Why I'm discontent with my Protestantism

chevyontheriver said:

Thanks for the info. Keaggy is still alive and has an active website, so I would have expected something there one way or another, but really nothing. Duck-Duck-Go found someone who speculated about it based on a newer song of his that quoted a Saint. Also someone heard from a religion teacher that he was coming back to the Catholic Church. But that was third hand. He did a concert in a Catholic church in Ohio in 2012. So who knows. Rich Mullins, by comparison, his plans were almost certain when he died a few days before his scheduled reception.

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Tone said:

If the above video is true, it's worth considering whether or not it is useful to go back, to gain clarity and insight.

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prodromos said:

I've got a bridge for sale over Sydney Harbour if you are interested.

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Mary Meg said:

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

If you've been following my other musings the past couple days, you probably know a little of what I'm going through... how I'm questioning my Protestant heritage, and struggling with how to read Church history and remain a Protestant. If you're new to me, hi -- a little about me: I was raised in a small, conservative Southern Baptist church where my family has a long tradition. I love my church, because I love my family, but I've made the mistake, maybe, of reading too much history, and now I'm having some serious questions about Protestantism. You may all think I'm really down on Protestantism, but I'm really not. So I wanted to make this post to try to give a more balanced picture of where I'm at. (This proved to be longer than I expected, so at risk of ending up with unbalanced audiences, I may wait until another post to tell in detail why I feel drawn to more apostolic forms of faith.)

What I love about Protestantism (by which I mean my Baptist Evangelicalism)

• The simplicity. Honestly, reading about Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, even Calvinism -- it's really complicated! A lot of hard, confusing, and even troubling things. Growing up I can just open my Bible and read and understand (though often, when I don't understand, my eyes just glaze over and I say, "Okay, God") ... and go to church and love one another and live my faith and everything is fine. All I have to do is have faith ... no other expectations really.
• The worship. I go to a little tiny church, with traditional worship, but I love our hymns and singing together. But I also, just recently, am getting to contemporary worship music on Internet radio, like Chris Tomlin and Crowder and Matt Maher and Jeremy Camp and Bethel Music and Hillsong. And it seems like that's a mostly Protestant thing?
• My own history. I complain sometimes about the history of the Protestant Reformation (which I'll do more below), but my own history is something I love. It's the history of how faithful pioneers came to the hills of North Alabama and founded a church. There are a lot of regaling tales of early ministers, early church minutes to peruse, and especially my own family history -- the histories of my church and my family are largely intertwined for like 6 or 7 generations.
• The people. I love the people -- because they are my family, my friends, my loved ones.
• The belonging. Because this is my church, I am her daughter -- I belong and am accepted and have a place. I can minister (I teach V.B.S., among other things) and really feel I am serving.

What I don't like about [my] Protestantism (or, why I'm having problems)
Over the past few years, as I've gotten deep in studying Church history and theology and languages and read a lot on my own, I've gradually grown more discontent. This lays out my basic problems.

• Lack of historical foundation. This may be more a problem of my own upbringing than of Protestantism in general, I don't know -- but I feel disconnected from history. Before I started high school, I knew almost nothing about the history of Christianity. Just Bible stories, then BAM! Martin Luther is nailing something to the door! And POW! The church comes to Alabama! There were anecdotes scattered here and there in sermons about "great Christians"... Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, maybe a few others... but these were disconnected dots on a blank sea. And I really didn't realize how empty it was, until I opened a book and saw everything that was there.
• Lack of theological rigor. Growing up, I don't think I ever heard the word theology. My Church taught the Bible and the Bible alone, just the Gospel and that's all. I didn't understand until much later (I was homeschooled and didn't have any friends outside my immediate community until high school) that there is more than one way of understanding the Bible and the Gospel. At first I was floored. Then I started studying theology and languages, and the idea that different people could have different interpretations made more sense. I discovered that my church lives in a sort of quasi-Calvinist-Armenian limbo. Preachers can appeal to either, but avoid the objectionable points of both. But the bottom line is, there's no rigor. Our theology is a wet noodle. And maybe that's okay? But it feels very intellectually unsatisfying.
• Fascination with the Early Church. As I said previously, when I read the New Testament growing up, it was mostly with a confirmation bias, seeing in it a vision of my own church experience. It wasn't until I started reading excerpts of the Church Fathers that I started to get the feeling that this doesn't actually look anything like my church. And let's not get distracted by arguments about sola scriptura or relying on Scripture -- it really doesn't. Whether you believe this is because the post-Apostolic Church quickly fell away from the truth of the faith, or because our modern tradition is just a really long way from the second century -- it really doesn't.
  
