There was no great epiphany which pulled me from the narrow views of my youth. I recall going to my first Catholic service with Johndc, and I have to say I hated the whole thing. It must have been in the early 1970s, and it was one of the new vernacular services. There was kind of rugby scrum for communion, some hymns best passed over in silence (and best sung in it too) and a sermon which in my place would have been clearing your throat. But there was certainly nothing there to cause even the most rabid of my fellow Baptists to protest about. What jarred most for me was the Bible used. The King James has prose of such sonorous beauty that even then it was build into my consciousness. Whatever version that church used, it sounded like addressing the milkman.
So much for my first encounter with the great beast of Babylon. As I began to meet other Catholics I discovered, surprise, that they were just like many Anglicans I knew. Compared with my fellow Baptists, none of them seemed to know their way around the Bible, and the Old Testament was foreign territory to them. I gained myself an entirely undeserved reputation as a Bible scholar by being able to recite large sections of St. Paul’s epistles by heart. Any Baptist would have done the same.
That was the real difference back then. Thanks to my friend dc I met some Catholic clergymen, and they struck me as much like other clergy I had met – a mixed bunch. Good men as they were, they, too, generally lacked the easy familiarity with the Bible I knew from home.
It was only then that it hit me that this was a general difference between the folk I’d grown up with, and the more established churches. We focussed on that Book because our eternal salvation depended on it. But try to get most of us to engage in any conversation about church history before the Reformation, and most of my lot knew nothing.
As an historian of sorts, I’d overcome that defect, but it was a serious one, I came to see. So much of what we argued about had been argued about by men long before us – and our ignorance of that seemed shaming. If the Catholics seemed untutored in the words of Scripture, they seemed better informed about Tradition and its importance.
It seemed to me then, as it has since, that in a way marvellous to behold, Providence had supplied in each what the other wanted. It was back then that I though that far from being the work of Belial as I had been taught, there was something to be said for ecumenism.
I detested, and still do, the idea that we pretend there are no differences; you get nowhere worth going like that. But the idea we have nothing to learn from each other is equally nonsensical. Yes, I know, and I have heard Orthodox and Catholics tell me they have the fullness of the Faith. Aye, well, perhaps so – but not one of the people I ever spoke, or speak to, actually has it in himself, and it seems to me we’ve learned from each other – partly by osmosis.
Bedford Gaol 
Concur, almost completely.
The only difference in my experience is that serious Lutherans tend to lean a bit more than most Protestants on history before the Reformation-not nearly as much as Catholics but more than most, perhaps because Luther was an Augustinian, but I really don’t know.
For the rest, I couldn’t agree more.
Thank you.
You’re welcome 🙂
Geoffrey – ummm – so what you’re saying is, ‘I went to a Catholic service and it was awful, but they seem to be better at ‘tradition’ than Protestants, and know an awful lot about the early church and church fathers, so perhaps we can learn something from them.’
I find this questionable to say the least, on several fronts.
Firstly, perhaps you found the Baptists with whom you associated didn’t know anything about the early church, but it’s possible that you were in with a bad crowd. That’s not my experience – except that I acknowledge that I found it very hard to find a church where I felt comfortable and avoided those where I didn’t.
My own experience, though, when I eventually did find a church where I could listen to the ministry, was quite different. Emil Bruner’s ‘The Mediator’ figured strongly in my own background and there Bruner quotes Irenaeus very liberally, with a serious understanding of him, his theology. I ended up reading Bruner, because this book was recommended to us in a church sermon in a Presbyeterian Church of Scotland. I’m not C. of S. – I don’t go with their stance on Infant Baptism, but when I was an undergraduate, I attended a C. of S. which was the best show in town. In that church, we were invited *from the pulpit* to read works that discussed the early church and the contribution of the church fathers – so my experience is somewhat different from yours.
I’d also say that I’ve found no shortage of serious works written by ‘protestants’ that show a clear understanding of the early church fathers (for example, ‘The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ’ by Martin Hengel. I haven’t checked his affiliation, but I don’t think that Martin Hengel is Catholic).
I did learn something from Catholic commentators – I found Raymond Brown’s take on 1 John rather intriguing – and the reason I like Hengel is that it is basically a polemic against the ‘community’ view that the Catholic commentator Raymond Brown (in common with theologians from the German protestant tradition such as Bultmann) took.
My orientation is basically Baptist, but I find that I can learn an awful lot from Anglicans. For example, C.K. Barrett is an Anglican, who is well worth reading. Also, JAT Robinson’s ‘Priority of John’ is probably the best book I have come across on John’s gospel, proving that it really was an eye witness account. JAT Robinson may have been theologically liberal, but textual he was extremely conservative and this makes his work invaluable.
