Why I Left Protestantism for Catholicism

He is a Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and the Managing Editor of The Free Market.

I am no fan of "conversion" essays, which are sometimes pompous and self-serving. My purpose is to achieve a greater spirit of mutual respect. How rare are Protestant conversions to Catholicism? More rare than reverse, but I know enough cases, including my own, to make the subject worth exploring.

J.I. Packer recently wrote in Christianity Today (May 1989) that the contrast between the "zany wildness" of Protestantism and the "at-homeness" of Catholicism alone is sufficient to explain conversions to Catholicism. It is the only Church that can, and does, claim institutional continuity from the time of Christ to the present. He contrasts the "at home" motive with a more genuine longing for the truth.

But the Road to Rome is a long one, and, I submit, the choice between instability and continuity, sectarianism and universality, is not a sufficient reason for conversion. The Christian ought to be willing to be a minority of one if the truth is at stake.

It is precisely the conviction of truth that led to my conversion to Catholicism. I wrote Rev. Packer that "My conversion to Catholicism was motivated by more than a feeling of 'at-homeness.' God makes us feel at home when we have a sincere conviction of truth. There is no dichotomy between the two, as you suggested. Truth is what I sought when God led me to Rome....My plea is for you to take my conversion, and others like mine, seriously."

Catholic and Reformed theological discussion has matured since the Reformation, when neither side was immune from using smear tactics to score debating points. Today the inflammatory rhetoric is largely gone, yet fundamental misunderstandings persist. My own anti-Catholicism was partly a product of ethnic prejudice, growing up, as I did, as a Southern Baptist in a largely Hispanic town in West Texas. It took years before I could look at Catholicism as more than a hypocritical, anti-scriptural, even anti-Christian cult.

The Baptist culture of my childhood treated Christianity as a wholly individualized phenomenon. No man was to exercise authority over any other, in the affairs of the church, or, more importantly, in the understanding of doctrine.

There was no discussion of history, councils, creeds, saints, martyrs, or controversies. I don't think my experience was far from typical. Even in the "good-old days" when every family attended Wednesday night prayer meeting such instruction was absent. The Bible -- one's subjective interpretations of it -- was all that was necessary for individualized Christianity.

My high-school conversion to Presbyterian Church moderated my anti-Catholicism. I began to understand, for the first time, the significance of the creeds, of Church government, of liturgy (however loosely defined). But the most important thing being a Presbyterian did for me was to alert me to the meaning of Christian history. It was the overwhelming weight of 2000 years of history that finally convinced me of the truth of Catholicism.

The Devil Theory of History Presbyterians do not want to tear themselves away from church history, but rather want to be part of God's eternal covenant with His people, from its inception to eternity. At my Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we read the words of the great Reformers with respect and even veneration. We discussed their theological views. We tried to imitate their liturgical styles.

All of this is important; it helps in the maturation process. Even though Presbyterians endorse the Reformed doctrine of Sola Scriptura (formed in opposition to Rome), they recognize that the Church has a teaching role and that pious individuals in Church history have a level of understanding that supersedes most of our own. Individual faith and conscience are the final guides, of course, but our primary earthly allegiance must be to the teaching authority of the Church.

But there was still something missing from Presbyterianism for me. It seemed to concentrate too heavily on post-Reformation Church history, and the first 1500 years of Christianity received scant attention. Do these years offer us anything that will enhance our understanding of Christianity? One easy way to answer this question is to adopt the Devil Theory of History, which says the history of the Church is the story of corruption.

The way to sound doctrine is to adopt the views of the Persecuted simply because they stand against Rome. The result of this view is intolerable: heresy becomes orthodoxy and anybody who shouts "to hell with the Pope" gets a hearing.

