I Was A Devout Protestant Christian For 8 Years... Here's Why I'm Catholic Now.
3 Reasons Why I Converted to Catholicism.
Most people come from a Christian household but I didn’t.
I came from an atheist one and I truly believe that without the Protestant Apologists like Frank Turek, William Lane Craig and David Wood… it would have taken me much longer to come to the faith.
I have so much respect for Protestants and their boldness, knowledge of scripture and evangelism so if you are Protestant reading this, don’t take offence.
It all started when I was in a debate with two Catholics.
They brought up the question:
“How was the Biblical Canon formed?
How do you know the books you have belong in the Bible?”
It became a rock in my shoe that didn’t leave for 2 years.
The more I researched, the more questions I had.
- What is the criteria for what belongs in the bible?
- Who picked the canon?
- How did they know these books should be part of the canon?
This was the start to a journey to Catholicism.
Here are the 3 reasons why I’m no longer Protestant.
Reason #1: Jesus didn’t want a church but The Church.
One night, I was in a bible study with my Protestant brothers and sisters and we were talking about whether or not baptism was necessary.
Being the bible study nerd that I was, I had already read the commentary on these verses and I could pick out which commentary they were using based on the interpretation they had.
Was it MacArthur? Got Questions? ESV Study Bible?
A light bulb moment happened for me and 2 problems surfaced:
I was picking the commentary that fit closest to my denomination.
These commentaries interpreted these theological questions differently.
So who’s right?
This led to my second reason…
Reason #2: The Holy Spirit couldn’t be helping all of us interpret Scripture personally and equally.
Simply put, if the Holy Spirit was guiding everyone in my bible study… why did we all come out with different interpretations?
For example… infant baptism vs believer’s baptism.
The denominations that practice infant baptism are Catholics, Orthodox and some Protestant denominations like: Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches.
On the other hand… Protestant groups, like Baptists, Pentecostals, Evangelical and Non Denominations insist on believer’s baptism, citing a different interpretation of Scripture.
If all of us were guided by the same Holy Spirit, then we would all come to the same conclusions of the Truth.
But this isn’t the case. So it must mean that some of us are being guided while others are using their own personal interpretations to guide them.
For example, imagine you’re traveling with a GPS. If everyone has the same reliable GPS (aka the Church), you’ll all arrive at the same destination. But if some people decide to use their instincts or a different set of directions (private interpretation), they will get lost.
Reason #3: The Church was infallible before it was written down.
As a Protestant, I thought that the Bible was the ultimate authority and no one could be above it…
But I was wrong.
Here’s why, before the Bible was written down,
The Church existed.
The Church protected against heresy.
The Church was the authority for Christians.
The Church didn’t just wait until the Scriptures were completed to teach, guide and disciple Christians.
The Church had authority before the Bible was canonized.
These three reasons led me down a rabbit hole and eventually to Catholicism.
As a Protestant, I was ignorant to Church history. It is a privilege to know what we know today about Christianity because we stand on the shoulders of:
Sacred Scripture (Written Tradition)
Sacred Tradition (Oral Tradition)
Magisterium (Teaching Authority)
I realized that I could no longer pick and choose my idea of what Christianity is based on the denomination that most fit my ideology.
Jesus didn’t institute a Church that contradicted itself.
Jesus brought us one Church, one Baptism, one Faith.
On a personal note, after joining the Catholic Church, I finally understand what worship really is… and I’ve never felt so fulfilled in my Christian journey.
But more on that next time…
Brother, I am a protestant with love for catholics and their tradition. But if “The case for Catholicism” is meant to reach outside a non-catholic echo chamber, this writing falls woefully short. If you think protestants don’t have robust rebuttals to your points, as it seems you feel, you have really missed the mark.
Point #1 really wasn’t a point but a lead in to point #2:
this makes no mention or rationalization of the wide ranging and disparate beliefs of many of the early church fathers, this is all within reason, but many came to different positions on a great many things. How could this be if they all had the Holy Spirit? This has occurred all throughout catholic church history, even until now, heck, even the canon evolved. I’d imagine you walk away from reading the bible with some different interpretations than Pope Francis, i’m positive John Paul II would.
To posit that because i read my Bible and come to a different interpretation of some things than the catholic church is because I don’t have the Holy Spirit is an ugly sentiment and beneath you id assume (Not knowing you but giving you the presumption of grace).
point #3 Not sure how you mean the church was infallible before the bible was canonized. Half the new testament was written to rebuke members of the early church. They also had 3/4 of the bible written at that time and the last 1/4 came within a generation. And none of the church activity looked like modern catholic ecclesiology. These were primarily house churches with “husband of one wife” elders and overseers.
I think you can do better than to degrade the protestant tradition by insinuating that we have no answers to those points. Those are just passing rebuttals from a protestant perspective.
Lastly, i genuinely hope to bridge the gap between our faith traditions and this must be done in good faith. If you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead, i believe you will be saved. I hope you can extend the same courtesy to me and everyone i love. i wish the best for you and your family and for your faith tradition and hope we can both serve God to our fullest potential in our chosen traditions. God bless!
You are right. The church was here and people were following Jesus before the Bible was written. This just recently hit me duh duh. The whole sola scriptura thing - not going for it. And yes if everyone was listening to the same Holy Spirit there wouldn't be all these varied beliefs etc. There are many false prophets and many are deceived. We have to discern the difference. Well i could go on. I write about some of this stuff...