My best friend of thirty years converted to Catholic long ago from Protestant (Lutheran).
We occasionally have had heated debates, but mostly agree to disagree. Unlike many Catholics of my personal acquaintance, she is not only highly devout, but very knowledgeable and articulate about her faith - however, much of that predates her conversion to Catholic.
My problems with the Catholic Church are as much practical as they are theological - and beyond the scope of a simple post here.
I began studying the Bible at five, and was being groomed for seminary by 16. I have known so many clergy - of many denominations - and have seen so much while working behind the scenes in two denominations, that I have become quite cynical about all human church organizations.
Nota bene: I am not cynical about Christ or his Gospel. I simply refuse to equate a temporal institution with his eternal one. (God working through such does not make such perfect - any more than God working through Cyrus made Cyrus perfect.)
Equally, I reject the premise, hidden or not, that any one theology is perfectly correct. We see through a glass darkly - all of us. For that reason, I am much more interested in the Bible than any theology.
I have become virtually allergic to the every term, “Biblical scholars”; I have met too many seminary-bred heretics, and I know too well how the Frankfurt School has infected all American learning institutions, including Christian seminaries and universities.
The author seems sincere, so this is not a personal attack, but I will offer these comments:
The “Biblical scholars” of Jesus’ time - the Pharisees, Sadducees - almost entirely rejected him. His apostles were laymen. The closest one to a scholar was the apostle born out of time, the chief of sinners, a man who consented to murder.
What made the apostles exceptional was that they knew Jesus, not that they attended this or that seminary, and got a piece of parchment declaring that they were qualified to use words like exegesis!
I have seen much hubris and heresy among the various seminary graduates I have met. What I have seldom seen in any seminarian are humility and wisdom. The ones I knew both before and after seemed disimproved by the experience in Christian terms.
For that reason, to spare myself such temptation to intellectual pride, and to spare myself what increasingly seemed to be a waste of time and money, I balked at attending seminary.
The author is free to think what he likes about someone like me. I am likewise free to do the same about seminarians as a class.
Equally, I reject the premise, hidden or not, that any one theology is perfectly correct. We see through a glass darkly - all of us. For that reason, I am much more interested in the Bible than any theology.
The SEVEN letters to the SEVEN churches always comes to mind in these discussions. Also the Remnant...
A Multitude from the Tribulation
Revelation 7
9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10 and they cry out with a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying,
“Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”