Journey Home - 2018-01-29 - Roger Salstrom

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey hall Maya Marcus Grodi your host for this program and as I say every week it's a great privilege that EWTN allows me to join you to hear a story you're watching us through the cameras from around the world but there's a very intimacy here in the studio and it's always a wonderful time to gather with the guests to hear a story to hear the background and and actually our guest tonight dr. Rogers ahlstrom he's a former Methodist reformed Presbyterian I don't know his story yet I'm looking forward to hearing well it's nice to meet you Marcus and I also just before I mention you you've got a book here that I know you wtn is it's available on their website at the religious catalogue 95 questions for Protestants points to ponder during the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and beyond so we'll get to this little later right now part of your journey right yes that's a part of the journey so I'll be glad to talk about that all right we're good but let me let me shut up and invite you to start us on the journey okay I actually grew up not that far from here I grew up in Indiana and it was interesting growing up I didn't have a super religious family my dad I don't think ever went to church unless it was for a reading or a funeral or something along that line but my mom took my brother and I to church every Sunday except well once a month we went to get visit grandparents but other than that she always took us to church and so it's interesting that that since she did that that had a large impact I think on me continuing with the faith later on but she took us to the Methodist Church Methodist I was wondering you know I think about your dad and and my dad you know it's like the same story and sometimes you wonder what was with that generation of guys you know I wanted to did the war do something or was your dad in the war he didn't serve in the war yeah and so I never got a full explanation from him on why I never went to church and so we never really talked about it and it was at the time where it was usually sort of inappropriate to even ask a pointed question like that especially as a you know a child yeah I mean I feel the same way my dad's gone you know and now that I wish they would ask him more questions you know yes I feel the same way you know and but your mother brought you into the faith she brought me into the church and how is it it had an impact but it was interesting on the impact I think just going there all the time did have an impact that it was important but unfortunately and I hate to admit this when I was in high school I got very good when the pastor was giving his message of totally tuning it out and thinking about something else and not necessarily saying that was the best thing but that you know I was good at doing that so it might be more Universal than we realized but it did have an impact on me because how is it there's one where I deliberately think God was answering prayer and it was I was about 21 and I had just I was doing my service as in the reserves and I had a weekend where I went at home and my parents have picked me up and it was from Illinois they brought me back to our hometown in Indiana and on the way going back they were just going to have me take the bus back to the base so I'm in Indiana and they put me on the bus where our hometown was in Anderson what 10 appleís was going to get on the bus there and the bus had been cancelled and this was before cell phones and so had no way to communicate to them I had a crisis didn't know what to do so I started hitchhiking because I knew had to be a base at 6 o'clock in the evening well of course I got stuck on the freeway nobody was picking me up I was out there for hours and it was late in the afternoon I was getting desperate and praying and all that sir stuff so you get desperate at that age and you pray to God and so this finally and I didn't think there was time there's CHP officer came by told him my story he picked me up now he couldn't take me all the way to the border but he had another CHP officer meet him took me all the way to the Indiana Illinois border so I get there a little after 5:00 like 5:15 I have to be there at six twenty miles to go and I was there just for another five or ten minutes somebody else picked me up they weren't going to where the base was I paid him $20 they got me at the base I got off ran onto the base and I think I got there like 552 so anyway so in a way I had an early answered prayer and relying on God yeah and I realize it at the time I realized it at the time but I'd like to say it really transformed me it didn't I was you know and it didn't so but really what had the major transformation was finally in my mid-20s mid to late 20s I was there and I'd say that I've been to church for years and I said and I've heard scripture read but I've never read the Bible so I said okay well I'll start out and I'll read Matthew Mark Luke and John and that really got solidified my faith from the you know I still in the Protestant world but it still if I had my faith of believing that God and you're reading that in Jesus is just different than any other leader or any other person you've ever met and it's sort of and it all makes sense but you're there he just it just operates differently yeah and so when you look back on that did I know you have a reformed Presbyterian background which we're going to get to in a little bit were you're recognizing that this was an awakening of grace that you were seeing things maybe for the first time yeah and you know and I was I was seeing things for a first time and it you know and I believe before but it made me believe you know