Protestantism as a Negative: No Reason for Being in Itself?

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

The more I read of Protestant apologetics, the more I am convinced that Protestantism exists only as a rejection of the Catholic Church. It is wholly a negative; it has nothing substantive or positive to say in support of itself. When it comes down to the issues that define the Protestant tradition, the venerated “five solas,” Protestantism was born as a polemic against Catholicism, and even today, 500 years later, has no reason for being in itself apart from that polemic.

That’s why Protestant apologists appear to rail so desperately against Catholic claims. I have yet to read a work of Protestant apologetics that can stand for itself, apart from its opposition to Catholic claims. This book, Sola Scriptura, is a case in point. I have not read more than a paragraph or two that sought to support the doctrine by anything more than a negative reference to Catholic doctrine. “Protestantism is true because Catholics say this and this is not true.” Sola — alone — the very notion implies a rejection, “and not something else.”

Catholic apologetics, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal. It is by definition positive, and even in reference to Protestant claims, it presents a positive case from Scripture and Tradition why Catholicism is true. It can support itself in most cases without even referencing the Protestant claim: “Catholicism is true because Scripture teaches this and the Church has always held this to be true.” With regard to sola scriptura, it is not incumbent upon the Catholic apologist to prove that Scripture is not an authority, since it most certainly is the highest authority! (in contrast to the Protestant apologist, who seeks to prove that Tradition is not an authority). All one must show is that Scripture is not the only authority, and one can do that simply by pointing out the many reasons why Tradition is authoritative.

Pentecost (c. 1545), by Titian.

I am often critical of Protestant doctrine, it’s true, but in that criticism, I offer something better; I don’t outright declare Protestantism false, since in most cases, it contains something of the truth. A cursory search of my blog turns up fewer than thirty posts in which I’ve even used the word “false,” out of some 230. Sola scriptura is not a bad doctrine in itself: holding Scripture as a high authority is a wonderful thing! It is only wrong-headed it that it limits God and redacts His revelation.

Where Protestants and Catholics agree, in the great positive that is Christ Jesus, we have no meaningful dispute at all. Jesus saves! It is by His grace alone, not by anything we must do, that we are saved! Our sins are forgiven, and the bonds of sin and death are broken! We have eternal life in Him, by His grace and overwhelming love and mercy! It is only where Protestants seek to stir up dispute — that salvation is by faith alone (in rejection of something or another Catholics supposedly believe, or do not in fact believe) that we have dispute.

It often seems to me, in reading Protestant apologetics, that these people are scared out of their minds. They see the mass defections from Protestantism and fear down to their marrow that they have no reason for being at all: that especially at this generation, as more and more people are finding the truth of the Catholic Church, their longstanding polemic is finding fewer and fewer footholds. I am frequently flabbergasted by the extent to which these Protestant apologists — invariably, and I mean no offense, old men, in contrast to the many, many, young and vibrant Catholic apologists — spew thorough and apparently willful misunderstandings and wanton misrepresentations of Catholic positions, statements so fundamentally wrong that I can only think they have been told otherwise hundreds of times and yet stubbornly cling to their flawed understandings.

I have recently come across a prominent anti-Catholic Protestant apologist (I will not name him, lest I steer more traffic his way) who prints flat-out lies and fabrications about the Catholic Church, factual errors that are so demonstrably false that the quickest google could disprove them — and he does so willfully; when confronted with his errors (and I have confronted him), he refuses to correct them. I think, in this digital age, it’s above all the easy access to the truth that is responsible for so many crossing the Tiber: the oft-repeated falsehoods about the Catholic Church can no longer stand up to simple scrutiny, and yet the old Protestant apologists continue to hurl them, railing desperately from their sinking ships.

Defending Sola Scriptura: A Challenge

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

(I’m going to attempt to write the post I tried to write yesterday before I lost it to a tangent.)

Recently I’ve been talking to Protestants, especially those who present themselves as being of an apologetic bent, and asking them to defend the principles of the Reformation. St. Peter exhorts us to “always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you … with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15). I make every effort to ready myself to defend the beliefs I hold dear, both the Christian faith as a whole and Catholic doctrines in particular — so I figured Reformed believers ought to be willing to do the same for their own fundamental principles. So I ask them, as gently and reverently as I can, to defend the solas — sola scriptura in particular, which has by far been the most destructive.

