Catholicism made me Protestant

First Things ^ | 9/11/2019 | Onsi A. Kamel

[Gamecock]

Like all accounts of God’s faithfulness, mine begins with a genealogy. In the late seventeenth century, my mother’s Congregationalist ancestors journeyed to the New World to escape what they saw as England’s deadly compromise with Romanism. Centuries later, ­American Presbyterians converted my father’s great-­grandmother from Coptic ­Orthodoxy to ­Protestantism. Her son became a Presbyterian minister in the Evangelical Coptic Church. By the time my parents were ­living in ­twenty-first-century Illinois, their families’ historic Reformed commitments had been replaced by non-denominational, ­Baptistic ­evangelicalism.

This form of Christianity dominated my Midwestern hometown. My parents taught me to love God, revere the Scriptures, and seek truth through reason. In middle school, my father introduced me to theology, and as a present for my sixteenth birthday he arranged a meeting between me and a Catholic philosopher, Dr. B—. From high school into college, Dr. B— introduced me to Catholic thought and graciously helped me work through my doubts about Christianity. How could a just and loving God not reveal himself equally to everyone? What are we to make of the Bible’s creation stories and flood narrative? Did Calvinism make God the author of evil? My acquaintance with Dr. B— set my intellectual trajectory for several years.

The causes of any conversion (or near conversion) are many and confused. Should I foreground psychological and social factors or my theological reasoning? Certain elements of my attraction to Catholicism were adolescent, like a sixties radical’s attraction to Marx or a contemporary activist’s to intersectionality: I aimed to preserve the core beliefs of my upbringing while fleeing their bourgeois expressions. When I arrived at the University of Chicago, I knew just enough about Calvinism to hold it in ­contempt—which is to say, I knew very little. Reacting against the middle-aged leaders of the inaptly named “Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement,” I sought refuge in that other great ­Western ­theological tradition: ­Roman ­Catholicism.

During my first year of college, I became involved in campus Catholic life. Through the influence of the Catholic student group and the Lumen Christi Institute, which hosts lectures by Catholic intellectuals, my theologically inclined college friends began converting to Catholicism, one after another. These friends were devout, intelligent, and schooled in Christian history. I met faithful and holy Catholic priests—one of whom has valiantly defended the faith for years, drawing punitive opposition from his own religious superiors, as well as the ire of Chicago’s archbishop. This priest was and is to me the very model of a holy, righteous, and courageous man.

I loved Catholicism because Catholics taught me to love the Church. At Lumen Christi events, I heard about saints and mystics, stylites and monastics, desert fathers and late-antique theologians. I was captivated by the holy martyrs, relics, Mary, and the Mass. I found in the Church a spiritual mother and the mother of all the faithful. Through Catholicism, I came into an inheritance: a past of saints and redeemed sinners from all corners of the earth, theologians who illuminated the deep things of God, music and art that summon men to worship God “in the beauty of holiness,” and a tradition to ground me in a world of flux.

Catholicism, which I took to be the Christianity of history, was a world waiting to be discovered. I set about exploring, and I tried to bring others along. I debated tradition with my mother, sola Scriptura with my then fiancée (now wife), and the meaning of the Eucharist with my father. On one occasion, a Reformed professor dispensed with my arguments for transubstantiation in a matter of minutes.

Not long after this, I began to notice discrepancies between Catholic apologists’ map of the tradition and the terrain I encountered in the tradition itself. St. Ambrose’s doctrine of justification sounded a great deal more like Luther’s sola fide than like Trent. St. John Chrysostom’s teaching on repentance and absolution—“Mourn and you annul the sin”—would have been more at home in Geneva than Paris. St. Thomas’s doctrine of predestination, much to my horror, was nearly identical to the Synod of Dordt’s. The Anglican divine Richard Hooker quoted Irenaeus, ­Chrysostom, ­Augustine, and Pope Leo I as he rejected doctrines and practices because they were not grounded in Scripture. He cited Pope Gregory the Great on the “­ungodly” title of universal bishop. The Council of ­Nicaea assumed that Alexandria was on a par with Rome, and Chalcedon declared that the Roman patriarchate was privileged only “because [Rome] was the royal city.” In short, I began to wonder whether the Reformers had a legitimate claim to the Fathers. The Church of Rome could not be straightforwardly identified as catholic.