  What I admire about the Early Church is more than just the visible things like the liturgy, the way they have church (which you can see in early writers like the Didache and Justin Martyr) -- it's an overall feeling. In our modern Christianity -- especially once you get outside the walls of my little church -- there's a lot of disagreement about faith and practice, what to believe and do; a lot of argument about interpretation of Scripture; a lot of divisions and numerous different denominations. And that's just not what I see in the Early Church. Sure, eventually there were doctrinal questions and crises and schisms, and even in the second century there were heresies -- but to the orthodox faith (and yes, I think that's something that can be objectively seen, not just something that is decided by the victor), there was unity and certainty. These people were sure in what they had been taught, by people who knew or had been taught by the Apostles. And when there was a controversy with these heretics (I'm reading Ignatius and Irenaeus here), they didn't appeal to "Scripture alone" and argument over interpretation, they appealed first to the authority of the bishop, and his agreement with every other bishop in what had been received from the Apostles.
  
  And all of this is getting long, but it's just to say that I admire that certainty of orthodoxy.
• Disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation. And I got to the Protestant Reformation in history, and rather than finding the glorious scenes of Martin Luther rediscovering the true Gospel from corruption and restoring the true faith, I was appalled. I had grown to like the Catholic Church, with all the popes and monks and saints -- not that I necessarily agreed with it, but I liked it. So I was disappointed, first, that things in that were becoming corrupted. But it still seemed like a good thing that could be fixed, right? Of course I knew that wasn't where it was going...
  
  And then the Reformation very quickly got ugly. Luther calling the pope "antichrist," everybody writing nasty letters to each other, revolts and people getting killed... And then everybody else starts jumping on board, and it seems like a free-for-all, and political opportunism in a lot of cases more than anything else... And before long, anybody with a beef against the Catholic Church, for any reason, is breaking away and grinding their own axe... And then martyrdoms (murders) on both sides, and wars... Christians killing Christians... And this is not a glorious picture at all.
  
  And I just think, again and again, to Jesus's prayer "that we all might be One" (John 17:21). And I just think none of this is what Jesus wanted at all.

So this is really long, sorry about that, and more emotional than I really meant for it to be. But this is my heart. Go easy on me, ok?

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Mary Meg said:

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

If you've been following my other musings the past couple days, you probably know a little of what I'm going through... how I'm questioning my Protestant heritage, and struggling with how to read Church history and remain a Protestant. If you're new to me, hi -- a little about me: I was raised in a small, conservative Southern Baptist church where my family has a long tradition. I love my church, because I love my family, but I've made the mistake, maybe, of reading too much history, and now I'm having some serious questions about Protestantism. You may all think I'm really down on Protestantism, but I'm really not. So I wanted to make this post to try to give a more balanced picture of where I'm at. (This proved to be longer than I expected, so at risk of ending up with unbalanced audiences, I may wait until another post to tell in detail why I feel drawn to more apostolic forms of faith.)

What I love about Protestantism (by which I mean my Baptist Evangelicalism)

• The simplicity. Honestly, reading about Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, even Calvinism -- it's really complicated! A lot of hard, confusing, and even troubling things. Growing up I can just open my Bible and read and understand (though often, when I don't understand, my eyes just glaze over and I say, "Okay, God") ... and go to church and love one another and live my faith and everything is fine. All I have to do is have faith ... no other expectations really.
• The worship. I go to a little tiny church, with traditional worship, but I love our hymns and singing together. But I also, just recently, am getting to contemporary worship music on Internet radio, like Chris Tomlin and Crowder and Matt Maher and Jeremy Camp and Bethel Music and Hillsong. And it seems like that's a mostly Protestant thing?
• My own history. I complain sometimes about the history of the Protestant Reformation (which I'll do more below), but my own history is something I love. It's the history of how faithful pioneers came to the hills of North Alabama and founded a church. There are a lot of regaling tales of early ministers, early church minutes to peruse, and especially my own family history -- the histories of my church and my family are largely intertwined for like 6 or 7 generations.
• The people. I love the people -- because they are my family, my friends, my loved ones.
• The belonging. Because this is my church, I am her daughter -- I belong and am accepted and have a place. I can minister (I teach V.B.S., among other things) and really feel I am serving.

