I Hated the Idea of Becoming Catholic

Aleteia ^ | JUNE 20, 2014 | ANTHONY BARATTA

[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.

But just a few weeks later, I ran into more doubts. We were learning about spiritual disciplines like prayer and fasting and I was struck by how often the professor would skip from St. Paul to Martin Luther or Jonathan Edwards when describing admirable lives of piety. Did nothing worthwhile happen in the first 1500 years? The skipping of history would continue in many other classes and assigned reading. The majority of pre-Reformation church history was ignored.

I soon discovered I had less in common with the early Church fathers than I thought. Unlike most Christians in history, communion had always been for me an occasional eating of bread and grape juice, and baptism was only important after someone had gotten “saved.” Not only did these views contradict much of Church history but, increasingly, they did not match with uncomfortable Bible passages I had always shrugged off (John 6, Romans 6, etc).

Other questions that I had buried began to reappear, no longer docile but ferocious, demanding an answer. Where did the Bible come from? Why didn’t the Bible claim to be “sufficient”? The Protestant answers that had held me over in the last year were no longer satisfying.

Jefferson Bethke’s viral YouTube video, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,” was released during this time. The young man meant well, but to me he only validated what the Wall Street Journal called “the dangerous theological anarchy of young evangelicals,” attempting to remove Jesus from the confines of religion but losing so much in the process.

Ash Wednesday was the tipping point. A hip Southern Baptist church in Louisville held a morning Ash Wednesday service and many students showed up to classes with ashes on their forehead. At chapel that afternoon, a professor renowned for his apologetic efforts against Catholicism expounded upon the beauty of this thousand year old tradition.

Afterwards, I asked a seminary friend why most evangelicals had rejected this beautiful thing. He responded with something about Pharisees and “man-made traditions.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do this anymore.”

My resistance to Catholicism started to fade. I was feeling drawn to the sacraments, sacramentals, physical manifestations of God’s grace, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. No more borrowing, no more denying.

It was the next day that I called my mom and told her I thought I was going to become Catholic.

I didn’t go to classes on Friday. I went to the seminary library and checked out books I had previously forbidden myself to look at too closely, like the Catechism and Pope Benedict’s latest. I felt like I was checking out porn. Later, I drove to a 5pm Saturday Mass. The gorgeous crucifix at the front of the church reminded me of when I had mused that crucifixes demonstrated that Catholics didn’t really understand the resurrection.

But I saw the crucifix differently this time and began crying. “Jesus, my suffering savior, you’re here.”

A peace came over me until Tuesday, when it yielded to face-to-windshield reality. Should I stay or leave? I had several panicked phone calls: “I literally have no idea what I am going to do tomorrow morning.”

On Wednesday morning I woke up, opened my laptop, and typed out “77 Reasons I Am Leaving Evangelicalism.” The list included things like sola scriptura, justification, authority, the Eucharist, history, beauty, and continuity between the Old and New Testament. The headlines and the ensuing paragraphs flowed from my fingers like water bursting from a centuries-old dam. 

A few hours later on February 29, 2012 I slipped out of Louisville, Kentucky, eager to not confuse anyone else and hoping I wasn’t making a mistake.  

The next few months were painful. More than anything else I felt ashamed and defensive, uncertain of how so much of my identity and career path could be upended so quickly. Nonetheless, I joined the Church on Pentecost with the support of my family and started looking for work.

So much has changed since then. I met Jackie on CatholicMatch.com that June, got married a year later, and celebrated the birth of our daughter, Evelyn, on March 3rd, 2014. We’re now in Indiana and I’m happy at my job.

I’m still very new on this Catholic journey. To all inquirers out there, I can tell you that my relationship with God has deepened and strengthened. As I get involved in our parish, I’m so thankful for the love of evangelism and the Bible that I learned in Protestantism.

I have not so much left my former faith as I have filled in the gaps. I thank God for the fullness of the Catholic faith.

[Elsie]

I meant to include you in 960 but the post button defaults to one person.

No 'default' to it.

A post is only capable of being posted BY one person; therefore any reply is TO that person.

One may include others in the To: box if they wish.

[Elsie]

A post is only capable of being posted BY one person; therefore any reply is TO that person.

My wish is that the PRIVATE Reply function would return the NUMBER of the post that IT came from, like the POST Reply one does.

[Elsie]

: Matthew 24:10-14 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

This is an easily detected FALSE translation; for the ending phase is MISSING!

In the Hebrew (found in the Book of Zelph) the ending phrase is found:

...and will post endlessly on FR.

[Elsie]

Going Postal?

One must first be gruntled; if they are to become DISgruntled.

[Elsie]

What a gross misapplication of scripture!

Says a person who truly believes that Peter is the Rock Jesus was speaking about.

