(General reflection on the Journey so far)

The Spark

During COVID, I came across a TikTok from a random chick online that was Catholic.

The first Catholic I had seen that wasn’t just grown up Catholic and now partying at school.

I don’t remember the topic but it was something about Mary or something digging Protestantism kindly or something like that.

I was a relatively new believer and the culture in my campus ministry was that Catholics needed to be witnessed to just like an unbeliever, so I messaged her and started a conversation.

I don’t remember what happened next but I do know it sent me into a spiral.

The Spiral

I learned there was this thing called the Reformation and the Church had been going for 2000 years and that it wasn’t just Paul passing the baton to Billy Graham.

I became obsessive about it and super depressed at the idea of being wrong. I had stereotypes of Catholics being works-based and idolizing Mary and a bunch of other stuff.

I tried to find a silver bullet article that could just shut down the whole thing and get me out of this spot.

I met with leaders of mine in the campus ministry with my questions and they didn’t really know what to say, it wasn’t stuff they had encountered before.

One big stressor was knowing that my girlfriend and I would break up if I became Catholic.

The Sidesweep

In all this questioning of my flavor of Christianity being true, I realized I had never questioned if Christianity as a whole was true. I can get into THAT whole new spiral later, but it was really good for:

forcing me to look at both sides of a proposition

how to think in terms of probabilities and not needing things to be certain

how a cumulative case works

following the truth is the only option, I can’t fool myself into what I want to be true.

After that 9 month spiral of crying just about every day, I took a bit of time and just chilled, knowing this church question was a battle I’d eventually fight.

I don’t remember when I started again, but it has been not very intentional, much more listening than reading, and I don’t have much to show for it. I’m making a move now towards a more systematic approach to this whole thing.

The Status

Here is kind of an intellectual check in for where I’m at.

Justification/Works

Dr. Matthew J Thomas is THE GOAT. Protestant turned Catholic, leading scholar on justification, super nice guy, and he wrote a book about the phrase “works of the Law” from Romans in how it was received in the second century. Just wanted to lead with that.

It really does seem like justification was thought of as an initially by grace, maintained by grace through cooperation. I’ve always struggled with passages from Jesus talking about sorting the sheep and the necessity of works as loving him in John 14. AND THE FINAL JUDGEMENT???? Christians being judged by works seems WAY clearer than imputed righteousness in the text.

I will pause here and do big disclaimer. I have OCD and scrupulosity and it’s tearing me apart especially WHILE in these ecumenical questions. I think it is A FACTOR for me leaning this way, but not by any means the only or even the major factor.

Even Jordan Cooper concedes that Augustine thought post-baptism works contributed to our justification. Combining things like this with warning passages about not enduring till the end and the stuff mentioned above, it really seems like the Catholic/Orthodox/New Perspective understanding makes a lot of sense to me right now. I have Jordan Cooper’s thesis about justification in the early church sitting on my shelf to get to.

I also admit I need to dig deeper into historic Protestant understandings of these passages. There are areas where I’m still comparing what my community has taught to Catholic apologists so it isn’t a fair fight.

Big Papa “The Pope”

The Big Man! Pope Peter

It does seem like Matthew 16:18 is talking about Peter as the rock. It seems like the consensus is it isn’t Peter OR his declaration, it’s Peter AND his declaration. But the whole petros/petras thing, and especially if in aramaic it’d be the same word, come on. It seems tough to say he isn’t the rock in some way. Plus from Erick Ybarra’s work, it seems like even Protestants I admire like Craig Keener and Craig Blomberg agree (I also like scholars that aren’t named Craig).

Early church is what I’m getting into on this. I read a book about the Early Papacy before 451 AD and was like “wow how are we not all Catholic” and now I’m reading a book against the Papacy from the 1800’s and I’m like “how can anyone be Catholic”. So the takeaway above all has been that being so early in this journey, I really believe whatever I’m reading at the time. That being said, Catholics are dumb and the bishop of Rome is the least of all bishops.

All seriousness, it seems like Rome was super important in the Early Church, but not because (at least primarily) of Peter. People praise it because BOTH Peter and Paul were martyred there. The author of this book makes a big deal about it being the only apostolic see in the West. But one thing he’s shown me is other churches being praised in the same way Rome is, without us assuming their preeminence. Also seeing times where it seems like people defy Rome and don’t think they’re risking going to Hell, there’s something to be said there.

I gotta get used to all this flowery language in the early church. Some of these writings are so elaborate and so dense. I wish they had bullet points back then.

What The Heck Is The East Doing?

Eastern Christianity just seems like apples and oranges to the west.

I haven’t looked deep, but I’ve gotten to know a Priest here in Phoenix

Which by the way, we met in his church during the week to chat and he showed me that under the robe sometimes (not during liturgy) he will rock birkenstocks. Hilarious.

But anytime I try to bring a question to it, the answer has just felt like a totally different language. I am a westerner through and through and I love my systematizing and all that and it seems like the East leans into the mystic side of things way more.

One thing that has sucked about the East is the exclusivity claims. It really seems like the Orthodox church says historically “If you’re not in, you’re damned”.

It’s frustrating cause I’ve talked to Orthodox who don’t think this, which is awesome, but if historically it is the case, isn’t that just not the Orthodox view? Like if it is changing, it isn’t Orthodoxy right?

But yeah, this has caused a ton of anxiety. Which I guess is good if it’s true, but if it’s not, booooooooo.

Stuff I Don’t Have A Problem with Anymore

Intercession of the Saints

It doesn’t seem unlikely God would give the saints that have passed on a gift of a job like this. And we ask our friends for prayer here. Seems kinda sick.

SOME of the Mary stuff.

Blanking on all the Marian dogmas, but if the saint stuff is true, having a relationship with Jesus’ mom sounds amazing.

Some of them I wouldn’t have a problem believing if the Papacy is true and history attests to them.

At the same time, Gavin Ortlund (granted, my only exposure to the Mary debates) does seem to show the Early Church didn’t really know what happened to Mary at the end of her life.

Next

From here, I’m going to keep focusing on the papacy. My wife and I are reading through the apostolic fathers with our friends which is very based, but that isn’t so much of a study as it is just getting into that early church world at a surface level. My studying is the papacy right now. I think it makes sense, the papacy being true puts a lot of this other stuff to bed, and solves the panic in all this of the TRUE CHURCH.