Journey Home - 08-22-2011 - Former Pentecostal - Marcus Grodi with Brent Stubbs

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program I hope you've been having a good summer now summer is winding down and many of us are getting ready for classes to start and all of our families are bustling around getting ready for them the fall but I've got another good conversion story that I want you to hear brent stubs as a former Pentecostal he's joined us but as we'll talk in a moment just the term Pentecostal has to be defined and clarified because it for many of our minds it means a lot of things but I can tell you one thing it wasn't it wasn't Catholic is that right breath yes welcome to the journey home it's great to have you out in the program but as I said the word Pentecostal as a label means a lot of things certainly does I grew up in my parents and my father actually had a kind of conversion spirit experience about 19 went into a church and a front was a guy playing a Fender Strat he's a guitarist and found out that up front the church was Assemblies of God and that my wife they met his wife there my mother and so subsequently I grew up in the Assemblies of God which in the history of Pentecostalism was was kind of a later development if you know the whole thing's kind of a later development to begin with but 20 or so years into Pentecostalism itself because it had begun back in Azusa Street right now for you about hundred or so years ago correct and I wanted I didn't want get you off on into the description phase to my fault on that but just our audience needs to know that which happens often even when we say former Anglican what does that mean it has a lot of layers to it and Pentecostal brings with it a lot of different layers we begin with your story way back when you really come from a long route though a very committed Christian men and women absolutely and I feel very fortunate to have been born into a family where the Christian faith came with cane was just part of the the ritual I mean we I never doubted God's existence I was very fortunate to have two parents who loved the Lord very very much my father had had the this conversion experienced a radical conversion experience as well as my mother and their late teens and they met each other and and my mother asked my father for her did you need a ride home and the rest is history but it was my mother's side her grandfather my great-great-grandfather built the first Assemblies of God Church in Georgia and on my father's side it's kind of a long history going back of kind of street preachers evangelists who would you know my grandmother's mother was known for going on casino ships and pushing over tables and playing her guitar and calling calling sinners to repent so it's in the genes all right so your parents had been brought up with the Assembly of God background both of them and that's where they experience their own rebirth faith within that tradition well it was kind of the they picked that denomination from the get-go and so that was the denomination I grew up in and so with that in the Assemblies of God or any would you say Trinitarian Pentecostal denomination there was a a firm a ssin of the charismatic gifts so I grew up with tongues interpretations of tongues those kind of experiences and a belief in miracles and so that was that was always a part of my psyche it was that God was present His Eminence what it was always in my consciousness I can never remember a time where I doubted God did did the Assembly of God Church that you brought up in and I'm asking that specifically because it isn't the same all across the board did it see itself as a renewal movement from the rest of Protestantism or did it see itself as a break away from the Catholic Church well I think it's a good question because Pentecostalism in general is the former not the latter it basically you know Pentecostals see themselves as saying okay the classical Protestantism has gone astray and particularly you see its development in the early 20th century you know it was this notion of liberal theology had made its way this D emphasis on conversion the Ephesus on holiness so many thought at the end of the 19th century that Protestantism was on its death's door right yeah and so you see in the holiness movement my wife actually her family is Wesley and holiness on that side and so Pentecostalism came out of really the Wesleyan holiness movement and it's a versus the charismatic movement which happens with 60 years later it happens in more mainline Protestant churches right so it was a renewal movement within Protestantism so bringing up was you was there much discussion about the Catholic faith the Catholic Church was that just way out there and so me didn't even think about I think it was way out there my mother admittedly was brought back to the Christian faith by a charismatic Catholic and so I did I wasn't raised in an anti Catholic home we weren't you know I didn't you know we weren't said you know all I knew is they believed stuff that wasn't in the Bible so that was kind of our consciousness of Catholicism maybe we would reference the family that was Catholic they were also Christian so they were Catholic but also Christian so that meant that they believed in Jesus it might have been categorized with other Protestant denominations that believed things that weren't exactly according to Scripture so that's what you would but it wasn't really an option for you growing up was never on the radar so you were brought up from the very early age with a deep commitment to Jesus yes and and had a number of conversion experiences I mean at four years old I can still remember a deep conversion experience my mother told me if if you're not saved you're going to hell if you didn't accept Christ and she just you know basic kind of evangelical gospel I and I had a kind of turning to Christ in and then at twelve again and at various stages of coming into that kind of wrestling with the gospel and fortunately by God's grace I was able to never really stray too far from you know everybody you go through puberty and you deal with all that but uh you know I was very fortunate by God's grace to kind of always stay close to my Christian ethic and and then in high school I really started to feel a call for ministry and so that kind of took on a new shape it was really an environment of a youth group that gave you a chance to practice that is that were the the the revelation came of a call to ministry yes about 14 I