The Devil Theory collapses on the most superficial analysis. Christians justifiably take pride in their heritage, yet the Catholic Church was the only Christian Church for at least 1500 years (leaving aside the 11th century Orthodox break). Why would Christ have allowed his Church to wallow in the mire of falsehood and heresy for so long? What kind of witness would that have provided to the world? If Christ did indeed establish a Church, wouldn't He have providentially protected her from significant error?

Partial Corruption? An alternative view is to see the Church as only partially corrupt. As I understand it, this is the Presbyterian position (the new one; not the traditional). But given the Church's own historical claims of authenticity, authority, and infallibility, this view is difficult to sustain. One cannot have it both ways: the Church was either in Christ's hands (as she claimed) or she was the anti-Christ by virtue of making such claims.

One can selectively draw from pre-Reformation doctrine and expunge from it its pro-Papacy statements. For example, Reformed thinkers are famous for quoting St. Augustine in support of predestination and election. But rarely quoted is St. Augustine's view of the Church, which anticipates ultramontanism (an extreme position on papal authority).

Yet the partial corruption thesis collapses from internal contradictions. Christendom's greatest thinkers and the most pious saints were also devoted to the Church as a divinely protected institution: its catholicity, apostilicity, infallibility, and sacraments. It is anomalous to claim the authority of a saint like Augustine without mentioning his views on the Church. It's like discussing the development of a child without mentioning the mother's role in nurturing, sustaining, and reinforcing the maturation process.

Presbyterians must decide if they were ever part of the universal Church of Catholicism. Did they ever endorse the papacy as a legitimate institution reflecting Christ's will? Was it corrupt from the beginning or just become so in the 16th century? Under what conditions would Presbyterians have been willing to be in communion with Rome? Ideally, should the papacy have been wiped out? It seems to me the correct path is to regard the Catholic church as Christ's church and to regard her claims as true.

The Role of Tradition Protestants look skeptically on the Catholic view that Christian tradition has doctrinal authority stemming from Christ and the apostles.

Yet tradition (the teaching authority of Christ and His apostles) is essential to full Christian understanding for several reasons. First, not everything concerning Christ's work is found in Scripture (Jn. 21:25) and some Christian teaching is handed down by word of mouth (II Tim. 2:2).

The Bible instructs us to "stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle" (II Thess. 2:15). Second, the early Church did not have a Bible in the sense that we do today; yet their faith was fully protected and sustained through tradition. The Bible itself is a product of the 4th century Church. Third, no single individual can fully derive the meaning of scripture by himself; it takes tradition to set up the proper framework for understanding and for asking the right questions.

Say the Bible was given to a fully competent scholar and he was asked to write a creed based upon it. Even if he had ten years to do so, who doubts that he would not get it quite right? Christ never intended him to. The Church was established to articulate and defend Christian doctrine (Mt. 16:18-19).

As a Presbyterian, I rejected the subjectivist position of Biblical understanding, and I wanted to embrace Church history. Then I had to decide which parts of the tradition to embrace and which parts to reject. It seemed to me that the doctrine of the Reformers was too much in flux to provide a sufficient grounding in the Faith. And that approach freezes Christianity in time.

The Reformers had valuable things to say; but I thought their words and liturgical practices should be weighed against the whole of Christian tradition. I settled on this: I reject the part of tradition that is contradicted by the Bible. And that is the rule the Catholic Church herself has accepted.

The consistent Christian finds that the Church is the anchor of his faith. The fair-minded historian finds that the Catholic Church is the anchor of history. In both cases, I came believe, Providence is at the helm.

My Conversion Process There were many steps in my conversion, but the most important one was the initial one: investigating what the Church has to offer. My experience accords with G.K. Chesterton's: "This process, which may be called discovering the Catholic Church, is perhaps the most pleasant and straightforward part of the business; easier than joining the Catholic Church and much easier than trying to live the Catholic life. It is like discovering a new continent full of strange flowers and fantastic animals, which is at once wild and hospitable."

