Part 9: Unity

• Busted

Many months had passed.  I was just sitting down at the table to work on a paper for graduate school, when I realized my laptop was dead.  

“Dang it,” I muttered to myself.  I sat back in my chair, resting both arms on my now-enormous belly.  I was eight months pregnant with our first child, and it certainly felt like it. 

I closed my eyes, remembering that my power cord was all the way upstairs, and tried to convince myself that the success of my graduate education indeed was worth the effort of climbing all those steps again.

My eyes snapped open.  There, across the kitchen table, was my husband’s computer.  Surely he wouldn’t mind if I used it? 

“Babe, can I use your computer?”  I called halfheartedly in the general direction of the staircase.  Knowing he wouldn’t mind, I opened it and pulled up the internet.

It was taking forever to load, and I realized the problem: there were about twenty-five tabs being re-loaded at the same time, slowing down the process.  Squinting at the screen, I began clicking the tabs one by one, wondering why there were so many. 

“What on earth…”  I murmured out loud.  All twenty-plus pages began flashing across the screen as I clicked each tab.  “Steve Ray, By Faith Alone,” “Patrick Madrid on Sola Scriptura,” “Steve Gregg vs. Tim Staples, Catholic vs Protestant Tradition/The Papacy/The Eucharist,” “Fr. Mitch Pacwa and Mr. Kenneth Samples, A Catholic-Protestant Debate.” 

It went on and on, representing about fifty hours of content. 

I was beyond confused.  What in the world was going on?

• The Shock of a Lifetime

Over the prior months, my Catholic research had essentially died out. While my parents and youngest brothers had since become Catholic, this hadn’t changed anything for Ryan or for me. We were now used to being the token Protestants at the dinner table during family reunions, and we always felt totally loved and accepted by my family – even during theological conversations about our disagreements.

By now, I had spent the past two years sporadically picking Ryan’s brain about the Protestant response to the Catholic claims I encountered – through conversations with Brendan, or Beatrice, or through my own reading. Every single time, Ryan had been absolutely unflinching in his conclusion that Catholicism was wrong, and Protestantism – or, “mere Christianity” – was right.  Every conversation would end the same way – with Ryan convinced that he was correct, and with me convinced that I had more research to do.   

Which was why I couldn’t believe my eyes as I sat at our kitchen table, looking at the tabs on his computer screen.  

What was he doing?

I closed Ryan’s computer and stared off into space, trying to understand.

In my own heart, Catholicism had continued to allure me. Whether I was researching it or not, it seemed like it was always just there, steady in the background, of everything I read and thought.  For years, Ryan’s questions and push-back had driven me to deeper study – but that had always been a totally solitary search.  This whole time, he had never intentionally dedicated a moment to his own research.  He never thought it was worth his time, and none of our preceding conversations had ever interested him nor moved him an inch.

So what on earth was happening now?  

“Hey babe, did you call me?”  Ryan’s voice startled me out of my thoughts, and I realized he had just walked into the kitchen. 

“Oh, hey, darling,” I said, shoving my chair back loudly and standing up.  

He looked at me questioningly, and I realized I was simply standing there, staring at him. 

“Um, yeah,” I began, standing awkwardly next to the table, hoping I sounded like I hadn’t just made the strangest discovery of my life.  

“I was just asking if I could borrow your computer for a minute,” I continued, gesturing lamely to the closed laptop on the table.

“Definitely,” he said, turning away and heading to the fridge, where he began filling a cup of water.  He walked back around the island toward me, leaning up against the dishwasher.  

“Well, I already started to use it,” I said, slowly, still totally uncertain how to bring up what I’d seen. “But, um, you had a ton of tabs open,” I rushed on, “and I saw you’d been listening to a lot of Catholic stuff.”  I was talking very loudly, while also trying to sound as disinterested as humanly possible.  “So, um, did you learn anything?”  I asked.   “Or not really?”  I added, hastily.  

He looked at me some more, still holding his water cup in his hand.  The seconds ticked by. 

“Well,” he said, finally.  “I’m pretty sure I’m becoming Catholic.”  

