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]

Even a talking ass gets listened to; thus...

Elsie!

[Resettozero]

There was a huge impression made on the out-of-town hearers of the not-drunk-with-wine Spirit-filled believers on that particular Pentacost. They heard about what God had done in their very own dialect and were therefore prepped for Peter’s sermon.

So, maybe “tongues” has as much or more to do with the “ears”.

(”Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”)

Language is fascinating to me and has been since I was a child. I’ve never comprehended fully how words can be heard, read, thought, and communicated even without verbal speech. That I can speak any language and have understanding of it has always seemed a gift to me rather than an acquistion by myself.

[imardmd1]

There are other passages which strongly point to faith as a gift, but I am out of time for now.

I have some comments to make much later, but let me suggest that you consider that The Faith is the faith of The Christ, His abiding faith in The Father evidenced by His faithfulness to Him, seen by the completely committed trust on the Cross: "Father, into thy hands I commend My spirit," and died, placing the revivication totally into the government of The Father, whence His physical body stopped functioning and was laid to rest; but his soul departed for Sheol/Paradise.

Jesus was completely trusting The Father to rejoin His soul, spirit, and body together as one. (It may be that Adam had the same trust in God, before he carried out his disobedience, then spiritually died, and bequeathed his progeny with the ensuing spiritual death.)

“It was The Lord Jesus Christ’s Faith, which also is designated by ‘The Faith,’ by which we are saved. Our faith may fail in times of great testing but His Faith did not and will not fail under any circumstance. Therefore we must rely on His Faith forevermore (Wittman., from “Seven Baptisms of the New Testament, IV. The Baptism of Violent Death.”)

Remember, in the context of Eph. 2, The God quickened us from spiritual death, being dead in trespasses and sins through The Faith. Dead people have no power of any kind. AFIK.

[delchiante]

If the Day of the Sun is your worship day, good for you. I pray He leads you to the fullness of His Truth.

If you believe it is the day the Savior rose from the grave, and that is why you keep it holy, that is an error.

This year, if Jews were accurate with their timekeeping, ‘easter’ was on Woden’s day.

But setting the work and worship life for people has been Rome’s plan for a long time..revelation 13 gives us satan’s plan.

People are welcome to Rome’s timekeeping.
Rome sets when a day begins
Rome sets when a week begins
Rome sets when a month begins
Rome sets when a year begins

And people esteem those more than what scripture shows. It is their right.

It just seems sort of hypocritical for protestants especially to trust Rome with so much and then attack Roman Catholics and its leaders and organization,accusing them of believing and doing so much that is outside of what is found in scripture

Roman Catholics can’t catch a break.. the world(and protestants included) runs on its system and then people (especially protestants) have the nerve to say they that roman catholics are not following the bible..

sola scriptura or something..

Drips with irony..

[CynicalBear]

Your stuck in this world system and use it every day like everyone else like it or not. Attempting to rely on legalism may be an attempt at bragging rights on your part but will have no weight with Christ.

[CynicalBear]

>>My devices are the Holy Spirit, and the high comprehension of the word that he delivers to me.<<

The Holy Spirit would have known the difference between the word fire and the word woman. Just sayin.

[CynicalBear]

Don’t set you alarm to make it to work on time. It’s Satan’s device you know.

[af_vet_1981]

As for whether faith is a gift, I ask you to reconsider your analysis of this passage:

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The gender mismatch argument you mentioned does not solve the organization of this passage. There is a gender mismatch between the neuter “that (touto)” in “that not of yourselves,” and the earlier noun “pistos,” “faith,” which is feminine. However, this does not unlink "faith" from "gift of God," because “charis (grace)” is also feminine, and “sodzo (save)” is masculine, theoretically leaving the neuter “touto” pointing to ... nothing? How can that be? If faith is not the referent, what is? Based on your theory of gender mismatch, it can’t refer to any of the other preceding components of salvation either.

Most authorities I have found believe it is something Paul does elsewhere, use a neuter pronoun to package an entire concept, the main heading for a bulleted list, as it were. Thus, if this is correct, he is referring to all the constituent parts as a gift or as the components of a gift. As faith is one of those constituents, it is a fair exegesis to understand Paul is saying that grace, the basis, faith, the means, and salvation, the result, are all the gift of God, so that a saved man has nothing to boast about. Nothing at all. And that, after all, is his point, isn’t it? Why would he mention anything that didn’t buttress his main conclusion?

There are other passages which strongly point to faith as a gift, but I am out of time for now. Perhaps more later.

Yes, thank you for pointing out my error so kindly. reconsider for I obviously was wrong when I wrote that Grace is neuter and matches the pronoun. It is not neuter but also feminine, so the pronoun "that" would not normally belong to either. That is well documented, leaving two other alternatives, the pronoun refers to previous idea of
1. salvation, ie., salvation is the gift of God
2. salvation through faith is the gift of God

I suspect you may agree that both ideas are the gift of God. I am persuaded that "faith alone" is not the gift of God. To do so conflicts with James. I regard faith as obedience to hearing God's Word through the Holy Spirit's conviction. It is further seen here in Isaiah, Romans, 2Peter, and Revelation:


19I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

5For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. 6But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) 7Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) 8But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 12For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.


9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.


16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. 17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

[delchiante]

Not sure what is legalism about calling today His 6th day and thanking Him and giving Him the glory who made it.

Is that legalism? Or appreciation ?

Not sure what is legalism in obeying His commandments when He states in His Word that if you love me, obey my commandments. It made me search His Word to find His commandments.. and frankly, there are more than ten.

