I Hated the Idea of Becoming Catholic

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.

The holy catholic apostolic church loves Peter . . .

I love Peter, too, especially when he submits himself to be led by the Holy Ghost, which was not always. He was inconsistent, fallible, and openly admitted it Jesus did chasten him for coming up with Satanic ideas on one occasion.
I love him that he could admit he was wrong, and seek forgiveness.
I love him for pointing out to the fellow Jews of the Diaspora that Paul, who had braced and corrected him, was a reliable teacher of difficult doctrine, much further theologically trained than himself, and wise to consult when undiscipled Scripture-twisters needed as wise response.
I love him for his bitter tears when he illustrated to himself that he was one of the biggest blowhards of all time.
I love him when he failed to understand the import of his role on future generations at a crisis moment of life, and said, "I go a-fishin'," and took away his pals to fish with him, and that when the risen Jesus was still walking around strengthening the brethren.
I love him that he was able to bring his self-serving bent under control when the risen Jesus asked him "Peter, agape (sovereignly prefer me above self and others) thou me? And Peter humbly, tentatively responded,"Lord, I phileo (have affection toward) thee.
I love Peter when he laid his life on the block, and in the midst of glossolallia-overcome drunken-sounding feasters, mounted the wall, shook his fist at thousands of diehard religionist and shouted,"with your wicked hands you have crucified and slaughtered my Rabbi, my Savior, my Jesus, the Messiah of our people! What are you going to do about that!"
I love the broken Peter. In my own way, I've been there.
However, Romanists "love" him blindly, inordinately, and as a totem to affirm their misdirected church polity, one arising from Platonism of its "Church Fathers" and not from the Scripture record itself, nor actually from Peter himself.
This false narrative of Peter has to be deconstructed so that his real example of Jesus making something out of the simplest undependable fisherman can encourage a simple, uncomplicated, workman of our day to respond to the patient, agape-loving Lord Jesus.
Y'all do not love Peter the way I do.
I just don't idolize him nor pray to him, nor think that he was an expert in church government. Don't burden the memory of him with this false interpretation of what he and his fellow Apostles were trained to do: to carry out the Great Commission, abiding in the doctrine and fellowship exemplified in the Apostles, in the breaking of artos in the Remembrance supper, and in prayer. And assembling when the church house doors are opened, as they did at the Temple.
You ought to study Peter's life more, and revere him less.

Oh, good gracious Galileo. What an utterly foolish thing to say. I know you're more intelligent than this one-liner, and I know you have access to sources of actual religious-cultural history other than Carl Sagan or the Huffington Post.

But here's some food for thought on Galileo:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3161955/posts

http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/2431080/posts?page=11#11

The bottom line --- for those who don't care to go to the Links--- is that a geocentric solar system was never an item of Catholic doctrine (a pope and several cardinals had no difficulty supporting Copernicus' solar-centric model 80 years pervious to Galileo), the whole matter had no direct relevance to Catholic doctrine, and Galileo's indictment by the Roman Tribunal was flatly unjust and fueled by the jealousy of rival academics.

Gaileo, by the way, continued as a Catholic in good standing, was never excommunicated let alone punished (except for house arrest), continued writing, teaching, and even publishing, continued in the Sacraments until the day he died, subcontracted is weekly reading of the Seven Penitential Pslams (his "sentence") to his daughter Maria Celeste (a nun), and was buried with due honors in the Church of Santa Croce.

Tomb of Galileo at the Church of Santa Croce

Read up.

Ya know, I've wondered about that word in the Creed. Would like one more confirmation of this but I'm ready to drop it now...the word "catholic".

I did a little digging on this topic a while back and discovered that the "original" Apostles Creed did not include the word "catholic". Those words were added/changed after the Council of Nicea. From http://www.cogwriter.com/original-apostles-creed.htm:

The Oldest Known "Apostles' Creed" is Often Called the Old Roman Form

Notice some information about the earliest known creed:

The Apostles’ Creed is the oldest creed, and lies at the basis of most others. Though not, as the long-current legend of its origin affirmed, the direct work of the Apostles, it has its roots in apostolic times, and embodies, with much fidelity, apostolic teaching...

