A Baptist's Search For Historical Proof of St. Patrick Takes Her To Rome

CH Network ^ | Patty Patrick Bonds

[drstevej]

***Rather, his comment should have been clarified to say that, assuming the doctrine of the Real Presence is true, as we Catholics believe, then a denial of the Real Presence along the lines he mentions in the article could entail an implicit denial of the EUCHARIST (my emphasis added).***

I have no problem with this statement. But he linked this with the INCARNATION. Gnosticism and docetism were denials of the incarnation. How did this paragraph ever pass editorial review? It is clearly inaccurate. It is not merely unclear.

Does Envoy "vet" these articles for theological / historical accuracy? I have only publuished two articles (Westminster Journal) and both received careful scrutiny and demanded clarity and accuracy. The editors comments to me prior to publication were specific and detailed. No way this kind of statement would have gotten past them.

Is Envoy scholarly or polemic in its intended purpose?

A former professor (Dr. John Walvoord) told us in seminary.

"The difference between a debater and a theologian is: a theologian seeks truth while a debater seeks to win an argument."

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

More sad then inspirational. She obviously never understood. For all her "sola scriptura", it sounds like she always got her beliefs from some person, first her dad, then her brother, then a web site, then a book and then friends. She had all the sound bites but never a relationship of her own. Even her change to catholic came about because of "feelings" she got from a mass, rather then from God's Word.

I changed from catholic to fundamental bible believer because I stopped reading books and listening to men and listened to the HS thru God's Word.

Becky

[Patrick Madrid]

Walvoord was right, of course. And Envoy's mission is to win souls, not win arguments. I've already explained how his statement was unclear, and I'm not going to wrangle with you over it. Also, ironically, my post had a typo that made it inaccurate. It should have read: ". . . assuming the doctrine of the Real Presence is true, as we Catholics believe, then a denial of the Real Presence along the lines he mentions in the article could entail an implicit denial of the Incarnation."

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

(3) She seems to have been raised in a home (and I in fact know she was raised in a home) where fairly sophisticated doctrinal discourse was a part of her upbringing.

But how much of HER beliefs were hers because of a personal relationship, personal search of God's Word, rather then just I believe because that is what my family says to believe.

I have to agree with drsteve. Her "conversion" is based on experience, warm fuzzies, rather then on a personal response to God.

Becky

[drstevej]

Thanks for the typo correction. With that correction, I withdraw my agreement with your statement. The link between the Eucharist and the Incarnation is not true of Protestantism at all.

You might make a case in the "celestial flesh" theology of Menno Simons (forefather of the Mennonites) or Melchior Hoffman. But these Anabaptists rejected the Protestant Reformation and the Protestant doctrine of forensic justification among other key doctrines.

The article and your clarification has no historical merit to my knowledge. It is a cheap shot. (A parallel would be a linking of belief in transsubstantiation and justification of cannibalism. That would be foolish and unfair -- for similar reasons).

[Patty Bonds]

I just have to say it was a unique experience having you "do color" for my journey. Well done, I might add.

[Patty Bonds]

St. Irenaeus, second Bishop of Lyons, 140-202 A.D. "If the body be not saved, then, in fact, neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood; and neither is the cup of the Eucharist the partaking of His Blood nor is the Bread which we break the partking of His body . . . He has declared the cup, part of creation, to be His own Blood, from which He causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, He has established as His own Body, from which He gives increase to our bodies."

St. Cyril of Jerusalem 315-386 A.D. "Let us, then, with full confidence, partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. For in the figure of bread His Body is given to you, and in the figure of wine His Blood is given to you, so that by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, you might become united in the body and blood with Him. For thus do we become Christ-bearers, His Body and Blood being distrubuted through our members. And thus it is that we become, according to the blessed Peter, sharers of the divine nature."

[Patty Bonds]

Conversion is a life long process, not a point in time experience. I think James Akin's book, Salvation Controversy explains this well.

[lockeliberty]

Interesting story.

Having been raised a Calvinist I understand why many (especially women) desire a more experiential form of Christianity. Some retreat to arminian experiential churches, some to tongue speaking Pentacostalists churches, and you seem to be enchanted with the Eucharist. Have you tried the Greek Orthodox Church? I hear their services are quite sublime.


BTW, how is your brother doing?

[NYer]

I just have to say it was a unique experience having you "do color" for my journey.

Welcome to FR, Patty!! I am new to Patrick Madrid's blog and have enjoyed your posts there. When I followed his link to your personal story, I was so moved, that I had to share it with the other catholics in this forum. As I posted earlier in this thread, cradle catholics sometimes need a reminder of what they inherited through their own baptism, especially in times such as these.

If you lurk in the Religion Forum long enough, you will come to recognize the various religious leanings of my fellow freepers, by their posts. They run the gamut, even amongst the catholics. We sometimes pull out the gloves but have great respect for each other.

