Journeys Home (5 page)

I wrote an essay on the ethical problems involved with fetal tissue
transplantation and began speaking to Christian groups about the
dangers and blessings of modern biological technology. Things
seemed to be going according to plan -- at least until I realized
that the real reason for my return to school was not to get a
degree. It was so that I might buy a copy of the local Cleveland
newspaper.

One Friday morning, after a long drive into Cleveland, I was eating
breakfast and killing time before class, trying to stay awake.
Normally I'd squeeze in a little study time, but this morning
I did something unusual: I bought a copy of
The Plain Dealer.

As I slipped the quarter into the newspaper vending machine, I
had no way of knowing I had come to a momentous fork in the road.
I was about to start down a path that would lead me out of Protestantism.
(I suppose if I had known where it would lead, I would have run
the other way.)

Skimming through, with only nominal interest, I came across a
small advertisement that jumped out at me: "Catholic theologian
Scott Hahn to speak at local Catholic parish this Sunday afternoon."

I choked on my coffee. "
Catholic
theologian Scott Hahn?" It couldn't
be the Scott Hahn I used to know. We had attended Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary together back in the early eighties.

Back then, he was a staunch Calvinist anti-Catholic, the staunchest
on campus! I'd been on the fringe of an intense Calvinist study
group that Scott led. But while Scott and others had spent long
hours scouring the Bible like detectives, trying to uncover every
angle of every theological implication, I had played basketball.

Though I had not seen Scott since he graduated in 1982, I had
heard the dark rumor floating around that he'd become Catholic.
I hadn't thought much about it. Either the rumor was false, contrived
by someone who was offended by (or envious of) the intensity of
Scott's convictions, or else Scott had flipped. I decided to make
the hour-and-a-half trip to find out. I was totally unprepared
for what I discovered.

I was nervous as I pulled into the parking lot of the huge Gothic
structure. I had never been inside a Catholic church, and I didn't
know what to expect. I entered the church quickly, skirting the
holy water fonts, and scuttled down the aisle, unsure of the correct
protocol for getting into the pew. I knew Catholics bowed or curtsied
or did some sort of jig-like obeisance toward the altar before
entering the pew. But I just slipped in and scrunched down, hoping
they wouldn't recognize me as a Protestant.

After a few minutes, when no grim-faced usher had tapped me on
the shoulder and jerked his thumb back toward the door -- "Come
on, pal, hit the road; we know you're not Catholic" -- I began
to relax. I gaped at the strange but undeniably beautiful interior
of the church.

A few moments later, Scott strode to the podium and began his
talk with a prayer. When he made the sign of the cross, I knew
he had truly jumped ship. My heart sank.

Poor Scott,
I thought, and groaned inwardly.
The Catholics duped
him with their clever arguments.

I listened intently to his talk on the Last Supper entitled "The
Fourth Cup," trying hard to detect the errors in his thinking.
But I couldn't find any. (Scott's talk was so good, I plagiarized
most of it in my next communion sermon.)

As he spoke, using Scripture at each step to support Catholic
teaching on the Mass and the Eucharist, I found myself mesmerized
by what I heard. Scott was explaining Catholicism in a way I had
never imagined possible: from the Bible! As he explained them,
the Mass and the Eucharist were not offensive or foreign to me.
At the end of his talk, when Scott issued a stirring call to a
radical conversion to Christ, I wondered if maybe he had feigned
conversion so he could infiltrate the Catholic Church to bring
about renewal and conversion of spiritually dead Catholics.

It didn't take long before I found out.

After the audience's applause subsided, I went up front to see
if he would recognize me. A throng of people with questions surrounded
him. I stood a few feet away and studied his face as he spoke
with his typical charm and conviction to the large knot of people.

Yes, this was the same Scott I knew in seminary. He now sported
a mustache, and I, a seasonal full beard (quite a change from
our clean-cut seminary days). But when he turned in my direction,
his eyes sparkled as he grinned a silent hello.

In a moment, we stood together, our hands clasped in a warm handshake.
He apologized if he had offended me in any way. "No, of course
not!" I assured him as we laughed with the sheer delight of seeing
each other again.

After a few moments of obligatory "How's your wife and family?"
chitchat, I blurted out the one thought on my mind. "I guess it's
true what I heard. Why did you jump ship and become Catholic?"

Scott gave me a brief explanation of his struggle to find the
truth about Catholicism. The throng of people around us listened
intently to his mini-conversion story. He suggested I pick up
a copy of his conversion story tape, which the throng was snapping
up in the vestibule.

We exchanged phone numbers and shook hands again, and I headed
for the back of the church. I found a table covered with tapes
on the Catholic faith by Scott and his wife, Kimberly, as well
as tapes by Steve Wood, another convert to Catholicism who had
studied at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I bought a copy
of each tape and a copy of a book Scott had recommended, Karl
Keating's
Catholicism and Fundamentalism.

Before I left, I stood in the back of the church, taking in for
a moment the strange yet attractive hallmarks of Catholicism:
icons and statues, ornate altar, candles, dark confessional booths.
I stood there for a moment wondering why God had called me to
this place. Then I stepped into the cold night air, my head dizzy
with thought and my heart flooded with a confusing jumble of emotions.

I went to a fast-food restaurant, got a burger for the drive home,
and slipped Scott's conversion tape into the player. I presumed
I would easily discover where he had gone wrong. Before I was
halfway home, however, I had become so overwhelmed with emotion
that I had to pull off the highway to clear my head.

Even though Scott's journey to the Catholic Church was very different
from the one I myself was unknowingly making, the questions he
and I grappled with were essentially the same -- and the answers
he found, which had so drastically changed his life, were very
compelling. His testimony convinced me that the reasons for my
growing dissatisfaction with Protestantism could not be ignored.
The answers to my questions, he claimed, were to be found in the
Catholic Church. The idea pierced me to the core.

