A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward
One of the most frequent charges I hear, when I point out the inherent chaos and disunity of Protestantism, is that “there is a lot of disagreement in the Catholic Church, too” — that somehow disagreements within the Catholic Church are equivalent to, or excuse, the fundamental doctrinal disagreements between diverse Protestant churches. In particular, …
Continue reading “Justification, unity, and papacy: A blind spot”
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted, so I wanted to give you an update. I graduated in December with my latest degree, in computer science. I’ve gone to work as a research scientist in information technology for a research center at my university. For the first time in my life, I consider myself …
Today, October 31, is the 499th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation, the day Martin Luther is said to have nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church door, the beginning of the “protest” — celebrated as, in Lutheran and Reformed churches, Reformation Day. Yesterday was known in those churches …
Continue reading “Reformation Day: Reflections on the Heritage of the Protestant Reformation”
It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve left you all hanging for a while for the next chapter of my conversion story. Sorry about that. Deep in history The year I taught at Veritas brought great progress in what, I’d finally realized, was my search for the Church — or at least, I thought …
Protestants argue that Scripture itself is sufficient to support the doctrine of sola scriptura — but a more important question to ask is if one, not having held such a doctrine before, could come to a doctrine of sola scriptura by Scripture alone. The “Great Apostasy” thesis presumes, first of all, that “true” Christianity originated …
Continue reading “Reading Church History as a Protestant: The Epistemology of Sola Scriptura”
The broken WordPress app misdated my last entry, and rather than break all the links I’ve already made, I thought I would share a link to it. When Protestants read the history of the early Church, do they understand the faith of those early Church Fathers to be the fruit of the Apostles, or rather …
Continue reading “Reading Church History as a Protestant: The Early Church, Apostolic or Apostate?”
I suppose there are only two or three ways for the Protestant reader of Church history to understand the Early Church (by which I mean the subapostolic Church, the Church of the first several generations of Christians after the Apostles). The inherent thesis of the Protestant Reformation is that the changes brought about by the …
Continue reading “Reading Church History as a Protestant: The Early Church, Apostolic or Apostate?”
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 …
Continue reading “Protestantism as a Negative: No Reason for Being in Itself?”
(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 …
(Part of an in-depth series on Baptism. Part 1.) In this and ensuing posts I will examine in particular the view of Baptism held by Baptists and other evangelicals in their tradition: that Baptism is not sacramental but merely a symbol. I want to make every effort to be fair and consider the Baptist arguments …
Continue reading “The Baptist View of Baptism: Symbol or Sacrament? (Series on Baptism)”