Catholic commentators? I tried working through Raymond Brown’s commentary on John’s gospel, but it really does present a way of looking at things that doesn’t suit me; I’m convinced that it would not have helped bring me to Christ had I tried reading it before I believed.
I think that what you’re really saying is that in JohnDC you found someone whose life was clearly governed by the Spirit of God. This really made you sit up and take notice, because up to that point you had made certain assumptions about saved people and their worship. You had to accommodate this into your understanding, that whatever his affiliation (he was Catholic), however he worshipped God and whatever else was present in his faith, he was one of the Saviour’s family.
I’ve encountered exactly the same situation – people whose lives are clearly governed by the Spirit of God, who are Catholic. But I don’t reach the same conclusions as you do about their Tradition and it is not my experience that they have a better understanding of the early church.
With apologies for being negative.
No problem there Jock. We can all, on this sort of thing, only talk from where we’ve been, and I daresay there’s much in your view that the set with whom I was associated were not interested in pre-Protestant tradition. That wasn’t a comment, or at least wasn’t meant to be one, about anything more general – ditto about Catholics.
I am a keen reader of the Catholic ‘Sacra Pagina’ commentaries on Sacred Scripture, and find them most interesting, and, in the main, non-partisan.
And yes, and of course, you’re right about Johndc – he made me rethink my assumptions. He was one with whom the Spirit walked, and my assumptions about Catholics could not be right. That was good for me.
It didn’t lead me to even think about going anywhere near the Tiber. But it did make me realise that I shouldn’t regard it as I had done.
Geoffrey – you seem to be much more tolerant than I am. While recognising that the lives of certain people, who worship in different ways from me, and whose ‘intellectual’ beliefs seem opposed to my own, really are governed by the Spirit of God, I have found it very difficult to go along to, and participate in, their worship.
I have sat through Catholic services and I didn’t like them so much, but they weren’t nearly as bad as others I could mention. Until I reached my mid – 30’s, I had this idea that one should go to church whether one liked it or not. The theory was that this was where God had put me and that I should try and make myself useful within that context.
It was approximately 2001, when every single church in town was uniformly awful (Free Evangelical, Missionskyrkan, Svenskakyrkan) that I decided that Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest and that it was not His will that my Sabbath rest should be destroyed by such rubbish. It was sooooo liberating.
Even if one does come to the conclusion that one has met a true Christian, I’ve decided that perhaps it’s best for Christian fellowship if one doesn’t necessarily share Sunday worship with that person (sharing a bible study or a conversation is probably much better) – and it seems to me that I’m much less tolerant than you of theological nonsense within church.
Aye, well Jock, we are have different levels of tolerance, and my own isn’t widely admired by those who know me.
But yes, I think I have come to a level of it with regard to Christian practice which would have surprised the youthful me.
As Christians have always gathered together to give praise and to remember the Lord, it has always seemed good to me to do likewise; that there are times when I feel like you is, for the Calvinist in me, sufficient reason not to do it.
At my own chapel, we major in Bible study, and the pastor’s sermon is always the subject for Thursday’s Bible class. It is a good way to go.
It’s sad to think that both of you had such a bad experience at a Catholic Mass. It might have been that no one explained what whole concept from the physical lay out of the Church was tied to both the Old and New Testament and what the concept of both the Mass and it’s three distinct parts meant.
It might be instructive for you to approach one of your Catholic friends your local Priest or possible go to Michael Cumbie’s website to view his video. This way at least you can hate it with understanding.
David – please don’t think that (in my case) this is anything particularly anti-Catholic; rather, it’s anti- what- is- served- up- as- an- act- of- worship- in- general and my experience of Catholic churches hasn’t been too bad.
When I have gone along to a Catholic church, I have had the impression of being in the company of sensible and sane people – my main problem with it is that I feel I have totally wasted my time if the sermon is 10 minutes long at most and these 10 minutes are filled with inconsequential things from someone who doesn’t seem to have command of Scripture.
I think that my worst experience was a church service by a Pentecostalist group. I didn’t know the denomination before I went in, or I would probably never have darkened its doors. But a friend of mine, who seemed sane and sensible in ‘real life’ wanted to take me there. It turned out that it was from the ‘Livets Ord’ group (‘Word of Life’ – it was in Södermalm, Stockholm) and, while Pentecostalism is weird to begin with, ‘Livets Ord’ take this weirdness to its logical conclusion. If you have ever experienced such a thing, then you know that, whatever semblance of sanity those people give outside the church, if they are prepared to start ‘speaking in tongues’, or be ‘in the Spirit’ (!) during their church service, then they really are basically insane and not in a good way. The pastor, in his sermon, seemed to think that if he started shouting, then this would somehow improve his communication skills (always a sign that someone really has nothing to say – but something that you would never ever expect to find within a church where people are supposed to be worshipping God). I remember one part of the sermon, which proved that they were satanic loonies, with the mark of the beast 666 stamped all over them – the pastor said that there had been 4000 years from the beginning of creation to the coming of Christ, there had been 2000 years after the coming of Christ, we were now entering the 7th millenium and since 7 was a magic number we could expect wacky things to happen soon …..
