Born Fundamentalist Born Again Catholicã¢â‚¬â by David Currie

T he day President John F. Kennedy was shot is one of my near bright childhood memories. I was in sixth form playing on the playground when the rumors started. Just earlier the dismissal bell at the end of the mean solar day, the principal made the proclamation over the PA system: JFK had been assassinated.

Schoolhouse was dismissed in eerie silence. Tears welled up in my optics as I walked the half mile home that afternoon. My sorrow was virtually overwhelming for a 6th-grader, non only because our President was expressionless, only primarily because in my centre of hearts I believed that he was in hell.

He was a Catholic, and I was a Christian Fundamentalist.

I was the second child in a family of four children, the merely male child. Since my father was a Fundamentalist preacher, I was what people often chosen a "PK" (preacher'south kid). My parents had met at Houghton Higher after my mother transferred at that place from Nyack Bible Plant in New York. They returned to Chicago and were married by A. West. Tozer, a well-known Fundamentalist writer who was likewise their pastor. I was born while my father was attention Dallas Theological Seminary. At various times, both of my parents taught at Moody Bible Constitute.

I take fond memories of sitting in church every Sunday listening to my father preach. Through him, I had an pedagogy in theology earlier I ever attended seminary. Every Sunday, we attended church for Sunday school, morning worship, evening worship, and youth grouping. We likewise faithfully attended Wednesday prayer meeting and Friday youth group each week. Our unabridged lives revolved around our church.

The simply annual religious celebrations our church building observed were Christmas and Easter. Other than those ii holidays, I had never even heard of a "church calendar" that recognized the events of the Incarnation every yr. We did celebrate sure secular holidays, yet, such as Mother's Day.

We were called "Fundamentalists" because we believed in the "fundamentals" of the Christian faith. Fundamentalism as a theological motion had been formulated in reaction to the rise of modernism in Protestant theology around the beginning of the twentieth century. Nosotros felt that information technology was important that nosotros be articulate on the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, as well as the truths of Christ's divinity, virgin nativity, substitutionary amende, bodily resurrection, and imminent second coming to set up His earthly kingdom. (The last of these beliefs is known as "premillennialism.")

Although we believed that Fundamentalist Christianity predated the Reformation, nosotros yet accepted the twin pillars of the Reformation: sola scriptura (Scripture alone) and sola fide (faith solitary).

A person became a Christian, we insisted, by assertive that Christ died to pay the penalty of sin, albeit that all his own efforts at heaven were useless, and accepting Christ equally his personal Savior. A single prayer was the simply prerequisite for a "personal relationship" with God.

On a practical level, beingness Fundamentalist meant keeping oneself separate from the evils of the world. Equally such, I did not dance, nourish movie theaters or the ballet, use tobacco, drinkable booze, swear, play cards, adventure, or date non-Fundamentalists. (Our Southern counterparts too forbade males and females to swim together.) I was almost 30 when I first stepped into a tavern. When I took my own children to run into old Walt Disney reruns, I was seeing the movies for the first time.

The adults around me lived upwardly to these standards, and their case made it easier to live this way. I never detected any of the hypocrisy in my parents that the major media tried to portray inside Fundamentalism. My parents taught me that commitment to the truth was e'er worth whatever cede.

Views on the Cosmic Faith

I was taught always to be polite and neighborly to Catholics and other people we considered to be non-Christians. Yet ever we had the desire to run across them some twenty-four hour period become truthful believers like us. I was trained in how to turn a friendly conversation into ane in which I could share the Gospel. When I was in a social state of affairs and failed to reach this goal, I felt a twinge of remorse, or even guilt.

Our worldview divided the world into very neat categories. Fundamentalists were the true Christians similar those of the early Church building. Liberals questioned the fundamentals of the faith. This group included most non-Fundamentalist Protestants. Liberals might make information technology to heaven, only it was rather unlikely. It was bad to be a liberal, just information technology was much worse to be a Roman Catholic.

 Catholics were not fifty-fifty Christians, we believed, because they did not sympathise that salvation was past faith solitary. Nosotros believed Catholics were going to hell because they tried to earn their salvation by good works rather than trusting only in the finished work of Christ on the cross. No i was expert plenty to earn conservancy. We could prove that from the Bible.