had a kind of intense spiritual experience it really felt a call to ministry at this time we had we kind of traveled around churches so we were in the Assemblies and we were in a Baptist Church they had a great youth ministry I have one sister where she's one year younger than me so we went to that church that had the good youth ministry and so the youth pastor there was so kind and generous and mentored me and gave me books and and and kind of nurtured that calling helping me discern the calling as well as giving me opportunities to preach share with with the youth and and then there started to be fruit from that of you know decisions for Christ then we divided to other churches to preach and share and so this kind of started to shape who I was did you catch the bug preaching that what was happening yes catch the bus and I think there was a lot of there was some kind of cultural psychological momentum that was happening and I didn't really come to terms of that till I got to college reason I say that as I remember when when I was about with young life and youth ministry it was the experience of proclaiming the faith in the context of the group meeting and which kind of the bug for preaching you kind of get this sense of the big ol the Big Mo the Big Mo of the momentum comes with preaching and I wonder if you were catching that early at that point what about 17 I started a Bible study in my home and it ended up growing into about about 40 or 50 young people that were coming to my home and this was interesting because it was kind of a charismatic Bible study and the gentleman had recommended that I probably need to have some kind of covering and the Baptist Church was kind of pushing me out the door and so there's a church in town it was a I found out an international Pentecostal Holiness Church was one the original three denominations that was started out of Azusa Street and so you'll find it in main headquarters in Falcon North Carolina and in Oklahoma City Oklahoma they kind of took me in let me kind of have us church if you will as a youth or I was preaching I started doing kind of circuits and preaching a different robot having to do little revival services and so it's kind of an unorthodox senior year Wow so to speak so I would be on my face before God every Friday night praying and studying Scripture and it wasn't your you know it wasn't an average senior experience to say the least when you look back on those years there you were preaching proclaiming the gospel not just to youth but to whatever ages showed up right who were you accountable to as to what you were preaching well I didn't quite realize that tension yeah sure you know I'm I'm a high schooler I'm just wet by yeah I'm still wet behind the ears but I was really really wet behind the ears and I'm just kind of charging forward nobody's telling me to stop everybody's saying it's great and you're reading the Bible interpreting the Bible giving it to the folks right and it was primarily a focus on pursuing Jesus Christ through prayer through holy living and and the experience of the Holy Spirit and so I can look back and say you know I can look back and go man I really said some dumb things yeah but I you know but I was 17 18 years old but I decided to go to Oral Roberts University and had an active a large academic scholarship to go there I was a very good still Robin switch maybe tell the folk is truly a charismatic Pentecostal right environment right it's it's kind of the I call it the charismatic Disneyland I mean it's I mean you know you go there and every kind of charismatic nondenominational church in the u.s. sends their wood beads and hoodies to to to Tulsa Oklahoma to study and what's interesting when I got there to the theology department as I found out all the professor's were from mainline denominations so they shared this sense of a belief in the charismatic yes but they were presbyterian they were Nazarene they were Episcopalian and I even found out one of them was it black oops yeah and we'll mention him later because he's been on my program oh but let me ask you this because Oral Roberts University is a fascinating thing to me because of its kind of evolution hate to use that word in relationship to it but here we have Oral Roberts with his seed faith specific theology right but then you end up with a theology department of mainline Protestant folk that don't all kind of hold to the seed faith own idea of faith did you encounter when you arrived that conflict of those theology well sure there was what was preached in the chapel and then there was what was corrected in the classroom and it was good for me I I kind of reached a crisis point though it was I I finished college in three years I was a good student and fast tracked and was studying with the goal of what were you hoping I'm not sure yet not sure yet as a matter of fact there's a great irony me and two guys another guy from Florida I won't mention his name we both started together we both had a similar background kind of charismatic guys preachers and he's an Orthodox priest now and I'm Catholic so that's kind of so my degree was in theological historical studies and so that ended up my emphasis was an early church pre Nicene church history and then late Protestantism those were kind of my two areas of emphasis and during this is interesting because for many Protestants that's their understanding of church history sure early church boom right you jump over this huge divide in between you have to yeah you have to you really have to start impugning about 1500 years of christians christians yeah thinkers it was just a total time of ignorance I mean not just the medieval period but everything I mean it was just so I was I was at a service and for two consecutive nights at the church Ivana so guitarists not I was a lead guitarist for this big mega church in Tulsa that's right there on campus and I was we were having this big conference and these two creatures two different nights two very popular and that world preachers said basically a thus says the Lord kind of thing and what they said was absolutely contradictory and I'm a logical guy I'm you know was a super cool on in college in top of my class and and I know this couldn't work and so I'll never forget Marcus that night walking around the campus just crying out to the Lord literally just tears all by myself saying I don't know what to do because these are the men I respect and I saw myself as being kind of following in their footsteps just it's a