Scriptures That Made Me Catholic
Marcus Grodi did a episode on the Journey Home a few weeks ago where he talked about a bunch of scriptures that really had an impact on his conversion to the Catholic church. Watching that I started to think about some of the scriptures that impacted me. The first of these goes way back to maybe 15 years before I became Catholic.
20“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
John 17:20-21
This passage was key to my passion to see the body of Christ unified. It caused me to become excited about ecumenical movements. That excitement was fueled also by stories of this passage in action. The incidents of Christians of a certain city uniting in prayer for the lost of that city and God blessing that prayer powerfully. It confirmed in my mind that our differences as Christians were at the heart of why the world was rejecting Jesus. How could anyone take our truth claims seriously when we could not agree on what that truth was? I came to the conclusion that the problem was not a lack of doctrinal unity. I thought there was unity in essentials. The problem I saw was the fact that we did not celebrate that unity and we did not all pull in the same direction on a spiritual level. If we would just worship together and pray together then the world would believe.
This had several effects on me. First, it got me involved in a bunch on interfaith fellowships including one that was mostly Catholic. It was a charismatic Catholic group that behaved a lot like Pentecostals. They did have mass and confession along with the odd Hail Mary but mostly it was very much stuff I was comfortable with. They never explain the reasons for any of their distinctive features. There was an unwritten rule in ecumenical circles that you didn’t drill into the theology behind your differences. You just pretend they are not there.
The other thing I noticed over time is the divisions between the churches ran pretty deep. We were able to get some superficial unity among evangelicals around the idea of Jesus is Lord and we need a revival but when we tried to take it deeper it fell apart. The other thing I noticed is the unity still excluded Catholics and many other traditional Protestants. They were a bunch of Christians united by worship style but as soon as they got away from worship the unity disappeared.
Eventually I became disillusioned with the ecumenical movements but I still had this burning in my heart to see Christians unite. I moved in Pentecostal, Reformed, and Catholic circles. I began to wonder why some things that Calvinists saw as clear biblical truth was not clear at all to people from other traditions. In fact, to them, scripture was clearly teaching a contradictory truth. I started to understand why so many people saw denominational differences as unsolvable. People were so strongly influenced by tradition there was no hope of getting everyone on side. I was just young and naive so I could not see it before.
It should be noted that I saw everyone else’s biblical interpretation as being influenced by tradition. Somehow I didn’t see that for me. I still thought my own mind was processing scripture in a purely logical way completely uninfluenced by tradition. It seems like arrogance looking back on it but it really wasn’t back then. It just never occurred to me that my own mind could not be trusted either. That was just too hard a pill to swallow for someone who thought of himself as a bright, rational guy.
Maybe you ought to post a blog asking people to submit what verses they felt led them to the Church.
For me it was 2nd. Peter 3:17.
“there are certain things difficult to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable distort, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures also, to their own destruction.”
This verse made me realize that we need a specific, recognizable authority to determine what is the correct, authentic interpretation of Scripture.
December 31st, 2006 at 11:37 pmSorry for the moderation enabled thing. I didn’t realize I had that turned on and haven’t yet figured out how to turn it off. I would prefer to just let people comment.
Yes, a place for everyone to post their texts would be interesting. I expect people to have more than one and for there to be quite a bit of overlap.
January 1st, 2007 at 10:59 amAll the verses that refer to baptism as being essential to salvation ended up having a big effect on me.
Even in my evangelical days, the explanation of, “Well, faith is always mentioned, but baptism isn’t, so faith is what matters” seemed weak to me, but I didn’t seriously question it.
It struck me that on this, as with so many other issues, the evangelical position was to eliminate apparent contradictions by simply picking one side or other of a controversy, instead of harmonizing the differences.
And I see from Christianity Today that Calvinism is having something of a revival, so the pendulum is now swinging in that direction.
January 4th, 2007 at 12:32 amI was often struck by the number of things that were tied to salvation. Not only baptism but the Eucharist and then serving the poor. There seemed to be a lot. The idea that faith is the only thing that matters at all seemed so simple. The picture the bible was painting was much more complex. The analogy of joining a family helped. There are a bunch of things tied in with being in a family but they all come as a package. Then why wouldn’t that family have authority? Maybe a father figure having the final say. What church has that concept?
January 4th, 2007 at 9:36 pmSimplicity-that’s the key. It’s easier, in many ways, to “sell” evangelicalism, especially in the US. You mentioned EWTN-I’ve been watching that network a lot of late, and I’ve been struck with how little appeal their often serious, in-depth discussion of Christian truth is likely to have on mass (no pun intended) audiences, compared with the superficiality of most evangelical/fundamentalist programming.
Not that EWTN should dumb down its programming. But in some critical ways, evangelicals have dumbed down theology, increasing its appeal but reducing its fullness.
January 17th, 2007 at 9:48 amIt isn’t so much simplicity as choice. Some brands of protestantism are very complex. Still it all boils down to what you WANT to accept. Catholicism gives you no choice. This is what you would expect from Christianity if it really had the truth about God. It would not come in 1001 flavors. It would just be.
January 17th, 2007 at 6:58 pmI agree with John that simplicity is critical. This is why I really believe that Sola Scriptura is such an “easy” issue to discuss with any Protestant. It pulls at their most fundamental tenet, yet makes so much good, logical, common sense.
January 17th, 2007 at 7:33 pmI don’t know how easy it is. I can win arguments but I have great trouble actually convincing people. There are such deep assumptions there. To get people to really question them is very hard. I know it was hard for me. I had an advantage of being in a Catholic community for years and I still found it hard.
I think simple is very different from easy. Simple truths can be very hard to live out.
January 17th, 2007 at 8:05 pmGreat point Randy. Arguments can be won, but what is the end result? Unfortunately, you can point out that 1+1=2 (which is the same logic level as Sola Scripture imo), but if that is not the way it is worded in the “original” King James Version of the Bible, many will seemingly never be convinced.
Luckily I had the Scott Hahn tapes (that’s right tapes - no Mp3 or CDs!) that just melted away any doubts I had.
I am also fortunate that I grew up in a very anti-Catholic area of the USA - eventually I figured something out: the only thing that holds all these different denominations together is their animosity toward the Catholic Church. “I better go and find out about this ’sect’ as they called it.
January 17th, 2007 at 8:45 pmYellow Gift box…
U CZ gold 13mm Green OK Italian Charm Cupidon on red heart…
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:49 am