and Jesus really you know really was God really was the son of God really what they were saying is true you know and so I think that's where I first really owned the faith you know sometimes growing up the faith is your parents but that was the point in time where it became real to me so you mentioned Anderson Indiana is your hometown yes when I think of Anderson and then I think of the hometown of the Anderson Indiana was a Church of God Richard yes I had a Church of God there and they had a church of god they had Anderson University which was there but we were not part of that and that really did not have an impact on anything so we have this awakening here what late twenties yeah late 20s you know there and so I became more active in various Methodist Church and we weren't necessarily tied to anyone at that point in time but became more active in some and was on various church boards became more interested in even some of the apologetics and so anyway it was you know just became a deepening of the faith and that sort of thing so and so continued on in various Protestant denominations and depend upon where I was living at the time and what church was closed and where you felt like you got a good pastor who was preaching from the Bible and so you weren't so much aligned with Methodism now you were aligned with Christ aligned with Christ and so we were looking for and it varied for know we weren't tied to any particular Presbyterian our Methodists or reformed you know went through several of those but we weren't tied to any one of those and the the theological differences didn't rise above the service to become an issue at all they didn't really rise that much of mine you know it was sort of to me those were secondary issues so I was mainly looking for somebody who preached the Word of God out of the Bible and you know seem to be solid theological II that way at least from my perspective at that point in time now at this at this point where you're already teaching at that point in time I wasn't teaching for a while I was working in business alright so one of my goals had always been to get into teaching my goal was originally to work for three years go get my doctorate and then teach so it didn't work out that way it turned out to be 13 years where I was working but then I think I shocked everybody in the business world where I was working I was in San Jose at the time and working for FMC corporation a mid-level manager and I said okay I'm going to sort of quit here and go work on my doctorate from UC Berkeley and do that full-time for four years and so but I had always wanted to get into teaching so so anyway short version is I went through got my doctorate and then became a professor at San Jose State which was San Jose California and was a professor there for a long period of time and you know really enjoyed San Jose State a wonderful place that was funny I had a little challenge there at one point in time where people did not like the Billy Graham poster I'd put up on my door and so you can get challenged at your faith there and I got asked from the Dean of my my department chair to take the poster down I told him no because that went up to the you know the the School of Business you know the Dean there asked me to take it down I told him no went to the Provost of the University asked me to take it down I told him no and the meanwhile had been checking on what my rights were on all that sort of stuff and felt fairly secure and finally after telling them though and they called me one time I said well you might want to check with your legal people because I'm seem to be allowed to do for these reasons and they called me back a week later and said ok you can keep the belly Grande poster up and so and so that was interesting to go through that process but you're wondering if you're gonna have to give up your job you know because in general when you're teaching business classes at a secular University right right that your faith can be can be compartmentalized over here right a Billy Graham poster kind of makes it tough where I'm gonna claim to the students this is where your business is based on yeah but that's on the office door and it's funny you walk around any public university and you're gonna see unusual things on every door and the fact that I offended someone there I could have walked on my own floor and walked down three doors and seen stuff that would have offended me you know that you're allowed to do that but yes dr. Rogers ahlstrom just to remind the audience on that I mean it's interesting things have even gotten a whole lot worse today haven't they yes with this very environment in those university but this was still a number of years ago and you could starting to build it was starting to build and they you know some people did not like that you were incorporating any faith there but at least by the rules it's like at the start of every semester I could introduce myself at that point in time I would say as a Christian at the introduction and sort of do that and you know but you couldn't really bring it directly into the classroom and so you were restricted a lot on that okay now but did you continue a while then at the university after that ordeal yes I continued there for a number of years one that year you know part of the time there though it was interesting why was there sort of at the tail end of that I would always listen to these well there was the Bible answer man hiked in a graph and I loved his show he was extremely knowledgeable about the but so this was about 20 years ago or a little bit more now and he had a debate on there between Jimmy akin and James White may not know these two characters oh that's a good idea yes well Jimmy akin is a Catholic