• Not kidding

I gaped at my husband, my mouth dangling inches from the floor.  Then I recovered. 

“That is not funny, Ryan,” I said, realizing my heart was racing. 

Ryan kept looking at me across the kitchen.  

“What?”  He said.  “No, I’m serious.  I’m pretty sure I’m becoming Catholic.”

I stared at my husband.  “No, you’re not.” 

“Yes, I am.” 

I resisted the urge to stomp my foot like an angry toddler. 

“Ryan, DO NOT mess with me about this.  I’m being serious!”  

He half-laughed, then became serious once more.  

“Margaret, I promise, I’m being serious.  I’ve actually been researching Catholicism non-stop, for weeks.” 

I was stunned. Researching Catholicism? For weeks?

I couldn’t speak.  This was such a complete 180-degree shift from the preceding months – even years – of conversations we’d had.  I felt like I’d fallen asleep and woken up on another planet where my husband was suddenly saying things that, until seconds ago, I’d been one hundred percent positive he would never, ever say. 

“In all honesty, I used to think your interest had to do with wanting to be more united with your family,” he continued.  “I couldn’t think of any other plausible reason for why you seemed drawn to understanding the Catholic faith. Now, I’m realizing there could be something there that I’d never seen before.” 

“I am going to be so mad at you if you are pulling my leg,” I said, crossing my arms over my belly, as if to protect our baby from any tomfoolery I was still half-certain my husband was playing on me.  

I stared at my husband some more, trying to discern if he was serious or not. 

“I still have questions,” Ryan said.  “But I’ll say this, I’m pretty sure I’m headed toward Catholicism.  At the very least, I don’t feel comfortable as a Protestant anymore.” 

My mouth dropped open again.

I couldn’t believe it. I absolutely, completely, could not believe it.

“What happened?”  I asked. 

• An unexpected journey

Ryan moved over to the kitchen table and sat down, and I followed suit.  

“Remember last month when your mom came to visit?  The three of us were sitting in the family room talking one evening, and you fell asleep?”

I instantly knew the night he was referencing.  It was a night we were talking about church, and I could feel the conversation beginning to steer toward Catholicism and Protestantism.  My parents had raised us in the Catholic Church, but we’d all become very anti-Catholic Evangelicals when I was in middle school.  When my parents began engaging the same questions as Beatrice and Brendan a few years ago, they gradually read their way back into the Catholic Church, concluding that it contained the fullness of the faith.  

Normally, a potential Catholic-Protestant conversation would keep me wide awake, no matter how tired I was.  But that night, for whatever reason, I felt a sudden and heavy stupor fall on me as their conversation began. I remembered lying down on the couch and instantly falling asleep.

“Well, while you slept,” Ryan said, “I asked your mom what she thought of our church service that day.  She had a lot of nice things to say about it, but then she said something that really struck me.”

“What did she say?”  I asked, sitting on the edge of my seat. 

“She said, “I just wish we had more unity as Christians.”” 

He looked out the window for a moment, before looking back at me.   

“All I could think to say in response was, “yeah, me too.”  For some reason, at that moment, the tragedy of Christian division hit me harder than it ever had.  I don’t know what it was about that night.  I know we’ve talked about unity a hundred times before, and it’s something I’ve thought about throughout my whole life as a follower of Jesus, ever since I began taking faith seriously in high school.  I even remember sitting down to my interview for seminary and the panel asking, “we see you were baptized Catholic, raised Methodist, went to an Assemblies of God college, interned at a Presbyterian church, and now you are applying to an Evangelical divinity school – what kind of Protestant are you, exactly?””  

Ryan laughed, remembering the moment.  “My response was, “I don’t know, I was hoping you could help me figure that out!””     

He shook his head and continued. 

