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C o n v e r s i o n S t o r y
Logical Conclusion
By Christopher Bennett
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This Rock
Volume 11, Number 1
 January 2000 
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Many times since my decision to become
Catholic I have been asked to give an account of what led to
my reception into the maternal embrace of the Church. Writing
anything of this sort is prone to failure, as a great deal of my
conversion was the result of logical deductions and a spiritual
longing from childhood through my teenage years. I am but a
17-year-old who-through prayer, reading, and a sincere desire
to attain salvation-became Catholic in obedience to what I
believed to be God's truth. I came to realize that without
sincerely desiring the truth and pursuing it, my possibility of
dying in friendship with God was in peril.
I have
lived my life in an area of Tennessee that is populated almost
entirely by Southern Baptists. Since childhood I was exposed
to the basic tenets of the Christian faith and lived in a
nominally Protestant home. Vividly I remember being taught
the Baptist doctrine that once you have had a conversion
experience-once you've "been saved"-your eternal destiny is
secure.
But I
always found this illogical. It seems so opposed to what
Scripture teaches concerning the absolute necessity of
obedience to the commandments of Christ. For in truth, it
allows you to commit any act of immorality, and, so long as
you "accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior,"
you cannot be damned, whether or not you repent. This does
not seem to fit with the concept of God's justice and
mercy.
When I
was nearly twelve years of age, I "accepted Christ" in the
normal Evangelical fashion and received baptism by full
immersion. While I had no real knowledge of theology, the
teachings of this man called Christ perplexed me. From what I
knew at the time, it seemed as if all religions except
Christianity promised happiness and contentment in this life.
Of course, I knew this wasn't possible. It was certainly not the
experience of Christ at his crucifixion nor of Mary at the foot of
her Son's cross. A religion like Christianity that did not seem to
fear blood, suffering, and anguish-the realities of human
existence-appealed to me greatly. A religion that offered some
solace amid life's anxieties and pains seemed perfectly suited
for me.
Around
this time I began to read the Bible and various other books on
religion, including numerous pamphlets and tracts published by
the Church of God International. My father admired and
respected its founder, Garner Ted Armstrong, and many of
Armstrong's conclusions offered an alternative to the problems
I was finding in my own religion.
After
reading a great deal of the literature published by this sect, I
found that its members did not accept the Third Person of the
Trinity, the Holy Spirit, as a separate entity in the Godhead.
The sect proposed also that we should worship on Saturdays
instead of Sundays, as do many other Sabbatarians and
Adventists. Although I knew his conclusions must be wrong, I
had to admit that Armstrong's interpretations of many
passages of Scripture were entirely reasonable. But by
rejecting sacred Tradition in any form and denying the context
in which God intended Scripture to be interpreted, Armstrong
and his sect simply followed the principle of private
interpretation of Scripture to its logical end.
A year or
so later a close friend invited me to a local Pentecostal church.
Pentecostalism attracted me because it offers a style of
worship dramatically different from what is available in most
Protestant churches. The singing and music seemed so much
more exciting, so much more full of life, than the hymns I was
familiar with. This church provided an oasis of sanity and a
temporary solution to my anguish of mind and heart.
At some
point I began to question things such as the origin of the Bible.
Did it just fall out of the sky, as some of my Baptist and
Pentecostal brethren seemed to imply, or did Christ himself
give it to the apostles? Or was it really given through the
disputation between early Christians and finally determined by
the Catholic Church in the year 382 at the Council of Rome
under Pope Damascus I, as history suggests?
The latter
scenario destroys Protestantism because it involves accepting
an authority outside of Scripture. This was the one, simple
conclusion that led me to understand the logical fallacy of
Protestantism: Without the Catholic Church, Protestants would
not have a canon of Scripture and thus no ability even to use
Scripture as a competent spiritual authority.
The
second most damning fact I found about Protestantism is the
disunity and bickering that exists among denominations on
important points of doctrine. It did not seem to me that Christ's
intention was to found hundreds of warring sects. Obviously,
this predicament came about only in the sixteenth century
when the Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses upon the
church door at Wittenberg. Protestantism did not seem to me
to be the body of Christians for whom Christ prayed "that they
all may be one as the Father and I are one" (John 10:30), or
whom he declared must be of "one faith, one baptism" (Eph.