I was at once frightened and exhilarated by the thought that God
might be calling me into the Catholic Church. I prayed for a while,
my head resting on the steering wheel, and collected my thoughts
before I started the car again and drove home.

The next day, I opened
Catholicism and Fundamentalism
and read
straight through, finishing the final chapter that night. As I
prepared to retire for the night, I knew I was in trouble! It
was clear to me now that the two central dogmas of the Protestant
Reformation,
sola scriptura
(Scripture alone) and
sola fide
(justification
by faith alone), were on very shaky biblical ground, and therefore
so was I.

My appetite thus whetted, I began reading Catholic books, especially
by the early Church Fathers. Their writings helped me understand
the truth about Catholic history before the Reformation. I spent
countless hours debating with Catholics and Protestants, doing
my best to subject Catholic claims to the toughest biblical arguments
I could find.

Marilyn, as you might guess, was not pleased when I told her about
my struggle with the claims of the Catholic Church. Although at
first she told me, "This too will pass," eventually the things
I was learning began intriguing her, too. So she began studying
for herself.

As I waded through book after book, I shared with her the clear
and common-sense teachings of the Catholic Church I was discovering.
More often than not, we would conclude together how much more
sense and how much truer to Scripture the views of the Catholic
Church seemed than anything we had found in the wide range of
Protestant opinions. There was depth, historical strength, a philosophical
consistency to the Catholic positions we encountered. The Lord
worked an amazing transformation in both our lives, coaxing us
along, side by side, step by step, together all the way.

With all these good things we were finding in the Catholic Church,
however, we were also confronted by some confusing and disturbing
issues. I encountered priests who thought me strange for considering
the Catholic Church. They felt that conversion was unnecessary.

We met Catholics who knew little about their faith and whose lifestyles
conflicted with the moral teachings of their Church. When we attended
Masses, we found ourselves unwelcomed and unassisted by anyone.
Nonetheless, in spite of these obstacles blocking our path to
the Church, we kept studying and praying for the Lord's guidance.

After listening to dozens of tapes and digesting several dozen
books, I knew I could no longer remain a Protestant. It had become
clear that the Protestant answer to church renewal was, of all
things, unscriptural. Jesus had prayed for unity among His followers,
and the Apostles Paul and John had both challenged their followers
to hold fast to the truth they had received, not letting opinions
divide them.

As Protestants, however, we had become infatuated with our freedom,
placing personal opinion over the teaching authority of the Church.
We believed that the guidance of the Holy Spirit was enough to
lead any sincere seeker to the true meaning of Scripture.

The Catholic response to this view is that it is the mission of
the Church to teach with infallible certitude. Christ promised
the Apostles and their successors: "He who listens to you listens
to Me. And he who rejects you rejects Me and rejects the one who
sent Me" (Lk 10:16).

The early Church believed this too. A very compelling passage
by Clement, bishop of Rome, leaped out at me one day while I was
studying Church history. It was written around the same time as
the Gospel of John:

The Apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ;
and Jesus Christ was sent from God. Christ, therefore, is from
God, and the Apostles are from Christ. Both of these orderly arrangements,
then, are by God's will. Receiving their instructions and being
full of confidence on the account of the Resurrection of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and confirmed in faith by the Word of God, they
went forth in the complete assurance of the Holy Spirit, preaching
the good news that the Kingdom of God is coming. Through countryside
and city they preached; and they appointed their earliest converts,
testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future
believers. Nor was this a novelty: for bishops and deacons had
been written about a long time earlier. Indeed, Scripture somewhere
says: "I will set up their bishops in righteousness and their
deacons in faith." (
Epistle to the Corinthians,
42:1 - 5)

Another patristic quote that helped breach the wall of my Protestant
presuppositions was this from Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, written
around the year 180:

When, therefore, we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek
among others the truth, which is easily obtained from the Church.
For the Apostles, like a rich man in a bank, deposited with her
most copiously everything that pertains to the truth; and everyone,
whosoever wishes, draws from her the drink of life. For she is
the entrance to life, while all the rest are thieves and robbers.
That is why it is surely necessary to avoid them, while cherishing
with the utmost diligence the things pertaining to the Church,
and to lay hold of the tradition of truth. What then? If there
should be a dispute over some kind of question, ought we not have
recourse to the most ancient Churches in which the Apostles were
familiar, and draw from them what is clear and certain in regard
to that question? What if the Apostles had not in fact left writings
for us? Would it not be necessary to follow the order of tradition,
which was handed down to those to whom they entrusted the Churches?
(
Against Heresies,
3, 4, 1)

I studied the causes for the Reformation. The Catholic Church
of that day was truly in need of renewal, but Martin Luther and
the other Reformers chose the wrong, the
unbiblical
, method for
dealing with the problems they saw in the Church. The correct
route was and still is just what my Presbyterian friend had told
me: Don't leave the Church; don't break the unity of faith. Work
for genuine reform based on God's plan, not man's, achieving it
through prayer, penance, and good example.

I could no longer remain Protestant. To do so meant I must deny
Christ's promise to guide and protect His Church and to send the
Holy Spirit to lead it into all truth. (See Mt 16:18 - 19, 18:18,
28:20; Jn 14:16, 25, 16:13.) But I couldn't bear the thought of
becoming a Catholic. I'd been taught for so long to despise "Romanism"
that, even though intellectually I had discovered Catholicism
to be true, I had a hard time shaking my emotional prejudice against
the Church.

One key difficulty was the psychological adjustment to the complexity
of Catholic theology. By contrast, my form of Protestantism was
simple: Admit you're a sinner, repent of your sins, accept Jesus
as your personal Savior, trust in Him to forgive you, and you're
saved.