Virtually converts to Fundamentalism were sometime Catholics. Although they were not saved, at least Catholics could be convinced from the Bible that they needed to be.

The last category was made up of those people who were total unbelievers. There weren't that many of them effectually. I met my beginning atheist during my junior year in high school.

All through history, we believed, God had preserved a remnant of people who protected the truth just as nosotros Fundamentalists did now. Information technology was easy to meet that the Roman Catholic Church did non incorporate these believers. All i had to practice was look at their beliefs.

Didn't whatever Catholics e'er read their Bible? We were convinced that so much of what they believed was in direct opposition to God's Word. (I had never actually read any Cosmic theology for myself, but yet I was certain that I knew what Catholics believed.) Nosotros seldom pondered the many areas of agreement we had with Catholics, such as the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, and the inspiration of Scripture.

Information technology has been said that few people disagree with what the Church really teaches, while there are multitudes who disagree with what they mistakenly think she teaches. I fit into the second category, finding offensive many teachings that I thought were Catholic.

I thought it was obvious that Mary had not remained a virgin subsequently Christ's birth, since the Bible mentions the brothers of Jesus. I could run across no basis for a belief in the Assumption or the Immaculate Conception. The view of Mary every bit Coredemptrix and Mediatrix seemed to lower the role of Christ every bit our sole redeemer and mediator.

Catholic prayers to saints and veneration of images and relics too seemed to impinge on the authority of Christ. The belief that our own works were involved in our salvation seemed to fly in the face of Bible verses I had memorized as a child. How could h2o Baptism be essential to our regeneration? That seemed too physical, also superstitious, too medieval to be true.

Purgatory flew in the face of Christ's finished work on the cross, as did the cede of the Mass. Everyone knew that indulgences had proved to exist then susceptible to manipulation. The idea that a mere homo, the pope, could be infallible — well, that idea was hardly worth addressing. Even the few Catholics that I did know did non seem to believe that idea.

The practice of doting a wafer of staff of life and chalice of wine seemed to be as foreign to true Christianity every bit anything of which I could excogitate. I would never accept addressed any non-relative as "Male parent," especially a priest who had never married and had children of his own. Why would anyone confess their sins to a mere mortal when they could go directly to God and exist forgiven with so much less trouble?

Everyone whom I respected was convinced that the Catholics had inserted books into their Bible to bolster these false beliefs. With their traditions, the Catholic Church belittled scriptural potency.

As is axiomatic, there was very piddling distinctive to the Cosmic faith that I had not been trained to pass up. But what made things even worse were lukewarm Catholics. Information technology seemed that Catholics lacked whatever deep commitment to their beliefs. Was it because they did not undergo adult Baptism?

Baptism

In Fundamentalism, babies were never baptized. Baptism was not a sacrament that actually changed someone. Nor did information technology bestow annihilation. Baptism was merely an ordinance that we did as adults for one reason: to show our obedience to Christ's command. Since a baby could never do that, it was reserved for teenagers and adults.

I call back being baptized at age fourteen by my father. I publicly announced my faith in Christ, and he baptized me in the proper name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I was then completely immersed in what I recall was extremely common cold water.

In the years leading up to my baptism, I had answered numerous "altar calls." An chantry phone call was frequently given at the end of a service. While singing a hymn, people in the congregation were urged to walk downwardly to the front of the aisle and meet with an elder of the church building. The elderberry would so atomic number 82 any who came down in prayer to receive Christ every bit personal Savior.

The grab-22 was this: How did you know whether your faith was stiff plenty to save y'all? As a child, I repeatedly would hear the altar phone call and wonder, "What if I was not actually sincere terminal time?" The best solution was to go down once again and brand certain. Since faith was all it took to be saved, it was important to exist sure that the religion you mustered upwards was genuine!

Information technology was onetime after becoming Catholic that I realized my baptism had been a turning bespeak. Although information technology was too subtle to find at the fourth dimension, in hindsight I realized that my relationship with God had turned a corner at my baptism. Before information technology, I had continually wondered if my faith was strong enough, and walked the aisle in an endeavour to make certain. After my baptism, I had a deep assurance that God was my loving Begetter. I no longer doubted that He wanted me to become to sky even more than I did myself.

Without knowing it at the fourth dimension, I had experienced my first sacrament. God had imprinted my soul with His mark. I was His.

