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C o n v e r s i o n S t o r y
BREATHING CATHOLIC AIR
By DAVID PALM
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This Rock
Volume 5, Number 4
 April 1994 
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My wife and I were raised Evangelical Protestants,
and if you would have told us a year ago that we would be Catholics
today, we would have laughed. Becoming Catholic was not a prospect
we were particularly happy with; when we first began to be influenced
positively by things Catholic, our feelings could probably best be
summarized as, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."
I am sorry to have to portray the relationship between certain Evangelical
Protestants and the Catholic Church in adversarial language, but that
is how we were raised. We were taught that the Catholic Church had
usurped the Bible by adding layers of "human tradition"
to it and that the Church deceives millions by teaching them that
they are saved by their good works. We were nothing if not staunchly
Protestant. But now, by God's grace, we have come to see that only
in the Catholic Church does the fullness of Christian faith reside.
My own journey to Catholicism started when, fresh out of college,
I attended a prominent Evangelical Protestant seminary. This school
is well known in Evangelical circles for its commitment to the Bible
as the sole authority for Christian faith and practice. The faculty
and students staunchly and enthusiastically defend the Bible's authority,
inspiration, and inerrancy. This is not done in a dogmatic, unintellectual,
"Fundamentalist" fashion. We learned Greek and Hebrew, methods
of exegesis and principles of hermeneutics, history and theology.
We read the works of liberal scholars and learned to engage them on
their own intellectual grounds. In short, we took our Bible very seriously.
It was a stimulating environment in which we were encouraged to think
for ourselves and formulate theological positions well grounded in
the objective evidence available in Scripture.
Interestingly, we never read the early Church Fathers, nor any Catholic
theologians except Augustine (because he is considered a sort of proto-Calvinist)
and Aquinas (because his impact on Christian theology was so profound
as to be difficult to ignore). Generally we just skipped straight
from the apostles to the Reformers, so my exposure to Catholic ideas
was virtually nonexistent. Yet two things significantly influenced
my thinking with respect to Catholicism, although I didn't know this
at the time.
First, as I wrestled with the Bible and studied it in detail, I began
to realize that it didn't support the theology that I had been brought
up to believe. I changed from premillennial to amillennial eschatology;
I ceased believing in the common Protestant belief of the eternal
security of the Christian; I abandoned the doctrine of justification
by faith alone, one of the pillars of the Reformation; and I began
to hold a sacramental view of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
I felt like a bit of a theological "misfit" because no Protestant
denomination held precisely the same views that I held, and this bothered
me. Some of my professors assured me that it was fine to hold independent
opinions on various issues, so long as one's views were consonant
with the Bible and lay generally within the broad spectrum of "orthodox"
Christian belief. But this sort of maverick approach to Christian
doctrine concerned me; what is the basis of Christian unity if we
formulate customized doctrines? Isn't it precisely because of these
differences that Protestants have been fragmenting and dividing for centuries?
Although I didn't feel called to start my own denomination, I didn't
feel theologically comfortable in the existing ones either. In fact,
I chose to keep some of my personal views to myself in my local church,
for fear of others' reaction. This confusion over Bible interpretation
among Protestants made me question--at least on a semi-conscious
level--whether commitment to the inspiration and authority of
the Bible is really the unifying factor that Evangelical Protestants
think it is.
The second factor that changed my thinking was exposure to unorthodox
views propounded both by liberal Protestant theologians and by conservative
Protestant groups. The proponents of these views appeal to the Bible
for support, but many of their doctrines are innovative; they have
never been held in the entire history of the Church.
Instinctively I knew that these ideas were unorthodox; many of them
ran directly against the great creeds of the Church. But what was
my standard of orthodoxy, the Bible or the creeds? If I appealed
to creed or "the universal belief of the Church" in order
to declare something unorthodox, was I not following something besides
Scripture alone? This raised questions that I couldn't answer: What
is orthodoxy? What is the standard of Christian orthodoxy?
I began to suspect that it couldn't be just the Bible, because none
of us could agree on what the Bible says. All appeals to the
Bible can be countered with a different interpretation or an outright
rejection of the authority of the Bible. Increasingly I turned to
the creeds and to a nebulous collection of the "universal beliefs
of the Church" to assure myself that what I believed was orthodox.
I didn't know it at the time, but my wife, Lorene, also was being
prepared for our journey into the Catholic Church. While in college
she attended a Reformed Baptist church. This exposed her to a sacramental
understanding of the Lord's Supper; in turn she influenced me on this
doctrine.