What I don't like about [my] Protestantism (or, why I'm having problems)
Over the past few years, as I've gotten deep in studying Church history and theology and languages and read a lot on my own, I've gradually grown more discontent. This lays out my basic problems.

• Lack of historical foundation. This may be more a problem of my own upbringing than of Protestantism in general, I don't know -- but I feel disconnected from history. Before I started high school, I knew almost nothing about the history of Christianity. Just Bible stories, then BAM! Martin Luther is nailing something to the door! And POW! The church comes to Alabama! There were anecdotes scattered here and there in sermons about "great Christians"... Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, maybe a few others... but these were disconnected dots on a blank sea. And I really didn't realize how empty it was, until I opened a book and saw everything that was there.
• Lack of theological rigor. Growing up, I don't think I ever heard the word theology. My Church taught the Bible and the Bible alone, just the Gospel and that's all. I didn't understand until much later (I was homeschooled and didn't have any friends outside my immediate community until high school) that there is more than one way of understanding the Bible and the Gospel. At first I was floored. Then I started studying theology and languages, and the idea that different people could have different interpretations made more sense. I discovered that my church lives in a sort of quasi-Calvinist-Armenian limbo. Preachers can appeal to either, but avoid the objectionable points of both. But the bottom line is, there's no rigor. Our theology is a wet noodle. And maybe that's okay? But it feels very intellectually unsatisfying.
• Fascination with the Early Church. As I said previously, when I read the New Testament growing up, it was mostly with a confirmation bias, seeing in it a vision of my own church experience. It wasn't until I started reading excerpts of the Church Fathers that I started to get the feeling that this doesn't actually look anything like my church. And let's not get distracted by arguments about sola scriptura or relying on Scripture -- it really doesn't. Whether you believe this is because the post-Apostolic Church quickly fell away from the truth of the faith, or because our modern tradition is just a really long way from the second century -- it really doesn't.
  
  What I admire about the Early Church is more than just the visible things like the liturgy, the way they have church (which you can see in early writers like the Didache and Justin Martyr) -- it's an overall feeling. In our modern Christianity -- especially once you get outside the walls of my little church -- there's a lot of disagreement about faith and practice, what to believe and do; a lot of argument about interpretation of Scripture; a lot of divisions and numerous different denominations. And that's just not what I see in the Early Church. Sure, eventually there were doctrinal questions and crises and schisms, and even in the second century there were heresies -- but to the orthodox faith (and yes, I think that's something that can be objectively seen, not just something that is decided by the victor), there was unity and certainty. These people were sure in what they had been taught, by people who knew or had been taught by the Apostles. And when there was a controversy with these heretics (I'm reading Ignatius and Irenaeus here), they didn't appeal to "Scripture alone" and argument over interpretation, they appealed first to the authority of the bishop, and his agreement with every other bishop in what had been received from the Apostles.
  
  And all of this is getting long, but it's just to say that I admire that certainty of orthodoxy.
• Disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation. And I got to the Protestant Reformation in history, and rather than finding the glorious scenes of Martin Luther rediscovering the true Gospel from corruption and restoring the true faith, I was appalled. I had grown to like the Catholic Church, with all the popes and monks and saints -- not that I necessarily agreed with it, but I liked it. So I was disappointed, first, that things in that were becoming corrupted. But it still seemed like a good thing that could be fixed, right? Of course I knew that wasn't where it was going...
  
  And then the Reformation very quickly got ugly. Luther calling the pope "antichrist," everybody writing nasty letters to each other, revolts and people getting killed... And then everybody else starts jumping on board, and it seems like a free-for-all, and political opportunism in a lot of cases more than anything else... And before long, anybody with a beef against the Catholic Church, for any reason, is breaking away and grinding their own axe... And then martyrdoms (murders) on both sides, and wars... Christians killing Christians... And this is not a glorious picture at all.
  