There were a host of Catholic terms and objects that have meaning with Catholicism with which I was completely unfamiliar: offices, the magisterium, mortal and venial sins, confession, penance, rosary beads, the saints and martyrs, and even, yes, Marian theology. Suddenly, I found that most of the anti-Catholic ideas that I held were canards with no basis in fact (e.g., that Catholics worship Mary and statues, that they don't believe the Bible inerrant, that they cannot pray directly to God).

Even the dreaded doctrine of the infallibility sounded more reasonable considering its limits: the Pope must speak ex cathedra (from the Chair of Peter) and he must do so in communion with the Bishops.

This discovery process led me to the proverbial slippery slope of Romanism. As Chesterton describes it: "It is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church. The moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair."

Finally, I cannot discuss my conversion without mentioning the Eucharist, the source and sacrament of Catholic spirituality. Here lies a central difference between the Catholic and Orthodox faiths as versus Protestantism. The vast majority of Christians believe what scripture says about the Eucharist: the bread and wine is fully transformed into the body and the blood -- the doctrine of transubstantiation. The Real Presence is indeed a divine mystery (as is much else about our Faith). I was amazed to discover that both Luther and Calvin, in different degrees, taught the Real Presence in the Eucharist.

The Memorialist view--that the Eucharist is all bread and that communion is really without divine significance, done merely "in memory" of Christ--that is, the common teaching of evangelicals, wasn't believed or taught by the Reformers.

I rejected the Memorialist view, but could see no reason not to go all the way to a pure Catholic position.

It was in my search for a "pure" Presbyterianism that I found Catholicism. I became tired of "protesting"; I wanted a real and positive Christianity. I didn't want a liturgy and theology defined in opposition to something else; I wanted the Christian liturgy and theology that the Church throughout the ages defined and practiced. Moreover, I did not want these things because they were part of the past; I wanted them because they will be part of the future.

John Henry Cardinal Newman, among the most famous of converts from Protestantism to Catholicism, makes the point in Apologia Pro Vita Sua that the best and most orthodox elements of evangelical, Reformed, and Anglican Christian doctrine find their fullest expression and glory within Catholicism.

The bread in the Lord's supper becomes the mystery of the Real Presence; collective confession becomes private, specific, and efficacious; the claim of Church authority becomes the hard-core position of infallibility; Scripture becomes the infallible story of the covenant of God, both in content and canon; mere perseverance becomes a well-defined penance; martyrs and saints, whose lives are to be admired and emulated, become advocates on your behalf; the pastor becomes priest; the worship service becomes the Mass, with liturgy based on Scripture and imbued with holiness; the Christian "quiet time" becomes the requirement of a regular and disciplined prayer life, with litanies, memorization, and hours of intense contemplation on the Triune God.

Yet at the base, there is one reason why I converted to Catholicism. It is summarized by the line from the Apostle's Creed: "I believe in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."

It's no wonder that Catholics have been so hysterically hated and persecuted throughout history. The Church's claim to be a fortress of truth, fully expressing the whole of Christian doctrine, makes it the single biggest threat to the forces of modernism and atheism. If a person hates God, why bother attacking Lutherans, Methodists, or the Reformed movement when he can attack Catholicism?

I am not hostile to Protestantism in general, and certainly not to Presbyterianism, to which I owe a great debt. I came to believe that Christ's Church subsists in Catholicism, which is why it has been so successful in defending orthodoxy and in standing against the tides of Christian sectarianism and atheistic modernism. Catholicism offers orthodoxy, universality, and stability.

Conversion was not an easy decision; the agonizing process lasted nearly three years. My final step was taken out of a conviction of truth, and it was a step I shall never regret.

Conversion reading material: Vatican II; The Catholic Catechism by John A. Hardon, S.J; anything by G.K Chesterton, but especially Orthodoxy and The Catholic Church and Conversion; Apologia Pro Vita Sua by J.H. Cardinal Newman, Catholicism and Fundamentalism by Karl Keating (Ignatius Press, 1988); and Evangelical is Not Enough by Thomas Howard (Ignatius Press, 1989).