The creed exists in two forms — a shorter and a longer; the former, known as the Old Roman Form, going back certainly as early as the middle of the 2nd century (about 140 AD), the latter, the enlarged form, in its present shape, of much later date...

We have it in both its Greek and Latin forms (the Greek being probably the original). The Latin form is given by Rufinus about 390 AD...The Greek form is preserved by Marcellus, of Ancyra,in the 4th century. The old shorter form of the creed long maintained itself. We find it in England, e.g. up to nearly the time of the Norman Conquest (in 8th or 9th century manuscripts in British Museum)...

(Orr J. The Apostle's Creed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol. 1. Original by 1923. Kindle Version viewed 07/21/11)

Notice that the above refers to the oldest creed as the old Roman Form. It should be mentioned that specific creeds are not part of Irenaeus' or the early writer's documents--but there are statements in the early creeds that may have come from them as well as a few more directly from the Bible. Whether it was “Roman” or not can be debated as its statements seem to come from either the Bible or writings of those who were NOT based in Rome such as the Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian of Carthage, Novatian the “antipope,” Marcellus of Ancyra, and Origen of Alexandria (its origins really do not seem to be from Rome). But what is clear is that the creed that most hold to was changed and did not come directly from the Apostles (and parts of it actually contradict apostolic and biblical teachings).

Many scholars consider the "Old Roman Form" the earliest known form of the creed, and that it may have came from the second century. It was put together in the fourth century by Marcellus, Bishop of Anycra (now more commonly spelled Ankara) who is considered to have been Greek or Eastern Orthodox:

“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)

Notice that this is a much shorter than the version now used by the Eastern Orthodox.

The History of the Received Form of the Creed is Obscure

Here is information on the so-called "Received Creed" (essentially the later version that the Catholics and some Protestants use):

The Received Creed:

The Received Form of the creed has a much more obscure history. The additional clauses came in at different times, though in themselves some of them are very old. The addition to the first article, e.g. “Maker of heaven and earth,” first appears in this form in Gaul about 650 AD, though similar forms are found in much older creeds. Another addition, “He descended into hell,” meets us first in Rufinus as part of the creed of Aquileia, but is probably also old in that church. It is known that the creed had assumed nearly its present shape (perhaps without the above clauses, and that on the communion of saints) by the time of Faustus of Reiz, about 460 AD. Thence it spread, and had reached Ireland apparently before the end of the 7th century. In England it appears a century later, about 850 AD (from the court of Charlemagne?), and from the beginning of the 10th century it largely superseded the older from. The same applies to other countries, so that the Gallican form is now the one in common use. Two significant changes may be noted in the form given to it. In England, whose form we follow, the Reformers substituted for “the resurrection of the flesh” the words, “the resurrection of the body,” and in Germany the Lutherans change the word “catholic” to “Christian,” in “the holy catholic Church.” (Orr J. The Apostle's Creed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol. 1. Original by 1923. Kindle Version viewed 07/21/11)

Anyway, the above creed versions are also not original. The apostate Athanasius is said to have been a factor in developing the Athanasian Creed. Here is how an English translation of it begins:

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence.

Not only was this not original, it is unbiblical and the above certainly was not taught by any of the original apostles.

Furthermore, while some of the Eastern Orthodox point to their creed as original, even their leaders have recognized that there really was no such thing as an original apostles creed. At the Council of Florence (1438-45), the Eastern Orthodox rejected the Roman push to use the so-called Apostles' Creed. Marcus Eugenicus (Patriarch of Ephesus) said:

We do not possess and have never seen this creed of the Apostles. If it had ever existed, the book of Acts would have spoken of it in its description in the first apostolic synod in Jerusalem, to which you appeal. (Kelly JND. Early Christian Creeds, 3, revised, reprint. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, p. 4)

And since there is not a version of what is (or are) commonly called the Apostles' Creed in the Book of Acts or any of the rest of the New Testament, there simply is not an original Apostles' Creed that came from the apostles.

The phrase "holy, catholic and apostolic church" was added/changed in the creed that became known as the Apostles' Creed or the Nicean Creed.

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It was she who made this strange use of the texts.