One of her sisters--whose husband was raised Catholic--would
occasionally point to the disarray among Protestants and ask how they
could all claim to hold true Christian doctrine, yet disagree on so
many things. My wife had no good answer to this question and, because
of her Protestant upbringing, didn't think there really was
an answer. She stuck to the idea that a person should read the Bible
and ask for the Holy Spirit's guidance. That response seemed inadequate,
but it was all that she knew.
About two years ago I was in a Salvation Army store, rummaging through
the used books. I saw a copy of Catholicism and Fundamentalism
by Karl Keating and leafed through it out of curiosity. It was only
one dollar, but I almost put it back since it was, after all, about
Catholic theology. Still, I thought to myself, the chapter headings
are interesting, and it couldn't hurt to know what Catholics say about
these things.
I purchased the book and began to read it on my morning train ride
into Chicago. I try to read sympathetically, and I conceded that if
I stepped into Catholic shoes--especially with regard to how Catholics
view Scripture--then Catholic theology seemed coherent and made
sense. The book cleared up misconceptions I had about what Catholics
really believe.
I shared these observations with my wife. That was a mistake. We got
into an argument right there on the train. "You're not going
to become a Catholic, are you?" she blustered at me. She told
me later that all she could think was, "How am I going to explain
this to my family? I married a Protestant seminary student and he
turns Catholic!" Backpedaling quickly, I told her that I was
just playing devil's advocate, and the whole topic went on a back
burner for a while.
Still, my respect for Catholics grew steadily. I very much admire
Pope John Paul II--his unequivocal stand against immorality, his
refusal to water down his message to our President and to the people
of the United States, and his calling the youth of America back to
Christianity. I read Charles Colson's book The Body and was
impressed by the role the Catholic and Orthodox Churches played in
bringing down Communism. I saw Catholics reaching out and meeting
so many physical needs in the name of Christ. I had for a long time
been disappointed with our Evangelical churches because we complained
a lot about the problems in our society, but didn't do much about
them. I saw Catholics in our town putting their faith into practice--feeding
the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless, caring for unwed mothers
and their children.
In May 1993, because of some pro-Catholic statements I made in a Bible
study, a couple that we knew from the Baptist church we attended told
us that they were exploring Catholicism. Dave had attended the same
seminary that I graduated from, so we had similar theological backgrounds.
We talked for an afternoon about things that we found attractive about
the Catholic Church. I ended up lending Keating's book to Dave, and
he lent me a tape series by Scott Hahn, a former Presbyterian minister
who has become Catholic. I enjoyed the tapes, but at the time was
not fully persuaded by Hahn's arguments (only later would I realized
how much he had influenced me). Nothing much happened, seemingly,
until September, when Dave brought the book back. He told us that
he had resigned from the deacon board at our church and that he and
his family had begun to attend Mass. We were surprised, but curious.
I look up to Dave as a spiritual role model. He is a solid man, and
I knew he would not do something like this lightly. Lorene and I knew
that Dave's news would not get a warm reception at our Baptist church,
and we were determined to maintain the friendship and to support him
and his wife in their decision.
We invited them over a few weeks later to talk. We just asked questions,
not trying to talk them out of their decision to become Catholic,
but trying to find out what had compelled them to make such a move.
The more we talked the more excited we all got. On point after point
Catholic doctrine was biblical, logical, consistent. It seemed to
encompass the entire Bible, including the problem passages, rather
than focusing on a select group of verses to support a particular
position. It seemed that within a Catholic framework, many of these
problem passages were no longer a problem.
We found too that we had seriously misunderstood much of what the
Catholic Church actually teaches, and we found that there were good
answers to all the questions we had. Our friends stayed until midnight,
and, when they left, my wife and I were like the disciples on the
road to Emmaus; our ears burned with this new knowledge. That weekend
neither of us could get it out of our heads; we could barely sleep.
My wife--much to my surprise--began talking about the "inevitability"
of us becoming Catholic. I was shocked that she, of all people, was
so moved toward Catholicism. But once she understood and believed
the basic principles of papal authority, the role of the magisterium,
and the place of tradition in Christian doctrine, she felt that all
the rest must follow. I was not there yet; I had too many questions,
although I had to admit that in my heart I wanted it to be true.
We began a serious exploration of this new faith. As a result of this
study, I found that in all of the areas of theology in which I had
changed my views, I had either arrived at or was on the way toward
orthodox Catholic doctrine. I confirmed that much of my prior "knowledge"
about Catholic doctrine was at best distorted and at worst simply
wrong.