Lost means .. one that is not saved or born again, which is (unfortunately) all too common in protestant churches .... and

loster only means that ... being a Catholic is not neccesarily being saved or born again ...

Lost to loster is a theological commentary about someone that wasn't saved in one denomination, going to another , even less likely to be saved ...

It ain't an attack ... but a commentary

and

a critical lack of critical thinking skillz merely means ... the one leaving protestantism didn't think very clearly ... like out of the fryuing pan into the fire

Neither reply #2 nor #3 are in and of themselves attacks, but comments on a person that left the place that salvation is actively taught (or should be) to go to a place where it is seldom taught (but should be)

You need to seriously study Catholic theology. Point out one Church father who said Mary was sinless? You misunderstand the Immaculate Conception. Because she conceived the Son of God she was not stained with original sin.

Besides its odd isn’t it that you know better than the Church fathers, some of whom were contemporaries of John, and who infallibly sorted out the Word of God in heir interpretations of various written texts at that time when assembling together the canonical books in Scripture. Surely, if they were mistaken with Mary, then what makes you think that they were not mistaken in selecting the texts of scripture which you believe is the Word of God?

And apparently, all those pre-eminent Lutheran theologians (to say nothing of Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, and Benedict XVI -called the theological Einstein of our times) who converted to Catholicism missed your observation.

Yet at the base, there is one reason why I converted to Catholicism. It is summarized by the line from the Apostle's Creed: "I believe in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."

If the Apostle's Creed was the "one reason" why he converted to Rome, I wonder if the author knows that this phrase was NOT in the original Apostles' Creed? From http://www.cogwriter.com/original-apostles-creed.htm:

“I believe in God the Father Almighty. And in Jesus Christ His only (begotten) Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary; crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried; the third day He rose from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father, from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost; the holy Church; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; (the life everlasting).”

The last clause is omitted in the Latin form preserved by Rufinus, 390 AD. (Orr J. The Apostle's Creed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol. 1. Original by 1923. Kindle Version viewed 07/21/11)

Also here are some additional legends about the creed:

Throughout the Middle Ages it was generally believed that the Apostles, on the day of Pentecost, while still under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, composed our present Creed between them, each of the Apostles contributing one of the twelve articles. This legend dates back to the sixth century (see Pseudo-Augustine in Migne, P.L., XXXIX, 2189, and Pirminius, ibid., LXXXIX, 1034) (Thurston, Herbert. "Apostles' Creed." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 21 Jul. 2011)

The legend was that the creed took shape at the dictation of the Twelve Apostles, each of whom contributed a special article. Thus, Peter, it was alleged, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, commenced, “I believe in God the Father Almighty”; Andrew (or according to others, John) continued, “And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord”; James the elder went on, “Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,” etc. This legend is not older than the 5th or 6th centuries, and is absurd on the face of it. (Orr J. The Apostle's Creed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol. 1. Original by 1923. Kindle Version viewed 07/21/11)

Whether or not the twelve apostle's stated each sentence can be debated as there is no actual proof. The fact is that there is no first century document with the creed. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the claim of apostolic origin was a fourth (via Rufinus or pseudo-Augustine) or sixth century development.

Ah, but sola scriptura is UNSCRIPTURAL!!!!! Who do you think had the authority to decide what was scriptural and what was not? Jesus did not throw down the NT intact as he was Ascending and yell “Good luck, y’all.” Hint: Jesus put someone in charge. Point 2: Communion is the real Body and Blood of Christ, and you have to remember when Jews says something 3 times, it’s FINAL. “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you.” We’re not talking symbolism here. “....hold fast to these truths whether by word of mouth or letter from us...” Yes, there is both Oral AND written tradition — the kind with the “big T” - i.e. traditions passed on from Jesus. Small “t” traditions can change, large T traditions can’t be. Popes wear white as “tradition” - but bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ at mass — “Tradition.” Don’t confuse the two. But it’s best to not convert until you understand these points. Your RCIA class fell short of presenting the arguments for the faith correctly.