religious stardom and I said the prayer I prayed I think was the dangerous one which was Jesus I'll follow you wherever you lead me and that was it and I and I can look back in my heart no I really meant that with a hundred percent sincerity I had completely I placed my complete trust in him I knew I couldn't trust these men anymore I didn't know what to think so were they first of all were they recognizing the fact that they were teaching two contradictory things well the pastor the church came to the third day and tried to swage the whole thing tried to kind of massage it out and I mean so it was recognized by others there that there's a problem what was happened on this day right so there was a little bit of Monday morning quarterbacking going on pastor had to come in and say okay well we can massage this here and we massage just here and then you know praise the Lord let's keep going on hopefully nobody leaves the church fragment oh so did any of your other friends recognize the problem that you reflect with Ronald with just you that your sense and well you don't know anything else but as far as you knew Lord is really using this to waken to you to something that didn't just happen that night but did you reflect on this is constantly it's been for all along really their yeah I wasn't there quite yet okay I had you know there was a singing over you get you're learning but don't lose your burning and in the theology Department and it was a pretty common thing because you had grown up in these low church non-sacramental churches you go to theology class and you're learning about sacraments you're learning about the early church you're learning about the early church fathers during about systematic theology you know and and so attended to people would get into kind of a I thought you know like a theological Neil ISM they would oh gosh what is their truth at all I mean this is what I thought I never got there but at least I knew there was a lot of tensions in my theology and I think it comes back to that kind of eminent sense of God's presence and an act of prayer life I knew God was God I love Jesus I never I never reached a point of despair and belief in him or truth but I knew there was some problems in my theology no you would this is then after you'd graduated you would finish top right this is during that process of frozen okay my thesis was on Pope st. clement's theology of grace and Tertullian and comparing those two so I was at this point I already knew that those two said grace only comes to the sacraments but I it was a pejorative reading of the fathers and so it was and that that conclusion would have been really contrary it was against Paul st. Paul didn't teach that so therefore they're wrong and look at the errors of Catholicism right in the beginning you said that there was a Catholic witness on your theology Department did yet encounter with him yes that he was our New Testament scholar and I had New Testament with him and so it was vivid memories of him mentioning kind of Catholic early church ideas here's what this early church father said and what do you guys think to the class and it wasn't kind of I have a couple of these experiences where the class would kind of turn and look to me what are you gonna say because I was the guy who had kind of come in with a you know a really unique experience in high school so I was Bible man you know I could and so I would fight him on his point you know he's wrong the Saints are in heaven they can't hear us to be you know we have some for the bodies present with the Lord and blah blah you know but he had planted these seeds I look back and I realized I was wrestling with what he was saying I had a quick answer but I didn't have a quick reason not to what he was saying I had the Bible answer but it was planting some seeds of you know what I don't think I see that in the Bible for me personally but that might be a Christian idea that might be Christian I don't know if this community of the Saints is though quite against and you would have said this is what the Bible's saying you would not have seen it as this is how I as an assembly of God person see the Bible this what the Bible says what and I think at this point I was disembarked from the Assemblies of God I was a lone ranger non denominational world kid and so it would have been yeah it would have been solo scriptura you know solo all by yourself yes it would have been yet this is what the Bible says so you say this prayer interestingly enough that's about the same prayer mother Teresa prayed was it's a dangerous pray it's a dangerous because if you're watching this if you watch that if you pray that what happens well I I got by God's grace I ended up getting a teaching job with one semester left it was a Methodist minister who's teaching at this Christian school he got a parish church he left to teach so I took over while I was finishing kind of as a sub and then when the new school year started I was I was 21 years old teaching seventeen year olds theology and which was which was interesting and that kind of started a the next three and a half years I was in in a couple different schools teaching high schoolers theology and in that process started to become aware of the real tensions the real issues and because these were multi-denominational schools I had to approach theology in a way I was trying to help the students defend their faith well the same time being sensitive to their particular backgrounds so I ended up going to st. Thomas Aquinas at the time others said you know Thomas Aquinas and Anselm and others to kind of create a theology curriculum that focused on the basic philosophical the kind of perennial philosophy but the basic questions and then building our way up to theology because I noticed kids young people really struggled with it now why does does God exist why am I here that is interesting you went to Thomas Aquinas I mean weren't leaning Catholic well I was an academic kind of person just so it okay well even it was a weird kind of dualism because on the one hand the religious tradition I was raised it was kind of somewhat anti academic but I was an academic person I was well well-read and so you know it was it was natural for me to say okay well who has the best proofs for the existence of God okay so you got the five pretty were really seeing his Catholicism per se but as a good I mean you were but I mean that wasn't the point he was a Christian philosopher ancient dependable right he is he was theistic