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Led Home by Jesus

Ben Ivey

How does a person go from being a zealous Church of Christ youth minister to an ambitious Independent Baptist preacher and end up joyfully embracing the Catholic faith with open arms? My only answer is that God must certainly have a sense of humor! In all seriousness, I owe everything to a merciful and patient God who led me on a journey down a winding path to the one place I least expected to call “home”, the Catholic Church. In the eyes of many (both family and friends), this journey has been a gradual veering from the straight path, ending in total deception and utter loss. It is for this reason, as well as for the encouragement of those traveling the same path, that I wish to tell my story and to briefly explain why I did what I did.

My story begins with the Church of Christ. I was raised by two very devout Church of Christ parents who ensured that I was in church every time the doors were open. I received my elementary and junior high school education at a Church of Christ school where the Bible was taught every day of the week. The necessity to prove everything by the Bible was an idea that was instilled within me from a very early age.

I was taught that shortly after the Apostles died, the Church that Jesus established went into mass religious error and apostasy which resulted in what was commonly referred to as “the dark ages”. According to Church of Christ teaching, the Reformation didn’t go nearly far enough due to the attempt to merely reform the existing corrupt church rather than to restore the Church that was established by Jesus Christ two thousand years ago. The common plea was for all denominations to abandon their creeds and statements of faith and simply follow the Bible, thus becoming members of The Church of Christ. The idea was that if people would simply follow the “pattern” found in the Scriptures, a true church, founded by Jesus, would be produced. As a result of this mentality, I viewed all denominations (as well as the Catholic Church) as false religions which didn’t follow the Bible.

In my early twenties, after a period of rebellion from religion and morals, I experienced a strong sense of conversion that led to my thirst for knowledge and understanding. I wanted to know not only what I believed, but why I believed it. I developed an obsession for reading the Bible as well as various Biblical commentaries and apologetic works. It was during this time that I began to feel the desire to be a preacher. I zealously enrolled in the local Church of Christ Bible college and made it my personal mission to convert people blinded by religious error, to the “one true Church”. I began serving as a youth minister and, over a period of time, began to receive opportunities to preach from the pulpit at various churches. It seemed that my future was secure. But God has a wonderful way of putting a kink in your plans.

I began to grow increasingly disturbed by a number of inconsistencies that I saw. For example, there seemed to always be write-ups in various bulletins and Church of Christ publications, giving warnings about other local Churches of Christ (and their preachers) departing from the faith over some doctrinal issue. However, both sides of the particular doctrinal matter claimed to use the scriptures alone as support for their views. Which side was right? I once witnessed a church split over the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Again, both sides said that they were careful to use the Scriptures alone as their rule of faith, and yet both sides accused each other of departing from the truth of the Word of God. Who was correct? In the early history of the church tradition of my upbringing, a split occurred over the issue of instrumental music in the worship service. The more conservative side stated that since instrumental music is no where commanded in the New Testament, we should avoid it as sin. The other side claimed that since musical instruments are not condemned in the New Testament, we should feel free to use them in worship. Once again, both sides appealed to the Bible to support their views. Which side had the correct understanding?
I also began to go through a very painful period of scrupulosity and obsessive thoughts about sins of the past. I began to be terrified by certain verses of Scripture that seemed to suggest to my scrupulous mind that I could not be forgiven. I sought comfort by examining various commentaries and questioning experienced preachers about my concerns. It seemed that none of them could agree with each other. I finally lost all confidence in preachers and religious authorities, concluding that no one has the answers. I sank to the depths of despair. Looking back, I think that I falsely blamed the Church of Christ for my mental troubles. I remember thinking to myself, “The Baptists certainly don’t have this problem with doubt and lack of assurance”, although scrupulosity would again manifest itself even in the Baptist Church.

There were a number of other factors that gradully led me away from the Church of Christ. However, I feel that my interior struggle with questions about my salvation was the key factor that led me to seek comfort in the Protestant view of “justification by faith alone“. I began to devour various books and writings about the teaching. For a time, I experienced tremendous comfort and hope due to a new found trust in God’s mercy. I even started preaching justification by faith from a few different Church of Christ pulpits. My “pet” doctrine was received openly by some but was rejected with skepticism by others.