“I’ve always been passionate about unity.  As a youth pastor, I’ve always tried to do things with other churches in town.  But it was always so weird how different churches went their separate ways at the end of a retreat, camp, or mission trip.  At the end of the day, we were still divided.  I never knew what to do with that.  The reality of Christian division sometimes even leads to an unintended and inevitable competitive spirit between Christian churches.  Everyone wants to be successful in their mission, grow attendance, and be attractive to more and more people – but very often, the success of one church is at the expense of another church right down the road.  This has always felt ‘off’ to me.  We all share the same basic mission, but we can’t get on the same page enough theologically to function as a united church.  It has always struck me as odd, and made me very uncomfortable.”  

“Ever since being in a leadership position at a church, I’ve tried to teach our students to love God, share their faith, and work together with other Christians – regardless of their denomination,” he went on. 

“For years and years, I was convinced that the answer to Christian division lies in setting aside our differences – baptism, eschatology, sacraments, gifts of the spirit, or church government.  I mean, I thought all of these questions had to be set aside in order to have some level of unity among Christians.  As long as we focus on Jesus and how He saved us, we should be good, right?  And sure, Jesus commands unity.  But obviously, we aren’t going to agree on everything, and there’s no one to settle our many thousands of denominational disputes – so we all just had to do the best we could.”

He sighed, pausing as he thought.

“What your mom said that night wasn’t anything new, but for the first time, my normal response to division – that we can just ‘set aside our differences’ and accept denominationalism – felt like a pathetic response to the ache of God’s heart: that we would be one, as He and Christ are one.”

He paused once more.  

“The ache of God became my own ache that night.”  

We sat in silence for a moment.  I could see the pain on his face, and hear it in his voice. 

“What happened next?”  I asked. 

“I went to bed that night feeling extremely unsettled.  What was the answer to this lack of unity that Jesus commands us to have? I thought about it for a while. I understood that, in this life, we will never achieve a perfect unity as Christians. Even from the very beginning of the church, there were divisions and arguments – even Paul and Barnabas went their separate ways. Life is messy, and problems can be expected. What doesn’t make sense is that God would command unity, but not leave us a way to achieve it. I knew Catholicism offered an answer, but, obviously I thought it couldn’t be true.  But embracing theological relativism felt just as bad, and my solution of ‘setting aside our differences’ had never led to the unity of “one faith, one Lord, one baptism” that Paul describes.  Yes, we had a unity of love, but Christ was still being divided. It makes sense that divisions will arise, but it makes no sense that God wouldn’t leave us a means for getting back on the same page when we start reading the Bible differently. Why didn’t Jesus leave us a way to resolve our differences?  I didn’t have an answer.  Then the next morning we were organizing the baby’s room, remember?” 

I nodded.  “I remember.”

“We were sorting clothes and I asked if anyone had a good talk or podcast to listen to.  Your mom suggested “Faith Alone?” by Steve Ray.  Well, I’m not sure if you noticed how closely I was listening to the talk.”  

He paused, gathering his thoughts.   

• A comprehensive hermeneutic

“Here I was, the problem of unity like a gaping hole in my mind, when this talk started.  As we listened, it really rattled me.  Essentially, it showed me that the Catholic position on justification was thoroughly Biblical, and that it could harmonize all the relevant Scriptural data better than my long-held Protestant view.”

He shook his head vehemently.

“I can’t explain how startling this was.  This brought up something else that had long-bothered me.  All my life, in all my theological studies, I’d learned to interpret Scripture in light of other Scriptures – which is a good principle.  But the talk brought me face to face with the fact that this method can be misused: interpreting Scripture in light of other scripture is well and good, provided it doesn’t result in neglecting countless Scriptures at their face value.”

He leaned forward in his seat, seeing I wasn’t tracking.

“Let me explain.  I’d always known that various Christian denominations make certain verses primary in developing their theological system.  It is common to elevate certain passages over others, and interpret “less-significant” Scriptures in light of what is believed to be the more “essential ones,”” he began.  “For example, if Matthew 25:31-46 seemed to teach something at odds with an element of Protestant doctrine, we would reinterpret its meaning based on what we already believe Romans or Ephesians to be saying.  As a result, like in this example, Paul’s epistles came to carry more weight in our theology than Matthew.”

He went on.

