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GordonH
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| First Name: | Gordon | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Born Presbyterian, later Baptist with charismatic leanings. |
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Posted: Tue Apr 10th, 2007 09:09 am |
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I have been trying to write down how I got here and why I became disattisfied with protestantism in its various forms.
This is going to take a few posts but here is my background.
Some people might find what is written here quite shocking (or unbelievable) but its necessary in order to understand where I am coming from and where I am going to.
I live in Scotland where there is a big divide between Catholics and Protestants. Catholic children go to seperate schools. In most towns there were areas lived in by Catholics and often the local authority housing was set up this way to prevent trouble. The reasons for this are not really religious. Scotland has always had Roman Catholic believers, especially on some of the islands off the west coast, but in the 19th century there was a big miners strike. The mine owners sacked the miners and brought in replacements from Ireland who happened to be catholics, so the antipathy towards the strike breakers became an anti Irish and then anti Catholic position. My grandfather moved from Ireland to Scotland in 1910 and was injured when a brick was thrown at his head by a local. They did not know that his father was the new prebyterian minister, they assumed he was a catholic because he was Irish.
I am 40 years old this summer. When I was younger being a catholic would reduce your chances of getting a good job because employers could tell your religion by what school you went to. There was a lot of sectarian prejudice and this still goes on in my part of the country which is still a bit behind the times. We have the Orange marches here and because they are being tightened up on sometimes the local childrens gala day parades are used as a cover. I used to play the cornet in a local brass band and on one particular gala day parade the flute bands would stop as they passed a catholics house and march up and down beating the lambeg drum. In another incident just a few years ago I was playing the bugle on remebrance sunday (for soldiers who died in the wars) and among the official wreaths laid was one from the orange order and the royal black preceptory (known as the "black men" they wear bowler hats and very tight black suits). The leader of the black men went right up to the priest who was leading the prayers and glared at him before putting the wreath down. Of course your average orange man doesn't actually go to any church. As one of my relatives who is in the orange lodge once told me "it just means I hate catholics, it doesn't mean I am a Christian".
I was brought up presbyterian and my parents were staunch protestants but not quite on the orange side of things. Certainly there would have been no possibility of any of their children marrying a catholic as they believed that the catholics were trying to take over the country by having large families and marrying protestants to "get their kids". Yes I know this sounds ridiculous but this is generally what was believed. My grandmother would not buy Irish butter in case it was made by catholics. I don't know if she really understood that it comes from cows and cows are non denominational.
(On a sad personal note my best friend when I was a small boy was a catholic and when he went to school we had to stop playong with each other as once he had had his first communion he was on the other side. The segregated schooling has not helped the Scottish situation. Thankfully they are working on this and are moving towards campuses where you have a protestant and catholic school sharing the same sports facilities and playgrounds so the kids can mix socially outside of classes.)
I had some positive experiences of catholics which influenced me to not be prejudiced:
Gradually the ecumenical movement got going in the presbyterian church and our church got involved in various initiaitives. One of those was a celebration in Glasgow Cathedral (catholic before the reformation but now protestant) to mark the anniversary of a cross community organisation in Northern Ireland. I arrived at it with a friend and we both headed for the three big chairs at the front as we thought those looked cool. I couldn't believe they had not been taken yet but we got the best seats. Then there was a procession and the catholic archbishop Thomas Winning started heading towards us. We had sat in his and the bishops seat! One of his assistants gestured for us to move but the archbishop told him to let us sit there and he sat behind us oin the ordinary seats. I will never forget that and later on when he became a cardinal I realised that this was just the kind of man he was. He never took his own position too seriously at times like those.
When Pope John Paul II visited Scotland he asked his driver to stop during a parade while he pronounced a blessing on the people who were holding placards claiming that he was the antichrist. I willnever forget the sincerity with which he did this and it is something which continues to have a huge impact on cross community relations. The popes visit made it possible for catholics to be more open about their faith. It was like they had been given permission to "be" and society had said thats OK too.