John Henry Newman became my crucial interlocutor: More than in Ratzinger, Wojtyła, or Congar, in Newman I found a kindred spirit. Here was a man obsessed with the same questions that ate at me, questions of tradition and authority. With Newman, I agonized over conversion. I devoured his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and his Apologia pro Vita Sua. Two of his ideas were pivotal for me: his theory of doctrinal development and his articulation of the problem of private judgment. On these two ideas hung all the claims of Rome.

In retrospect, I see that Newman’s need to construct a theory of doctrinal development tells against Rome’s claims of continuity with the ancient Church. And at the time, though I wished to accept Newman’s proposal that “the early condition, and the evidence, of each doctrine . . . ought consistently to be interpreted by means of that development which was ultimately attained,” I could not. One could only justify such assumptions if one were already committed to Roman Catholic doctrine and Rome’s meaningful continuity with what came before. Without either of these commitments, I simply could not find a plausible reason to speak of “development” rather than “disjuncture,” especially because what came before so often contradicted what followed.

The issue of ecclesiastical authority was trickier for me. I recognized the absurdity of a twenty-year-old presuming to adjudicate claims about the Scriptures and two thousand years of history. Newman’s arguments against private judgment therefore had a prima facie plausibility for me. In his Apologia, Newman argues that man’s rebellion against God introduced an “anarchical condition of things,” leading human thought toward “suicidal excesses.” Hence, the fittingness of a divinely established living voice infallibly proclaiming supernatural truths. In his discourse on “Faith and Private Judgment,” Newman castigates Protestants for refusing to “surrender” reason in matters religious. The implication is that reason is unreliable in matters of revelation. Faith is assent to the incontestable, self-evident truth of God’s revelation, and reasoning becomes an excuse to refuse to bend the knee.

The more I internalized ­Newman’s claims about private judgment, however, the more I descended into skepticism. I could not reliably interpret the Scriptures, history, or God’s Word preached and given in the sacraments. But if I could not do these things, if my reason was unfit in matters religious, how was I to assess Newman’s arguments for Roman Catholicism? Newman himself had once recognized this dilemma, writing in a pre-conversion letter, “We have too great a horror of the principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense a matter as that of changing from one communion to another.” Did he expect me to forfeit the faculty by which I adjudicate truth claims, because that faculty is fallible? My ­conversion would have to be rooted in my private ­judgment—but, because of Rome’s claim of infallibility, conversion would forbid me from exercising that faculty ever again on doctrinal questions.

Finally, the infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics made plain that Catholics did not gain by their magisterium a clear, living voice of divine authority. They received from the past a set of magisterial documents that had to be weighed and interpreted, often over against living prelates. The ­magisterium of prior ages only multiplied the texts one had to interpret for oneself, for living bishops, it turns out, are as bad at reading as the rest of us.

But I did not remain a Protestant merely because I could not become a Catholic. While I was discovering that Roman Catholicism could not be straightforwardly identified with the catholicism of the first six centuries (nor, in certain respects, with that of the seventh century through the twelfth), and as I was wrestling with Newman, I finally began reading the Reformers. What I found shocked me. Catholicism had, by this time, reoriented my theological concerns around the concerns of the Church catholic. My assumptions, and the issues that animated me, were those of the Church of history. My evangelical upbringing had led me to believe that Protestantism entailed the rejection of these concerns. But this notion exploded upon contact with the Protestantism of history.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, Richard Hooker, Herman Bavinck, Karl Barth—they wrestled with the concerns of the Church catholic and provided answers to the questions Catholicism had taught me to pose. Richard Hooker interpreted the Church’s traditions; Calvin followed Luther’s Augustinianism, proclaimed the visible Church the mother of the faithful, and claimed for the Reformation the Church’s exegetical tradition; Barth convinced me that God’s Word could speak, certainly and surely, from beyond all created realities, to me.