Have you appeared on Journey Home? It is my absolutely, most favorite program. Last year, I caught James Akin's interview with Marcus Grodi. It moved me to tears, as did Marty Barrack's. Your faith journey is truly inspiring. May God continue to bless you and your family.

[Patty Bonds]

Hi NYer,

Yes, I have been on Journey Home and will be again in October. I prefer live talks to television though. Cameras are intimidating and they don't smile.

To Dr.Steve,

Sorry I have not been answering, I spent most of Saturday fighting with AOL over my connection being down. Did you know their technical support is not even in this courtry any more? They won't even tell you where it is. But after a complete reinstall and some other fixes, I'm back up and running.

I find it disconcerting that you keep beating the "experience" drum. It shows that you hear only what you expect to hear. The emotions that are produced by the early phases of a conversion experience (especially when that involves conversion from one theology to another) is a sense of terror and confusion. For a long time your theological puzzle does not fit any more and you feel completely adrift. You aren't sure what you believe and the more you read the more you realize you have spent your life trusting in the presuppositions of people who lived 500 years ago. The house you thought was built on rock you find sitting on sand. So if you want to talk emotions with me, you should list only those related to stark terror. The peace I enjoy now was won only after struggling trough the miriad of issures that had to be investigated and surrendered to God. Have you ever read Surprised by Truth? You won't find people partying and dancing in the aisles praising God that Peter is the Rock in the early parts of their journey. You will find them in tears with their Bibles open seeking God all day and half the night. I didn't get a decent nights sleep for about two months till I came to peace on the Eucharist. And when that battle was over, it only meant that in order to be that close to Him I was going to have to research every other facet of the Catholic faith. Daunting, let me tell ya.

No, Dr. Steve, if you were raised anything like I was, it strikes terror in you that you might possibly experience anything sacramental. You've been raised to disdain anything that other's claim can convey the grace of God as some kind of occult behavior or at least demonic deception. But read the Fathers of the Church and then read your New Testament again. I promise you, it will read like a whole new Bible, because you have never read it in it's context before. In fact, my challenge to you is to spend a year in the first four centuries of the Church. Just hang out there for a while. Especially on Saturday nights, so that its fresh in your mind Sunday mornings. ;)

Peace

[drstevej]

Don't forget to ping me in the To: section or I might miss your comments.

***I find it disconcerting that you keep beating the "experience" drum. It shows that you hear only what you expect to hear. ***

Not true, but worth no further comment.

***But read the Fathers of the Church and then read your New Testament again. I promise you, it will read like a whole new Bible, because you have never read it in it's context before. ***

You assume I have not. You are wrong. My undergraduate degree was engineering but my masters (4 yr degree) was in historical theology and my doctorate (two years of course work) in historical theology. I have a good library of the church fathers and have read fairly extensively. I have taught seminary level courses in historical theology. Patristics is not my primary field, but I am no novice in the area.

***In fact, my challenge to you is to spend a year in the first four centuries of the Church. Just hang out there for a while.***

Been there, done that. Made a A in the courses. Pardon me if I didn't do this exclusively on Saturday nights.

Patty, I filter the Fathers through the Bible (Acts 17:11) not the reverse.

[old and tired]

** I filter the Fathers through the Bible (Acts 17:11) not the reverse.**

As a Catholic, I've always been taught that Irenaeus was one of the first to determine what went into the Bible. I've been told by Protestant friends that the council of Hippo simply codified what was already accepted in the Christian world. That makes perfect sense to me and I can accept that as a valid rebuttal to the claim that Catholics assembled the Bible.

But then shouldn't we all be reading the Bible through the eyes of the early church fathers? Particularly the ones before the council of Hippo? I'm not trying to be contentious, I truly don't understand how you could deliberately discount their teachings.

[drstevej]

I do not discount their teaching. I am a historical theologian by training and have an appreciation for the writings of the Fathers, Reformers, etc.

However, the Bible is the touchstone. It alone is the inspired Word of God. Interpreting the Bible [like the Constitution] requires a knowledge of the historical grammatical context. The goal is to lead the meaning out of the text (that meaning intended by the author) rather than reading meaning back into the text making it a "living document."

Studying the other writings of constitutional framers and the commentaries of constitutional scholars is worthwhile, but the goal is the original intent of the framers.

I'm a "Bork to the Bible" kind of guy!

[Patty Bonds]

See #71

[Patty Bonds]

(to Patty) Did you intend hyperbole in your statement?

When we eat physical food every cell of our bodies is nurished. When we receive Christ in the Eucharist we are also nurished and made partakers of the Divine nature. We then carry that nature into the world and become the sacrament of Christ to others. Our union with Christ in the Euchaist is more intimate than any human union. Closer than husband and wife, closer than mother and child. If you want to argue if the cells of my finger nails receive Christ or not, I'll leave you to the Thomas Aquinases of our day (hit it Patrick) but I know that we become "God bearers" to the world and that our union with Him transcends anything we know with other humans. That is what I meant.

[lockeliberty]

Thanks for the ping.