apologist and brilliant you know I you know I can't say enough good things he just is extremely intelligent knows all the history and there James White is on the Protestant side and here's into a lot of debates he really knows a lot about the Bible and that sort of thing so he does do that and he's well known for debating Catholics right so I heard this debate I'm at the Protestant at the time so I'm there oh this will be interesting because I'd assumed James White would just you know clean up because the Catholics obviously don't have good reasons for what they believe you know that's what I believed at the time so I'm listening to this debate and I didn't hear the full thing but I heard a lot of it driving around the car it probably heard 45 minutes of it and I got home and I didn't tell my wife I said it's real interesting there was debate on the Hank intergraph show and I said if I'm totally honest you know Jimmy akin the Catholic won that debate and I said because I couldn't believe he justified this answers he had the historical background seem to be brilliant in what is there and to my perspective James White was foundering over the place so we were both pressed and you know there and so my wife wasn't particularly she is oh that's ridiculous and I thought my rationale was what they must not have had the best Protestant debating so is interesting I heard that then I heard the results and then probably ignored it you know so but you know looking back you know a few years on down the line then I realized that may have been planting the seed although I didn't know it was piling on a seed right so anyway so that was going on and then a little bit a few years after that I'd been at sounds they stayed about 14 years but there was this Christian Protestant they always refer to themselves as Christian I'd like to rename a Protestant cuz you know but they you know their Christian is evangelical you know University in San Jose and I started teaching there pite time in the evening and so I'd teach at San Jose State and teach one or two classes there in the evening so it's teaching that the Protestant University and you know the great number of people there you know and I'll speak very highly of a lot of and wonderful people teaching business core teaching business right well it's funny at the time even though I was teaching business courses it seemed like half the people sometimes in the class were Protestant pastors who were wanting to get a college degree in some times weren't about business right and so there became an opportunity they were located in San Jose they were going to move up to the Rocklin area and they needed somebody to do wise they had an evening program in business they need somebody to start a traditional day program in business and run the evening program up in the Rocklin area I said well I'd always thought about retiring from San Jose State and going there but it was earlier and you know what what I thought I wanted to do so they ended up having somebody that looked like they had hired so I said okay it wasn't God's timing about a month later they had opened up the position again I said well it's God trying to tell me something about this or not and so I said well I'm not sure if I'm interested by called up the one person short version is within a you know few weeks I had a job offer to join the Protestant University and start their School of Business and move up to the Sacramento the Lincoln area up there because they were moving out there so that's sort of when I left you know San Jose State to go up there and everything's fine I was you know gone up there started this go business I felt like I was called by God to be up there and start that and a number of wonderful things and the ironic thing and there aside started we were doing the evening program why did the traditional proposal and then we got that going I had a neighbor from where we were living in Roseville and he had been in the military wonderful neighbor just got his doctorate and was wanting to teach at the University and they teach business in the program but he was Catholic I told him no and so I said no you can't do it because the theology on some of these is significantly different than what it was that there so this was like you know say 12 or so years ago and you know I always felt a little guilty about that but I said they don't mix even though it's going to be teaching business didn't want that mixture and then what was it he ended up dying getting you know had an illness I think it was cancer and died a couple years later so I've never been able to go back to him and apologize or reconcile for that something so I was one of those people who was intolerant that they Catholics at that point in time though so yeah I was wondering if I don't you know up to flow here but teaching business at a Protestant evangelical school I know that when I was in medical ethics back looking into medical ethics as a Protestant we generally assumed that the foundation for whatever we believed was somewhere in this book right from a medical from a biological from a scientific standpoint from a business standpoint so I mean when you're teaching classes at a protestant seminary does the bible in the concepts of scripture in it's your understanding of business and business ethics and economics Oh tremendously in all those areas because you know there's so much written in the Bible you know about finance we'll just take one of the areas about finance and I was a big follower of Larry Burkett and the you may have known about him but he had done some count said there were over 2,300 biblical references about money I never verified that to see if that was correct but so many of the parables and so much is said