Catholicism had taught me to think like a Protestant, because, as it turned out, the Reformers had thought like catholics. Like their pope-aligned opponents, they had asked questions about justification, the authority of tradition, the mode of Christ’s self-gift in the Eucharist, the nature of apostolic succession, and the Church’s wielding of the keys. Like their opponents, Protestants had appealed to Scripture and tradition. In time, I came to find their answers not only plausible, but more faithful to Scripture than the Catholic answers, and at least as well-represented in the traditions of the Church.

The Protestants did more than out-catholic the Catholics. They also spoke to the deepest needs of sinful souls. I will never forget the moment when, like Luther five hundred years earlier, I discovered justification by faith alone through union with Christ. I was sitting in my dorm room by myself. I had been assigned Luther’s Explanations of the Ninety-Five ­Theses, and I expected to find it facile. A year or two prior, I had decided that Trent was right about justification: It was entirely a gift of grace consisting of the gradual perfecting of the soul by faith and works—God instigating and me cooperating. For years, I had attempted to live out this model of justification. I had gone to Mass regularly, prayed the rosary with friends, fasted frequently, read the Scriptures daily, prayed earnestly, and sought advice from spiritual directors. I had begun this arduous cooperation with God’s grace full of hope; by the time I sat in that dorm room alone, I was distraught and demoralized. I had learned just how wretched a sinner I was: No good work was unsullied by pride, no repentance unaccompanied by expectations of future sin, no love free from selfishness.

In this state, I picked up my copy of that arch-heretic Luther and read his explanation of Thesis 37: “Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.” With these words, Luther transformed my understanding of justification: Every Christian possesses Christ, and to possess Christ is to possess all of Christ’s righteousness, life, and merits. Christ had joined me to himself.

I had “put on Christ” in baptism and, by faith through the work of the Spirit, all things were mine, and I was Christ’s, and Christ was God’s (Gal. 3:27; 1 Cor. 3:21–23). His was not an uncertain mercy; his was not a grace of parts, which one hoped would become a whole; his was not a salvation to be attained, as though it were not already also a present possession. At that moment, the joy of my salvation poured into my soul. I wept and showed forth God’s praise. I had finally discovered the true ground and power of Protestantism: “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2:16).

Rome had brought me to ­Reformation.

[Mom MD]

sounds to me like you have been give. permission. Along with all those other who have been baptized and confirmed catholic the founds the Truth of salvation by grace through faith alone.

[Albion Wilde]

a complete lack of understanding of Catholic teaching... Salvation is a complete gratuitous gift of God. The good works required are keeping one self from sin, or do you believe that one can remain in sin and still be saved by faith alone?

One cannot purify oneself to such a degree that one becomes sinless and therefore deserving of Salvation. All sin and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), and sinful behavior continues in every individual throughout our lives, even though one may rid oneself of egregious outwardly visible sins. In one's heart are still moments of doubt, fear, envy, anger, lust and so on; and Jesus taught that these are sinful just as the outward acts may be. The gifts of grace, mercy and Salvation are so profound that we cannot even imagine, because we are undeserving and always will be. We are smaller than grains of sand in this vast universe only partially visible to us in the skies. Therefore it is only by faith in God's promises that we are saved, because there is nothing we can do to earn salvation. Compared to the unimaginable perfection of God, we are like filthy rags (Is 64:6).