“If you’re a Calvinist, as another example, Romans 9:10-15 carries more weight than Romans 2:5-8, 2 Peter 3:9, and I Timothy 2:4.  A particular interpretation of Romans 9 is assumed, and then everything else is forced to fit into that paradigm.  Romans 2:5-8 must bend the knee to Ephesians 2: 5-8.  In this paradigm of using Scripture to interpret Scripture, you simply explain away verses that don’t harmonize with your theology by claiming that other passages are more important.”

“I was always okay with this.  But for the first time, when listening to Steve Ray talk about the Catholic teaching of justification, I was hearing that another approach – the Catholic one – can beautifully harmonize all the Scriptural data.  Romans, Ephesians, and the Gospels could finally get on the same page and be friends. Those obstinate verses in the Gospels could finally be taken at face value.”

He scooted forward in his chair, becoming more and more animated.

“I have never seriously considered Catholicism before.  But now, suddenly, it’s like a door was opened.  What Steve Ray did in this talk was defend the Catholic position  while making sense of all of Scripture.  This is what shook me.  For all my life, to make the Protestant view work, I had to admit that some passages were ‘more essential’ than others.  But in Steve Ray’s explanation, all the verses made sense, on their own.  There was a way to hold all these verses together, without elevating some passages while ignoring others!  All the passages I’d had problems with over the years, Steve Ray was able to explain as a whole.  He didn’t need to reinterpret some passages in light of his interpretation of other passages.  Instead, he showed that Catholic theology could hold all Scripture together in defense of its position.”

He shook his head, visibly flustered.

“This was very shocking to me.  I’d never heard a Biblical case for a Catholic perspective before, let alone witnessed the application of a hermeneutic that could incorporate every relevant Scripture passage.  Again, I felt rattled.”

I sat at the table, staring hard at my husband.  I still couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. 

• An existential crisis

“Next,” he continued, “I watched a five hour debate between a Catholic named Tim Staples and a Protestant, Steve Gregg, on four big issues that divide Catholics and Protestants.”

“A five hour debate?”

He nodded.

“At one point in the debate, Steve Gregg, the Protestant, made an interesting comment about Tim Staples.  He said that Staples had a ‘ready position’ in Catholicism – that he was confined to the Catholic Tradition, instead of having a debate over every word of Scripture.  Gregg was reading the Greek, studying the historical context, and coming to his own conclusions on every point – sounding Baptist on one issue, Presbyterian on another, Fundamentalist on another, and so on.  What struck me was that Gregg was right.  Tim Staples, the Catholic, was limited to one interpretation – the Catholic one – on every single issue.   Gregg could come up with whatever denomination’s interpretation he wanted, utilizing whichever approach he thought made the most sense and could defeat the Catholic teaching.  But despite this huge advantage for Gregg, Tim Staples was winning the debate!  He seemed to just absolutely dominate Gregg on every issue. I was shocked by how effortlessly these Catholic doctrines were being defended, and how much ammunition Tim Staples had to refute every Protestant attack.”  

“The Catholic argument made the most sense throughout the whole debate, and I realized I was very much beginning an existential crisis.”  

He rubbed his face with his hands and sat slowly back in his chair.  I watched him, waiting for him to continue.

He looked around the kitchen, then looked at me. 

“What if the Catholic argument was just as sound, on every issue?  What else don’t I know?  What if I only thought the Catholic position was false, because I’d never heard a knowledgeable Catholic defend it?  It’s not like we were reading Tim Staples and Steve Ray in seminary.  I’d mostly only ever heard the Protestant articulation – and refutation – of Catholicism.  What else did the Catholic Church have to say, on every other topic that divides us?”

“So over the next few weeks I began listening to more debates, and doing a ton of reading.”

He paused.  

“I’ve already become convinced that Sola Scriptura is unbiblical, and insufficient.”

My mouth dropped open once more.  “Wow,” I said, barely getting the word out.    

“I know.  I had so many questions, and I knew I needed to find the answers immediately.  I desperately wanted to know the absolute best Protestant response to these Catholic positions, because what I had in my Protestant apologist arsenal was utterly insufficient.  I even emailed one of my old seminary professors, one of the most highly respected New Testament scholars in the world, explaining my existential crisis and asking for help.”

