2026 Presidential Nominees - Question 1

I was baptized as an infant and grew up in the church. However, I do not remember salvation being talked about at all, nor the idea of having a relationship with God through Jesus. During my freshman year of college, I was invited to a campus ministry group, and the first night I attended, they had an open question night. The question I wrote was, “How do we know which parts of the Bible are true and which are made up by humans?” The response was that all of the Bible is inspired by God and can be trusted as his Word. I had never heard that before. Later that year, I was giving a friend a ride home in the pouring rain in rush hour traffic in the Twin Cities. They chose that moment to ask, “If you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven?” I knew the right answer and said “Yes.” My friend did not ask any follow-up questions and we immediately went back to whatever we had been talking about. Not the best witnessing plan, but God used it. The question began to repeat in my head: Did I really know this? What was the basis for my answer?

I had brought my Bible received at confirmation with me to college, and it was still in pristine condition. Due to my parent’s influence, I had begun to pray prayers for God’s guidance toward the end of my high school years; however, I had not read the Bible at all. I decided that, if I was saying I was a Christian, it was time to figure out what that really meant. By the end of my freshman year, I began reading it daily, with a goal of reading the whole thing. I started with Matthew through Revelation and then went back to Genesis through Malachi, which took about 18 months. By the time I was done with the Old Testament, I was so desperate to hear about what God did to fix the mess of sinful humanity that I started with Matthew again. By the time I finished the New Testament, I knew. My answer was the same, but I knew why. Assurance of salvation is based in Jesus alone. His work on the cross. His perfect life. His defeat of death in the resurrection. I am still amazed that Jesus offers that to us. His story created faith that knew. Faith that knows assurance of salvation is simple; look to Jesus.

The Bible is still the primary way that God shapes my relationship with him. I don’t know how many times I have read through it, but I have worn out four Bibles since then. Of course God has, by the Holy Spirit, used prayer, worship, other believers, experiences of following him (and failing to), and times of brokenness to shape the relationship as well. But the Word is what keeps me connected to the Vine.

…as they are led from the faith received in infant baptism into a clear conscious personal faith in Christ as their Lord and Savior and being assured of salvation, rely solely on the finished work of Christ, and the power of the Gospel to live as children of God.
―CLB Statement of Faith, 7b

My earliest memory is one of misplaced terror. I was about three years old and living on the campus of the Lutheran seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, at which my father was studying to enter the ministry. Walking past a basement apartment, I took it upon myself to close its open window. From the moment I closed it, I felt shame and great alarm that I would face severe consequences. My mother took me to the grocery store and, looking up at every adult that we passed, I imagined that each one would be the one who would stoop down and accuse me of my crime and I would be punished. Not surprisingly, it never happened and nothing ever came of the window-closing incident. Closing a window may not seem particularly sinful but, even at three years old, I understood that I had done something that I was not permitted to do and that a just consequence for disobedience was punishment.

Despite being baptized as an infant, raised in a Christian home, and catechized in a Bible-believing church, I was inclined to see God only as a holy, demanding judge, not as a loving, merciful Father. I was very aware that I sinned in thought, word, and deed and deserved only condemnation. At the age of five, I had an occasion in which I believed that I was having a heart attack and I remember my father consoling me and trying to allay my concern that if I should die, then I was going to hell. Not surprisingly, I lived to see another day. But I was becoming increasingly driven to find some sense of assurance of salvation. Mistakenly, I sought it in works-based righteousness. From childhood, to adolescence and, then, adulthood, I found myself in a vicious cycle in which I sinned, begged God for forgiveness, and tried to do better and work harder. The sins got bigger and bolder, the prayers more fervent, and the efforts to achieve righteousness more intense. Even pursuing a Biblical Studies degree caused further harm as the Word was taught to me as errant, unreliable, and conditioned by time and culture.

Unmoored from the Word of God, tired of the cycle, and now living in “adult” freedom, I drifted into sinful worldliness, justifying my sin rather than repenting of it. I abandoned the church for at least half a decade and spent another half decade in churches that did not challenge my false thinking or sinful behavior but, instead, accepted it and, sometimes, affirmed it. By God’s grace, destruction was averted. By God’s providence, at the age of 33, a role change in my secular job resulted in my family and I moving to McAlisterville, PA, where we attended Good News Lutheran Brethren Church in October 2004 and heard Law and Gospel preached. That sparked a desire on my part to better understand what I was hearing so I searched online for sermons and Bible studies to download that seemed like they may provide answers. While making a drive to a work site, listening to a sermon on the way, I was convicted not just of my sin, but of my sin nature. In that moment, I realized that my striving for righteousness (and my pursuant striving against righteousness) was entirely the result of not trusting on Christ’s righteousness alone. And, for the first time in my life, I truly believed, relying solely on the finished work of Christ, now possessing assurance of salvation.

Luther observes in his Smalcald Articles that “God is superabundantly generous in his grace.” Over the last 21 years of my life, I have daily experienced his generosity through his Word and Sacraments and the encouragement and exhortation of fellow believers. My wife is my closest and wisest confidant. I have friends who encourage me and are honest about my shortcomings. I have had the benefit of many good and wise mentors in my life, including my elder board. I am blessed to pastor a congregation of believers who model the Christian walk to me. By these means and others, the Holy Spirit leads me into continual repentance and the assurance of forgiveness and salvation. My misplaced terror has been supplanted by well-placed trust. The Lord has been very kind to me.