Information technology would accept me decades before I would appreciate this truth, but God had given me the grace of faith through a sacrament. I did not totally sympathize the sacrament (who does?), but I did want to exist baptized in accordance with Christ's control. In His grace, God had carried me the residue of the mode.

Years later, I was amazed that the Church steadfastly refused to rebaptize me later investigating my initial baptism. As a Fundamentalist, I had seen many Catholics rebaptized when they left the Catholic Church building. In seminary, I was taught that rebaptizing Catholic converts was necessary.

Seminary

The seminary I attended was Evangelical Protestant. Perhaps I should define terms here. Inside a few generations subsequently the emergence of the Fundamentalist movement, many Fundamentalists had adopted for themselves the name "Evangelicals" instead. This "Evangelicalism" became in certain ways theologically broader than Fundamentalism and more accepting of modernistic civilization. Many Evangelicals laid bated the strict Fundamentalist rules against attending the theater, playing cards, and the like.

I met some wonderful professors and beau students at the seminary. I learned a great deal, only some lessons stuck with me even after I left.

First, my Church building history class was taught by a devout Presbyterian. I came abroad from the form with the distinct impression that the Protestant Reformation was very complex. At that place were important political forces at play that overshadowed any theological disagreements.

This fracturing of Christianity had continued correct down into our own solar day. I had seen congregations split over "theological problems." Only when all the facts came to light, a different story usually emerged. There were political disagreements in these congregations that were at least as important as the theological. There would be 2 stiff-willed men, or two groups of men, that just chose to dissever a congregation rather than submit to any authority. Theology was many times the public justification, just certainly non the entire reason.

I also discovered that when Protestants written report early on Church history, they rarely read the chief sources at length. We read a bang-up many comments almost what the early on Church Fathers believed. Just any actual writings by the Fathers were read in snippets.

I after found what I idea might exist a large function of the reason why. When I read the Fathers on my own, I came to take the singled-out impression that they were thoroughly sacramental and thoroughly obedient to a hierarchy already existent inside the Church. In other words, they were not Protestants, Evangelicals, or Fundamentalists. The early Fathers had been thoroughly Catholic.

I constitute the theological terrain inside Evangelicalism to be in crisis. During college, I had majored in philosophy. I had come to the betoken where I no longer considered myself a Fundamentalist. The rigidity of its theology and the lack of clemency were exhibited most clearly in its doctrine of "separation." But overall, I had merely come to disagree with too much that Fundamentalists held of import.

In seminary, all the same, I institute that Evangelicalism was "all over the map." There were disagreements about everything, even within the seminary itself. Some of the matters of disagreement were perhaps understandable: predestination, premillennialism, the ordinances of the church. Simply other issues seemed to be basic enough that at that place should accept been some semblance of consistency. There was not.

The almost disturbing disagreements centered on the many Bible passages that had no plausible "Protestant" caption. I had tucked some of them in the back of my mind before seminary. I was sure I would find the answers to these passages. But rather than finding them answered, I found myself with a longer and longer listing as I progressed through my grooming.

I was surrounded by the brightest and best that Evangelicalism had to offer. My professors came from many dissimilar Protestant traditions. But none of them had a satisfying estimation of these passages — fifty-fifty though these verses were in the 1 Volume that they all agreed independent all they needed for salvation.

Suffering

Perhaps two examples might be helpful to illustrate this dilemma.

Start, how an all-loving and all-powerful God tin can let homo suffering has been a topic of discussion since long earlier the biblical Job suffered. Every bit a college philosophy major, I read The Problem of Hurting past C. S. Lewis for the first time. Information technology made tremendous sense to me.

Lewis' major point is that suffering is not random. Suffering helps a Christian grow even when no one else knows near it. Suffering teaches unqualified obedience. This perspective made a tremendous amount of sense, only unfortunately it is incomplete when compared with Scripture.

I retrieve in one case sitting in our living room with the president of Dallas Theological Seminary when I was a teenager. I had a question. How would he reconcile Colossians 1:24 with the thought of salvation by organized religion solitary? St. Paul had written to the Colossians: "Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my mankind what is even so lacking in regard to Christ'due south afflictions, for the sake of his torso, which is the church" (New International Version).