John Calvin (1509-1564)

But what I’ve gotten is silence. Nine times out of ten, when I ask someone to defend sola scriptura, they shut down whatever discussion we are having and give no reply. I grant that many people may be wary of getting wrapped up in a fruitless and unpleasant debate, but these same people generally do not hesitate to criticize Catholic positions, or to outright denounce the Catholic Church as “apostate” or “un-Christian.”

I have yet to hear what I consider an adequate defense of sola scriptura. By “adequate,” I don’t mean “convincing,” since I think that would be an awfully high standard to set; but what I mean is thorough — covering all the bases; answering the particular questions I have posed that I think must be answered in order for sola scriptura to be a valid doctrinal position. One person has tried, and I do appreciate the patience he has shown me, but I am still waiting for an answer to my questions. Sola scriptura appears increasingly like The Emperor’s New Clothes — the doctrine that all Protestants give lip service to, but no one dares to look at very closely or question, lest anyone realize that they are in fact parading around naked.

Per the advice of a new friend, I picked up what was supposed to be a thorough defense of the doctrine of sola scriptura, by the foremost Reformed minds and scholars and apologists: Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible, which boasts contributions from R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, James White, W. Robert Godfrey, and more. Finally, I thought, I’m going to get that adequate defense I’ve been looking for, to demonstrate that sola scriptura is not just an empty fallacy but a respectable and defensible position. I don’t know why I got my hopes up. I guess I expected better of these people. I haven’t been so let down by a book in years.

Someone in the know, is there actual, academic material written on this subject? Can you point me in its direction? Because this book is not what it purports to be. Rather than a positive defense of sola scriptura — which, I’ll grant, it does attempt to give in some measure — it is mostly an anti-Catholic polemic, spending as much time presenting why Rome is wrong and why you don’t want to go there as it spends presenting an actual case for sola scriptura. I expected higher especially of Robert Godfrey, who purports himself to be a professor of church history. Here is someone, surely, I thought, who knows the truth of the history of the Church and will not be prone to such utter nonsense and misunderstanding of Catholic history and doctrine as is so typical among Reformed people. But if anyone could have woven a whole fabric of all the many, various, uneducated misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Roman doctrines and positions — he says that we worship statues! that we re-sacrifice Christ at every Mass! — that is what he presents in the first chapter of the book alone.

This, too, is turning into a rambling screed, and that is not what I intended it to be. Without further ado, I want to present the following challenge.

The Challenge

I would like someone — anyone — you can even collaborate — to present answers to the following questions. It is simple enough to cull together a few Scriptures that supposedly support sola scriptura, and call that a defense — but no Scripture actually says what proponents of sola scriptura teach. I am looking for more practical answers. If sola scriptura is true, then the following questions will have answers:

When was the doctrine of sola scriptura taught in the Early Church, and by whom? Did Jesus teach it? Did the Apostles? Is it something Christians were supposed to have figured out for themselves by Scripture alone? If the doctrine was part of the teachings of Christ and the Apostles, how would it have been presented? “After we are gone, your only authority and rule of faith is to be Scripture”? “You are not to accept any doctrine not found in Scripture”? If that is to be our rule of faith, why isn’t it in Scripture?
How did the historical transition come about, from the situation during the lifetimes of the Apostles, in which believers were to accept both the oral teaching of the Apostles and their written word (2 Thessalonians 2:15), to the purported situation Protestants maintain existed, in which Scripture alone was to be the authority? As per 1, is this something believers were taught to expect? Was there a perceived difference between doctrine that was written by the Apostles and doctrine that was received orally from the Apostles? And what about the content of that oral teaching that was not contained in Scripture? Protestants will argue that anything not contained in Scripture was not necessary for salvation — but even that being so, did early Christians see a distinction between apostolic teachings that were necessary and teachings that were unnecessary? Were some teachings of the Apostles understood to be extraneous and no longer worthy of being passed on or believed? When are Christians supposed to have learned to reject teachings not found in Scripture?
Robert Godfrey complains in the first chapter of the book (page 7) about Catholic doctrines that “contradict Scripture” — naming first and foremost that Catholic tradition teaches that bishop and presbyter are two separate offices, in plain contradiction to Titus 1:5–7. But this charge in itself undermines his whole argument, or else denounces as unfaithful the earliest generations of Christians. If the earliest Christians were supposed to have held firmly to the word of Scripture and accepted no doctrine that contradicted it — if they understood Scripture to be an infallible and immutable rule of faith — then why, from only the second generation of Christians (Ignatius of Antioch, ca. A.D. 107), do we find firm declarations of this very “unscriptural” doctrine? Were early Christians so quick to deviate from the faith handed to them by the Apostles themselves, to which they were exhorted to hold fast and for which they saw their teachers go to their deaths? Were they so willing to go to their own deaths for a faith they felt they could alter as it fit them? Are such really the kind of people you propose our Christian faith is built upon?