My church youth group visited the local catholic church to get a tour of the building and stay for mass. Afterwards we were allowed to ask questions and the woman doing the answering had previously been a protestant. I remember her saying that the only thing she missed was the big hymns (interesting). As fate would have it her son is now married to my sister, but thats another story. We know each other very well of course and I suppose its her example which made it possible for me to think that someone converting to catholicism is not a totally bad thing or the end of life as we know it.
I also visited Germany when I was 13 and found that catholics and protestants there did not hate each other. This showed me that there were alternatives to the way we lived in Scotland.
None of these things made me have any interest in the catholic faith really, but later in life they made it possible for me to take the catrholic faith seriously and to learn about it.
In the next part of this story I will explain how I came into more contact with catholic theology and ideas and how this influenced me as a protestant.
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JasPax
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Posted: Tue Apr 10th, 2007 09:39 am |
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GordonH:
Very interesting reading. Let's hear more from you.
Your account helps me to understand the uproar when the first catholic signed with the Rangers football team. (Soccer to us Yanks.) Or was it the other way round: A protestant signing with Celtic?
Anyhow, welcome to the forum.
God's Blessings
____________________
James
"Abide in me, and I in you..." John 15:4
"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." John 6:56
RSV-2CE
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Darlene
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Posted: Tue Apr 10th, 2007 08:36 pm |
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Hello Gordon,
Welcome to our forum. I am of Scottish descent on my father's side. I have in my possession, a black and white photo of my Dad wearing a kilt, when he visited Scotland during the War (WWII).
I am almost finished reading a very good apologetics book called, "Where We Got The Bible, Our Debt To The Catholic Church" by Henry G. Graham. Graham was a staunch Scottish Presbyterian who became a Catholic priest. His testimony is also in this book, "From The Kirk To The Catholic Church." I think you would find this book and his testimony most engaging.
God Bless You, and come visit us again.
Darlene
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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Lindylou
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Posted: Wed Apr 11th, 2007 11:26 am |
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Hi Gordon,
I too have some Scottish background. My grandfather's name was Lafayette Lochridge. He died on the Russian River with his secretary (opps). Your story is so interesting. I am looking forward to hearing the rest of it! God bless, Linda
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Steven Barrett
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Posted: Wed Apr 11th, 2007 12:24 pm |
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Gordon, welcome to the Forum gang! I admire your candor and your testimony is thus far (as you said there'd be more to come) very illustrative of the problems, or should I say, being Irish, Troubles, between Celtic Catholics and Protestants.
The English Protestants certainly succeeded when they used the old "divide and conquer" method of subjugating both Ireland and Scotland by using religion to set us at each others throats whilst they forcibly grabbed both nations and the spoils that came with them.
I must say the Orangeman you quoted as saying "it just means I hate catholics, it doesn't mean I am a Christian" to justify his bigotry, was entirely honest. This, of course, makes his attitudes and hardened heart even less explicable to those among us who cannot fathom such long-lasting and undying hatred.
Well, someday those dysfunctional men with their silly drums, their silly tight-fitting suits (how appropriate for such closed minds) and their dangerous prejudices will hopefully fade completely out of existence as more people cotton up to what they really stand for and how little they have to offer.
They certainly deserve our prayers and pity: but they've got a long way to go before they can honestly claim any rights to genuine Christian and gentlemanly friendship.
May God continue His Blessings for you and your family.
StevenLast edited on Wed Apr 11th, 2007 12:25 pm by Steven Barrett
____________________
For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
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GordonH
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Posted: Thu Apr 12th, 2007 09:43 am |
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Thank you Steven. I hope people will start to realise that the Irish situation is actually more to do with politics than religion. Religion was used by political forces to make it easier to tell the sides apart. I have spent many happy times in Northern Ireland in the company of Catholics and Protestants. The Irish problem is gradually reolving itself as national borders are becoming less important in Europe so there is less for anyone to lose by cooperating. Thats another story though.
Here is part two of my story:
Here is another long post, but its necessary reading in order to understand the third and final part.