Is that legalism? Or love?

If you admit you don’t see Rome as a threat, that at least is honest.You don’t really care about prophecy. Or prophecy that may upset what you have been taught is a threat.
We all mock what we don’t understand.

I am not sure about the word ‘bragging’ is for.. that sort of has a conotation that I have an agenda.

The agenda is Truth. And the Truth I know today isn’t because I had an epiphany. I had no vision. I asked, sought and knocked..

Because I had an encounter with a nice Catholic that gave me a set of rosary beads. I was ignorant of these beads and even more ignorant that Mary came down and gave promises with those beads.

Because I wasn’t an impressionable 7 year old when I received the beads, I did what scripture tells us to do- test the spirits.

And that Mary quoted is a liar. Proved with the only thing we have- His Word. And worst yet, that liar pointed to Jesus in the promises.

And it hit me, how would a lying prophetess point to Truth? And I searched and found scripture that confirms that a faithful witness will not lie but a false witness will utter lies.
And then I saw where scripture says a true witness will deliver souls , but he that utters lies, causes deceit.

I knew that Roman Catholics were deceived by that mary spirit.scripture confirms it. They don’t see it that way.
What I then thought, floored me.. what about Mary and Jesus do I believe that is different than Roman Catholics?
The answer - nothing.. it was the same Jesus..

And I asked, sought knocked and tried to defend my faith.. and what He has shown me in that study is what I have showing here.

People can accept truth or deny it. People are certainly well within their right to say what I have posted here is lies and untrue..

There is no advertisement for a church, priest, minister, pastor, ministry, website, book to sell..no advocacy except to know the enemy and his plan.

His Word and a concordance and time with both is all you need. He provides it all. a willing heart to know and live Truth is essential, though.

Without that, the world is a willing alternative..

And deceit can come in all forms.. it comes to catholics in the form of the spirit of Mary.
and that mary ,that scripture can prove she is a liar in the promises she has given, points to her son Jesus. That is a rather inconvenient truth ...

If you believe lies or liars can point to real genuine Truth, then you are welcome to believe it.

I didn’t know what genuine Truth was until I realized what I believed in wasn’t truth..That isnt something people would normally brag about. It is a rather humbling experience in fact.

Sackcloth and ashes worthy,actually.. kind of like earth shattering, life changing , eternity changing event..scream at the top of your voice don’t be blind like I was kind of thing.. out of love..

It is only Him who gets the glory and appreciation and love from me..

That is why I call today His 6th day. I really know Him now ...

He will meet us all where we are at.. HallueluYah! He doesn’t let us stay there..

[metmom]

All that comes across is spiritual pride..... holier than thouness.

[metmom]

I have way bigger fish to fry than what calendar I use.

If it were so important to our faith, surely it would have been mentioned SOMEWHERE in the NT as necessary for believers to observe, like at the Council at Jerusalem.

[CynicalBear]

>>All that comes across is spiritual pride..... holier than thouness.<<

I agree.

[CynicalBear]

>>If it were so important to our faith, surely it would have been mentioned SOMEWHERE in the NT as necessary for believers to observe, like at the Council at Jerusalem.<<

Exactly! And much of it goes back to "rightly dividing".

[editor-surveyor]

Yes, the word is Fire, as verified by several scholars at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

[editor-surveyor]

I try to stay out of Marin County, if possible.
.

[editor-surveyor]

Did you miss the point?

All things prophetic are FOB Jerusalem.

.

[editor-surveyor]

I think you are on the right track now.

There were times when I’ve suspected that you’d had too much of your Chianti, but this one sits on the rock.

[editor-surveyor]

>> I am persuaded that “faith alone” is not the gift of God. To do so conflicts with James. I regard faith as obedience to hearing God’s Word through the Holy Spirit’s conviction. <<

.
Correctamundo!

I was once in the other camp, until I had to realize that making faith an involuntary gift, made the word of God a work of confusion.

.

[CynicalBear]

>>Yes, the word is Fire, as verified by several scholars at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.<<

No Editor they did not. At least at the original language level. They played a transliteration game which left them looking like amateurs at best. It's very easy to show their error.

Here is the passage they tried to make say fire.

Zechariah 5:7 Then the cover of lead was raised, and there in the basket sat a woman :(אִשָּׁ֣ה)!

Now here is the word for fire.

2 Kings 1:14 Behold, there came fire(אֵשׁ֙) down from heaven, and burnt up the two captains of the former fifties with their fifties: therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight.

I read Rood's account of that and he asked using the transliterated words which sound alike which is amateurish at best. He doesn't read Hebrew by his own account other than the transliteration and that is what he was looking at. Rood has been shown to be a fraud on multiple levels. Rood is a fraud and doesn't search for real truth. Follow his false teaching at your own peril.

[af_vet_1981]

Thus, if this is correct, he is referring to all the constituent parts as a gift or as the components of a gift. As faith is one of those constituents, it is a fair exegesis to understand Paul is saying that grace, the basis, faith, the means, and salvation, the result, are all the gift of God, so that a saved man has nothing to boast about

but much to be grateful for. And since we are all catholic now:

III. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF FAITH

Faith is a grace

153 When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come "from flesh and blood", but from "my Father who is in heaven".24 Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. "Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.'"25

Faith is a human act

154 Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to "yield by faith the full submission of. . . intellect and will to God who reveals",26 and to share in an interior communion with him.

155 In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: "Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace."27