St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407).

James White devotes an impressive chapter to culling many quotations from the Church Fathers that appear to endorse a doctrine of sola scriptura. But an appeal to these Church Fathers and a claim that they themselves held sola scriptura runs into an immediate and insurmountable problem: If the Church Fathers held a doctrine of sola scriptura, why did they, every one of them, accept and teach the myriad “unscriptural” doctrines from tradition that Protestants today want to reject? Why did every one of these faithful Christians — or even a single one of them — not immediately, vociferously, and unceasingly denounce these accretions of tradition, these “unscriptural” and un-Christian “inventions,” until they were rooted from the Church? The men we acclaim as Church Fathers were most of them bishops who held and taught apostolic succession, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, the necessity of good works for salvation, a sacerdotal priesthood, the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary — and that’s just the beginning of the list. Could these men have held sola scriptura if they also held these “unscriptural” doctrines?

I had more, but that’s enough for starters.

Sola Scriptura and Authority: What authority does your interpretation of Scripture have?

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

Saints Peter and Paul (between 1605 and 1608), by El Greco.

(I shouldn’t write much today. I stand poised to wrap up a draft of the last chapter of the thesis. But I know it’s been a little while and I wanted to share a little bit lest you forget about me. I have a bit of previously written material I may share over the next week or so.)

One thing in particular I’ve been thinking about lately is how knowledgeable Protestants can tenably defend their doctrines; how anyone, reading the writings of the Church Fathers, can honestly contend that the tenets of the Reformation were anything but a sixteenth-century invention, a novel interpretation of Scripture unsupported by any authority other than the interpretation of the Reformers — but trumpeted as “the authority of Scripture.” I’ve got news for you: despite your constant assertions to the contrary, your interpretation of Scripture has no inherent authority; it has only the authority you yourself give it and others might or might not accord it. If it did have a universal and absolute authority — if your interpretation of Scripture could be equated with Scripture itself — then it could not but be universally recognized, and could not fail to settle every doctrinal dispute and end every schism. If Scripture could indeed speak for itself, with a clear and perspicuous voice, then it would indeed be the ultimate authority, for it is God Himself speaking.

The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed Bible. (Wikipedia)

But Scripture does not speak for itself; it does not edit itself; it does not translate itself; it does not interpret itself. Any reading of Scripture involves the apprehension and comprehension of the human mind; and any reading of Scripture in English involves reading what has already been apprehended and comprehended and reproduced by quite a few people before it came to you. As it stands, under the doctrine of sola scriptura, no matter how one formulates it, the authority of Scripture must always stand upon the authority of someone’s interpretation — be it your own, your pastor’s, your presbytery’s, your church’s, or the Reformers’. The question necessarily becomes not what authority Scripture has but what authority your interpretation has.

St. Thomas Aquinas (15th century), by Carlo Crivelli. (Wikimedia)

So it is also in the Catholic understanding also, of course: our understanding is built on an interpretation, also. We ask, too, what authority our interpretation has; and rather than looking to ourselves, or to any single man or group of men, we look to the amassed weight of the whole of the Christian tradition, to the interpretations of those who first received Scripture, who understood it in its time and context, and to the many pastors and teachers and exegetes and theologians who have taught on it, thought on it, commented on it, and carried it forward through time to us. This tradition has authority in itself, supported by the very pillars of history. But even beyond that, we look to the voice of the combined Church, to the agreement of the whole people of God, and to the consensus of her bishops, invested with the authority of the Apostles from Christ Himself: to the Church to whom He promised the Holy Spirit, Who would lead her into all truth (John 16:13), to the Magisterium, which speaks with His authority (Luke 10:16).