I was adopted as a baby and in my teenage years I went looking for my birth family. In the process I discovered a brother and several sisters. My mother was missing at this point and nobody knew where she was. She was eventually found dead so I never did meet her but I have a good relationship with my brother and sisters (we were all adopted individually and none knew of each others existence). My mother was of the anglo catholic tradition and had actually been a novice in the Community of St Clare (Anglican version of the Poor Clares). She then worked at Walsingham looking after pilgrims. Thats all incidental though.
Previously to this I had become a christian and joined the presbyterian church.
Eventually I entered training for the ministry which I did at university. There were a wide range of students from different denominations from Catholic and Orthodox right round to some of the very enclosed presbyterian groups. We even had a muslim in my first year class because to do an MA you have to do classes outside your own subject and people studying English would often take divinity classes as their outside subjects. This exposed me to a wide range of different theological ideas. Most of the students were liberal anglicans and presbyterians. Most did not believe in God as a divine being, the idea was that God was inside each of us and if we could only get people to be good then the world would be a better place. I could not accept that and I had more in common with the catholic students most of whom were training for the priesthood having done a year or so in seminary before going to university. The orthodox students were mainly refugees from the "anglo catholic" part of the anglical church that was against womens ordination (this was before womens ordination was allowed and we had a number of English anglican women studying in Scotland on to become the first women priests in the Church of England).
As part of my divinity degree I had to study church history, the church fathers and all the church councils. One of my tutors is now a professor at Princeton, another one is a prominent protestant theologian. I also studied under JP Mackey who was a Jesuit. It was odd being taught reformed theology by a catholic but he would often end paragraphs with comments like "can you believe this stuff they come out with?". He was a very humerous man and a big thinker. We also had to do practical theology which involved visiting various denominations including catholic churches.
What this all did for me was to open out my appreciation of all things Christian. I was never a bigoted person, but having had catholic ordinands (is that the right term? I can't remember the official title) as friends it would be impossible to take an anti catholic position in the future and retain any personal integrity.
For various reasons too long to explain here I ended up in the Baptist ministry. I started to have doubts about the church and finally went to work in voluntary organisations, eventually working for an AIDS organisation. This caused me lots of problems in church as it was not seen as being a proper place for a Christian at that time.
After a long period of doing that kind of work I ended up in business, more by chance than design and that is where I am now. I have become successful by the worlds standards and I love Jesus but I could not find peace within the doctrines of the churches I was attending. I am by no means a spiritual tourist. I have changed church three times in my life and those were all associated with moving to live in a new area. I am one of those people who hates change and I likes routine.
I should also say that I got married when I was at university and we have three children, so my life has been very full and satisfying. Now at 39 I am reassessing what I believe particularly about the nature of the church. I will address this in another post later.
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GordonH
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Posted: Thu Apr 12th, 2007 10:23 am |
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Here I will try and explain the reasons I am disatisfied with protestantism and why I can't square it with scripture or the traditons of the early church.
1. Protestantism is a "reboot" of Christianity, not a continuation of the pre reformation church.
Its a bit like the TV series Dallas. I don't know if you ever saw that, but they decided to scrap all the plot lines from the previous season so they had Bobby Ewing come out of the shower and his wife saying she had just had a terrible dream (which was the previous season). Everything started again as if the last season's storylines had never happened.
The reason I am convinced of my "reboot" theory is that when it eventually stops working they reboot it again by adding bits that might make it work: like dispensationalism or pentecostalism, then we had the Toronto blessing, something else will be along shortly.
Its simply not credible. If something was true and correct God would not have allowed it to disappear. He would not have left us like a rowing boat with only one oar going round in circles forever.
Protestants have a church history that begins in the 1500's which means they can't learn much from the past. I met one lady recently who would not believe that Martin Luther was ever a catholic priest. The general condemnation of catholic beliefs that you hear from the pulpit seems to not cover christians prior to the reformation, but its not clearly stated.
I need a faith which has some historical continuity, not something made up on the fly or cut off from its roots.