Who do you think had the authority to decide what was scriptural and what was not?

I hope you will take a moment to consider how truly wrong that theory is. When the Holy Spirit led each prophet of the books that are in the Holy Bible to write the very words of God, He didn't expect a group of men sitting around a table three centuries later passing their judgment on them deciding which ones they would "accept" and which ones were "unacceptable". Nope. When Paul wrote his epistles to the churches he was working with, he expected them to believe and obey the teachings he was passing on to them and he expected them to make copies and ensure other local churches received them as well.

The same with Peter and his two letters. He even stated that "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and that they did not write under their own interpretation but recorded what God revealed to them to ensure believers knew the truth. No one is saying the New Testament was some nice intact all-in-one book from the start, but as time went on, the collection grew - as God led each writer - and the Christian church received the writings as from God. We have writings from some of the earliest church leaders that enumerate the 27 book canon of the New Testament which shows they had already recognized the authority of the books.

Some excellent links to help you understand this better are:

The Formation of the New Testament Canon

Reliability of the Oral Transmission of the Bible

Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability

New Testament Canon

If you have doubts that the early Church Fathers were not infallible when they assembled the canonical texts of the scripture you cite, and offer doubts on the same infallibility whereby the Church provides the Credo, then you must logically doubt whether the books they assembled were credible as well. In which case you must not cite scripture or Protestants should try assembling their own Bible. But you can’t have both.

You cannot cite to the infallible authority of the Church in authenticating the Bible and then doubt its subsequent infallibility. That Petrine infallibility in AD 382 on both the written and unwritten Word of God did not evaporate into the ether.

Playing “internet theologian” won’t do. So we must take “your” interpretation of Scripture or any other Tom, Dick, and Harry, or a Joel Osteen’s version versus those provided by the early Church Fathers and Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, Benedict and a litany of eminent Protestant theologians, scholars, authors, and preachers who converted to Catholicism?

In the year 110 A.D., not even fifteen years after the book of Revelation was written, while on his way to execution St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote:

“Where the bishop is present, there let the congregations gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church”. The Church believes that when the bishops speak as teachers, Christ speaks; for he said to them: “He who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you, rejects me” (Lk 10, 16).

Can you point to any canonical texts that were different than those confirmed by the Synod of Rome in AD 382?

The Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) confirmed definitive list of canonical books in the Synod of Rome. These were ALL Councils of the ONE Church. From this point on, there is in practice no dispute about the canon of the Bible and its universal interpretation given by the Church. The only exception being the so-called Protestant Reformers, who entered upon the scene in 1517, an unbelievable 11 centuries later resulting in a tsunami of heresies where every local Foursquare Church pastor can offer his/her definitive interpretation of Scripture just as you are peddling “your” own interpretation of Scripture. This is what Jim Jones, David Koresh, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, Billy Graham, Creflo Dollar and Joel Osteen etc have been doing to a gullible following.

Unfortunately, those in the Protestant pews are swallowing this theological cyanide while the theological intellectuals among the Protestants are converting to Catholicism.

“At the end of the day absent Petrine authority, so well explained by the author, we descend into a chaos where every Tom, Dick, and Harry and their grandmother and your local Foursquare Church pastor cracks open the pages of the Bible and purports to offer his/her cockamamie “definitive” interpretation of scripture which is starkly at odds with that of the early Church fathers (some of whom were contemporaries of the Evangelist John) charged with assembling the canonical texts.”

As matter of curiosity, why do you suppose that there was a Protestant Revolution, as the nuns of my youth used to call it, in the Church in the West where there was/is Petrine Authority and no such thing in the Church in the East where there isn’t and never was any Petrine authority, at least not as it is being defined here?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.