With apologies for giving in detail a particularly bad experience among satanists (who were ‘protestant’ and had absolutely nothing to do with the Church of Rome) – I simply want to point out that my problem with Catholic services was that they seemed from my point of view to be content free, but I felt as if I was surrounded by sane and normal people – and I have had experiences among the ‘protestants’ which really were much, much worse.
One thing I find worrying – I’m now living in a very Catholic country and I see that rather many of the Catholic churches around here are offering Alpha courses. I know that the Alpha course is really bad news, so I wonder why they are interacting with the worst that the ‘Protestants’ have to offer. Alpha has a strong charismatic element and if they take it seriously, then I’ll have to revise my opinion of them downwards.
Whereas in most Protestant Faiths the center of the service is the Pastor and sermon, in the Catholic Church you’ll notice that the Altar is in the center, as Christ is the center and the pulpit is to the side as the Priest is secondary as is the homily. The quality of the homily is not much we can do about.
I earnestly suggest you visit Michael Cumbie’s website and view his video, and get someone to explain to you the purpose of the Mass.
I will. I understand the purpose of the Mass and respect it. But it is not correct to suppose that a Protestant service is about the Pastor – he is simply the teacher and the messenger – it is about the message.
David – As Geoffrey said, the centre of a protestant service is supposed to be The Word, the gospel of Jesus Christ, convincing people of their sins and leading them to trust that Christ was crucified on their behalf, for their sins, and that in his resurrection their sins have been dealt with. The Word is supposed to speak to the individual; the individual has to be convicted of sin and led to trust in Christ. In this sense there isn’t supposed to be any idea of ‘corporate guilt’ (as one finds in the works of heretics such as NT Wright) and it isn’t the function of the church to speak out on government policy, no matter how ludicrous that government policy may be. The idea is that, through the bible reading, sermon, hymns and prayers, Christ speaks to each individual, convicting the individual of his or her sins; any church where the sermon is directed against those nasty people outside who never darken the doors of a church, unlike those of us listening to it, has entirely missed the point.
(Apologies for the digression – this has been on my mind recently).
That, at any rate, is the theory, which seems to me (unfortunately) more honoured in the breach than in the observance. I think it’s precisely when there seems to be some sort of A-team, putting themselves at the centre of attention that I decide ‘I’ve had enough of this’ and choose not to darken the doors of a particular church again.
Of course, I know what is supposed to be going on in a Catholic mass. I know a bit about the Catholic church, sufficient to see the similarities, and also the very great differences, between the idea of ‘altar’ in modern Catholicism and ‘altar’ in OT thinking. The main difference is that the Catholic church re-presents the sacrifice. We ‘protestants’ take a different view of what is meant by ‘once for all’.
I’m quite taken with Raymond Brown (a Catholic theologian) and how his views on John’s gospel developed. In the beginning, the authorship of John’s gospel was (for him) the beloved disciple. But at some point, he seems to have decided (and this I agree with) that John’s gospel was anti-sacramental. John, against Matthew, Mark and Luke, pointedly placed the crucifixion the day before passover and there is one little verse which seems out of place at the end of the 14th chapter, ‘Come, let us now leave’. The only function of this verse seems to be to exclude the possibility of a Last Supper and the words of institution of the Eucharist and to declare that the synoptics had got it all wrong on this point. At the same time, his ideas of authorship had been developing and later, he no longer seems to think that the BD was the author of the gosple. His ideas of ‘The Johannine Community’ were developing; his book ‘The Community of the Beloved Disciple’, a commentary on 1 John, makes for truly wacky reading – a community that is tearing itself apart and the internal contradictions within the community can be seen in the internal contradictions of 1 John (contradictions which I don’t think are there – it’s the fact that Brown sees them and his reasoning that is interesting).
All this simply to say that there are serious disagreements, which date back to the disciples themselves, about the nature of the Eucharist.
Michael Cumbie was raised Baptist went Pentecostal then Evangelical then Episcopalian then Catholic. He was preacher and is full of humour.
You can find many of his videos on YouTube just by typing in his name. Here is a series of three about the Mass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPxZiUcHXs0&feature=share&list=PL5FC4269666DA81E5
Thank you David.