2. Protestantism does not have a proper theology of suffering.
I have been through some fairly heavy suffering in my life including a period of serious depression linked with self harm. The church I was attending were of the opinion that people just need to try harder. We were to look at what God had done for us in Christ and then do things which would repay him for that. The problem is that if you are already at 110% of what you are capable of then you risk making yourself worse not better.
In recent years I have been involved in a pentecostal church (although not one at the wild end of the spectrum). They seem to be offering people a "crossless life". It works like this: you ask God to give you a "victory" over whatever is wrong with you or whatever you happen to need help with and he will do it. If he doesn't it means you have too litttle faith or unbelief is blocking it. For some people it works (maybe coincidence) and for others it doesn't and they tend to drift away. There is no concept of suffering being a normal part of life and they do not connect with the suffering of Christ in any way. There is no support for living with suffering, suffering is not something true Christians experience. Life is meant to be plain sailing if you are "in covenant".
Incidentally if anyone has a problem with depression I can recommend praying the Rosary as a way of helping the condition for these reasons: It is a program of prayer which you can do without having to think through what you are going to pray about; it makes you think about something other than yourself (the mysteries) and it brings a definite peace to your spirit.
3. The right to be silent
We have a kind of catholic sterotype here that your average church going catholic man is tall, thin, probably with red hair, slightly effeminate and with a weak personality. Basically the opposite of Father Corapi (if you know who I mean). I am a pretty macho kind of guy. I do weight training and I drive fast cars. But when it comes to worshipping God I am more inclined to contemplation than heavy rock. Just because I don't swing from the light fittings does not make me a bad person or mean I have some hidden sin in my life that I need to "get under the blood". Thankfully I know that God is happy to receive quiet prayer and worship.
We had a change of worship leader recently and he is very keen that we all become less dignified and shout a lot. Its just not my way of doing things and I am certainly not going to shout at God. I know my place in the order of things and I was not put on this earth to tell God what to do!
4. Empty ritual
In the presbyterian church here theelders and minister process in with the communion elements while the congregation sing the metrical psalm 24:
Ye gates, lift up your heads; ye doors,
doors that do last for aye,
Be lifted up, that so the King
of glory enter may.
But who is he that is the King
of glory? who is this?
The Lord of hosts, and none but he,
the King of glory is.
I often wondered about this. If its not a real presence of christ in communion then why sing that psalm?
It always felt a bit of an empty ritual and rather pointless.
One of the phenomenons I came across when I was at university was high church activities that mimicked catholic rituals but without the underlying beliefs. There was a great interest in liturgy and one of the local presbyterian churches had a minister in catholic type vestments with an communion table made up like an altar with candles etc. This sort of thing has become quite common. Some protestants don't like this because they see it as "popish". My view is its the opposite of anything catholic because it is purely an outward ritual which has no underlying belief or grace. The communion service itself is rather a vague ritual which doesn't seem to have a very specific purpose other than Jesus commanded it to be done.
5. Proper Eucharist
I am not happy with the lack of reverence in the conduct of communion services. There is no suggestion of preparation and there is no implied benefit in the ceremony and no real purpose. Its also not a frequent occurrence. Most presbyterian churches have communion once very three months to reflect the times when there were not enough ministers and they used to travel round taking communion services. As a result some people only go to church on communion Sunday and there is a lot of superstition about it (e.g. that it is enough to just go to communion and to have made a profession of faith you do not need to become Christlike or follow Jesus at any costly level).
In my current church they do communion about once a month tacked onto the end of the service to comply with their constitution. Its all a bit of a sham really, just empty ritual.
I believe that what Jesus was saying and Paul was reinforcing was that there is a real presence of Christ in the bread and wine and that we have an obligation to eat and drink it which will benefit us spiritually. I can't at this stage explain that theologically, but I accept it as something which is a mystery of the coming together of something physical with something spiritual.
6. flesh/spirit separation.
In protestantism the flesh is always evil and the spirit is always good. This does not take into account the word becoming flesh, clearly in that case the flesh must also have been without sin. Thats a logical interpretation of scripture. Therefore, we need to come to terms with being human and accept that we cannot be fully divine.