about money and managing money right and there's you know the Bible is full of guidance on everything from hiring managing people to servant leadership to managing money I always remember one of the best people we ever interviewed was this person for a lawyer and she was talking about contract law and all this she was referring to all the parts of the law that were based upon Deuteronomy in the Old Testament and point of Leviticus and pulling out all the foundation of our law is based upon that and I was just thinking this morning when I was again I don't want to get too far yet a field of your your journey but the the idea about in Luke chapter 5 most gives me six about given will be given to you good measure pressed down shaken together running over will be put into your lap for the measure you give will be the measure you get back I mean what you do with your money what you do with your resources how tightly you grasp onto them are you trusting in God with your future I mean all that affects your financial investments how you trust your future to your money yeah cuz it's all God you're the steward while you're on earth and not that I've always you know I'd like to say you know with all the education all this I've been a brilliant steward of how I've managed all that and I've got enough mistakes of my own but we are called to be a steward of the resources God's given us but the reason I'm bringing this up at this point in your journey as an evangelical protestant looking at the scripture an authority and how this is going to shape you I mean you can interpret scripture a whole bunch of different ways but it's all your finances when it comes to business do we give so that we can get I mean there's that whole wealth you know wealth and wealth as well so that just for the verse I just said the big one in the health and wealth gospel but the reason I brought up now is that you were in you were considering this this whether this Catholic man teaching business and his principles would fit in this environment which is really more based on this right but it was part of it is because you know some of the beliefs and some of the issues everything from the Eucharist to Mary to you know say and all that you know some of those do not mesh real well yeah and so I wasn't concerned about the business but yet you still sort of have to tie in or did you know what to that philosophy there was something there again you were never able to reconcile never I reckon so nice you know it I felt at the time I made the I felt I made the right decision but I always felt bad about that and then later on you know I cannot go back and you know to go back and talk to him so anyway that you're teaching business teaching business I'm there everything's yelling the business was going on fine we started the traditional program with no students and we got to be the largest department at the University really number of things started an MBA program and you know did a number of things so things were going real well along that line but while we were living in the area it's sort of like for various reasons which shifted a number of times to different Protestant universities are not pricing Protestant churches and we had well and most of our kids were Protestants but we had one son who had married somebody who was Catholic a number of years ago and we had a great relationship with them we talk about things politically we talk about religious things we while we were present you know we would go you know as occasion you know tend their mass and that's our thing as a process just you know when we were visiting them when they were attacked now a respect and no were things that we got along great but they knew we'd jumped around as several ones and over the course of times and the ironic thing is we had a book at our house and it was written by a Protestant but the book we had nice it was on the shelf and I thought well good sometime they'll look at it and realize their mistake and become prostate but it's about all the things that Catholics were wrong about in their beliefs but it was written by a Protestant saying this is what Catholics believe and which is one of the fatal logic errors but I didn't think about it at the time if you want I wasn't know what somebody believes you have to ask them what they believe and so this was but we had that book there so it shows I wasn't exactly anti Catholic but yet it's you know I did think that they had a number of things wrong and you would at this point in your life probably have recognized that as you said anything you knew about the Catholic Church you knew through the eyes and in the words of a non Catholic right now I didn't I didn't really know any Catholics before didn't even though you knew Jimmy ake and had yes I didn't know any I think and I probably did but I knew I knew a Catholic in high school who was a you know went to my high school but he wasn't active in his faith in any of that and it just was a world I really did not know anything about occasionally it would come on TV when there would be a new pope or something like that and I think all I ever watched was a minute or two of any of those things and never only watched any of that because because what does it have to do with your life and didn't have anything to do with my life you know Roger why don't we pause right there let's take our break right now it sounds like you're about ready to say some starts change it in your life here pretty quick right yeah all right let's pause right there and we'll come back in a little bit [Music] [Music] [Music] well welcome back to the journey home Marcus Grodi your host and our guest is dr. Roger ass ahlstrom and his doctor is PhD in the business it's a need to teach at the