In the past, when I bothered to read about Catholicism at all, I consulted
Protestant sources. These tended to cast Catholicism in an unfavorable
light and often, whether wittingly or unwittingly, misrepresented
what the Catholic Church teaches. Reading from orthodox Catholic sources
about Catholic doctrine and the support present for it was eye-opening
and challenging. I was forced to rethink issues I had taken for granted.
Through this study I came to see that, although the Protestant Reformation
was touted as a return to "Scripture alone" over against
Catholic "traditions," in fact the major theological tenets
of the Reformation cannot be supported from the Bible. The Reformers
made their break with the Catholic Church based primarily on three
doctrines: justification by faith alone, sola scriptura or
the Bible alone as our authority, and a repudiation of the doctrine
of transubstantiation.
While still in seminary I had abandoned the doctrine of justification
by faith alone because it was unbiblical. The next watershed for me
was when I began to believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist. Aleady I viewed the Lord's Supper as a sacrament, but now
I saw that Scripture teaches something greater, that the bread and
wine actually become the body and blood of our Lord. Even more compelling
to me was the fact that this was the orthodox view of the Church for
1,500 years, before the Protestant reformers came along and convinced
our branch of Christianity that it just wasn't so, that what the Church
had for all those centuries held as her deepest and most precious
mystery was, in fact, no mystery at all but just a memorial service!
I went back and read the writings of the earliest Church Fathers--Ignatius,
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Augustine--and
found that they all believed in the Real Presence. I could no longer
swallow our Protestant assertion that millions upon millions of Christians,
including some who knew the apostles personally, had been misled by
the Holy Spirit until Calvin and Zwingli came along and set everybody
straight. Although these Reformers couldn't agree among themselves
what the Lord's Supper meant, they all insisted that the Catholics
must be wrong.
The last straw for my status as a Protestant was when sola scriptura--the
doctrine that the Bible alone is our authority in matters of faith--fell
apart. I had read in Keating's book and had heard in Hahn's tape that
the doctrine is not taught in Scripture, that Scripture nowhere claims
to be the sole rule for our faith. Many passages indicate that the
traditions of the apostles, whether written or oral, are authoritative
and that Christians should believe and follow them (see especially
1 Cor. 11:2; 1 Thess. 2:13; 2Thess. 2:15; 2 Tim. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:1-3).
The Catholic Church teaches that the Church is the guardian of this
deposit of God's revelation to the apostles. So does Paul, when he
calls the Church (not the Bible) "the pillar and foundation of
the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). Always I shrugged off this argument,
although I could not counter it. (2 Timothy 3:16 came to mind immediately,
but this verse only says that the Bible is profitable for correction,
training, and so on, which is not the same as saying that it is the
only source for these things.)
One afternoon the consequences of these facts hit home. The foundation
of my Protestantism was kicked out from under me. We Protestants insisted
that all of our doctrine must be found in the Bible, but the
doctrine of sola scriptura is itself not found in the Bible.
Then I realized that the Protestant position was based fatally on
logical incoherence.
Once I became convinced that the Reformers were wrong in these three
areas, there was very little support left for the Reformation at all.
While virtually everybody, whether Catholic or Protestant, will admit
that the Catholic Church needed reform during Luther's day (even the
popes said so), it was difficult for me to see how reforming the Church
consisted of smashing it into thousands of splinter groups, all claiming
to hold true doctrine but interpreting the Bible differently and rarely
if ever cooperating with each other. The continuous division and rupture,
schism upon schism, that characterizes Protestantism is impossible
to justify and is profoundly unbiblical (John 10:16, 17:20-23 and
1 Cor. 1-3).
Having worked through these and many other issues, my wife and I felt
that there were only two paths left: a descent into rationalistic
agnosticism or an ascent into the fullness of Christian faith found
in Catholicism. This was no choice at all, since we loved Jesus too
much to become agnostics. We were confirmed and received into the
Catholic Church on February 8, 1994. We are thrilled to be Catholic,
even though the transition--particularly telling family and friends
about our decision--was difficult.
Because culturally the Catholic Church is different from Evangelical
Protestantism, we are still in a process of acclimation, but I feel
much like Cardinal Newman, who said after his conversion to Catholicism
that he felt as if he had finally come into port from a rough sea.
No longer do we have to be "blown about by every wind of doctrine"
(Eph. 4:14). We don't have to wonder any longer if what we believe
is orthodox.
A wonderful group of Catholic priests and lay people have rallied
around us and have ministered Christ's love through their prayers
and support during our pilgrimage into the Church. Our journey has
opened up for us new vistas of Christian worship in the liturgy, the
incredible richness of the sacraments, and the vast treasury of Catholic
spirituality. All these confirm to us that we have truly come home.
David Palm writes from Waukegan, Illinois.
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