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.
It is my suspicion that his turn to Romanism can only mean that he was--even after his continual exposure--not truly discipled and regenerated, or he would not have been deceived by the panoply and mystery of Romanism.
After reading his screed, I certainly would not expect a true Gospel warrior to be greatly impressed by his conversion from neo-evangelicalism to Catholicism through his ignorance from either viewpoint of the spiritual battles won by genuine Christ-followers from the Donatists tothe Waldensians to William Tyndall to our Pilgrims, and out of them the modern Baptists and Darbyites, persecuted to the death by the Roman statist church/government machine.
I know and have honored many, many pastors, evangelists, and fellow disciples who were raised in Romanism, looked at it full front in its unscriptural regulations, rituals, ecclesiology, and rejection of Bible truths, and finally fled to the Jesus of the Bible Who yet seeks them, and have become mighty blood-soaked hunters for lost souls in a dying world.
As Mark17 insisted, true salvation is the critical issue in days like these, when we need a Savior.
His circumstances precluded that from being accomplished. The same if someone were on their deathbed.
Good post.
>> “WHAT???
You NEED to be baptized to be SAVED!!!!!!” <<
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That doesn’t mean get sprinkled with water, it means Confess, repent of your sin.
The thief on the cross did that.
Do you know how FR works?
All you have to do is click on the “to” and “Replies” buttons to follow up or down thread.
So if you click on the “to” button in my post, then click on the “to” button in the post of yours to which I replied, it leads to the post that contained the referenced material.
I just assumed that you were familiar with this stuff.
My apologies for being boorish.
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I am saying just the opposite.
Scripture itself says the patience of the Saints is to obey the Commandments of Yah AND the Faith of Yahshua. Pretty clear.. in fact, He even says if You love me, you will obey my commandments..
Those are the same ones at Sinai.. you bet.. they haven’t changed.. Rome has changed them.. the world has erased them.. revelation 13 says the enemy will cause the breaking of the first four commandments..
Not sure where you got I was endorsing lawlessness..
Not in the slightest..
In fact, I was pointing out how we are lawless by using the world’s system, not out of maliciousness, but ignorance..
We strive to love Him with all our hearts, minds, soul and strength and our neighbors as ourselves as He says leads to life.
But it is tough to keep His Sabbath Holy when the world calls it a work day like they did yesterday (Gregorian monday)
His calendar isn’t found in Rome.. and the body of believers tend to use Rome as their timekeeping standard- not the sun, moon and stars that He says He gave us..
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
My soul hath kept thy testimonies; and I love them exceedingly.
I should have used Will. You are right..
A poor hedge on my part.
>> “ I didn’t understand why He didn’t let me join a church..
Now I know why..” <<
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We are called out of the Harlot and her daughters.
But that doesn’t mean that we do not assemble together in his name.
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I was in no way trying to put you down, I thought that you were trying to tell me that you simply were not interested in that matter.
What comment did you take as antagonistic?
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Perhaps I made a mistake in misunderstanding your thrust by me reading it too quickly. If I made a mistake please excuse me, I didn't intend to offend --
Hey, I resemble that remark. I was never a pastor or evangelist, but I was caught up in the system, and was liberated from it, when I finally understood the Plan of Salvation. I found it was so simple, that previously, I couldn't see the forest for the trees. It was like scales fell from my eyes. It really was an eye opening experience.
The spirit of error is thriving on this thread along about now.
Unh-unh. You need to be saved to be baptized.
I think the spirit of error has been thriving on this thread since its inception, but many of us, including you, have been sitting it straight ever since. Keep up the good work bro.
You've got a poor translation. This is most certainly not in the imperative sense. It is not an order imposed by the Jerusalem Church OR its apostles and elders (as those who would like to convince you to believe of the beginning of Romanism and removal of the autonomy of the local church).
Rather, it is a request, a word of wise counsel, a strong suggestion to negate attempts to institute Torah law, that the church at Antioch consider adopting the same rule for themselves, and go no further improvising rules of conduct. The idea was that false Judaizers, claiming to have been sent from Jerusalem, may have their counsel nullified, declined, and told to take their religious rule-making attempts elsewhere.
That forgiven thief was not a part of the Church Age. He was one of the last Christ-believers saved under the Law, and went to Hell--the Paradise part, where Jesus' soul went to preach to him, and in a few hours transited the whole Paradise portion to be separated from Hell and joined to Heaven.
This thief was not a candidate for baptism, and will not be a member of the Bride.
At the wedding, he will be a friend of the Bride, IIRC.
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