point at which we've interrupted your journey you're teaching at a Protestant school out in California right right very successful department I mean it's grown and now it seems to be doing very well but continuing on where we were there with bounced around from the various churches and our one son and you know when he married you know to a Catholic he ended up converting to Catholicism and they gave us a book and said finally he said what you might like to read this book and it was book by Scott Hahn Rome sweet home and so we said okay I wasn't sure I was that interested in it but we took the book home and my wife read it through first and she was raised Catholic but had left the Catholic faith and that admit her in the prospect she immediately reading Scott Hans book wanted to go back to the Catholic Church so I read the book and it was about Scott Hahn story but I felt like he didn't get into all the detail logic of how I made all the analysis he talked about doing all the research and things so I was not impressed as far as wanting to join the Catholic Church but there was one line and the book that left an impact and they said that he didn't find a single Catholic belief that wasn't supported biblically and I you know from my perspective his timeline there well that's really strange we know how a lot of Catholic beliefs are screwed up and they're not supported biblically yes oh so you know but I don't know if I'd have done it but my just on that comet but my wife wanted to go back to church so I sir said I owe it to do my research and what's neat about today is there so many phenomenal things you can research and stuff on the internet stuff on we found Immaculate Heart Radio there's these apologists on there who can give their story so start doing a lot of research and I was more of a you know solace scripture of Bible alone so I'll start with there so all sorts of resources on the internet and I found this one excellent resource that gave all the scriptures that they had for every Catholic belief out there so you know I'd go through there and being a skeptic guy to start reading there and I'd look at that and I'd say okay well they're saying that but I don't remember it said that way exactly we had a Catholic Bible in the process Bible so I'd bring out the NIV and it would say exactly the same thing now there might be a few words and so I'd be reading that and I'd say I'm seeing things differently than I ever read them before you know and seeing some of the scripture that I said wow I don't remember it saying that which reminds me of a you know while it's doing the research I found some article by this one person I forget who it was talked about the 10 Bible verses I never saw before when I was Protestant know it was your that was one of them that was out there but this one this one site had all these scripture verses and my wife likes told this story but there was one about basically do you rely on scripture scripture plus tradition and they had all the logic and all the Bible verses that said that it is not scripture alone and I read that one morning and I thought wow this is you know really interesting exciting so I say I heard her woke up and that she turned and I went in there and started talking to her about it she says I woke her up but it was I woke her up at like yo 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning or about that but what I found is going through you know issue after issue that Scott Hahn was right is all these issues were supported by what the Bible says and we'll just take one but you know Sola scriptura yeah the Bible never says that it's Bible alone the Bible says that it's Scripture plus tradition and you know all the you know what the church councils say and all that and you could go after issue you know faith alone well which I'd read it before but the only time faith alone issues in the Bible is in James 2:24 where it says you are not saved by faith alone and Martin Luther added it in Romans but then most of later versions got taken out again where he added saying you are saved by faith alone but you could go after issue after issue and say that okay scripture supports you know what the Catholic view on this yeah just for those that might be non Catholics that are watching one oh wait a second I can think of a few Catholic things that are mentioned in Scripture well that we're not saying they're all mentioned in Scripture right but the foundational idea the trajectory of a teaching whereas Newman would say a development of an idea the curl the seat of that is in Scripture it's it's in Scripture and everything you know you can go after the you know all those issues but I'd say it was a combination of looking at that and then the other thing listening to Immaculate Heart Radio you know what just now relevant radio but you know I love Tim staples conversion story and he is you know brilliant on some of that you know Patrick madrid's and his book surprised by truth we got copied so we have a whole bunch of books in a library we're wearing that and it gave other people's conversion stories but still you know Patrick Madrid was raised Catholic still he wrote this surprised by truth but then you have you know Steve ray you know and John Martin oh nice so a lot of these brilliant people I heard on the radio so and they're just you know give you a lot of insight so so I became convinced that the Catholic you know the Catholic Church was true you know it's usually there's a journey where you become I mean you but I mean uh often a person recognizes the validity for what the church is saying so the Catholic Church's teachings aren't false anymore that makes sense they're connected with Scripture but then there's that next step of but does