“What did he say?”  I asked, immediately.  

“Not much,” Ryan replied.  “He recommended a book, which I bought and started reading. But if anything, that book is explaining new things about Catholicism to me which I find to be thoroughly reasonable – even after pages of scrutiny.”  

Ryan shook his head, sighing heavily.  “So, ever since, I’ve been immersing myself in countless Catholic-Protestant topics, like apostolic succession, papal infallibility, and the Eucharist.  It’s like seeing the world in a whole new light.  In those first 48 hours after talking to your mom,  I felt like a crazy person.  Within two weeks, I was pretty sure I would one day be Catholic.  At the very least, I knew I was no longer comfortable embracing Protestant theology.”

I shook my head, still feeling completely shocked.  

• A new road

“I’ve researched a ton already, but there’s still so much I don’t fully understand. There are still Catholic teachings I haven’t wrapped my mind around yet, that are especially hard to embrace after growing up entrenched in the Protestant paradigm,” he continued. “I’m also looking into Orthodoxy and Anglicanism while continuing to research debated topics.  But when issue after issue – all the major ones – time and time again point to Catholicism being true, well…”

He shook his head again, looking out the window once more.  

We were both quiet for a few moments, allowing these earth-shattering ideas to fully sink in. ‘Existential crisis’ didn’t seem to cover it.  It suddenly seemed like his job, our future – everything we thought our lives would be like – was now hanging over the edge of a precipice, and I had no idea where we would land.  It was terrifying.

“This is all so insane,” Ryan said.  “I just want the truth, but it’s so odd to also find the truth to be kind of repulsive right now – so antithetical to everything I thought I knew before, and totally changing the way I see everything.  I have never, ever had any intention of becoming Catholic.” 

He shrugged, rubbing his head and then getting up from the table. 

“I’m not sure where all this leads us, and I’m sure we could still potentially encounter evidence that makes Catholicism a non-starter. But if Catholicism is true, then, really, nothing else matters.  I don’t care how much I invested in my Protestant theological training.  I just want to embrace the truth.” 

I stood up as well, astonished at the total humility of my husband, and aghast at all that had transpired since I had first sat down and opened his computer.  

I walked over to Ryan and hugged him, my big belly between us, as we stood in the kitchen for several moments, each lost in our own thoughts.

I’d thought that welcoming our first baby and becoming new parents would be the biggest upheaval in our lives for the foreseeable future.  But now it felt like the entire roadmap of our existence had been suddenly blown away in the wind.  I’d been considering Catholicism for years, but I had never imagined a day where Ryan would begin to feel the same terrifying pull – where these interesting theological concepts might actually demand everything, change everything, for us.

“I still have a lot I want to learn,” Ryan said,  “and I know you have your own things to think through.”  He let go of me and pushed his chair back into the table.  “I have no idea what our future holds, but I’m glad we can keep learning and seeking together, and just follow God where He takes us.” 

I nodded, still at a loss for words.  

“I’m going to meet with our pastor soon,” Ryan said, referring to his boss.  “I want to talk to him about all of this, and see what he thinks.” 

I nodded in agreement.  Our pastor was the most fatherly and kind man we knew, and I knew he’d love and support us, no matter what.  

“I also scheduled a meeting at St. Dominic with Fr. Michael next week, and, since you’ve busted me in my Catholic research,” Ryan paused, grinning at me, “I think you should come so we can all talk together.”  He started to leave the room.

My heart was reeling, and I knew I’d need weeks to process all of this.  

Another thought leapt into my mind.

“Wait a second,” I called out to him.  “Did you and my mom talk about anything else, that night I fell asleep?”

“Yes,” Ryan said.  He paused in the doorway.  “I asked her what it was like to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.” 

We looked at each other for a moment. 

“What did she say?”  I asked.

“She said it was like what the disciples said on the road to Emmaus: “were our hearts not burning within us?”” 

We looked at each other again, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. 

Our hearts were burning too.