My new found enthusiasm was short lived. I began to have problems reconciling justification by faith alone with many of the teachings of the Gospels. I also continued to find what appeared to be contradictions in the Bible (according to my understanding of Scripture at the time). I started to believe that no one, however sincere they may be, truly understands the meaning of the Scriptures. After a period of months, I came to the hopeless conclusion that Christianity must be a hoax. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe. I simply felt that I couldn’t believe anymore. It was life shattering to think that everything that I had been raised to believe in was a lie.

I moved far away from home and began to sink to the depths of moral depravity as I filled myself with the pleasures of the world. I also began to drink heavily. On at least one occasion I drank myself right up to the very point of death. During this dark period of my life, I would occasionally cry out for God to send me some sort of vision or messenger with all of the answers. Those answers never came - at least not yet. Feeling like I needed to replace my lost sense of spirituality, I began to investigate and even embrace many new age beliefs. After a period of about two and a half years, I returned to my home, but without God.

Shortly after returning home to South Mississippi, I moved to Montgomery, Alabama to begin a new career as a police officer. After graduating from the academy, I was assigned to one of the toughest districts in the whole area. My training officer was a man who would have delighted in shooting me just as much as he would a bad guy. I naturally began to think quite frequently about death. Every night I thought, “What will happen to me if I get killed tonight?”

It’s funny how an awareness of death knocking at your door can quickly restore lost faith. After my two and a half year vacation from Christianity, I started to re-examine “justification by faith” as well as many other doctrinal matters. Recalling my former thoughts about how the Baptists seem to always have assurance, I began to investigate Baptist doctrine. I saw how many verses of Scripture could be interpreted the “Baptist” way. I found comfort in teachings such as “faith alone” and “eternal security“. After concluding that I had finally found the answers I had been seeking, I joined the Baptist Church. The horrified reactions of family and friends would foreshadow (on a small scale) what I would experience when I became Catholic.

One of my most fond memories in the Baptist Church was meeting the person who would become my wife. Dawn had been a Baptist her whole life and was very active in the church. Little did she know that in just a few short years, she would be standing with me, side by side, as we were received into the Catholic Church together. However, during those days, the Catholic Church was not even a thought in my mind or in hers.

As I grew stronger in the Baptist faith, I began to speak at church devotionals and occasionally teach the youth group. Pretty soon, I was preaching from the pulpit again. I was delighted to be able to preach in an environment that was accepting of my favorite teaching: “justification by faith“. I started to receive opportunities to preach at a few local churches, primarily on a fill-in basis. My dreams were set on being an evangelist and my heart was on fire. I had finally arrived; Or had I?
One thing that I became aware of in listening to many Independent Baptist preachers was that they credited their understanding of scripture to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I frequently heard statements such as, “Anyone can understand the Bible if you will simply allow the Holy Spirit to teach you”. Statements such as these were primarily made with reference to people who might oppose the preacher’s current doctrinal subject. The problem is that I began to notice many preachers contradicting each other. One would hold to a particular “pet” doctrine that the other would oppose and both would appeal to the Holy Spirit as their source of guidance. Which one did the Holy Spirit truly guide? Does the Spirit of God give one person the correct meaning and then contradict himself by giving someone else a completely different understanding?

When I was in the Church of Christ, I had thought that those who were members of a denomination didn’t follow the Bible. I now realized that most denominational churches sincerely tried to follow the scriptures alone, even to the point of appealing to the Holy Spirit for guidance in correct understanding. Why were there all of the contradictions and divisions? I was further distressed by seeing how those within a particular denomination failed to cooperate with other types of churches within the same denomination. It all boiled down to contradictory convictions over doctrine.