that mean I need to become Catholic I mean were you there yet or it took a while to get to needing to become Catholic you know it took a little while but you know cuz this research I'm talking about going on took months in the year or something like that and then when the other issues and I'm asking myself well I'm working at a prostate ven Jellico university does this mean I'm going to have to switch my job so before I decided I went in and talked to my boss and said this is what's going on do I need to update my resume and my boss said no and he was fine with it the provost had worked at a university that actually had an excellent partnership with the Catholic you know so they had a Catholic theology courses there and the process on Thursday found the interesting talk more about that but so he was fine with it they said I answers to the president so we ended up having to have a meeting with the president president what I could tell reading the body language wasn't as happy with it but he said it was okay and part of us I was in business okay you know so then that's alright so at this point I had you gone to mass yet not waiting on it we had gone to mass and so I've been going there yeah so you had you entered the church then at the point no I didn't it hadn't entered the church that you were okay on the way to do that so anyway so you know going through all that process and then had decided I one day you know entered the church and at the same point in time then at the University I wanted to do some things that would be supportive of Catholics and I tried to get a catholic club started that got turned down no I peeled all the way to the president you know that turned down no I wanted to start they have small groups there wanted to do that that got turned down though you know everything I wanted to do on campus got turned down no but we did end up starting the only thing we could do is we could meet with Catholic students but I couldn't advertise it at my house off campus yeah which they weren't going to be able to stop anyway so but along with the process finally it was only two and a half years ago that I officially entered the church so excited about entering the church so I do a Facebook post you know about entering the church and I tried to make it innocuous I said is nice to be entering the church that Jesus Christ founded which I didn't you know realize and then a few other things but that was they think the key phrase evidently a couple people then talk to the Provost weren't happy with that a couple people talk to the president and so they were going they weren't happy so I didn't know about it came back to work on Monday and it was either that Monday or Tuesday the Provost told me well we need to have a meeting so I had to have a meeting about my Facebook post well it was interesting we had the meeting then it was the Provost myself and three other academic sort of the old higher-ups in that and the Provost was having the meeting to tell the president he had the meeting he didn't really want to do anything so out of the our meeting he spoke for probably 55 it's out the hour didn't really talk about my post didn't really talk that much about but it was having the meeting so it could be passed on we had a meeting to discuss it so then I get out of that and I there one I was not happy I had the meeting and I thought and that was the biggest non meeting I'd been in there I said the last thing I want to do now is react to that and say anything so I said I'm not gonna post anything on Facebook for a month not gonna react not going to do anything for a month while I process this and so during that month processing time I said okay one thing I've never done was read Martin Luther's ninety-five theses his original thesis which started this Protestant you know Reformation or revolution that was his Facebook post you're right it kind of was his went viral yes it did it was probably one of the first viral things that way but but I read the English translation I read those and I said I'm not impressed with these at all and I said these are it looked like he did a memory dump over one weekend it looked like they were they were all about three main issues it was about indulgences purgatory and the Pope which are all kind of related right and I counted him they ended up counting how many times purgatory was mentioned our indulgences was mentioned over 40 times out of the 95 questions so I said with all the research in the brilliant apologize apologists I'd been listening to I said I can come up with 95 better questions for Protestants and so that started a project is the first just to see if I could come up with 95 questions and the first 30 well first probably 40 or 50 took a couple months because it wasn't working on it every day you know but those went fairly quickly but and it took a while longer but after about five months or so or maybe three or four months I finally had a full 95 list of questions I said what do I do with this now and I said well I'd like to write it in a book and just see where it goes from there well that was over the summer the semester started and things started getting real busy and my wife was not enthused about this at first she entered with you right she would entered a little bit before me she was returning hers was a little bit easier Tiffani advantage and so she finally got on board and helped me right because the semester had started my job was too busy and this turned out to be great because my wife is an excellent writer I'm a good writer for business but she can write things that people actually want to read sort of in that night so anyway that's a short diversion so we ended up coming up with she started working on the book we did it jointly