This screed is not what I set out to write today. Oops. But sola scriptura and the question of authority has certainly been at the forefront of my thought recently, and I expect to be writing a bit more on it in the near future.

Denying Original Sin (Baptism in Depth)

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

The Fall of Man (1616) by Hendrik Goltzius (Google Art Project, via Wikimedia).

Part of a series on Baptism in Depth.

Growing up as an Evangelical Protestant, I didn’t have much of a theological foundation. But if there was any doctrine that I knew well and understood, it was Original Sin: Because Adam and Eve chose to reject God and sin, we have all inherited a fallen nature, such that we have no power in ourselves to resist temptation: we do the thing we do not want to do, and the thing we want to do, we do not do (Romans 7:15). I always thought this was an essential, universal Christian understanding — the reason why we need a Savior.

The Baptism of Infidels, by Gustave Dore (WikiPaintings).

The first time I encountered someone rejecting the doctrine of Original Sin, I thought it was the bizarrest thing I’d ever heard, and presumed that it must be an isolated dissenter, an overzealous Bible student carried away with his own interpretation. That was some months ago. But since then I’ve encountered Evangelical after Evangelical — whole denominations, in fact — who deny this central tenet of the Christian faith. I remain stunned and puzzled.

Historically, the denial of Original Sin has been associated with the heresy of Pelagianism. This entails that we don’t have a fallen nature — that we, in our own ability, are entirely capable of resisting temptation and avoiding sin, and we can approach God and attain to salvation on our own without the aid of His grace. If we are to believe that Adam’s sin did not result in a fallen nature for all humanity, that men today have no greater a propensity to sin than Adam in his original state, that we can choose in our own free will alone not to sin — then ultimately we are left to wonder why Jesus needed to die for us at all. Couldn’t he simply have beckoned for us to come to Him, if there were no insuperable divide between God and Man to bridge? I do not think — I sincerely hope not — that those who deny Original Sin mean to argue this. My sense is that these people fundamentally misunderstand what Original Sin means — that they don’t understand what they are rejecting.

The Baptism of Cornelius, by Francesco Trevisani

The Baptism of Cornelius (1709), by Francesco Trevisani (Wikipedia).

What they actually intend to reject, I suspect, is what they understand of the Catholic Sacrament of Baptism. The people I’ve talked to who have expressed a rejection of Original Sin have spoken of it as if it were something physical or biological that needed to be physically washed away, as one would wash away dirt or a stain. It is true that we, from the Church Fathers forward, often speak of Original Sin as a “stain” or “contagion” — but this in no wise entails one of a physical or biological sort. As it so often is with sacramental theology, non-Catholics are unable to make a distinction between something being physical and something being real. I have been around in circles so many times in discussions with non-Catholics, they not grasping that something can be both spiritual and real; both symbolic and actual; both through faith and through action.

A third-century representation of Baptism from the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, Rome — of a small child, by effusion (pouring).

St. Peter tells us that “Baptism … now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 3:21). In contrast to what I’ve often been told, Catholics do not ignore this Scripture, or any Scripture at all. We have never argued that Baptism works physically to remove physical sin from the body. Sin, both original and actual, is a spiritual affliction to the soul. St. Paul calls Baptism “the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5) and “[a cleansing by] the washing of water with the word” (Ephesians 5:26). St. Luke tells us that Baptism “[washes] away our sins” (Acts 22:16). But none of these statements means to imply that we obtain remission from sins by means of a physical washing alone. Many Protestants argue, then, that these references are symbolic, or that they don’t refer to Baptism at all. But then, why are the multiple New Testament authors so insistent on this language of a washing? Why did the earliest extrascriptural Christian writers understand, to the exclusion of any purely symbolic interpretation, that Baptism itself somehow washed away our sins?

This all goes to the very heart of why I began this series: the rejection of infant Baptism by many of the same Christians who affirm the sacramentality of Baptism (i.e. that it actually washes away sins). The reason why they do is that they also reject Original Sin. If a Christian believes in both Original Sin and the sacramentality of Baptism, he cannot in good conscience deny that Sacrament to his children.