That said, the Christian believer who surrenders his heart to Jesus and prays to be cleansed of sin will indeed begin to exhibit much improved behaviors and attitudes, and one of them of course is awareness that every act and word out of one's mouth is a choice on some level; so we discipline ourselves to learn self-control (I Cor 9:27). But the cleansing, while it may get off to a dramatic beginning, is not overnight and is never complete; therefore punishing effortfulness to stop sinning is like trying to lose 50 pounds or stop smoking by willpower alone—few achieve success this way. Congratulating oneself for keeping the sabbath, honoring one's parents and avoiding murder for awhile is pride; one inevitably falls into the silent sins of lust and covetousness in one's heart if we are honest with ourselves, if for no other reason than because God has given us the gifts of sex, perception, and talents. Flaying oneself because, although one has avoided outward sins, there are still these inward sins, is counterproductive—when the answer is to acknowledge these moral errors, pray and repent, being willing to do so for the multiple sins of every day—and wait on the Lord's outworking of mercy and relief, including a willingness to take one's just consquences.

One doesn't need an appointment, a confessor or a booth to confess to God. He hears our innermost thoughts. One can admit one's shortcomings while driving to work or doing the laundry, and ask to be cleansed of this or that sin. Healing and improved behavior may come quickly or may take a lifetime; but this is the call to circumcise one's heart.

[MHGinTN]

+1

[2nd amendment mama]

Yup! LOL

[Tell It Right]

Please read the entire chapter of Galatians 5. For example, verses 1-6 detail the topic of circumcision as it relates to salvation --- it doesn't (stated very clearly in verse 6).

That's Paul's way of reminding the Christians to not put too much stock in their works for salvation --- even works required by God in the Old Testament.

Yet Paul goes on in the later part of the chapter to say not to forget works altogether either. As you correctly point out that people who do those won't inherit the kingdom of God. And then he goes back to the circumcision-isn't-part-of-salvation argument in chapter 6.

So what does it all mean? I mean all of it together, not just a few verses here or there? I take it to mean:

1) Don't get caught up in works as far as salvation.

2) But don't think being saved by grace gives us license to live like we ain't saved. If we aren't believers enough to change our lives, then we need to question if we really are believes (and by extension aren't saved).

3) But Paul goes back to what I point out as point #1 -- actions still ain't enough to be saved.

Since Paul repeats that I'll repeat it too -- be careful not to put too much into works when it comes to salvation. Us Protestants also need to remember to live it like we mean it, but Catholics need to be weary of putting too much into works when it comes to salvation.

[Tell It Right]

I’m not following you. Where does that say Ignatius used apostolic succession to make the argument for the authority of the bishop?

[MHGinTN]

First let me be clear that I believe in once saved always saved. When GOD puts His Holy Spirit Seal upon the spirit of a believer they are a born from above creature thereafter. No thing not even the born again can remove HIS SEAL which HE placed upon their spirit.

Second, I referred you to the passages in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 because in those passages it is even more clear that Jesus refers to 'faithful to the end'. In Matthew 10 He is addressing The Disciples who will be the Apostles after His resurrection. He begins by telling them the same message found in Luke 21 and Matthew 24 regarding faithfulness to endure so they receive the reward not God's SEAL upon their spirits.

The enduring Jesus refers to is channeled to the soul via faith, not works. If you read Matthew 10 carefully, Jesus begins His teaching with the near future which the disciples will endure as they are proclaiming the Kingdom. Then Jesus shifts the focus more into the future when these same men will be proclaiming the Gospel of Grace not the Kingdom the Jews expected. And finally He makes reference to the very end as a message to us about enduring tot he end to receive the rewards. He is not admonishing them or us to endure in our strength but to apply our faith in HIM so that our faith channels HIS STRENGTH to our spirit and soul.

We can get this message by looking at what happens prior to this scene where HE is about to send them out to proclaim the Kingdom is at hand. The miracles He performed as recorded in Matthew 9 tell us these are illustrations of faith channeling Spiritual Power FROM GOD not the efforts of the disciples.

I would here refer you to Hebrews 11, the faith passage.

And finally:

40 “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 41 The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

[infool7]

It suddenly strikes me that...