but it was a tandem effort but she actually did more the writing I'd come up with the initial questions we revised a lot of those did a lot of the research but came out with the book now I'm coming out with the book just this is sort of past joining the church coming out with the book and I'm there okay this is sort of going counter to the philosophy of where I work not only that is I'd been there and seen the effect on Catholic students for there's five to seven percent of the students there who are Catholic a few drew stronger in their faith but a large number will leave their faith right Simon this ethical dilemma do I stay with somebody am i participating with evil you know and I don't say they're evil some of the most coddling people I know are at that university but still was leading people away from their faith can I continue to stay there and so the yone short version of all that is working at that and with coming up with the book and the book getting published I decided I couldn't ethically stay there so his we be officially became I became Dean became a school of business and a few months later I gave him my letter of resignation and so I actually officially retired at the end of July last summer so was it was different but I felt like I couldn't stay at a place did the the message of why you were resigning have an impact I haven't been able to see that it had a discernible impact Aaron on that if you you know they are who they are which their private University they have every right to be a Protestant evangelical University I can't say that they're doing anything wrong but I wish they would be make some things to be more accommodating because there are a lot of Catholic parents who send their kids there because it's a Christian or a large university and they think it's safe ya know and they might think it's and probably rightly so they might think it's a safer environment than other options right but not realizing that even though the goals of the university would not be to pull them from their Catholic faith in the process that's often what happens it's often what happens and for most of the faculty there that's not the goal of the faculty there are actually some faculty it's a small number who that is the goal they are openly you know almost against Catholics in the class but most are tolerant and sometimes they're very cooperative and I had one student and this was one da you know excellent ones that worked somebody mentioned something about the Brothers of Jesus and so she talked him after class and she ended up writing a paper for one of their research papers so I gave her all this research that we had on the Brothers of Jesus and that Jesus didn't have logical brothers you know Mary was perpetual virgin you know and stuff and so I gave all that and he still gave her an A on the paper and so that's the way it should be with somebody there that they recognize there's a different view right that they're open to that yeah when you look at the 95 questions that you have in your book was there one or two questions that you pawned here that were just clear questions for you that that connected with your own journey that were the mean you mentioned Sola scriptura were there any others that really were big issues for your and jumping new traditions probably it was more the solafeet a the Sola scripture those were the big ones Mary it took a while but it wasn't how is it it wasn't that much of an issue I just didn't get it okay and I didn't find that there was anything the Catholics did that were exactly against Scripture but it took me a longer period of time to appreciate Mary and appreciate who she is and her role and just because you know it's been 60 some ideas and that had not been on the radar and so that took a little bit longer to get that the last question though that is in the book as I'd say is probably the one that boils down to what is truth and I was say that there's only one reason to come into the Catholic Church it's because it's true and you know and if there's all this things that support it we did a pilgrimage to Rome some of the history and everything which you just don't care about when you're in the Protestant world you know the incorruptible Saints you don't even hear about Saints at all and you know just you know we were there and just some of the wonderful things that you see in Italy and enrollment around the Vatican you know and so anyway that's the which is the last question in the book I didn't have chance to look at your wonderful book and I look forward to another major difference that would have seemed to me be one that you would have to go through coming from Methodist reformed Presbyterian a variety of churches where you're kind of bouncing around not so much focusing on the differences of theology but focused on Jesus your Lord and Savior was that in the Catholic Church we believe that sacraments do something yes and did you deal with that in your questions yes we talked about this you know one of these you know the sacraments and that sort of thing and so in the Methodist Church well places where at they usually have you know like two sacraments and so but they don't have all the sacraments that are there and the fact of them doing something that's like baptism you know or even you know a communion communion and a lot of precedents it's just symbolic it doesn't do anything baptism doesn't do anything it's just public it's but then when you go back I say this time into there she read what scripture says and it talks about baptism which now saves you and I'll say that was never there when I read it before and I'd read it multiple times are are I glazed over it or that sort of thing and so you know that didn't turn out to be too big a