As I continued to preach, I became uneasy at the thought of seeking ordination within any particular denomination. Isn’t the Gospel for everyone? Do the Baptists have a monopoly on Jesus? How could I accept formal ordination at the hands of men who had determined that I was “doctrinally sound”, when another type of church, equally as sincere, would have determined that I was not fit to preach? On the other hand, what if the ordination board, determining that my doctrine was filled with error, had denied me for ordination? Couldn’t I have simply gone to another type of church and been received with open arms? Is that really license to preach? It was not my desire to be licensed by men, I wanted to be licensed by Jesus. Could I have traced this formal ordination given by a particular ordination board, back to Jesus Christ? Due to my conclusions, I determined not to seek ordination. I simply wanted to preach the Gospel wherever I was invited.

As time passed, I grew more and more disillusioned with the contradictions of organized religion. I considered starting a simple house church and departing from denominational affiliation altogether. But what would I have done but begin yet another denomination centered around my sincere interpretation of the Bible? Isn’t this what has happened during the past few years as more and more different “types” and “flavors” of churches have arisen? I read somewhere that there are now over 30,000 different types of Christian communities!

Someone once told me that all of these doctrinal issues don’t really matter and that the only things that are of true importance are the essentials of salvation. My question is, just what are the essentials of salvation? Most would be quick to suggest, “justification by faith alone through grace alone”. However, if you probe a little deeper into the various belief systems of people, you will find many “sub-issues” underneath this statement, that they consider essential. If I were to ask ten people from ten different types of Christian traditions to compile a list of essentials of the faith, I would no doubt get ten different lists.

My security in my doctrine had began to crumble, particularly as I studied the Gospels and reflected on passages that seemed to contradict my view of eternal security. I was reflecting on these things early one morning while patrolling the streets in my police cruiser. The city had become a ghost town by that hour and I had plenty of time to think. I asked God, as simply and honestly as I could, to just reveal the truth to me. I promised him that I would sacrifice anything, including my dreams of preaching if necessary, if he would simply guide me to the pure truth, if there was such a thing. This moment was the turning point.

I began to read through the Scriptures as unbiased as possible, as if I were reading them for the first time and had no doctrinal position to support. I started coming to conclusions that were contrary to the things that I had been preaching. But were these conclusions not simply my interpretations? Who was I to think that I was correct and others were not? So I did something that I’d never done before: I began to examine the writings of the early Church Fathers. My reasoning was that these men, being so close to the original events of Jesus, were in a much better position to explain the teachings of the Christian faith than modern reformers who are far removed from the events of history. To my delight, these writings confirmed many of my conclusions from reading the Scriptures (particularly regarding Water Baptism and a correct understanding of Justification). I was well on my way to the Catholic Church and didn’t even know it.

My wife and I then launched out on a detailed study of Church history. We wanted to know where Christianity went wrong. When did we all become so confused? The results were shocking. We came to the conclusion that the Reformation as we know it, should have never happened. If people wanted reform (and I believe that reform was needed due to elements of corruption), reform should have taken place within the Church which had already been in existence for 1500 years. Reform does not mean for everyone to go start their own church in their own authority. With all of the division in our present generation, isn’t it clear where that type of religious anarchy has taken us? It’s worthy of note that interior reform did indeed take place in the Catholic Church with what is commonly known as the “Counter Reformation”. During this time, many of those local abuses in the Church, which had so disturbed Martin Luther, were corrected. As far as the belief that the early Church went into “the dark ages” due to doctrinal error: Christ promised that , “The gates of Hell would not prevail“ against his Church. There were most certainly false teachers during that age, just as there is in every age. However, It seems to me that if the true Church all but ceased to exist, the gates of Hell did indeed prevail, contrary to the promise of Christ.

When I began to realize that everything pointed to the Catholic Church, I had a talk with my wife. I told her that she must come to her own conclusions about this. If we ended up Catholic, our whole world would change. I pointed out the obvious: that we had no Catholic family and no Catholic associations of any kind. We were about to be faced with hurt, angry family members in addition to being ridiculed at the hands of those who wouldn’t understand. When that happened, I wanted my wife to know that she had made this decision not on my account, but because she truly was convinced. I thank God that she has stood with me through the whole journey.