he was Christian it certainly started though to create attention to me that how could this guy be so coherent so lucid and believe these things that I think aren't in the Bible this doesn't seem to make sense I mean you read scholastic theology philosophy clearly these guys are aware of the tensions in a proposition that doesn't make sense so so that you know but it really wasn't until my daughter I was born got back up a because I'm sorry we haven't mentioned that you've met your wife oh yeah what point did you meet your wife oh well we were we've known each other since high school okay she was at over you with me we got married one semester to go and it's actually and so we were we were married from the get-go and and she would have been on the same page with you in your faith and yeah I mean we were both just you know we we had a deep commitment to Christ and our relationship had been built on sharing the scriptures when I was at Hebrew class she she would show me the flashcards when I was memorizing Hebrew words and alef-bet you know it's back and forth and actually that's when my studying didn't get too well we started courting their tea and I was but she didn't have any leanings to the Catholic faith oh no and she was even raised she wasn't raised in a Pentecostal home which i think is more open to certain Catholic ideas sacramentals apostolic nature of the church she was raising kind of the the Wesleyan holiness which would be almost more of a Quaker no symbols no images and in the church so in our journey into the church I was more open to images worse she kind of had a first kind of hesitancy to to certain things I think all right so you're you're looking to Thomas Aquinas for a framework to put your teaching together for your students and you were saying something about one of your children that we actually lost her first and that started a conversation about contraception we and so we had decided to get off of chemical contraception we had felt a real strong conviction that wasn't right and were able to conceive again and when my daughter was born I'll never forget I was looking I looked into her eyes and Marcus everything changed it was like we're before it's okay to go about in my own religious ignorance let's put it that way but to now hand this off to this innocent victim of my theology you know whatever I believe she's going to get and I saw the pluralism the relativism in my culture I saw the church that I was in in the world that I was in theologically kind of running in tandem with the society this scared me and I wouldn't have worded it this way but I needed the bark of Peter I needed the arc the rains were coming I knew they were coming and were already starting to drip I needed a place for this young beautiful amazing creature that God had blessed me with to be safe and so it was at that point that I started to become unsettled and would stop teaching theology ultimately and start on a journey of trying to figure out where I can find a place for my daughter and my children other children that we would have to be safe you know it's interesting that often nominal Catholics nominal mainline Protestants start coming back to the church when they see the eyes of their first children hmm it's an awakening moment sure and it's interesting in your case it actually led to you backing away from teaching because of your conviction to make sure that what you're teaching is true right right I I clearly knew that you know when you teach in a multi-denominational setting you can see this person believes in credo baptism this person believes in infant baptism this person believes in justification by faith alone this person adds works to it this person you name it I mean you see the whole panoply of theological opinions and which one is right and how can I on what authority and what ground do I have to tell my daughter and do I know that she's going to be safe and will this church acosta sighs Oh in a church I mean am I are we really are we safe you know she gonna be safe and fifty years from now I'll be crying because she's a pagan because that church became pagan these were the kind of questions that were rolling around one of the problems with that environment that you're teaching we have so many opinions is this has been said many times what you end up with a theology that's a mile wide and an inch deep because you can't go deep into many of the subjects as you're teaching because your students come from such wide varieties of opinions right you're gonna have a voiding thing so you cover a lot of bases but not very deeply right and that for someone like yourself that loves theology one make sure it's true that thinness can save a bit over time so you said will you actually put theology behind forbidden I did well for years we wondered I was I had finished an MBA and went into business worked in business and it was about a year into that that I had an existential kind of crisis like Who am I I'd been the bible teacher i had been the minister guy and now the sudden I'm a business I'm Who am I and so I went to my wife and by Providence I selected three people I felt like I wanted to go to and seek their counsel one was a non-denominational pastor we were where we were going to church where we've been married the other was a Bab the Baptist youth pastor I told you and the third was a guy I knew who loved Jesus who happen to be Catholic and we're gonna pause there okay that's a great place to pause it sounds like that's where the where the sparks start flying when you have this discussion with this friend pause there take a break we'll come back and pick you up on that part of your journey our guest tonight is brent stubs former Pentecostal we're leaving him right at the point where it sounds like he's reaching out to some friends to find out some direction in the midst of this Who am I I mean that's actually we deal with a lot of guys on the journey that because they've struggled with the issues of truth the first step is often I got to back off and get my legs again under me so we'll pick that up in just a moment it you welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi guest tonight is brent stubs and former Pentecostal we left you when you've you've gone seeking the advice of three wise men in your life before i a say one of the thought came to me just to be sure in the midst of this crisis that you're talking about where it really issues who am i because i'm trying to follow the Lord's will in my life but i've done