  And I just think, again and again, to Jesus's prayer "that we all might be One" (John 17:21). And I just think none of this is what Jesus wanted at all.

So this is really long, sorry about that, and more emotional than I really meant for it to be. But this is my heart. Go easy on me, ok?

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actionsub said:

In trying to answer the question, I'd found much the same "friend of a friend" stuff on Keaggy myself.

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chevyontheriver said:

So Keaggy is great but no real evidence for his being Catholic any more. Short of asking him, or him telling the world, we don't know. But stranger things have happened. Look what Francis Beckwith ended up doing.

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FenderTL5 said:

I'll ask him the next time I see him in Publix (he lives nearby and I do see him from time to time).

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LoreneDD said:

Ask him also if he’s the cousin of Paul McCartny k? I heard that somewhere and have never seen it confirmed.

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---SE---

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1. relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.
   "primitive mammals"
   synonyms: ancient, earliest, first, prehistoric, antediluvian, antique, primordial, primeval, primal, primary, lower, original, proto-, ur-; More
2. having a quality or style that offers an extremely basic level of comfort, convenience, or efficiency.
   "the accommodations at the camp were a bit primitive"
   synonyms: crude, simple, rough, basic, elementary, rough-hewn, rudimentary, undeveloped, unrefined, unsophisticated, rude, rough and ready, makeshift; More (Dictionary - Google Search)
   
   You speak as if the Apostles, with their Sabbath keeping and observance of the Moedim are the prokaryotic organisms that evolved into the Roman Catholic easter worshipping tad poles...or something.

Tone said:

Why do you use the word "primitive"?

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1. relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.
   "primitive mammals"
   synonyms: ancient, earliest, first, prehistoric, antediluvian, antique, primordial, primeval, primal, primary, lower, original, proto-, ur-; More

Albion said:

prim·i·tive
/ˈprimədiv/
adjective

1. relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.
   "primitive mammals"
   synonyms: ancient, earliest, first, prehistoric, antediluvian, antique, primordial, primeval, primal, primary, lower, original, proto-, ur-; More

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Tone said:

*Emphasis mine.

?

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Albion said:

relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.

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Albion said:

That is how it is used whenever anyone speaks of the first-century church as the "primitive" church, not that it was half-done or substandard.

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Tone said:

Oh okay, so you want it to read, "Relating to an early stage in the historical development of something."?

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Well, that's better, but how early a stage and what is historically developing, when we speak about the Apostles?

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*Tone said: ↑

"...what the Apostles did and taught is the apex of theology and praxes for all time..."

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Halbhh said:

12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

----------------


Well, sadly, friend, if one posits there is a certain one church that is the only true one, then this idea would then imply to us that the modern Catholic Church cannot be the One True Whole Church, because of the clear and dramatic wrongs it has done.

Rather, His Church is better than those wrongs.

But I've no doubt that Catholics are in His Church, and very many, in great numbers.

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Just_a_Christian said:

If you have God inspired writings where He endorsed a "pope", simply produce it. It never happened.

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God's word being more than the Bible is opinion at best;

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God never contradicts Himself.

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The man made papal office is part of the falling away Paul warned the New Testament church of in 2nd Thessalonians. If God endorsed a "pope" indulgences would have never been taught as doctrine and that, my friend, is only the tip of the iceberg. The falling away occured and the church has yet to repent of such.

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How could the churches be autonomous in nature? Very easily, the church Christ died for is still autonomous in nature. Read Revelation it's plain as day, the warning are to a specific congregation. The New Testament uses the word bishop and elder interchangeably; they are both overseers and Timothy was told to ordain elders in every town/city in which Paul was preaching.
In Him

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Root of Jesse said:

We believe Matthew 16:18-20 does that for us. So is your understanding of what John 6 means. But at the end of John's Gospel, he tells us such.I agree, and the Catholic Church never contradicts God.What is your understanding of "indulgences"? The only thing man-made about the office of the papacy is the word 'pope'. The office was instituted in Matthew 16:18. It is true that it has an earthly component, since Constantine left Rome to the Pope to govern-Jesus never wanted the pope to be a government official, but an authority over the Church.
Plain as day as you read it, maybe. But as we see above, your interpretation is an opinion, at best.

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