As my study of the Catholic Church continued, I became aware that I had a number of misconceptions about Catholicism. Catholics didn’t worship Mary or idols, they didn’t think that the Pope was sinless, and they didn’t believe that it’s okay to sin all you want as long as you go to confession. After reading the Catechism, I was intrigued by the beauty of the Faith. I realized that Catholicism was not a system of “do-it-yourself salvation”. Catholics really and truly trusted in Jesus Christ, not only to forgive them, but to give them the power to live a sanctified life. I was delighted that I could see the Catholic teaching about justification as clear as crystal in the Bible, which I continued to read every day. The pieces of the puzzle were all beginning to fit together perfectly.
As far as contradictory interpretations of Scripture: I now saw that the message of Christ (or Deposit of Faith) had been preserved all along, as it was handed down from Christ to the Apostles, and afterward, to those who they ordained with the mission of carrying on the work. I now realized that the endless variety of Scriptural interpretation was fairly new (less than five hundred years old), beginning with the Reformation. On the contrary, the Catholic Church had preserved the Deposit of Faith for 1500 years before this confusion began. What a relief it was to realize that finding out the truth in doctrinal matters was not a matter of a “figure-it-out-for-yourself” type Bible study.
I was also overjoyed by learning about Catholic ordination of priests (although I myself would never become one). I saw that every priest can trace (by the laying on of hands) his ordination back to the original twelve Apostles and ultimately to Christ himself. That, I thought to myself, is true ordination!

Dawn and I finally left our Baptist church after explaining that we were “simply looking elsewhere”. We began to secretly attend Mass and take RCIA classes. Before long, it became obvious that we needed to reveal to our families our intention of joining the Catholic Church at Easter. This was one of the most difficult things we’ve ever done. I considered taking my family and moving to another state in order to preserve our privacy as we sought to serve God with freedom and peace. But running away wasn’t the answer.

We finally obtained the courage to reveal our decision. Our families didn’t take it too well, to say the least. We were met with emotions of hurt, fear, anger, and mainly deep concern. We quickly became the talk of the town as we were received into the Catholic Church on April 15, 2006. Our two small children were baptized a short time after.

Since I’ve been Catholic, I’ve heard various people attempt to explain why I did what I did. Some have suggested that I had a disagreement with the Baptist preacher of our home congregation. Others have assumed that I’ve run from God’s call to preach. It seems that some people are more comfortable with any possible explanation other than the real one which is: I believe that the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of the truth.

My wife and I have experienced everything from honest questions from concerned people, to an outright threat that God will take away our children so that we can never raise them Catholic. Do these things steal my joy? Not in the least! Do I hold anything against these people? Absolutely not. They are all sincere in their beliefs and simply concerned about my family. In fact, In looking at them, I see myself a few years ago when I zealously believed that everyone needed to simply start following the Bible and convert to the Church of Christ. I’m certainly glad to say that we have not been disowned by our families (which I never expected to happen). In fact, we are on good terms with each other as we all work through our differences and continue to seek greater understanding.
As far as my struggles with scrupulosity: most people view scrupulosity as a Catholic problem. Ironically it was only in the Catholic Church that I realized that God wasn’t against me; I was simply suffering from a mental form of obsession that many others have dealt with. I can now say that I’m at least 95% free from these scrupulous thoughts due primarily to my introduction to the Divine Mercy message and devotions received by St. Faustina Kowalska. I can safely say that I now feel at peace with Jesus Christ.

In closing, allow me to say that I have meant no disrespect to any members or preachers of any religious community. The words that I’ve written are simply an outgrowth of my own thoughts as I struggled to find the answers on this journey of faith. I consider baptized Christians of all denominations as my brothers in Christ and I will do anything in the world for you. However, as for me, I feel very much like the prodigal son in that wonderful parable told by Jesus. After much wandering, I’ve finally come home, and home is a wonderful place! I pray that God may lead all of his children on the same journey. After all, God wants each and every one of us home so that we can all feast from the fullness of his table in complete unity.