Posted on 11/28/2014 2:33:31 PM PST by NYer
It was the day after Ash Wednesday in 2012 when I called my mom from my dorm room at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and told her I thought I was going to become Catholic.
“You’re not going to become Catholic, you just know you’re not Southern Baptist,” she said.
“No, I don’t think so.”
A pause. “Oh boy,” she sighed.
I started crying.
I cannot stress enough how much I hated the idea of becoming Catholic. I was bargaining to the last moment. I submitted a sermon for a competition days before withdrawing from school. I was memorizing Psalm 119 to convince myself of sola scriptura. I set up meetings with professors to hear the best arguments. I purposefully read Protestant books about Catholicism, rather than books by Catholic authors.
Further, I knew I would lose my housing money and have to pay a scholarship back if I withdrew from school, not to mention disappointing family, friends, and a dedicated church community.
But when I attempted to do my homework, I collapsed on my bed. All I wanted to do was scream at the textbook, “Who says?!”
I had experienced a huge paradigm shift in my thinking about the faith, and the question of apostolic authority loomed larger than ever.
But let’s rewind back a few years.
I grew up in an evangelical Protestant home. My father was a worship and preaching pastor from when I was in fourth grade onwards. Midway through college, I really fell in love with Jesus Christ and His precious Gospel and decided to become a pastor.
It was during that time that I was hardened in my assumption that the Roman Catholic Church didn’t adhere to the Bible. When I asked one pastor friend of mine during my junior year why Catholics thought Mary remained a virgin after Jesus’ birth when the Bible clearly said Jesus had “brothers,” he simply grimaced: “They don’t read the Bible.”
Though I had been in talks with Seattle’s Mars Hill Church about doing an internship with them, John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life clarified my call to missionary work specifically, and I spent the next summer evangelizing Catholics in Poland.
So I was surprised when I visited my parents and found a silly looking book titled Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic on my father’s desk. What was my dad doing reading something like this? I was curious and hadn’t brought anything home to read, so I gave it a look.
David Currie’s memoir of leaving behind his evangelical education and ministries was bothersome. His unapologetic defense of controversial doctrines regarding Mary and the papacy were most shocking, as I had never seriously considered that Catholics would have sensible, scriptural defenses to these beliefs.
The book’s presence on my father’s desk was explained more fully a few months later when he called me and said he was returning to the Catholicism of his youth. My response? “But, can’t you just be Lutheran or something?” I felt angry, betrayed, and indignant. For the next four months I served as a youth pastor at my local church and, in my free time, read up on why Catholicism was wrong.
During that time, I stumbled across a Christianity Today article that depicted an “evangelical identity crisis.” The author painted a picture of young evangelicals, growing up in a post-modern world, yearning to be firmly rooted in history and encouraged that others had stood strong for Christ in changing and troubled times. Yet, in my experience, most evangelical churches did not observe the liturgical calendar, the Apostles’ Creed was never mentioned, many of the songs were written after 1997, and if any anecdotal story was told about a hero from church history, it was certainly from after the Reformation. Most of Christian history was nowhere to be found.
For the first time, I panicked. I found a copy of the Catechism and started leafing through it, finding the most controversial doctrines and laughing at the silliness of the Catholic Church. Indulgences? Papal infallibility? These things, so obviously wrong, reassured me in my Protestantism. The Mass sounded beautiful and the idea of a visible, unified Church was appealing - but at the expense of the Gospel? It seemed obvious that Satan would build a large organization that would lead so many just short of heaven.
I shook off most of the doubts and enjoyed the remainder of my time at college, having fun with the youth group and sharing my faith with the students. Any lingering doubts, I assumed, would be dealt with in seminary.
I started my classes in January with the excitement of a die-hard football fan going to the Super Bowl. The classes were fantastic and I thought I had finally rid myself of any Catholic problems.
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They are listed above. What's wrong with the truth? It shouldn't bother you one iota. I never said anything negative about there being 40,000 different Protestant denominations...and I won't ever. Why should I? We all find our paths to Jesus.
As for people disagreeing with each other, well, that has been happening since Cain killed Abel. No one disputes that. I sure don't.
As for being "conciliatory to any protestant" -- is that wrong or evil?