Yes, I saw your response to drstevej. You seemed to have carefully studied Roman Catholic theology and come to the conclusion, especially regarding the Eucharist based upon your intial experience, that their doctrines were correct. However, I found this statement by you as quite odd considering your new Roman Catholic position.

"You aren't sure what you believe and the more you read the more you realize you have spent your life trusting in the presuppositions of people who lived 500 years ago. "

I'm not quite sure what you meant by that statement but if we are considering the "presuppositions of people" isn't that what the Reformation was all about?

[Patty Bonds]

And Becky, how do you know that your interpretation of God's Word is correct? No one comes to scripture without presuppositions, with out a grid through which they interpret scripture. You either listen to your Pastor or you read books from your favorite theologians, or you make yourself the judge of what is true. But all around you are sincere, Christ loving individuals and groups who are doing the very same thing but coming up with different interpretations of the same scriptures. They believe we are saved differently, they baptize differently (believers baptism, infant baptism, etc.), they believe we receive grace differently (sacraments vs ordinances)and have different moral beliefs. Not only are there about thirdy thousand denominations that cannot agree on the "plain meaning of scripture" they can't even agree withing their own denomination. I was a part of at least four different segments of the baptist denomination before I entered the Missionary denomination which is so divided among themselves that I don't even know how they call it a denomination. And they are all passionately in love with Christ and Sacred Scriture. They are all lead and taught by Greek and Hebrew scholars who read the same texts in the original and still see things differently. We all have a set of glasses we read scripture through. Which glasses are the right ones? I made the choice to seek out the original pair of glasses. My passion for those early months was to discover what the first Christians believed and practiced. I was convinced that they would have the purest message out there. The confusion of the protestant world was so obviously not what Christ has promised and was obviously a failure. What I discovered was that the Catechism of the Catholic Church read like a modern language version of the Early Church writings. The obvious differences between my own religious tradition and what the early Christians believed jumped right off the pages. There was no "once saved, always saved" mentality. There was no reliance on the Bible alone for authority, the Eucharist was known to be the Body and Blood of Christ and was so reverenced that not a drop or a crumb was to be lost. They were not Baptists, they were not Presbyterians, they were not anything I knew as a Protestant. They were blatantly Catholic.

There is a sense of automomy that comes from sola scriptura. You can simply choose to ignore things that do not fit into your theological box. You can flip your Bible open to your favorite Pauline epistle and graze in the comfortable words that seem to back up all your beliefs. I know, I spent 43 years that way. I blocked out the gospels because they were from "another dispensation." I blocked out all passages that talk about enduring to the end because that was not necessary anyway, God would handle it. There were whole chunks of scriture that simply did not fit or that had to be "read through" one of my presupposition. I affectionately call them "weknows" now. I would read read James 2:24 and tell myself, "yeah, but we know . . . " and move on unchallenged by the truth I didn't want to see there. See we can trade Bible verses for the rest of our lives and never get anywhere. The point is, what has been believed from the beginning? What Church has the authority to interpret the Bible?

See, Becky, after what I have seen, I am either a Catholic or an athiest. Jesus Christ promised to lead His Church into all truth. He gave His Apostles, especially Peter, the power to bind and loose which from a Jewish perspective means the ability to teach with authority. If He lost control somehow through pagan corruption or political infiltration or any of the other accusations against the purity of the Church, then He failed. Calvinist trust God to make sure they endure to the end (P=Preservation of the Saints) but they deny that Christ can do the very same thing for His Church that received His promise of protection. So if He failed, Becky, then He is not God and we all die in our sins, so eat, drink and be merry!

Becky, I am a Catholic and Jesus NEVER fails.

[Patty Bonds]

I'm not sure what a ping is.

Yes, that is exactly what the Reformation was all about. In fact, Luther lamented later that now there was a theology for every head. Everyone's presupositions trumped the truth promised by Christ and preserved in His Church. And now chaos reigns. Drive down the road to work today and chech out how many churches you see. He prayed that we be ONE, so that the world would know that the Father sent the Son. I wonder why they aren't real impressed with Christianity. Could it be the chaos and division?

[lockeliberty]

***I'm not sure what a ping is. ***

That just simply means you alerted me to one of your posts.

***Drive down the road to work today and chech out how many churches you see. He prayed that we be ONE, so that the world would know that the Father sent the Son. I wonder why they aren't real impressed with Christianity. Could it be the chaos and division? ***

I guess that would depend on your definition of ONE. Did Jesus specifically mean one organization headquartered in Rome using only the Latin language? Or perhaps, did He mean one in spirit and belief? I guess Total depravity just hasn't gone out of style yet. If you stick around here long enough you'll notice that that"ONE" Roman Catholic Church is quite fragmented internally. No, it is when the presuppositions of men begin incorporating doctrinal practices that clearly violate God's revelation that the visible "catholic" Church suffers. Truly Patty, if the "Holy" Roman Catholic Church is what you describe it to be would it truly be experiencing the contemporary scandals it now faces? That Total Depravity thing just won't go away.