Paul'due south perspective on suffering was much more comprehensive than C. S. Lewis' ideas. Paul attributed salvific merit to his own suffering, even for others. His perspective in this passage was non that people could exist saved by "faith alone." Somehow Paul assumed that the Colossians knew that faith must be perfected through suffering — dare I say, through works. He did non justify his statement equally though it were a novel idea. He just stated it and moved on, every bit though no knowledgeable Colossian Christian would accept had any doubt nearly his statement.

I was surprised that the learned, holy, Fundamentalist president of Dallas Theological Seminary had no practiced way to reconcile this poetry in Colossians with his soteriology (theology of conservancy). Only I could tell that he had evidently idea about it a slap-up deal. After in seminary, I encountered this miracle repeatedly. Verses existed that could not be reconciled with any Protestant tradition by any of the professors I encountered. But information technology seemed to me that if some of Scripture directly contradicted my theology, information technology was my responsibility to rethink the theology, not the Bible.

Suffering and its role in salvation did non brand sense to me until, long after seminary, I discovered the writings of Pope John Paul II. Somehow I got on a mailing list for a Catholic publisher. I was scandalized that they had somehow obtained my name. Merely I dear books, so I stayed on the list.

I day I saw a book in that publisher's catalog that had organized topically the thinking of Pope John Paul Ii. The Pope had been so influential in the liberation of Europe that I thought I should read some of what he had to say. It was my first direct encounter with a faithful Catholic author.

The Pope fabricated clear that suffering is non enjoyable. Just he insisted that it is essential to salvation. This thoroughly Catholic concept non only makes sense of the poesy in Colossians; it infuses suffering with nobility. This was the beginning of my discovery that Catholic literature plumbed a depth of spirituality I had never even dreamed was available in print.

In some mysterious way, Pope John Paul taught, our suffering tin can even aid in the process of other people's conservancy. Mayhap I should allow him speak for himself:

In the Paschal Mystery Christ began the marriage with human being in the community of the Church.… The Church is continually existence congenital up spiritually every bit the Body of Christ. In this Trunk, Christ wishes to be united with every individual, and in a special way He is united with those who suffer.… The sufferings of Christ created the good of the world's Redemption. This good in itself is inexhaustible and infinite. No human can add annihilation to it. Only at the same time, in the mystery of the Church building equally His Body, Christ has in a sense opened His ain redemptive suffering to all human being suffering. In so far every bit man becomes a sharer in Christ'south sufferings … to that extent he in his own manner completes the suffering through which Christ accomplished the Redemption of the earth. Does this mean that the Redemption achieved by Christ is non consummate? No … Christ achieved the Redemption completely and to the very limit, but at the aforementioned time He did not bring it to a close.… It seems to be office of the very essence of Christ's redemptive suffering that this suffering requires to be unceasingly completed. (Salvifici Doloris, no. 24; emphasis in the original)

Suffering's part in our salvation is clearly taught in Scripture. I found no good caption for this fact until I embraced the ancient faith of the Catholic Church.

The "Cease Times"

The biblical truth about suffering was just one of many truths I encountered that pressed me to explore Catholic pedagogy. I came to the firm conclusion that the best way to understand the Bible was to listen to the Catholic Church building. Withal, a second instance might be helpful.

I had always believed in a version of premillennialism that teaches Christ will return very soon to prepare a m-year reign in Jerusalem with the Jews. Most American premillennialists too believe this scenario entails a "rapture" that will take "truthful believers" out of the globe. This "rapture" will allow a 7-year "Great Tribulation" that punishes unbelievers and prepares the earth for Christ'southward second coming.

You may have heard of Christians who are striving to rebuild the Jerusalem temple, or seeking to breed the pure red heifer whose ashes, once sacrificed and burned, they believe are necessary to consecrate the temple site (see Numbers 19:1–10). These people are premillennialists.

While in seminary, I pondered how to reconcile Christ's finished work on the cross with any resumption of the One-time Covenant animal sacrifices. The Book of Hebrews, for instance, teaches that the old cult is no longer necessary and must pass away.

For me, the hardest biblical passage related to this discussion was found in Zechariah. I call up continuing in a hallway with a man whose specialty was general eschatology (study of the "end times"). A swain approached us and asked this respected teacher about this poesy. His question was this: "If Jesus' sacrifice is final and consummate, why will there be sacrifices needed in Jerusalem after the decease and resurrection of Jesus?"