I had planned to dig a bit deeper into Scripture with Original Sin this time, but I got sidetracked by exegesis of 1 Peter 3:21 — which turns out to be a very meaty verse for this discussion, full of exegetical controversy. So I want to devote a whole post to that verse, either next time, or after I give an exposition of Original Sin in the writings of St. Paul. Stay tuned; I’m excited about this!

The Sovereignty of God, or, My Brush with Calvinism, Part 2: A Crisis of Faith

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

The next post in my spiritual autobiography, and the conclusion(?) to my account of my struggle with Calvinism. I don’t know; maybe there will be more. I thought I would nudge a couple of Reformed friends in case they might be interested in my thoughts.

John Calvin, by Titian (This blog). I am thrilled to find this! I had no idea Titian painted Calvin! I love it when my favorite people cross paths!

I grew a lot as a person and as a Christian over the next few years — though still in short spurts, leaps, and sometimes stumbles. Over the last couple of years of my undergraduate career, I continued to have occasional flirtations with Calvinism. I hung out a few times with the fledgling RUF group on our campus, and attended the nondenominational Campus Crusade from time to time. But I struggled to feel that I fit in in any meaningful way. I visited the churches of several friends, but for reasons I don’t entirely understand looking back, I never settled down. I remained restless, insecure, and lonely.

In the spring of 2009, thanks be to God, I finally graduated. Over the next summer I flailed around uselessly looking for a job — and then, in one of the clearest manifestations of God’s providence that I’ve experienced, one came to me. One day my friend Gloria, who had been one of my dearest Christian friends in school and always an example to me of how to live one’s faith on campus, wrote on my Facebook wall. “Hey, Joseph, would you like to teach Greek at a Christian school?”

The Trivium.

Would I! I don’t think there could have been a more perfect job for me at that time if it had been custom-tailored. All through my undergraduate degree majoring in history, I had never given any serious thought to teaching or pursued teaching credentials — but to my great surprise and joy, I loved teaching more than anything I’d ever done. My year at Veritas Classical School, teaching history, Latin, Greek, and English grammar and vocabulary to grades seven through twelve, was a monumental landmark in my journey as a student, teacher, and Christian.

But more on that later. In coming to Veritas, my road brought me face to face with Calvinism.

That year also — not coincidentally — brought my walk with God closer than it had been in many years. Becoming a teacher, I felt an obligation to be a model and example spiritually, a mentor and tutor and protector as well. I prayed for my students before I even met them, and for myself that I would be worthy to stand before them. For the first time I read the whole New Testament with an eye to serious Bible study. For my thirtieth birthday I bought myself a new Bible — the Reformed-friendly ESV Study Bible. It was a time of great growth, and I felt that that — towards the Reformed — was the direction my faith was moving in.

As it turned out, the teacher I was replacing at Veritas was Megan, whom I had known years earlier as a member of the Society. (The pool of students in North Alabama trained in classical languages being small, this was not as big a coincidence as one might think.) She had recently had a baby and was leaving the school to be a mother. In my preparation that summer, I visited Megan’s home a couple of times to discuss curricula and planning. I was immediately impressed with the bookshelves of Megan and her husband: tome upon tome of Christian literature, particularly Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and other works of the Protestant Reformers. Could this be the intellectual foundation for my faith I’d been looking for? In talking with Megan, I was struck with a major emphasis of her teaching: history as a product of God’s sovereign will.

Veritas met in the building of a small Presbyterian church, and though at the forefront I’d been told that its reach was ecumenical — that I would have students of all different Christian traditions, and that no particular doctrinal position was expected of me — I learned very quickly that in its wider affiliations, Veritas was by and large Reformed. Toward the end of that summer, I attended a few days of workshops with the founders and leaders of the Veritas organization, at a large Presbyterian church in the Atlanta area.

(This is the Protestant Paul.)

It must have been the will of God that I would be reading Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that week, that specifically I would have arrived at Romans 8, 9, and 10. It wasn’t the first time in recent months that I’d read a passage of Scripture and had the nagging thought, What if the Calvinists are right? But the morning of the first day of workshops, I remember sitting in the beautiful garden of the home that had so graciously hosted us, reading those chapters. I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach, the rising panic, as the words seemed to confirm what I feared: “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory?” (Romans 9:21–23). As I review my notes from that day (I kept a journal of my studies), I see that I made a surprisingly sharp exegesis then — which I can only credit to the Holy Spirit — as my mind reeled, clawing for an understanding of the passage that didn’t entail what it appeared to entail.