Catholicism is the worst form of Religion

except for all those other forms that

have been tried from time to time.

7

[MHGinTN]

Catholicism is not Christianity. It is another religion, not a flawed form of Christianity. You do well when you include Catholicism as one among many religions. Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship based upon the Righteousness of Christ Jesus imputed to ALL who believe in Him and have been born again, born from above, sealed by the Holy Spirit of God.

In the religion of Catholicism you must strive to obtain by faithfulness to the sacraments, eventually earning ... a trip through Gregory's purgatory and eventually into Heaven, perhaps by the assistance of the Catholic Mary.

Hebrews 11 explains the modus operendi of Christianity.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Catholicism is the worst form of Religion except for all those other forms that

Except that Catholicism IS a compilation of the other forms.

From the Greek religion of a pantheon of gods, Catholicism has demigoddesses and demigods, the rituals, symbols, practices, etc., are simply syncretic paganism combined with Christianity.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

"You are still a Catholic. The marks of Baptism and Confirmation are on your soul.

.............

"Since you say that I'm still a Catholic since I was baptized and made my Confirmation as a child, can I then post on Catholic Caucus threads?

😂

[infool7]

I am sorry that you two are still so terribly confused and

continue to desperately flail about attempting to remain so.

The One True Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Christ Jesus
                                                                                                                            , that built Christendom(western civilization.)

          The Nicene Creed
          I believe in one God,
          the Father almighty,
          maker of heaven and earth,
          of all things visible and invisible.
+10 One God
          I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
          the Only Begotten Son of God,
          born of the Father before all ages.
+15 Christ Jesus
          God from God, Light from Light,
          true God from true God,
          begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
          through him all things were made.
+ 1 Consubstantial with the Father
          For us men and for our salvation
          he came down from heaven,
+ 1 For our salvation
           and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
          and became man.
+ 1 Virgin Birth
          For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
          he suffered death and was buried,
          and rose again on the third day
          in accordance with the Scriptures.
+10 Suffered, Died and Rose
          He ascended into heaven
          and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
+ 1 Ascended, Seated
          He will come again in glory
          to judge the living and the dead
          and his kingdom will have no end.
+10 Come Again in Glory to Judge
          I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
          who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
          who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
          who has spoken through the prophets.
+10 Holy Trinity
          I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
+10 One Visible Church
          I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
+ 1 One Baptism
          and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
          and the life of the world to come.
+10 Resurrection of the Dead

          The Ten Commandments:
          1. I am the LORD your God. You shall worship the Lord your God
              and Him only shall you serve.
          2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
          3. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.
          4. Honor your father and your mother.
          5. You shall not murder.
          6. You shall not commit adultery.
          7. You shall not steal.
          8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
          9. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
          10.You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.
+10 The Ten Commandments

          The Greatest Commandment
          1. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy
               whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength
          2. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
+ 2 The Greatest Commnadments

          The Seven Sacraments Catholic Church:
          1. Baptism.
          2. Eucharist.
          3. Confirmation.
          4. Reconciliation.
          5. Anointing of the sick.
          6. Marriage.(XY+XX, Till death do us part)
          7. Holy orders.
+ 7 The Seven Sacraments

          The Precepts of the Catholic Church:
          1. You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation
               and rest from servile labor.
          2. You shall confess your sins at least once a year.
          3. You shall receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least during the
              Easter season.
          4. You shall observe the days of fasting and abstinence established by
               the Church.
          5. You shall help to provide for the needs of the Church.
+ 5 The Precepts

          The seven chief corporal works of mercy:
          1. To feed the hungry.
          2. To give drink to the thirsty.
          3. To clothe the naked.
          4. To visit the imprisoned.
          5. To shelter the homeless.
          6. To visit the sick.
          7. To bury the dead.
+ 7 Corporal Works

          The seven chief spiritual works of mercy:
          1. To admonish the sinner.
          2. To instruct the ignorant.
          3. To counsel the doubtful.
          4. To comfort the sorrowful.
          5. To bear wrongs patiently.
          6. To forgive all injuries.
          7. To pray for the living and the dead.
+ 7 Spiritual Works

          Pro-Life - From Conception Until Natural Death
+10 Pro-Life

          _____ How Catholic am I?
                                   >15 Praise God!
                                   16-87 Good Candidate for RCIA
                                   88-100 Impressive
                                   > 100 You are on the Way.

