There’s probably not a more honest way of framing everything I want to say about my present journey with Christ than this: I’m so tired.
You would think that the quintessential “I went to college and went so much deeper in my walk with Jesus!” story would be marked by evangelical zeal, intellectual curiosity, and a voracious appetite for more of Christ, His Church, and His teachings. I did go to college (I graduate this April), and I have gone fathoms deeper in my walk with Christ; but my story could not be more opposite in so many ways.
My journey over the last four years has been marked, instead, by spiritual isolation, intellectual burnout, and a reluctance so great that I’ve used the phrase “kicking and screaming” to describe it more times than I can count. I have drug my feet to Scripture, Church history, and back again, through countless church buildings and traditions, and over a thousand pages of theology from Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, to Chesterton, Kierkegaard, Wesley, Lewis. I’ve fasted, prayed, cried, discerned, talked late into countless nights with friends and mentors, begged my God to lead me into what was true and away from what was false.
And now, I have arrived on the doorstep of the Catholic Church.
For so many people I have spoken with, this fact alone invalidates every moment of the journey before it.
Believe me, I have heard every objection: it’s unbiblical, a heretical false teaching, a destructive organization I’ve been led to by my professors, my lack of exegetical prowess, my youth. And I understand; I was in those same shoes about two years ago. The problem is that, while 1 Peter commands us to “always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give a reason,” I’m not sure there’s a matching commandment to “always be prepared to listen” when that reason is going to take more than a couple of sentences to flesh out.
A multi-year journey isn’t really conducive to a short-and-satisfying answer to pressing questions of doctrine, tradition, or theology. I’ve found, though, that those who ask me these questions, even out of a genuine heart, would prefer a quick Bible verse to the real version of events, which often go something like, “well, I read this book, watched this sermon, didn’t think about it for three months, and then Calvin refuted it but I didn’t think he did it very well, so I talked about it with my roommates and read more books and the passages that address it in the Bible and came to the conclusion that…”
Yeah.
If you’re here, reading this, I’m presuming you genuinely want to know why I’m entering the Catholic Church. Whether you’re a concerned family member, a curious internet straggler, a follower of mine from the Catholic corner of Twitter… there are a lot of questions to be asked. I asked them all, too, on my journey to figuring out where I stood and why so many Protestants before me have also taken the step I’m about to; I only hope I can answer in a way that demonstrates the two things I want to express:
Firstly, that the Catholic Church doesn’t fall outside the boundaries of “Biblical Christianity.” I don’t believe I’ve accepted “as doctrines the commandments of men,” as often as that verse gets quoted at Catholic Christians.
Secondly, that this decision has come about because Christ has led me to it and for no other reason.
This requires far more of a testimonial explanation, but I want to do my best to show the roads I’ve been down, how I was guided to them, and how I see Jesus working through all of this to bring me closer to him.
Many of you are reading this with joy in your hearts; many of you are ready to click away from this blog post from a “former Christian” who has clearly lost the ability to hear from the Holy Spirit and discern truth. Wherever you stand, if you’re asking yourself why I’ve ended up here, I only ask that you try to listen to the reasons you’ve requested – I’m doing my best to “give an answer […] for the hope that [I] have.”
Posts in this series:
- Introduction (here)
- Testimony I
- Sacramental Theology
- Prayer to the Saints
- Testimony II
- Sola Scriptura
- Testimony III
- Authority
- Testimony IV
- Protestants & Eccumenism
- Testimony V
- (Bonus: The Papacy)
- (Bonus: Mary)
Italics indicates a post hasn’t been published yet; I’ll be spacing out their publication for the season of Lent, so check back for regular updates.