problem because I felt like those views were supported by Scripture but I didn't know it yeah and I remember one on one Scripture again those verses that I never saw was that verse the second Corinthians that says that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation the old has gone the new has come well how does one become in Christ is it merely a mental faith acceptance of Jesus and now you're complete or was baptism the channel the means the gift of grace it changes us yes and it's baptism the me change you know what that changes this but you don't you know you didn't get that before before where I was at is well you just accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior but then you look in the Bible for personal Lord and Savior and it's not there you're not phrase put together that way right yes it's not around and so anyway but yes I I sacraments were in there and we did address that in there so we have an email John from Hillsdale Michigan writes we are five hundred years removed from the Reformation and I'm troubled by the continued divisions in Christianity does Roger see any ways we can heal the breaches in the body of Christ in practical and concrete ways well there's a couple of things I do think we need to work together on a number of you know there's a lot of social issues abortion and things government trying to remove you know Christianity symbols from the marketplace I think we can work together in a number of ways like that but I think one of the things that we need to do though is somehow if we're really gonna have true humanism it's somehow being able to start the dialogue about what is truth and talk to them and be evangelists ourselves if each one person who's Catholic could bring one person into the Catholic Church that would heal it because what keeps going the other way is the denominations keep splitting there and more narrow those out there all the time and somehow we have to be the part for helping Dave Angelus Bambi angel eyes and speak the truth yeah I have a an old seminary buddy a wonderful man actually ex Catholic who became a Protestant minister and our relationship isn't what it used to be after by becoming Catholic for my point from mentioning this is he was a very successful influential pastor of a very large church in his denomination mm-hmm well when his denomination went crazy on these moral issues he and his little Church and a number of those churches decided they couldn't stay in that denomination anymore and so they decided to start a new one right well we need to be have those relationships with them so when they see a problem they would at least consider coming back to Catholic Church as opposed to just starting a brand-new denomination okay that's weird I love good health yes and there's only one church that traces its roots back 2,000 years and hasn't changed their position in 2,000 years and it used to be that most of the Protestant churches you know had different views on abortion we're against that different views on contraception almost all those have changed not all but almost all there's but there's one that can trace its roots back to the beginning let's try get one more email in time from Sioux Falls right so what do you think is the single most powerful point we could share it with someone to encourage them to consider claim that the Catholic Church contains the fullness of truth the single most bankable well I think it's the church that Jesus founded and going back to Jesus said Peter you are the rock and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against that and I think if we can go back to that you know Jesus either founded a church which is the Catholic Church or he didn't and he said he would and it would be found on Peter and you can go back and research all the early church fathers they recognize that and you can go to John Henry Newman who said to study the church fathers who be deep in history is deceased to be Protestant and so you need to go back to the beginning and what was there in the early church and what was there in the early church fathers I'm reminded of a scripture in Ephesians that I've always considered very important where talks about the necessity of speaking the truth in love yes first Peter 3:15 that well the first Peter 3:15 is it's always be willing to give a reason for the hope that is within you yeah which I calls us to apologetics but that Ephesian passage which has a balance of speaking the truth in love yes I think is so key because there are those that say well you know we emphasize love but if truth gets in the way then we yeah we compromise because we want we don't know if and we want to love but then they're also those that know truth is what it's all about and and we're not so careful on how we treat the people that we're bombarding with the truth about the importance of both and to me that's the relationship that we have with our separated brethren so through our love we can help them discover the fullness hopefully they see it in our lives right yes and I think that's a good point you can't use it as a sledgehammer to beat somebody up and you need to get them to see the truth Roger thank you very much for joining the program and again your book is 95 questions for Protestants points to ponder and if you're just in that book I think it's available on the ewtn religious catalogue okay all right thank you and then thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I do pray that Rogers journey is encouragement to you call this gypsy next [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 11,837

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Keywords: JHT, JHT01601

Id: TUvLWUH5A0I

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2018