The scholar's face momentarily overcast with annoyance. I have never forgotten his adjacent statement. He admitted that he knew of no plausible Evangelical explanation for these ii verses.

Zechariah 14:20–21 states prophetically: "On that day … the cooking pots in the Lord'due south house volition be like the bowls before the altar. Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah volition be holy to the Lord of hosts; and all who come to sacrifice [in Jerusalem] will accept some of the pots and cook in them" (NIV). Most premillennialists agree that this passage is speaking of a time later on Christ'south get-go coming. Why is it so problematic for them? Because they understand these events to occur during the thousand-year reign of Christ over an earthly kingdom with its upper-case letter at Jerusalem.

Here's the rub. Afterward Christ has died and set up His kingdom, why would sacrifices exist resumed? There is absolutely no good Protestant response to that question. Evangelicals are adamant about the fact that priesthood here on globe is no longer needed. Sacrifices after the passion of Christ are unnecessary. The crucifixion of Christ was the final sacrifice ever needed. So why rebuild Jerusalem's temple?

This verse had remained an enigma to me for sixteen years, ever since seminary. When I was investigating Cosmic Church teaching, I realized that Zechariah was actually talking virtually a cede offered in Jerusalem every day now. He was referring to the Eucharist!

The Eucharist is the only sacrifice that would have any value after the Messiah'south passion because of its connectedness to the passion. The sacrifice of the Mass is being offered every day in Cosmic churches, non only in Jerusalem, but all over the world. In other words, the continuing sacrifices of the Church were foretold in the Quondam Testament. When this reality dawned on me, I got so excited I ran into our living room and gave a "high v" to my thirteen-year-one-time son.

Crisis and Reconciliation

We all accomplish certain disquisitional conclusion points in our Christian pilgrimage. God gives us a choice: to follow or not to follow. These crisis points are never easy. They always involve sacrifice and suffering. And they are always an occasion of grace.

At the rather late historic period of xl, I knew that I had approached 1 of these crisis points. I had been studying Scripture all my life. By this time, I had spent the previous months studying Catholic education in relation to Scripture. I had desperately attempted to find a reason not to become Catholic.

I knew my family would lose friends. I knew my wife and children would have to start all over again in a new social circle. I knew that one time I "went public" with these convictions, life could never again be the aforementioned. I hesitated, wondering if this was the right thing to do.

One day I woke up and knew something for sure. I turned to my wife and said, "Colleen, I know that I believe." We had been investigating and discussing so much that I did non even demand to tell her what I believed. After months of study and word, she knew that I was referring to the Eucharist. I believed it actually was Christ'southward Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. This faith was a gift from God.

It was not a commodities out of the blue. I had spent months trying to justify to myself what I had ever believed: the Protestant interpretation of John 6. Jesus had said, "I am the living bread which came downwards from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my mankind" (v. 51, emphasis added).

After studying this text from a Cosmic perspective, I knew in my head that the Church was right. John 6 conspicuously taught that the Torso of Christ was the sustenance that I needed for eternity. Zechariah had predicted it. Jesus had instituted it. And merely ane Church building in town taught this truth as Jesus stated it: the Catholic parish five blocks from my house.

But that morn was dissimilar. That morning I woke upwardly with the firm conviction in the center of my soul that the Church was correct near the Eucharist. I was certain of this divine truth. This grace was not a gift that I deserved. I practise not know why I was singled out to receive it. Someone was plain offer up prayers and sufferings for my enlightenment.

At this point, God showed me that He had already given me another great souvenir: my dearest wife. At that crunch point, she simply said, "David, if that is what y'all believe, then you need to follow your beliefs and join the Church."

Several months later, through some other grace of God, I was reconciled to the Catholic Church: not alone, but together with my wife and all half dozen of our children. That was over twenty years ago. Since then, God has blest u.s. with two more than children.

I can honestly say that reconciling with the Church building is the all-time thing our family has ever done. This Church is a wonderful identify to raise a family and to travel on our pilgrimage to heaven. In fact, it is the merely identify God ever intended for us.

swansonsheand.blogspot.com

Source: https://chnetwork.org/story/born-fundamentalist-born-again-catholic-conversion-story-of-david-b-currie/

Share this post