The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

Beyond question, the book subtitled an english professor’s journey into christian faith is this year’s hottest memoir in American confessionally reformed circles. Much of that has to do with the sensational nature of Rosaria Champagne Butterfield’s arc: from a lesbian doctrinaire feminist university professor to the home-schooling wife of a pastor in the Reformed Presbtyerian Church of North America, noted primarily for its insistence on singing only the Psalms in worship, and that without instruments. (To be fair, there’s a great deal more going for  the RPCNA, but that’s what most people notice.) As a book, however, it lacks the power one might expect.

I am often annoyed by reviewers of Christian books who commend a work, but then devote the better part of their review to an in-depth criticism of this or that point. In the current case, I think this is a worthy read, but was unnecessarily weakened by avoidable choices. I’ll begin with those weaknesses so I can close with the book’s strengths and why I believe it should be widely read.

In the acknowledgements, Butterfield thanks her editor and describes her as “compassionate,” but she might have been better off with one a little more hostile. Writers, by and large, love their words the way a mother loves her children, and one of an editor’s most important roles is to point out when those words are ugly or ungainly and should be put out of sight. In the first couple chapters especially, I had to read and re-read sentences due to awkward construction; on at least a couple occasions, I gave up on trying to figure out that to which a particular phrase was referring.

However, the book’s greatest weakness is its middle section, and here an editor from a denominational publisher was least likely to be of help. The first two chapters describe Butterfield’s conversion process and its immediate aftermath; the third chapter provides the transition from this phase of her life to the next as she was acclimatized into the RPCNA; chapters four and five focus on her subsequent marriage and family life.

That third chapter is absolutely necessary, and not just because Butterfield tells her story in chronological sequence. In the immediate aftermath of her conversion, the then Rosaria Champagne was committed to Christ and his Word, but her affiliation with the RPCNA was more an accident of the means which the Spirit used to bring her to faith than it was a conscious or informed choice (as Butterfield notes on pp. 85-86). When she moved to the Reformed Presbyterian Vatican in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, to teach at Geneva College, her instinct for intellectual integrity demanded she reconcile that affiliation with Scripture.

For those in the broader evangelical community, presbyterianism seems an odd enough choice, but Butterfield gives little attention to the distinctives shared by all confessional presbyterians and moves directly to her denomination’s commitment to exclusive, a cappella psalmody in worship. Here, as one long-studied in the philosophy undergirding presbyterian worship, I am  sorely tempted to engage in a deep critique of her arguments. I will try to keep it brief: in sum, Butterfield offers an idiosyncratic defense of the regulative principle of worship as grounded in the Christian commitment to the Bible as the sole canon of God’s revelation. For her, and in light of John 17:17-19, this means God chooses to sanctify us only through his Word, and hence we may only sing Psalms in worship (pp. 90-93).

However, Butterfield fails to provide any reason as to why her rule of canon applies only to singing in worship, and not to its other elements such as preaching or prayer. Ironically, on p. 136 she narrates an encounter in which an OPC member (mockingly, unfortunately) raised just that point. Perhaps a less compassionate editor could have helped Butterfield either by persuading her to not argue for exclusive psalmody, or by helping her present these arguments more simply as those which won her over. When Butterfield writes as though she were a presbyterian theologian, she is not at her best.

She is much better, however, when narrating her own life and “secret thoughts.” For Christians, especially those who have grown up in the faith, Butterfield provides an invaluable window into the mindset of an outsider who feels no need or lack, but has to confront the truth of both God’s Word and authentic Christian witness. I say “authentic Christian witness” because Butterfield found herself, somewhat unwittingly, in a long-term friendship with an older presbyterian pastor and his wife. A true witness is allowing unbelievers to see and understand the lived Christian life, and Butterfield’s testimony is a challenge to Church members who hope unbelievers will be converted by professional evangelists rather than by they themselves loving their neighbors and coworkers. During this time, she was reading the Bible, and it proved to be a very effective means for revealing God’s character, the Gospel of Christ, and her own sin. We ought to be more confident in the power of God’s Word.

In the second chapter, we get to witness the unraveling of Butterfield’s pre-Christian life, which is to say her life. Here all Christians, no matter how long they have been in the faith, have much to learn. We tend to think conversion and repentance are the end of mess and complication; after all, it’s sin which brings so much trouble into our lives. However, sin is deeply rooted in the heart, and just as pulling up a large weed brings up a lot of dirt and leaves behind a big hole, so does finding and removing one’s sin tend to introduce chaos into the extant order of one’s life. Butterfield describes the result, “This was my conversion in a nutshell: I lost everything but the dog” (p. 63). We need to expect new converts to experience difficult times, and to expect all believers to be wrenched by the experience of true repentance.

These first two chapters are admirably concise. Butterfield doesn’t dwell on the racy details of lesbian experience or the drama of leaving that lifestyle behind. She details a broken engagement, but in a way which avoids anything hinting of gossip. The reader expects something of a bodice-ripper, but instead gets an admirable conversion account.

That brevity serves her less well in chapter four, where Butterfield turns to her marriage. She describes Christian marriage admirably, but disappoints her readers by not explaining why she was able to marry Kent Butterfield in contrast to the unmarriable “R” of chapters 1-2. An account of the Butterfields’ courtship would have been a helpful counterpoint to that earlier story, and its absence is a disappointment.

Chapters four and five take up a third of the book and, in a sense, overtake what preceded them. I think this is good and proper. Most parents will agree that the experience of marriage and family define one’s life rather completely, and make all that came before mere prologue, no matter how dramatic that prologue may have been. In this way, Butterfield reminds us that her earlier life may have been unusual, but today she is as fully a member of the body of Christ as any other.

The Butterfields are atypical, though, in that they are a pastor’s family and foster and adoptive family. In both these areas, they have chosen to take the risk of openness, of inviting strangers into their homes and lives. I hope readers stick with this book when the reason they picked it up has been passed because Butterfield compellingly presents the pastor’s wife-view of life and ministry. Most people perceive only their own personal involvement in the life of a congregation, and I hope the larger overview Butterfield gives here helps her readers better understand how they each can better serve in his or her own Church. She also describes, better than I have seen anywhere else, the privileges and griefs of being a Christian who fosters and adopts through social services. In my opinion, many Christians fear the risks and so avoid this area of service by trafficking in scare stories. Butterfield’s insider experience refutes those rumors and beautifully portrays the rewards which come only as a result of risking (and experiencing) grief and loss.

Given mankind’s hard-heartedness, all conversions are unlikely. Still, Rosaria Butterfield’s experiences are certainly unusual. For all their particularity, though, they provide a window into the universal experience of a Christian faith lived in utter commmitment to God’s promises in Christ. Because of that, I hope many will take, read, learn, and live accordingly.