4:3). To me it seemed the whole plan of redemption was
ludicrous if Christ gave us no absolute assurance of what we
must believe.
After
flirting with Pentecostalism, I yearned for something more,
something supernatural. I studied the nature of Christian
worship and its variants among different traditions. The notion
of worship among many Protestants is that of a meeting, a
social gathering of like-minded individuals. The high point of
worship was a sermon, accompanied before and after by
singing, nothing like what Scripture describes occurring around
the throne of God. The book of Revelation describes the
worship of God as incense being offered with the prayers of the
saints at the foot of the Lord's throne, countless angels and
saints bowing in "unending adoration, worshiping and praising
God, crying out, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty'" (Rev.
4:8). 1 could not help but compare the absolute beauty of what
was described with the barren worship in which I
participated.
What I
knew of liturgical worship (namely my brief exposure to
Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy) seemed closer to
the mark. Crucifixes, incense, candles, Gregorian chant,
stained-glass windows, and even the posture of kneeling filled
my thoughts. I recognized the path I was beginning down, but I
was not quite ready to follow it to its logical
conclusion.
It was at
this point that I began studying the writings of the Church
Fathers by way of apologetics magazines and by reading
debates concerning their writings on the Internet. I recall being
taught at some point in my childhood that the Church was pure
before the legalization of the Christian faith by the Roman
emperor Constantine in 312, and it was only afterward that it
became "Catholic" and "pagan" and "corrupt." As far as I could
see, this idea didn't line up with the facts.
The
notion that Protestants with their open Bibles and widely
differing private interpretations possessed a greater knowledge
than Clement, Ignatius, or Polycarp was intellectually
repugnant to me, especially since these Fathers had direct
contact with the apostles themselves. Ultimately, such a
supposition is contradictory to Christ's promise in Matthew
16:18 that "the gates of hell shall not prevail" against his
Church.
Last, and
certainly not least, I found it terribly disturbing that the largest
Protestant denominations in the United States refused to take
a strong stance against the greatest sins prevailing in the
world today: abortion, euthanasia, divorce, and artificial
contraception. Concerning the latter, I came to realize that
Protestantism as a whole holds no opposition to this sin, yet
every Protestant Reformer and their theological descendants
held it to be gravely sinful into this century. The same applies
to divorce. Protestantism simply caved under societal pressure
and abandoned its moral stances on these evils. Finally, on
the point of abortion, I will concede that some Protestants do
indeed take a strong, vigilant stance, but, without the unified
support of their respective denominations, what progress are
they going to possibly make?
I finally
concluded that the answers to Protestantism's problems are
found in Catholic Church. As Catholics we have a supreme
teaching authority given us by God himself-namely the Catholic
Church ("the pillar and ground of truth" [1 Tim. 3:13])-to
interpret the Bible for us and teach us the doctrines proclaimed
by Christ. The Church will never err in teaching us the "certain
things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and
unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their
own destruction" (2 Pet. 3:16).
Protestantism's unresolvable problems forced my decision. In
spite of my emotional loyalty to the church I was attending, I
could no longer remain a Protestant. Either I had to become a
Catholic or I had to settle for agnosticism. The latter never had
any real appeal to me because, without the existence of a God,
no objective morality exists and no meaning can be given to
the pains of our human life.
After
much trepidation, I began attending Mass regularly and
enrolled in RCIA. Over a period of months my conclusions
concerning the Church were confirmed time and time again,
and with the loving spiritual guidance of Fr. Michael Sweeney, I
came to realize there was no turning back. At the Easter Vigil
of 1998 I publicly pronounced my submission to the teachings
of Holy Mother Church and received the glorious Body and
Blood of our Lord.
Almost
two years later I continue to reflect upon God's great mercy in
allowing me to embrace our most holy faith. With so many
faithful Catholics who prayed for God to enlighten my mind and
my heart, it seems unlikely that I could have strayed from the
truth much longer. I confess as did John Henry Cardinal
Newman: "This one thing at least is certain: Whatever history
teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or
extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the
Christianity of history is not Protestantism."
Christopher Bennett is a high school senior
in Harriman, Tennessee. He is planning a retreat this spring to
help determine a vocation to the priesthood. He may be
reached by e-mail at santiago@vic.com. His web page may be
found at www.vic.com/~santiago/index.html.
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