief system that is not true Christianity.”

But once again, the couple’s rigorous investigation into the teachings of the faith, as opposed to what nonbelievers said about it, brought them to a different conclusion.

Jennifer said, “I’m sure that God sent Joe my way, just for this, to help me! Joe went to Yale undergrad, Columbia Law School, Stanford Business School, studied in the Master’s Computer Science program at Stanford. So for somebody like me, who was really afraid of this idea of checking my brain at the door, [it was vital] having my husband agreeing with me, saying, ‘This is the most intellectually honest belief system in the world. This moral code is perfectly consistent. This Church is full of wisdom.'”

Moving Beyond the Caricature of God and Faith

That wisdom made a huge impression on Jennifer, who said that encountering Catholicism “was like being at an intellectual, all-you-can-eat buffet.”

For instance, she loves the Church’s treatment of faith and science as complementary rather than contradictory: “The Catholic worldview puts everything in its proper place, including science. For example, if we’re talking about a question of why does something exist instead of nothing. What happened before the Big Bang? Science is not a discipline that was meant to answer those questions. That’s when you start getting into philosophy and the other disciplines. And we live in this culture that thinks science has the answer for everything. If you ask a question like, ‘Why did that piece of music move me?’ – science can speak to the chemical reactions in your brain, but it can’t really go to the root of that question. So to me, this Catholic worldview feels so much more sane: it respects science, but it respects science in concert with the other disciplines, so that you have that balance, and each area is answering the questions that it is meant to answer.”

Another major shift in Jennifer’s thinking came in her concept of God. She said, “I used to think of God as the white-bearded man throwing down lightning bolts while he was sitting on a cloud. One of the things I had to let go of was this idea that I could completely understand God. The idea of committing my life to this being that I could never wrap my mind around what or who He is [made me think], ‘What am I getting myself into here?’ And what I came to see when I read the great Catholic thinkers throughout the ages was this much more mystical, much more impenetrable concept. It was daunting but it was also thrilling.”

Entering Through the Narrow Gate

Converting didn’t just affect the Fulwilers beliefs, but their actions and their lifestyle as well. Before becoming Catholic, noted Jennifer, she followed the values of the society in which she lived: make as much money as you can, live comfortably, don’t make too many sacrifices, and don’t have too many children.

Since Jennifer and Joe are now the parents of six children, they obviously moved beyond their old ways and chose to enter the “narrow gate.” She concludes, “When we first made all these changes and we left the fancy lifestyle, we suddenly had all of these problems and these crosses that we didn’t have before…And to this day, we struggle so much more than we did when we were living our worldly, secular lives. And yet, our lives are bursting with life and with love and with joy…So I think it’s definitely a scary proposition to nonbelievers, when I say, ‘My life is 10 times harder now than it was when I was an atheist.’ And I think it is sometimes hard for them to believe the truth: that it might be 10 times harder, but it is infinitely more joyful.”

(To listen to my full interview with Jennifer Fulwiler, click the podcast link:)

Previous Post

September 3, 2014

How to Build an Active Prayer Life

Next Post

September 5, 2014 Blessed Mother Teresa's Advice on 'Securing Heaven'

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Act One American Idol Andy Griffith Show Audrey Assad Baseball Bible Books Catholic Charities Christmas Christopher Awards Christopher Closeup Christopher News Notes Current Events Down syndrome Education Father Jonathan Morris Father Keller Films Forgiveness Fringe Government Hallmark History Holidays Humor Inspiration Leadership Lost Marriage Media Medical Military Movies Music NY Med Once Upon a Time Once Upon a Time Parenting Patheos Movie Club Person of Interest Politics Pope Francis Prayer Pro Life Saints Senior Citizens Signed Sealed Delivered Special Needs Sports Three Minutes a Day TV Uncategorized Volunteering Women Youth

Select a Month March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Where was Paul when he had a vision of a man from Macedonia pleading for help?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Corinth Athens Troas Philippi