Because physical matter and spiritual things do not meet in protestant thinking it is not possible to have a concept of the bread and wine having any spiritual benefit associated with taking it, let alone any real presence because physical matter is profane and Jesus is holy and without blemish.
7. Post baptismal sin
There is no real recognition of post baptismal sin or any way to deal with it properly in protestantism or evangelicalism. When you are converted you are forgiven your sins, symbolised by baptism. Then you start a new life as a new creation, which of course you make a bit of a mess of with sin, but you can't admit to that or you would be seen as a failure. If you did admit it you would be back to square one and people would think less of you because they haven't admitted to their sin. In some circles you can "get it under the blood" which I never fully understood. I don't want people to think we don't deal with sin, we do repent and ask for forgiveness but there is no thought through or procedure for making sure it is done properly.
8. Lack of community
Protestantism is mainly about "me". "I" am saved. "I" am thankful to God and "I" may do things to show my gratitude, but there is no real feeling of a community of believers moving towards heaven or communicating with God as a group. Its very individualistic which is the opposite of tthe old testament worship or the first Christians in the new testament, or the early persecuted church.
9. Bits missing from the bible
On the one hand there is the issue of the deuterocanonical books (who gave permission for them to be removed?), on the other hand there are the bits of the remaining protestant bible which get left out.
For example, I have never heard Mary mentioned in any context outside the nativity or at any time outside the Christmas period. Then we get told to accept the bible as literal, but not when it comes to "this is my body" or various other parts that cause problems.
8. Hypocricy and logic
I think the root of the problem is that I don't like illogical hypocricy. I need a belief system which is logical within itself. Christianity should have its own internal logic. It should not leave us with too many loose ends to tie up if it is the truth.
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GordonH
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Posted: Thu Apr 12th, 2007 10:32 am |
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And one last bit I missed out:
9. The trinity
If you ask 10 protestants to explain the trinity eight of them will explain it like this:
"there is one God with three different aspects a bit like a man being a manager, a father and golf club captain" or words ot this effect.
This is actually known as modalism and is a heresy.
Although the churches do have written statements on the trinity which are correct, very few protestants fully understand what it means because they don't have the history of all the early church councils that had to hammer out these issues. There is a lot of poor thinking like this.
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Steven Barrett
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Posted: Thu Apr 12th, 2007 12:17 pm |
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That was one heck of a great post and it's plain to see you put a lot of thought into it. Your reference to Dallas was a killer! I wonder how well it'd go over in one of the Bible Belt's biggest (Texas size of course) buckles. And I recall that "Bobby comes back from the dead" episode. When you see something like that, you know the scriptwriters have run out of gas.
So have most, if not all, of what's left of the Protestant Reformation churches. Ca-chug, ca-chug, ca-chug.
What you said about Protestantism and "rebooting" is right on the mark. How tired they must be of constantly trying to bring life back into a dead horse -- yet you'd never know it by some Protestants I know who never heard of an opportunity to "reclaim" America, Massachusetts and the Northampton-Amherst area "for Christ" they didn't get excited about.
Northampton, my entire family's birthplace, and now more commonly known outside our "happy valley" as "Lesbianville," was Jonathan Edwards' hometown for many years, until the locals ran him out of town for being too strict. (Somethings never change.) Oh, they certainly had a wildly gay time and celebration (pun deliberately intended!) when the state's highest court gave us a taste of a more hellish world to come.
Naturally, the Catholic church came under (convenient) attack for being so slow to recognize such progressiveness in social change. So did the more conservative evangelicals in the area somewhat, but Catholics, as usual, make the biggest and easiest target to attack for "bigotry ... oppressiveness ... and "violating" the rights of everyone to get married." Hmmm, I always thought license and privilege went hand in hand, not license as some manifestly expected right.
What do I know, I'm one of those "oppressive" knuckle-dragging Catholic troglodytes, with no proper sense of the times as they keep changing.