                                                            * Click the pic to learn how to say it in Latin

Sáncte Míchael Archángele,
Saint Michael the Archangel,
Sahn tay Me kale ark ann ja lay

defénde nos in proélio,
defend us in battle.
de fen day nos en pro leo

cóntra nequítiam et insídias diáboli ésto præsídium.
Be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil.
contra neh-queet ee um et in cid e ah s dee ob lay esto pray sid ee um

Ímperet ílli Déus,súpplices deprecámur:
May God rebuke him we humbly pray;
Im pair et ee lay Day-ews soup-lay-chase day-pray-che-more

tuque, prínceps milítiæ cæléstis,
O Prince of the Heavenly host
too quay pren-cheps may-lee-tea-a che-lace-tees

Sátanam aliósque spíritus malígnos,
Satan and all evil spirits
Say tan um ah lee o squeece spear ee toose mah ling nos

qui ad perditiónem animárum pervagántur in múndo,
who wander through the world for the ruin of souls
quee ard per dits ee own um ani mon um prev a gon tour en mundo

divína virtúte,
by the divine power of God,
day vee nay ver-toot-tay

in inférnum detrúde.
thrust into hell
en in fair num day-too-tay

Ámen.

Lord, keep us strong. Keep us bold and filled with love for our enemies and for all those who are troubled and in need of healing. Never allow us to hide or to be concerned for our own safety, but rather concerned only that your glorious and Holy Name bring healing and grace, conviction for our sins, repentance, and therefore mercy. Help us, Lord, to stay faithful, courageous, and bold no matter the threats, the hardships, the persecution, and even the ruthless attempts at suppression. May no one who looks at us conclude anything less than that we “have been with Jesus. -Dr. Mary Healy

Amen

7

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[Hebrews 11:6]

God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek HIM.

Hebrews 11:6 alert!

[MHGinTN]

As evidence of your darkness within, you keep posting a painted image of an Angel with a belly button. And you expect to be taken seriously?

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Been there, done that
was Roman Catholic - not my fault
Took time to study the Bible
came to saving faith in Christ
Holy Spirit spoke through God’s Word
I left Rome for Him
Had a hard time keeping upright - millions were pushing to leave with me from South America alone!
No more Perpetual Catholic Hamster Wheel of guilt and ritual
I know Christ
Have salvation and assurance of salvation
Have eternal security
Went to seminary
Outlined every book of the Bible, verse by verse
Learned Greek
Learned theology
It all confirmed what I already knew...

Salvation comes not through any church, but through entrusting yourself to Him alone, by faith, apart from ritual, church, works, etc.

Never regretted coming to Him for a millisecond

Would never go back to pagan Rome.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“you keep posting a painted image of an Angel with a belly button. And you expect to be taken seriously?”
.....

+1!

[infool7]

As evidence of your darkness within

Praying for you and all those

in the spiritual wilderness.

7

[infool7]

You seriously misunderstand\misinterpret\misrepresent Catholicism

some of the absurd things you mention

can only be of your own innovation.

I hope and pray that one day you can escape your delusions.

7

[MHGinTN]

Sooner than you could believe you will be commanded to take the mark of the beast. Even if thisevent is accompanief by images of the Catholic Mary, do not accept the mark.Repeat, Do not accept the mark, regardless. You are under strong delusion now. In that day It will be worse! Do not obey the beast.

[daniel1212]

Wow. 81 replies in about 3 hours. Must be a hot topic.