A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward
Bearing down on the thesis today. But I wanted to point you in the direction of an incisive new post by Bryan Cross, relevant to what we’ve been talking about recently, over at Called to Communion: “Sola Scriptura Redux: Matthew Barrett, Tradition, and Authority.” In it, Bryan responds to a “Reformation Day” post by Matthew …
Continue reading ““Nuda Scriptura” and the Authority of Tradition”
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’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 …
(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 …
This started out as a response to someone’s blog, but I got carried away. Here are some answers to some common misunderstandings regarding the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church, especially with reference to the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. Pardon me for just dumping it here with so little introduction or conclusion, but I …
Continue reading “What Sacred Tradition Is and Is Not: 7 Answers to Common Misconceptions”
So, my last post, in addition to being fascinating exegesis, had a point. I didn’t even realize the point at the time, but our dear brother Eugene has brought up an important question that just happens to fit with the direction I was moving in. May we thank the movement of the Holy Spirit! As …
Continue reading “Is Infant Baptism an Unscriptural Practice? Part 1: Understanding Baptism”
The major topic that prompted me to delve into a series on the Sacraments was wondering why Evangelical Protestants* don’t celebrate them. How can a people who profess to base their faith on Scripture alone ignore the very things — in fact, some of the only things — that Jesus told us explicitly to do? …
I’ve been mulling for the past hour or two, thinking of my new Christian friend and how she might take that last post, and I feel I should make a quick follow-up. Why do I gripe so much about Protestant theology? Is it because I think it’s all wrong and that believing it means one …
Continue reading “The Rub with Protestant Theology: Why I teach what I teach”
When I get busy and enfrazzled, I get behind on my blog-reading. So forgive me for reposting an entry that’s now a month and a half old. But Called to Communion, ever one of my favorite blogs, has offered a brilliant piece by Neal Judisch, a Catholic convert from the Reformed tradition, that says everything …
Continue reading “The Audacity of Pope: Everything I’ve ever tried to say about Church Authority”
(This little essay originated as a comment in another blog just now, and I thought it might be worth sharing.) As a historian — and this is one of the things that led me to Catholicism — I feel like it’s a fallacy of the doctrine of sola scriptura to presume that we have all …
Continue reading “Missing Information: The Historical Limitations of Sola Scriptura”