these variety of things again from our experience with working with other men and women on the journey when they go through this kind of a crisis especially if it's connected with the realization that there are all these opinions on things that you once held dear we're having a questions about the foundations of your faith i mean we the issues of trinity and sacraments and these things are so varied an opinion were you starting to question any of those i think there were certain you know god's existence jesus christ is the son of god the trinity we salvation comes to christ no but you know that seems to be the vast majority of christians who stayed within a what you might call a mere christianity would would would would concede to agree but what I did see was you know those those doctrines that are clearly imported in Scripture soteriology how do we get saved okay the Eucharist communion what is that about okay and baptism Wow those three doctrines alone Norma's disparity between just take the five major Protestant denominations take the five major groups you know it strands in they all disagreed that was not good did somebody would he were to have asked you at that point when you're ready to meet with your three wise men what was the pillar and foundation truth for you still been a Bible the Bible sure and my friend handed me a book the Catholic friend by Scott Hahn called a Rome sweet home and so what that book basically did in one day and I are coupled I read it over two days was dismantle Sola scriptura it was actually i like to say i think most cross and christians don't ever ask the question is that in the Bible don't even ask if it's an assumed it's it's kind of like if you've been living in a house your whole life and you thought you owned it but you never asked if you owned it time to find out you're renting and that check you thought those go to the mortgage is actually going to the guys next door because he owns the house that's kind of like Sola scriptura you don't ever ask and then when you find out oh yeah it's not in the Hat it's not in there so I like to put it this way and authority is only as good as its ability to resolve a conflict and so when I looked at Sola scriptura I realized this can't resolve anything I can I can I have training in biblical languages I have training and hermeneutics and systematics let's let's dive read enough theologians to know they all can very clearly debate and disagree with each other have coherent cogent arguments which you know and they'll just keep poking holes in each other so there was no there was no way to really work this out and so at this point I knew I had to put the full force of my intellect into figuring out if the Catholic Church was this church because also in the book Gahan does a good job of making me realize the claim I never realize which is the Catholic Church says it's the church Jesus founded none of the churches ever went to said that okay they said we're all Christian we believed in Jesus and that's good but nobody had ever said we're the church Jesus established whoa but the possibility to be was that the good news could be better that we weren't left to ourselves I call the Catholic gospel the better news you know because Jesus coming is fantastic news but not being left to our own dismay to our own demise his better news but I wasn't sure if that was right okay so I immediately ordered the Catechism of the Catholic Church Luther's Catechism and I pulled off Calvin's Institute's for my bookshelf and said all right that's pretty major reading I said alright we got to figure out what's going on I said why am i Protestant that was basically the question I got to figure out why I'm Protestant first did Luther get it right did Calvin get it right and if not what's right so I started there and and then it was a couple years of thousands and thousands of pages of reading it was a it was a journey that was you know I would order Sola scriptura for instance I ordered a you know scriptural owned by RC sprawl ordered an orthodox unorthodox theologian who was it was riding against those scriptura and then I already kind of read the Catholic position so I went back and forth and okay and then I would also go online and I try to find I try to find the most anti-catholic defense the theologian that could just try to lay it down you know just try to destroy the Catholic position I was looking for those arguments I wasn't just there's no pot nothing Pollyannish about this journey for me i I knew I had to be intellectually honest and I'd say oh here's what the Catholic says and see what the opposing position says here ladies arguments out and this actually Marcus it was con comment it with me praying every day every day for three and a half years I would wake up walk out my door and say Lord if this is not a view throw me off this path because I could see it chugging along I could see fiber Shores I could see rum I'm scared half to death and then on my family's Catholic this is going to make nobody happy yeah I'm gonna lose everything it can't be a minister anymore you can't be a pastor couldn't ever do that that's off the radar so I'm scared but I'm praying everyday and it was it was a bit yet that you know Lord of this isn't if you just get me out of here what was your wife saying during this process she was quiet in the beginning I mentioned after the Scout Handbook I kind of gonna whispered to her you know honey this whole Catholic thing and not because she was anti-catholic but she understood she always knew that we were probably gonna end up in a liturgical church because after my theology degree and my experience that she knew I was I had an attraction to historical Christianity but it was kind of like look bright anything but Catholic not because she said it to me anything but Catholic but not because she didn't like she just knew that's a that's a good way to pick a fight with everybody and you know you go through a whole wrench into your whole lives right right so I was you know reading books and reading books and going online trying to find arguments against the church and it became very dissatisfying for me to see what was taking place which was the Protestant theologians would airmail into the Church Fathers grab a line come out make an argument here's the quote and I'd say okay let me see what that quote that close from so I would go read it in context that was an abuse of that church father what's going on here this doesn't seem right it was such an it became