Are YOU telling me how I am supposed to behave toward "any protestant"?
Please, be reasonable. This IS the FR, a site made for discussion.
God bless you and yours.
Well put.
Again, its “your” interpretation of Scripture of what Nicodemus meant versus Petrine authority. Catholics accept ONLY authoritative interpretation.
"On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight."
2nd-century writers such as Justin Martyr (ca 150 AD) describe the usual practice of Sunday worship (LINK) (First Apology, chapter 67). We know they gathered in House Churches such as at the mid-200's AD church a Duro-Europos, the earliest such house church of which we have any archaeological traces. By 361 AD gathering on Sundays for the Eucharis had become a mandated weekly occurrence.
Do you have a source for your thought that they simply met "whenever they could" with no particular reference to Sunday?
Glad to know that. It gives us something in common.
I will certainly respect your wishes -— and I offer you still my good will, and my prayers, however unworthy.
no they haven't.
The removed post had nothing to do with any of your posts.
On open threads in the Religion Forum other peoples beliefs can be attacked, but not individual Freepers.
Calling members idiots or other inflammatory names is not allowed in the RF.
That is mindreading and personal.
Discuss the issues, don’t make it personal.
I must say I agree with you there. I find crimes very difficult to understand --- "distressing" doesn't begin to describe it, heart-crushing comes closer to the truth ---and tha means crimes by anybody, but particularly by declared followers of Jesus Christ.
The history of the Church is like the history of the Jews in the OT in this way: always in need of prophets crying out against those who disgrace their anointed calling.
Well -— speaking as a Catholic and an RCIA teacher-— we do need to be born again. That’s what the Sacrament of Baptism is all about, is it not?
Ping.
I quit reading at that point.
The one untruth early was enough for me to ignore the rest. And, by the way, I know of several that have left the Catholic faith.
I don’t care to bash the Catholic faith. I believe those that do are wrong. I also believe it is wrong to bash Protestants.
I am Christian. I believe many Protestants and Catholics are. I prefer to leave it at that.
Remember Bible Christians don’t go beyond the “literal” word. Words and phrases are examined in the culture in which they have been uttered, how the early disciples understood them, and their particular meaning in the language and tradition in which they were uttered. One can take the literal script to forgive 70x7 and stop forgiveness after 490 times. Or, conclude that Christ had “blood brothers and sisters. This is why we need Petrine authority.
Catholics and Protestants attach different meanings to be “born again.”
Here’s a more comprehensive answer to your question:
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/are-catholics-born-again
“...Waldensians, Cathars and Albigensians. The Papacy decided they were heretics for reading the Bible...”
Completely false. The Waldenses were a heretical sect/group that splintered off from Catholicism. Their sect appeared at the end of the 12th century. This group did not have a continuous tradition handed down from apostolic times. Furthermore, they continued to administer and receive the sacraments; they did not adhere to sola scriptura.
The Cathars and the Albigensians were neo Manichists, having a distorted concept of good and evil. The Cathars believed in reincarnation and celibacy. These heresies were not about “reading the Bible”, but rather involved made up distorted doctrines they came up with themselves. Modern day protestant sola scriptura adherents would most defintely not have agreed with their theology. They were not a proto type or precurser to modern protestants.
Do not forget!
Most people could not read at the time; we are discussing time periods in the 1100-1200’s. Illiteracy was the norm(!), and paper was not widely used or available. The entire premise that somehow “they were heretics for reading the bible” is absurd and based upon a distortion of actual history.
Non Catholics have no authority to judge and criticize Catholic doctrine. They do not understand Catholicism because they have no experience with or understanding of sacred tradition. They falsely state that Catholics do not read Sacred Scripture, which is truly absurd. Non Catholics have to resort to falsifying history in order to justify their errors.
I’ve read that very line-— “Catholics don’t read the Bible” -—
I don’t believe that I have ever posted that. I am not saying others haven’t.
I believe there are many that will be in Heaven that haven’t read the Bible. Some believers are possibly illiterate. Some don’t have Bibles.
Many of these people believe Jesus is Lord and have asked forgiveness and have repent. Are they doomed to hell if they’re not Catholic?
I had the same reaction.
Catholics believe that through Baptism, we are indeed "born again".
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