Over the next several days, as I was pondering these words, I found myself cast into an increasingly alien and uncomfortable situation: Veritas seemed to be an overwhelmingly Reformed phenomenon; every teacher whom I met was motivated by a Calvinistic outlook on faith, on education, and on history. Not only that — but I’d had up till that point only marginal contact with homeschooling and its mechanics and philosophy and culture; here I was thrown into the thick of a stirred pot in which everyone around me was a native and veteran and I was a lost foreigner, not knowing the terminology or concepts or attitudes. I heard lecture after lecture on incorporating a Christian worldview into education, and on that worldview’s inherent opposition to my whole, secular, academic educational background; how the whole world I had known, everything I’d been taught, was opposed to God and the Christian formation of young people. I wrote in my journal, amid my lecture notes and observations, God, I’m scared. God, I’m so terrified. A page or so later: More and more horrified. I can’t do this. I have absolutely nothing in common with these people. By the second day of this, I had all but resolved that I would resign my position at the first opportunity.

Van Gogh, Man with His Head in His Hands

Man with His Head in His Hands (1882), by Vincent Van Gogh (WikiPaintings).

As these ideas worked through my head, and my reflections on Romans 9 continued to mushroom, I felt more and more alienated and alone: and this brewing storm soon blossomed into a full-brown crisis of faith. I began to seriously question whether I was even a Christian, if I even knew God at all. I remember sitting at a table there at that Presbyterian church, feeling more alone than I ever had, as the thoughts I’d been collecting finally coalesced: How could a loving God, a God who is love, create some flesh with no other purpose but to be damned? That rather than loving every creature, He only “endures with much patience” those “prepared for destruction” whom He doesn’t love at all, they existing only to “make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy,” those predestined for glory? How could a loving God deliberately and arbitrarily consign some on His creations to hell and save others, based on no merit or fault or choice or action of either? How could it be that many of the people around me, those whom I knew and loved — the very neighbors whom Jesus commanded us to love and serve, for whom he called us to give ourselves wholly — were “objects of wrath,” of mere tolerance in God’s eyes, and not of love? were hopelessly damned from the beginning of the universe? were bereft of any hope at all of salvation? The notions I had understood seemed to undermine the whole gospel of Christ as I knew it, to reject the essential dignity of all men and women, to call into question my entire moral fabric: if some men are not worthy even of the love of God, then why love the hurting or seek the lost? why feed the hungry or clothe the poor or bind up the brokenhearted? I began to understand, I thought, so much of what I saw in the world around me, why so few Christians in America seemed to care about the plight of the least of these: they are not “of us,” so they must be “vessels prepared for destruction.” As my horror reached it peak, I came to a conclusion: If this is the God I’m being asked to serve, then I want no part of that god.

Of course, so much of this was overreaction, and the fruit of everything else I was feeling at that time. These thoughts are not fair representations of the ideas or formulations of well-minded people of the Reformed faith. But I still feel truthfully that these are the logical implications and consequences of Reformed propositions.

As I went home after three days in Atlanta, I had come to a sense of peace. I don’t remember even acknowledging it consciously, but my conclusion had reduced to an absurdity: That couldn’t be the God I love and serve, therefore the premises from which I was proceeding must be false. The Calvinist understanding of Romans 9 must be mistaken: for it otherwise contradicts all the rest of Scripture and revelation. Over the coming weeks, I devoted myself more and more to Scripture study and prayer. I delved into Paul’s meaning and context, and at last came to understand; looking back, my notes upon my reading that first day were pretty dead on. It was an epoch in my journey: I never again seriously considered Calvinism as a valid theological option or the Reformed faith as a destination for my pilgrimage.

In the end, I stuck with Veritas. The director of our school was so very reassuring and so supportive. He restored my faith in my own calling and gifts, and in the promise of Veritas. He never asked me to teach in a way with which I wasn’t comfortable, and stood behind me through my entire year there. And the students and the parents and the environment made the most loving, nurturing, enriching educational experience I’d ever been a part of. I loved teaching more than I ever could have known, and loved my students with all my heart. I left convinced of the merits of classical education and homeschooling — but more on that next time.