grieving to me I wanted a prod I wanted the Protestant to make the good argue I was for the Catholic Church and not being the what it said it was I was hoping I'm this means that my family life was gonna be good my parents were gonna be happy my friends would be like okay he's Episcopalian great or Anglican everything's good you know but it was consistent even with the Catechism the Protestants out that I would read not to say that there aren't you know I've also read great prophet theologians who who tried to do justice to Catholic theology but it a lot of times they're not anti-catholic either but the ones who were pejorative who were against the church kind of polemicists if you will they would quote the Catechism Islam or something some little you know some way to say well the Catholic Church teaches this I've got the Catechism my hand I'm thinking to myself these people think that most people don't have a catechism that's what they do think okay but I do and I go read it for myself ago that isn't true well the next point refutes what they said that wasn't a good experience and I kind of have a blog that I started about four months ago where I write about the faith as a way to share with my family and and I just recently wrote about how that experience actually is a cause I think for a lot of people to convert because they see the chaos and they see the misuse and abuse and I kind of told the Protestants that we're reading the article stop this it's not helping your cause just you know just don't don't do it it's it's a it's propaganda it's not good theology but it is a continuation sadly of what has been done for literally a couple hundred years where false things about the Catholic Church are passed on without examination presuming they're passing it to people who themselves will not examine right whether it's true or not right and it gets passed on generation after generation and so when you for me the I loved Jesus Christ I mean my relationship with Jesus never changed in the sense that I was constantly communicating with him I was constantly praying constantly you know talking to our Lord but the fact that a church said could possibly be the church that he founded I mean the way I like to look at it is if your mother said she made something you'd want to figure out that she made it you know if your dad said hey son I started the business she wouldn't ignore that so my love for Christ meant I had at least per possible I had to at least consider is this true if it's not so what let's okay we'll move on but if it's true I have to be a Catholic period there's no I would have to because I love Jesus I love Jesus so I'm gonna go join his church so I continued to to study things out we ended up I realized I was reading a book on on salvation and on the atonement and realized I had kind of a penal substitution era view of atonement through the kind of Calvinist reformed theology I had I had studied in my undergrad and realized that was a heretical position not taught by the father's not really in Scripture and had this kind of Great Awakening where I said if a guy who prays every day loves the Lord theology degree lives a moral life son in a more person can be a heretic anyone can and it was that day that my wife and I we communicating we said we're gonna start going to Catholic Church now and with us have been your first entrance into one I it's my friend who gave me the book invited me I went to one other Mass and that was a moving experience well because I was overwhelmed with how kristef centric the mass was and at this time we had become dissatisfied with kind of the the me isms the me centeredness of a lot of the churches the pastors up there because of the nature of a lot of pressing churches where it's the pulpit in front not the the altar not the sacrificial altar you know you know you walk into a room everett's oriented we'll tell you what the focus is so the focus is there's a philosophy to the architecture so the our conductor says that's the focus whoever stands up there obviously wasn't the pulpit without him it was whoever was there so we were I was and also the fact that you know I thought you guys were Mary there was no Mary worship in this mass so yeah so I actually had coffee with my friend afterwards crying and just saying I can't believe we've been separated over this over this mass really we're not unified as Christianity because of that that doesn't make sense so I knew there had to be some other reasons but we started going to Mass and went to Mass for two-and-a-half years just their arms folded receiving a blessing and still continuing to figure things out the professor from oru he had recommended a couple books that I really Sheldon James Shelton yeah and he recommended one book that was kind of the nail in the coffin which was Newman's development of Christians and that finished me off I had read so much and once I read that book particularly the way he describes the first five centuries and you it reads like a Newsweek about the Catholic Church it reads like it reads like a National Inquirer tale of what Hagen's might how they might describe the Catholic Church and and if the first this church and the first all the way to the fifth century albeit because I had in my undergrad come up with the thesis right the the very kind of reform thesis that the germ of error started very early and you get that in the dedicate in and you know Clemente I could see these errors and by by 3rd century we have full flown kind of Romanism and that's the kind of classic way of thinking about early church history was you know Constantine or whatever and whether it was Constantine or whether it was you know 4th 5th century the church spiraled out of control in other words if you assume for example that the authority of a bishop is heresy hmm if you assume that then you go back early church then you see well this is the first time it's mentioned so that must be the start of this heresy right that's what you're doing is you're putting your modern assumption as the criteria to determine the validity of the earliest of the writers right and what help me you can heal that for me so to speak what change my mind is I realized wait a minute wait wait a minute I haven't we have an oral culture we have a culture of preservation okay we're modern we throw things away all the time they don't throw anything away back okay so so I'm I can obviously imagine as a modern person not being able to preserve something because we don't preserve much