While well-intentioned, I doubt if the local evangelicals will have much success in rebooting, reviving and reshaping their respective local churches, etc. enough to make even the slightest difference. If the Catholic Church which, prior to the pedophillia scandals, had a lot of clout in this area couldn't make a dent, I doubt if a loosely connected collection of Protestant churches would have more success. They're too busy rewriting things and pushing the latest trend in reaching the "unchurched." (Why is this so new?
All churches have been doing this for years and years.)
Protestant's biggest problem lies in the inability of its adherents when it comes to recognizing where they came from. Well, they know what that Church is, but they keep acting as if they're in constant need of a Heimlich manuever to get it out. If they had to give credit for the very bones of their rickety skeleton of a movement, they'll grudgingly admit it was the Catholic Church. But of course, it'd always be that once-pristine First Century Camelot Church that was, of course, corrupted by those Romans when Catholicism was legalized and received state support. By the way, St. Ignatius is a wonderful source if one needs to verify the classical antiquity of our beloved Church's name: Catholic. Oddly, you seldom hear much ado about their state churches. But what's to hear from dying branches?
At least the non-established evangelical churches and movements in Europe and the UK are trying hard to uphold time-tested biblical (and Catholic originated) moral teachings. The more liberal established churches are dying off because it's hard as hell to motivate socially liberal Christians to stand up for even their own arguments! They've, in effect, given up on restarting their motors because even they know there's no oil (sound moral and theological values) in the crankcase! Yet, of course, being Protestant means knowing full well you'll always have an opportunity to tinker around with the machine again and again and again to keep it moving in the usual wrong direction. Likewise, the same can be said for "dissenting, albeit loyal, Catholics" on both sides of the pond.
(Too bad these morally ambiguous theological liberals, but self-described "loyal Catholics" or Protestants, can't see that their dithering is giving Islam more space than necessary for a camel's nose should the beast decide to expand its presence under the EU tent. And has it, alas, with ease!)
In the meantime, there's a Lotus or a Ferrari awaiting one at the local Catholic parish. It purrs because it's been taken care of quite well for 2,000 years. Oh, sure it sputtered off and on during the wild Borgia years before the Reformation. But, our mechanics got her back and running for the last 450 years or so, with no sign of needing any theological tune-up for the sake of keeping up with the Protestant line-up of stripped down vehicles requiring constant tune-ups and accompanying reams of repair manuals.
But, sigh as we may, it's difficult to say how long the old Protestant Trabant will keep rolling if it keeps stripping itself down to a romanticist fantasy of bringing back the good old days of the First Century Church. This is a popular fancy within Megachurchianity, the newest in a long strand of reviving attempts to breathe life into an emasciated religious body that has been fed a saccharine sweet, nutrionally deficient, bread and circus menu of Christian faith. This is also akin to a man trading in the latest model Porsche for a "Trabby" - thinking he finally "discovered" something that'll enable him to still drive comfortably on the Autobahn.
In the meantime, a Bavarian Pope is zooming right past 'em in his BMW.
Not only are they setting their theological standards too low, they've decided not to understand what it was that they took out in order for them to keep plodding behind. When the Real Presence of the Eucharist was downgraded to a mere happenstance of a formerly venerated Sacrament, that's when Protestantism really went off the road into a ditch it has yet been pulled out of -- mostly because the errant driver prefers to remain ambiguous to the question of what to do with the wreck in the first place.
After the Bible was stripped down and the Eucharist downgraded, the rest of the deconstructionionist "reformation" was a piece of cake.
And, like all inept cooks who leave out one significant ingredient or another, and their cakes keep flopping after they've been pulled out of the oven, the Protestant bakers never seem to get it into their heads that no matter how many times they try this or that method to succeed, they'll never pull it off because they keep forgetting, for instance, the eggs of sound theology.
Gordon, and all newcomers - Welcome to the Catholic Church, which always moves forward and never has to be jump-started, rebooted (or settle for half-baked theology.)
This is not what you can expect to hear from the evangelical Willow-Creek(ed) megachurches in Dallas or any Protestant church anywhere and anytime.
Last edited on Thu Apr 12th, 2007 12:42 pm by Steven Barrett
____________________
For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
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