[Elsie]

Paul did not instruct Titus to yell "Shut Up!" at those insubordinate clowns who were teaching flagrant errors.

At least they weren't FOOLS.

[Elsie]

Paul did not instruct Titus to yell "Shut Up!" at those insubordinate clowns who were teaching flagrant errors.

HMMMmmm...

Galatians 2:11
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

[Elsie]

In reality, anyone can pull snippets and words and phrases out of the Bible and pretty much make it say whatever they want.

Ok, Mary. We'll tell 'em!!!

[Elsie]

...and he does seem to have a good memory as for comments persons here make...

Maybe; but where have I lain my glasses?

[Elsie]

I must 'fess up to my mistake in my previous post.

The language was Reformed Egyptian; NOT Hebrew.

Sorry for any confusion.

I've not had my coffee yet.

(Have I???)

[Elsie]

...those insubordinate clowns who were teaching flagrant errors.

"Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."

[Elsie]

Now I’m off to find another windmill...

[af_vet_1981]

As for your "salvation by grammar" barb, God chose what He chose as the linguistic wrapper on His message. If you don't like it, why complain to me about it?

Then the logical conclusion of that argument is that we should be in a process of returning to a pure language so we can understand God. We should not use English to discuss doctrine because English is a flawed language. The KJV and other English translations are incapable of explaining doctrine without delving into Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to reveal these divine truths because the common people will not understand. This sounds familiar.

[Elsie]

I think no matter WHICH language is chosen, the Bible has indicated you'll have problems articulating certain things...

2 Corinthians 9:15
1 Peter 1:6-9

[af_vet_1981]

So when His apostle tells us that "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:," what choice do we have but to set aside our useless introspection and trust that He has spoken truthfully with us? If we believe in Him, not in our own belief, then we have a solid anchor. We are not in this alone. He is real. He helps us. So many of us can give testimony to how He has transformed our lives from cesspools of iniquity to streams of living water, just as He promised. He is faithful, even when we are not. Like Israel, He has redeemed us not because we were better or more trustworthy than anyone else, but because by saving such complete and miserable failures, He will get all the more glory. The twenty-four elders cast their crowns at His feet because they know those crowns, that glory, belongs entirely to Him.

I like this. I might make a small edit to but because by saving such He loves us, He saves us, who on our own are complete and miserable failures, He will get all the more glory and we will get all the more benefit.

[Resettozero]

Johnny Fever did that stunt too?

[af_vet_1981]

I defer to the council rulings of the holy catholic apostolic church and the catechism of the Catholic Church, lest I stray from the truth.

As for whether partaking in the Holy Spirit is identical to partaking in Christ, I'd have to defend the traditional view of the Trinity and say that can't be the case, else you are rejecting the distinction of the persons of the Trinity. There is not an absolute commutation of all attributes from one person to the other. Else you would have to argue the Holy Spirit had a biological body like Christ, or died for our sins, or rose from the dead. That is a dangerous path. It's the kind of thought that leads to the Oneness Pentecostal heresy. In their quest for their own view of perfect monotheism, they squeeze all the differences out of the three distinct persons, and so end up with a false god.

Are you saying the same audience in Hebrews can be at the same time partakers of the heavenly calling, partakers of the Holy Spirit, and not partakers of Messiah ? What do you think the heavenly calling is ? Who sent the Holy Spirit ?. Look up the six instances of "metochos" (partaker), especially in Hebrews here.

Subsequent to the Messiah ascending and the Holy Spirit descending on the holy catholic apostolic church at Shavuot/Pentecost I see no instance where anyone was made a partaker of the Holy Spirit without being made a partaker of Messiah. I don't see some gradual slope where the three persons of the Trinity operate independently so that one day someone because metochos of the heavenly calling, another time later metochos of the Holy Spirit, another day, week, year, or never they become metochos of Messiah, and again at some future time or never metochos if the Father. God is One. Messiah is at the Father's right hand and He sent the Comforter. You can be convicted of the Holy Spirit without being a partaker/metochos. That is not the case in Hebrews. <

[Springfield Reformer]

I had a friend back in my MBI days who used to be a disk jockey in some small Midwest market. One day, after they ran the emergency broadcast test signal, he got on the air and said something like, “This was only a test. If it had been the real thing you would have been blown to bits by now.” And yes, he lost his job over it. Can’t imagine why ...

And wasn’t it Carlson who had the issue with turkeys?

[Utah Binger]

I've not had my coffee yet.

Some of us have coffee at normal hours.

[Resettozero]

Yes, Carlson with the non-flying turkeys.

I thought Elsie might have been referring also to the show because Fever might have pulled the Santa is dead stunt, too. I don’t remember seeing it on KRP.

Never shall forget Tim doing RADIO broadcast of the Christmas parade!