of anything I think that we depend on a written thing to remember anything and even we don't use our brain cells exactly write it down and then particularly obviously we know about the martyrdom of the early church so why would you be innovating something you were dying for you know you would I would think at the very least she would innovate in such a way that you would stop dying the Romans would say okay you're good you can keep going on but no the Romans are saying that the early Christians were you know cannibals right because they ate the flesh of a baby because they and they were so confused about you know what Christians believe the love feasts these different ways in right there's Cicero and the way he describes you know there in the second century and and so I realized okay I need to attend my ear to what they're saying and and think maybe they knew what the Apostles taught and that really changed a lot ultimately we I ended up having some philosophical questions because it at some point time Marcus I realized Protestantism was a theory there was no it wasn't a church per se it was a theory of Christianity and and that was interesting to me because I in this journey had a kind of a piston illogical crisis a crisis of knowing I went yeah I couldn't figure out why I seemed such a modern my Christianity seems so modern it seems OPO and I had no way of escaping my mind who was me and the Bible in my mind and it seemed to not have any correspondence to reality it wasn't grounded in reality being historical we it's passing in time therefore necessarily reality is historical so I had a theory of Christianity that was a historical and I had to figure out why that was compelling so many people so I went to the University of Dallas and had a scholarship there and studied Graduate philosophy and kind of filled in the gaps and it was why we were there in 2008 feast of Christ the King we were received my wife and I into full communion with the Catholic Church but I will say too that a huge part of this and every Pentecostal charismatic who might be watching this war and I and I really honor this in that movement even the modern evangelical world this passion to experience Jesus Christ this passion to be in his presence and that was certainly a part of it but one thing I noticed Marcus is in that world that was the haves and the have-nots there was the spiritual insiders and the spiritual Outsiders and so many people you know could leave an experience of worship and say they were left out of that experience of the Eucharist for me was the total satisfaction it was the first time ever and obviously I'm saying this from subjective experience but I'm it's my witness to the fact that you know when Jesus said if those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled that was the Holy Eucharist that was the D terminus of my longing that was you know I could almost cry again because in that moment I wept in my hands because I just said I knew I had only per taken of bread and wine and juice before this was something more I was transcending this moment Christ was saying I'm with you and it was it was a I'm sorry it was he's a he's a lover he's pursuing me I've always loved him I've always wanted to be with him and in the Eucharist he was saying son you don't have to come very far I'll come to you I'll condescend to you and in a way that fits within your framework because I'm not a angel I don't have wings I'm not a pure spirit and so under the appearance of bread and wine he gives his body blood soul and divinity to me and I need that because again I'm not a pure spirit and that was that's great so sorry but recently someone had reminded me of a text that had been pointed out to me during my journey that I'd kind of forgotten all these years then it was recent reminded to me and how that famous passage in Revelation you see the fullness of the passage were before we always talked about behold I stand at the door and knock and if any move it open I would come in mm-hmm but we forget the next part of it which is it's up with it's up and that's what you're saying that's what you had discovered again that you'd never really appreciated in fact it was only not just bread and juice it was only a symbol you didn't expect anything more of it then before and I realized we had to the see of our Lord Jesus was an objective it was grounded in an objective reality it wasn't how much of God's presence I could conjure I could have a bad day and I could know that by is in a stable grace he was making himself present to me he was saying he was the groom he was the pursuer I was the bride and he was coming into me I wasn't you know having to be like a you know a wayward girl chasing after him he let me so to speak just receive him and it was such it was so beautiful like you said I said yeah it's just wonderful so you'd mentioned that you were on the journey to a liturgical tradition actually had an experience in a church not far from the University of Dallas which was an important heart in my own journey because coming from evangelicalism and and all that variety of these evangelicalism even slightly high church to Circus I mean the way some of the right into a Catholic environment where there were statues and pictures and that there was a church if I remember correctly down by the University of Dallas it's a Cistercian I've worshipped there many times I mean with the austerity of it was like coming back down to Ground Zero because of the simplicity of that beautiful channel and then building up from there to understand the meaning of all the aspects in a Catholic sanctuary hmm because there is a stone remember that belt Oh 6:30 a.m. Mass I as a matter of fact our really good friends came into the church a little over a year ago when I first started the journey sent some books and dialogue they came into the church there for kids and they were in Dallas with us and he he went to Mass with me he wasn't Catholic yet and that was such a rich experience being there I father James was one of them he was one of my professors and some of the brothers were studying there and and got to really really meet them and I was heavenly well the first experience as a chant for me was in that wonderful place it's just a great experience we've got an email Christina from Vermont in what ways did Brent's upbringing as a Pentecostal make him receptive to the Catholic Chur I think one Pentecostals believe in sacramentalism not the sacraments per se but second things God uses