Charles Carroll, Catholic Founder

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

Happy Fourth of July! I know I have a good few readers from other places, but here in the United States, the Fourth of July is our Independence Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, only one was a Roman Catholic: Charles Carroll of Carrollton, of the colony of Maryland.

Maryland was founded in 1634 by the Lords Baltimore as a safe haven for Catholics during the time of the European wars of religion. Maryland was a leading early proponent of religious toleration, passing the Maryland Toleration Act in 1649, which mandated freedom of worship and prohibited hate speech toward any Christian, the first document in the world to do so — though it only applied to orthodox, Trinitarian Christians, and prosecuted denials of the Christian faith. Religious strife soon spread even to Maryland, though, when only a year later in 1650, Puritans, having overthrown and executed King Charles I in the English Civil War, seized the colony of Maryland, repealed the act, and established a new government prohibiting both Catholicism and Anglicanism (you’ve gotta love the Calvinists). Lord Baltimore regained control of the colony in 1658, and reenacted the Toleration Act.

Thirty years later, the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, in which the Catholic king of England, James II, was deposed by the Protestant William and Mary, was not so glorious for Catholics in Maryland. Puritans, by then a majority in the colony, again seized the opportunity to overcome the Catholic government, in what became known as the “Protestant Revolution” of Maryland. They again revoked the Toleration Act and barred Catholics from worshipping publicly. Over the next decades, the new government gradually stripped Catholics of their civil rights, including the rights to hold public office, vote, or inherit property.

This is the culture in which Charles Carroll (1737–1832) was born and raised. Descending from an old Irish Catholic family, Carroll was known, and signed his name, as “Charles Carroll of Carrollton,” to distinguish himself from his father and grandfather of the same name. Carroll was born illegitimate, as at the time of his birth, his parents were not legally married, in an effort to protect the family estates from the Protestant government’s restrictions on inheritance (they married twenty years later). Carroll was educated in Jesuit schools, first at a secret school in Maryland and then in France. At the behest of his father, he remained in Europe, where he had far greater opportunities as a Catholic, until he was twenty-eight in 1765. He received a thorough classical education, and returned one of the most educated men in America. Carroll’s father granted to him Carrollton, a vast, 17,000-acre estate in Frederick County, Maryland. He became one of the wealthiest planters in Maryland, if not in all the colonies.

Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull.

Though barred from actively participating in politics, Carroll became increasingly concerned as tensions with Britain mounted in the 1770s. In 1772 he engaged in an anonymous debate against Loyalist Daniel Dulany in the Maryland Gazette, over rising taxes and fees to state officials and Protestant clergy. After his identity became known, Carroll became more and more involved in opposition to British rule. In 1774 he was elected to Maryland’s committee of correspondence, and from then on represented Maryland on both the colonial level and to the other colonies. In 1776 he was elected to the Continental Congress, and though he did not arrive in time for the debate on the Declaration of Independence, he did sign the official document.

Following independence from Britain and the formation of the United States, Carroll served as Maryland’s first United States senator, from 1789 to 1792, when he resigned, preferring to remain in the Maryland State Senate, in which he served until 1800. He was the longest-lived and last living Signer of the Declaration of Independence, passing away in 1832 at the age of 95. His funeral was at the Baltimore Cathedral, the first Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States, now known as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or the Baltimore Basilica).

Catholics have a long history of getting the short end of the stick as far as religious liberty is concerned. As a Catholic, Charles Carroll was a leading proponent for liberty and toleration for all. Maryland’s Toleration Act marked an important precedent upon which the religious provisions of the First Amendment were founded. I am thankful today for the sacrifices and labors of our Founding Fathers, especially men like Charles Carroll, who saw religious freedom to be a universal human right.

Our bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom, observed for the past two weeks, has recalled our religious freedoms to my mind ever more vividly, especially as we Catholics again face encroachment upon our freedom to practice our religion. In Father Joe’s homily on Sunday, he pointed out an important distinction that many non-religious people fail to realize: Our freedom to worship, to conduct our liturgy in our private space, is only one part of religious liberty. Our freedom to practice our religion — our freedom to live our lives according to the precepts of our faith — is another matter, every bit as valuable and every bit as essential. It is this freedom that the government is now seeking to abridge.

The Lonely Pilgrim

A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward

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