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.

[Heart-Rest]

Great post, NYer!    Thanks for sharing it with us.

God bless this young man who turned away from his anti-Catholicism, and embraced the fullness of the truth which God offers us.    His story gives us a glimmer of hope concerning even some of the more abrasive anti-Catholic posters here, that they may also eventually see the light, and end up embracing the fullness of the truth offered by God, just like this sagacious young man has.

(Of course even some people who heard Jesus Christ speak directly, turned away from Him and rejected His Holy Teachings, so I don't think all of those caustic Catholic bashers will accept all the truths that are being presented to them, but we should continue to pray that they do eventually see the light, and wisely accept all of the fullness of truth taught by Jesus Christ and His Church.   It was interesting how Anthony Baratta mentioned "John 6" in his personal conversion account.    One of the saddest texts in the Bible is that old "666" text, shown below.)

✝============================================================✝

After this many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.   John 6:66

✝============================================================✝

(How utterly foolish were those "disciples" who believed part of the truth, but rejected the fullness of all the truths taught directly from the mouth of Jesus Christ Himself.   While those "disciples" obviously accepted some of the truths taught by Jesus Christ, since they had been "His disciples", they were also arrogant know-it-alls who actually thought they knew better than the Lord God Himself, and they just could not bring themselves to accept His true and powerful teaching about the Holy Eucharist, and they pitifully rejected that Truth, and just turned away and left Him.  How profoundly and tragically sad that fateful and dismally wrong decision was.    They thought they "knew it all", but they obviously did not.)

Have to go now.    Goodnight NYer, and keep on posting these great threads!

[boycott]

http://biblehub.com/greek/509.htm

[boycott]

Above / Again?

http://biblehub.com/greek/509.htm

[Mark17]

If this man follows Jesus above all, then his denomination is irrelevant. See my tagline ...

You are correct sir, but there are still some I avoid, like Charles T Russell, Joe Smith, Felix Y Manalo, Apollo C Quiboloy, to name a few.

[daniel1212]

But I'll settle for small gains. The Romans, The Anglicans, The Orthodoxes, and The Lutherans ought to get together and then deal gently with the "sola scriptura" people.

And just what is "sola scriptura?" And does it make them the more liberal people?

Would you agree that that Scripture was the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God? As is abundantly evidenced

And which testifies (Lk. 24:27,44, etc.) to writings of God being recognized and established as being so (essentially due to their unique and enduring heavenly qualities and attestation), and thus they materially provide for a canon of Scripture (as well as for reason, the church, etc.)

[daniel1212]

Interesting. I’m a Baptist converting to Catholicism. I have relatives that, when they find out, will not talk to me. They will go back to thier congregations (I think most are Methodist now), drink lattes in the church basement Starbucks and wifi hotspot, and discuss the illegals they assist breaking the law.

Then it is likely they have been no more more born again than the RCs they shun. As a former RC, raised devout and going weekly when i truly and tearfully repented and then trusted the Lord Jesus to save me by His blood, ot any merit I had, and realized the profound changes in heart and life of true regeneration, i would go out my way to talk to you.

In fact, I remained a weekly practicing RC for 6 years after my conversion, and sought to find other RCs to talk to (though i was not pushy) about what God had and was doing in my life, and the things of the Bible,, and with as heart for the lost, but such were very rare. The charismatic groups showed more the best shot, but besides other things they got linked up by the hierarchy with a type of liberation theology nuns group.

When i finally (dared to) sincerely prayed to God whether He would have me go to a different church, though i knew no viable ones locally - and which prayer He answered the next day in a manifest way and confirmed it continually - then it was more to be with a church having the heart to reach the lost, and for prayer etc. than doctrinal reasons, though i had been seeing some of the contrasts between Scripture and the Catholic church, besides the general deadness.

And while i have no personal angst against it, but contend against error, i could not go back as it is clear that Catholicism is a critical deformation of the NT church, as shown here. And part of which is that you will have liberals as a majority for members, as Rome treats even proabortion prosodomite proMuslim politicians as members in life and death.

But the main issue is when and how were your born again, and realized the profound changes in heart and life because of it? After i was then things in my heart changed that i did not even ask for, with a virtually insatiable hunger to know how to please God from the Bible, which evangelical radio help to feed, and to be with people of like heart. Even nature seemed new to me.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Would you agree that that Scripture was the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God?

Was this the standard in the year 45 A.D., 12 years after Pentecost, before many NT books were even written?

Who had the authority to decide, in the year 100 A.D., that the book John was writing on the isle of Patmos was divinely inspired? How could Scripture possibly answer this question?

Who had the authority to decide in the year 250 A.D., which books constituted Scripture, when the canon of Scripture was still debated? How could Scripture possibly answer this question?

Which Bible today is the true Bible? How do you know? Is this authority infallible? Which canon of Scripture should answer these questions?

How are illiterate people saved? Today they represent almost 20% of the world's population.

Where is your notion that "Scripture was the transcendent supreme standard for obedience," in the Bible?

Jesus reveals the "transcendent supreme standard for obedience" in Scripture, yet this is ignored by Protestants.

