Posted on 11/28/2014 2:33:31 PM PST by 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.
“Except for the underground Christian Church that God has always kept.”
There was no such Church. Even Protestant historians admit it: http://www.amazon.com/Baptist-Successionism-James-Edward-McGoldrick/dp/0810836815
**Caths may read the bible but they don’t apply it. **
And exactly how do you know this? Is it in the Bible?
The first 1500 years of Christianity were filled with millions of people discovering Jesus through the Catholic Church, Eastern, Orthodox and Roman. Catholic simply means universal.
Most of the eastern rites have united with the Roman Catholic Church, which makes such good sense. I BELIEVE that it would be what our good Lord would have us to.
Whether you travel the road of John Calvin, Martin Luther or any of those very pious souls who found Christ their own way in the 16th century, you travel to Jesus.
ALL roads worth traveling are with Jesus leading us, with Jesus at our side and with Jesus behind us in case we fall. THAT is the true path. Why cavil at our own Christian paths if they all lead to Jesus?
The Apostles were Jews who became Christians. They would attend synagogue on Saturday and then meet in church homes on Sunday for the celebration of the Eucharist.
Eventually, then, they were expelled from the synagogues.
Of course not. Have you ever heard of Jewish Christians??? That's what the Apostles were. That's what the churches they established were.
it seems that Jesus would have forgiven the whore, the heretic, the sinner in this life, but the Popes did not see it that way, so it seems, given they burned and killed (had killed) millions over a period of 800- 900 years.
I was particularly interested in how they dealt with controversy, either within their own closest religious communities, or when dealing with erroneous movements like the Gnostics, the Donatists, and so forth.
I was looking for rational, patient, persistent approaches. I was looking for balanced people able to be reasoned with; strong for the truth; humble enough to be corrected. I found them!
One could write a History of the Catholic Churh based on crimes, just as one could write a History of the United States of America based on crimes. It would be stirring for those who enjoy the thrill of moral indignation; it would also be biased in a deeply damaging way. But I found it very restoring in mind, heartm, and spirit, to read history based on saints who, like Christ, were truly full of mercy, and would rather suffer than inflict suffering.
I was a 10-year old kid who was invited by his aunt to accompany her to Adoration on some Sunday afternoon in 1948. She disappeared in the choir loft to play the organ and left me fetching for myself.
Here I am sitting in a pew all by myself when some dude in an ornate coat walks in, opens a little door in some safe, puts something white in a gold, cross-shaped thingy, places it on a table, and starts swinging something like a ball on a chain at the Subject on the table.
Smoke starts to billow. Hmm, strange smell, but not unpleasant. Hmm, this is cool, this is strange, I think that this is what I want from now on. In the meantime, my aunt in the choir loft was doing her thing.
The rest is history and I never looked back. Of course, later on in life, the Jesuits just reinforced all the emotions I experienced on that Sunday afternoon.
The End.
Too bad. You might have gained a better understanding of how and why this young man, along with other Evangelicals, chose to come home to the Catholic Church. Consider, for example ...
Frncis J. Beckwith - "Until a few weeks ago, Francis Beckwith served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians." He Could No Longer Explain Why He Wasn’t Catholic
Ulf Ekman - "I discovered how little I really knew about [Catholics], their spirituality and their beliefs. Unconsciously I carried many prejudices and bad attitudes and have been quick to judge them without really knowing what they actually believed. It has been good to discover and to repent from nonchalant and shallow opinions, based not on their own sources but on their opponents, and to discover a very rich heritage, a strong theological foundation and a deep love for Jesus Christ among them."
Conversion of Sweden's Most Influential Pastor Causes 'Pain and Disillusion'
These Evangelical leaders, like many others, are theologians who were emotionally invested in their Evangelical faith. Their decisions to convert were emotionally difficult and came about after much prayer for discernment. Before you denigrate this young man, watch the short video in which he describes the challenges he confronted. If nothing else, it might convey a better understanding of the power of prayer.
No. They met in homes anytime during the week (whenever they could). They were expelled for teaching Christ and Him crucified. They started their own churches.
#107 I am beginning to gt deep into history, and would like to get deeper. History (as in Stuff That Really Happened)---difficult as it is --- is the field of action of Divine Providence.
Sounds positively paganistic.
My advice to you is to just avoid these threads because, for the most part they only produce rotten fruit.
I can’t go back to Catholicism since I am saved by grace through faith.
This is one of the most sobering scriptures in the Book. It seems the me the Protestant/Catholic question is, “What is the Authority for justification in that faith (Catholic or Protestant...which ever applies). It seems clear the scripture, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit it for the Protestant - The WORD of GOD). It seems the tradition of men preaching another gospel for the Catholic. The Truth Matters.
"RC Liberals" -- that seems to be a contradiction in terms when it comes to faith. The Roman Catholic path is very straight and very narrow.
Liberals like paths that are winding, wide and eclectic and very forgiving. That way there is no reason for the Sacrament of Reconciliations because nothing is wrong or evil. It's also very easy.
To me, being liberal means that almost "anything goes."
I don't think that any Christian, Catholic or any of the 40,000 different Protestant denominations, believe that.
FYI: http://www.city-data.com/forum/christianity/1938892-33000-41000-how-many-protestant-denominations.html
None of what you posted addressed what I posted.
Honest communication between you and me on FR just cannot happen with circumstances as they are now.
Please, no more attempts at this. Please?
Thanks for proving my point.
Why not just man up and realize that their are milions of individuals that disagree with aspects of the catholic church.
Either that, or just quit trying to make it sound that you are trying to be conciliatory to any protestant.
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