things to transmit his power you know jointing oil whatever it might be so I was already open to that second this this longing to be with Christ I think ultimately even the charismatic movement I think its terminus is in the Holy Eucharist I think I'm longing to be with the presence of God and I've written this you know you look at where the charismatic movement happens in these kind of non liturgical low churches that don't have any Catholic window-dressing anymore in their churches they have maybe a you know cafe outside in the courtyard but what's so powerful is that longing for Christ is only satisfied in the Holy Eucharist and and then you know thirdly I think this worldview Pentecostals would tend to think of their church as following in the Apostolic Church what happened in the early church has to happen now what happened in Acts and what's so powerful about that is what you say that well then you've certainly got the Jerusalem Council and you've got st. Peter you know they're all seated there and I love this picture because for a Jew they would get this everyone's seated and says and they discussed and debated and then Saint Peter stands up wait a minute okay that's an authority but that's us everybody gets that why did st. Luke write that he stood up he could have just said in st. Peter said he says he stood up so right there in acts well there's also something else going on there's there's Apostles with authority and there's a Petra in office and many of these other things probably also which does connect this with you what you said the early church and is the acceptance of signs and wonders acceptance of miracles whereas at the end of the 19th century most Protestant groups had didn't believe in the reality of miracles anymore that ended with the Apostles well and even you get cessationism in Kelvin so cessationism starts really in Kelvin and it really is a functional way of circumscribing out Catholic history because the history of miracles is the history of the Catholic Church the history of mysticism of spiritual you know whatever is as Catholics as these Saints and we st. francis of assisi healings the early church was full of miracles and into that that you know you don't really get any hint of that until san agustin a little bit something dries up but then it picks right back up and continues to go so yeah that's why actually I never became reformed is is could we went we visit a Presbyterian Church but cessationism to me was God was like a deistic God who set on his fortune golfclap for good theology that was all he was I was a presbyterian I'm sorry we recognized Weber calls the frozen Chosin and for that reason another email Christopher from Indianapolis IN Brent study what were some of the specific things that made him believe that the early church was Catholic well first off the conclusion I went back and read my thesis it was about a sixty five page paper you know and I reread it after I converted I had been sitting there dusty and st. Clemente it was the doctrine of grace and the theology of I didn't call him Saint Pope or anything I spoke in Clemente of Rome in Tertullian of carpet and my conclusion was grace was 100% sacramental and that baptism saves you and and so these seeds were planted and but I think it was you know more than anything it was Newman's book in terms of him it enabled me to see through because he uses secular historians in that description so I knew this wasn't just you know Catholics kind of petting each other on the back this was what the world could see of the church and if the world was saying this church believed in these mysteries and they had this Eucharist and they had this eating a flesh and love a well this is not this is only one church that talks like that alright another email ginger from Arizona I have neighbors who are Pentecostal would like to know if there are some points I could mention to them that might pique their interest in the Catholic Church you know I think the main thing is to affirm start from start with affirming what you share I think as Catholics there's a we have to understand there's these huge fences we might be perceived as people who don't even love Jesus there might be all kinds of false perceptions so you have to overcome that just show them your genuine love for Christ and your openness to the you know that the Catholics affirm many of the things they hold but from there I think the points would be just to simply ask you know it comes down to authority and it comes down to historicity st. Ignatius of Antioch you know he says he's writing to the Smyrna n--'s you know and here he is you know late first early second century going to die and he wants to make sure the Smyrna pnes aren't heretics and he says make sure you find the bishop because wherever the bishop is that is where Christ is where is the Catholic Church so so what happened here what where's the bishop asked him was the bishop where's this bishop or you're gonna have to say that this man who died for his faith who was a contemporary heard st. John preaching was ringing in his ears was a heretic and I'm not you know we're really willing to do that we're really willing to impugn oh I haven't died for my faith I'm here talking to you I would say as we close that you one thing you would affirm to all of our non Catholics who might be listening is that knowing the scripture was not a barrier to becoming Catholic not at all in fact no I mean since becoming Catholic the Scriptures have opened up to me tremendously the reason I say this because many think Catholics don't read the Bible but of course that's that's not true at all but the main thing is knowing Scripture really was it open your heart right to to the beauties of the church oh absolutely Brent thank you so much thank you for sharing your journey and for you and your wife coming into the church and our blessings on all that you do to continue to serve Him alright thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home Pentecostalism I think as mentioned is an open door to the church for various reasons so let's pray for a Pentecostal brothers and sisters that they may be open to the fullness of the babe god bless you before we see you again next week

Channel: EWTN

Views: 21,796

Rating: 4.712707 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, Journey Home, Marcus Grodi, Brent Stubbs, Former Pentecostal, Catholic, JHT01325

Id: CypJuCjn5FE

Length: 57min 20sec (3440 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 23 2011