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

The power to "bind and loose" is a rabbinic expression, meaning to "forbid by an indisputable authority, and to permit by an indisputable authority."

Matthew 16:19

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

John 20:23

If you bind fast the sins of any, they remain bound ... if of any ye may loose the sins, they are loosed to them; if of any ye may retain, they have been retained ...

(The "keys of the kingdom" referred to in the OT [Isaiah 22:22] represented authority over Israel delegated to the majordomo in the Davidic king's absence. This authority, or office, is now widened by Jesus to refer to authority over His earthly Church, over which Jesus is the King [Rev 3:7], in Christ's earthly absence, with the pope acting as Christ's vicar on earth. The pope is not The King, but the King's earthly representative, as the vice-regent of the Kingdom of David was during the Davidic king's absence.)

[Springfield Reformer]

My dad pulled out of methodism before I was born, over 60 years ago. They were one of the first to go wingnut liberal. They weren’t Sola Scriptura in practice at all, which is why he left. Liberal theology in the seminaries had destroyed respect for God’s word.

So we went hillbilly Baptist. Truly hillbilly, imported to Illinois direct from the backwoods of Kentucky. Yet I ended up being deluded by liberal theology myself, which led to a period of exploration, TM, even atheism, and slavery to sin.

In the end, I have returned home. I am a Baptist, but that comes second to being a Christian. I know now my salvation does not come from any sort of gnosis or sacrament, but from an authentic personal relationship with Christ that cannot be manufactured by any rote activity, not the sinner’s prayer nor baptism nor eating unleavened bread nor membership in the “right” group, but only by heart-repentance from sin and true faith in the Son of God, who loved me enough to die for all my sin, nothing left out, nothing put on the installment plan or otherwise subject to conditions buried in the “small print.” And this faith cannot be manufactured either. It is a gift of God’s free grace. Because love is like that.

In the beginning, we were all just Christians. One day we will be again. I very much look forward to that time.

Peace,

SR

[Elsie]

I cannot stress enough how much I hated the idea of becoming Catholic.

There, there. Don't cry.

Mary understands your pain.

[verga]

I translated it from the Greek MYSELF along with every other passage I quoted you. I then compared it to KJV interlinear translation of Dr. Zodhiates a protestant native speaking Greek.

Verified with the Greek-English Dictionary prepared by Barclay Newman Jr.

You can also verify my translation yourself using "Google translate"

I have two semesters of NT Greek at the Graduate level from a nationally recognized Seminary. I spent literally hours going over this. the word "again" does not hold up in context.

[Elsie]

I have not so much left my former faith as I have filled in the gaps.

And it's these 'gaps' that EVERY cult exploits!

[verga]

I pray for and pity you.

[Elsie]

.... 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.”

I've heard something like that...

 

-- Incorporates all the final modifications made in the official Latin text of the Catechism
-- Provides a much more complete index
-- Contains a brand new glossary of terms
-- Includes Pope John Paul II's 1997 decree promulgating the official Latin text.

 

All this new information adds up to 100 pages more than in the original edition which means
the second edition is not only easier to use and easier to understand,
it's the definitive version of the Catechism.

 

http://books.google.com/books/about/Catechism_of_the_Catholic_Church.html?id=SQLSPQAACAAJ

[verga]

You have been told the truth. It is up to the Holy Spirit to change your mind and heart I can do no more.

[Iscool]

I have two semesters of NT Greek at the Graduate level from a nationally recognized Seminary. I spent literally hours going over this. the word "again" does not hold up in context.

The context is Nicodemus asking how he can be born twice...Two times...Once, and then again...

[verga]

Congratulations, prayers for them and their Doctors.

[Iscool]

I pray for and pity you.

You aren't any more right now than before you said that...

[verga]

Thank you for proving my point, “again” is a tertiary definition.

[BipolarBob]

They got this supreme authority from Christ Himself who provided exclusively to Peter and his successors to go preach ONE truth ad establish ONE church.

By misinterpreting one verse in the Bible you build an empire that was never meant to be. A person could write a book on the inaccuracies in your statement. There was nothing exclusive to Peter except the distinction of betraying his Lord three times. There is One Truth. And that's the only thing you got right.

[Resettozero]

You have been told the truth. It is up to the Holy Spirit to change your mind and heart I can do no more.

Good morning verga.

Yes, you are correct. I have been told the truth repeatedly in various and sundry manners. Blessed to have Chrisitan parents who prayed fervently for me.

Not until the age of 32 did I respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit (I was well aware that I was a sinner) and give up the reins of control of my own life to God by faith in the Son of God Lord Jesus Christ.

Without responding to God the Holy Spirit, I am certain I would have been institutionalized or have experienced the first death that almost ever man and woman will experience.

I thank my Savior also for salvation from the second death which I am assured by my being sealed by the Holy Spirit Who has instructed me about Christ since that day. The Word of God has been indispensible in correcting the many errors I had developed.

I recommend the entire New Testament to you again (and to every one who reads this post). Since you know Greek, you can read it all in the original...which is a terrific God-given ability.