Evangelicals Becoming Catholics: Former Christianity Today Editor Mark Galli {Ecumenical thread}

This Sunday, September 13, a man named Mark will become confirmed as a Catholic. Why is this significant?

Mark Galli, who will be confirmed under the name of St. Francis, is a former Presbyterian pastor and editor-in-chief for Christianity Today. ..

Galli, however, says the timing of his conversion to Catholicism two months before the next election is for personal reasons. After 20 years in the Anglican Church, he believes moving to Catholicism is not a rejection of evangelicalism but instead taking his existing "Anglicanism deeper and thicker."

His faith journey has taken him from Presbyterianism to becoming an Episcopalian, then Anglican, with a brief interlude of attending the Orthodox Church. ... notable Protestants, from Elizabeth Ann Seton and John Henry Newman, to G.K. Chesterton, Francis Beckwith, and Tony Blair. The RNS article observed:

Some converts are drawn to the beauty of Catholic ritual. Others to the church’s rich intellectual tradition or the centrality of the Eucharist, the bread and wine used for Communion, which Catholics believe becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

That was part of the reason for Galli, but his fatigue with evangelicalism contributed as well. "I want to submit myself to something bigger than myself," He said, a dding:

One thing I like about both Orthodoxy and Catholicism is that you have to do these things, whether you like it or not, whether you’re in the mood or not, sometimes whether you believe or not. You just have to plow ahead. I want that.

And He has submitted to the Word of God

as St. Paul wrote in 1 Tim 3:15 in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

The Word of God - Jesus Christ, inaugurated the Church of the pentecost, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church in 33 AD

Thanks to God's grace this church founded on a rock by Christ has endured, despite the best efforts of bishops and priests!

This theologian has realized that the various movements since the 1500s are houses built on sand and they dissipate quickly.

As Daniel predicted, Christ came as the rock not hewn by human hand and he demolished the Romaoi empire and with the destruction of the temple as predicted in Daniel, as prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 23-24 and as envisioned by John in the book of Revelations, the temple was destroyed after the great tribulation of the Church from 64 AD to 67 AD (3.5 years as predicted) when they were beaten in synagogues (as the Jesus-movement was still a Jewish sect) and burnt by Nero - the church was nearly snuffed out.

But they heeded Jesus and ran to the hills when they saw the signs

And the earthly Jerusalem and the earthly temple was destroyed. And the heavenly Jerusalem (the Church triumphant) with the heavenly spiritual temple - Jesus Christ Himself was inaugurated.

Redemption is what Christ did for ALL of us on the cross.
Justification is how we make that redemption our own.
Salvation occurs after we die and are judged.
To differentiate between being saved and attain full salvation is to confused salvation with redemption and justification.
As in the Epistle of James

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?
15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.
16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[d]? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[e] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

in terms of relationship, in orthodoxy there is the fullness of the relationship with Christ - mind, body and soul.

in the Divine Liturgy and the Eucharist we listen to the word of God, we then view the One-time sacrifice of the Lord, and then we experience the totality of God’s grace through the eating of His body, then in prayer we experience the soul satisfying relationship with God.

So the mind-body-soul relationship is in the fullness of orthodoxy

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