Journey Home - 2018-08-06 - Jeremy Tate

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program and here we are in the midst of the summer hot summer for many of us but we're gonna relax for a moment and do what we do every Monday night and you and I are gonna sit enjoy the story of how the holy spirit touched someone's life our guest is Jeremy Tate former Presbyterian Church in America Jeremy welcome to the democracy you remember that little bit smaller Presbyterian Church that's right the the many split pieces are yeah this is our friend Scott Hahn would say so well welcome to the program thanks for having me let me sit back and enjoy like the audience and hear the beginning your story yeah yeah I had a really blessed childhood I grew up in the church I grew up in an Oregon one of the greatest states I think in the country and we were a Beaverton Christian Church there's a large congregation there and I think some of my best memories as a young person or were there and disciples Church I think it was it was disciples of Christ Church yeah all right yeah but some of the memories there I remember we had a Sunday school teacher Leah would call him leo the lion that we would all all Russell and five six years old some of the great memories with that and I remember particularly being in in the big congregation for the first time I was probably 7 or 8 and seeing grown adults praising and worshipping you know with their hands up and remember that made such an impression on me as a young kid wondering what are they doing and they're trying to process all that yeah so you seem to look back you think for the earliest days you had a realization of the presence of God your life that came to you through that experience I think so and especially just the way Sunday was just different and special and the whole day I remember dad would would play softball as one day dad would cook he'd even put on his little apron and and I had a deep sense that this was a different day and in a really special day all right did I think carried over all right all right yeah often when people tell the beginning of the story often they they pick up the the externals of the faith very easily right as they're introduced that and or maybe some of the teachings of the church but I'm always really interested at what point does a person realize aha wait a second yeah you know that there's prayer there's really a God that loves them and all that did you catch that a really yeah I don't think I did I think I got that this day was special but you know my parents were believers and my mom in particular remember her encouraging me to have a relationship with Jesus and I didn't really know what that meant you know but I think there was an early probably the first thing that really made me stop and think about what is this whole faith thing about wasn't until my sophomore year in high school my older sister Leslie I'm very close to she went off to Texas A&M and came back after her first semester and she had had some kind of a conversion where she had internalized her faith that at a deeper level and and came back and wanted to just talk about Jesus and at the time I thought you know what happened my sister she seems kind of crazy and and that was the first time I stopped and thought maybe this is you know more than something we do on on Sunday okay all right so you're I know that you later on you think of summary but I've got a long way to go yet before you start thinking about that yeah we love to working when I was about 10 years old we moved to the East Coast and we were denominationally kind of anything but Catholic I think we went to Methodist Church for a while Presbyterian Church a non-denominational Church and we finally settled in and Oregon to a great United Methodist Church with a great youth group and and there I met people I think who lived really godly lives and I think was probably more lack of me listening more than anything else they didn't in any way kind of internalize the gospel or start to think about the reality of sin or how I may need Christ in a personal way all right for our audience here so Christian Church raising hands praising God Methodist Church a little bit different style yeah did you notice that as a young man or was that really kind of drawing you closer to God yeah I I did notice that and and I also started to get a sense that there were some kinds of division within the church you know III did know at that point that my mom's sister was Catholic and that that wasn't a good thing is what I had come to understand so there's a little Catholic thread in there yes yeah she didn't she was a convert as well and then I had one of my best friend's was Catholic and we went to Mass a few times together when I'd sleep over at his house you know his parents made sure that we got up and went to Mass you know first thing in the morning and so I started to get a sense even as a high school student as a teenager that there were there were some kind of divisions within the church as well yeah you said you anything but Catholic yeah I'm saying when their family moved to East yeah when you would go to Mass with your friend were you locked locked up mentally in other words I'm not gonna yeah I'm not gonna engage in this or yeah I think I was actually really drawn to or the reverence that was different I think got my attention and that there was something that seemed to be more serious that was going on at the mass and that's that was about the only I think way I could have described at the time all right so all right so there you are becoming a good Methodist yes yeah so this would have been junior in high school and then and it was really between for me the summer between my junior and senior year that things change there was a ministry called young life I've heard several coming home guests over Ferdie young life and and it was a great young life leader in our neighborhood in our community at the high school who would would connect with us and talk football in sports and it was where all the cute girls went as well and everybody was talking about who was going to young life camp in the summer and who wasn't and I started to kind of get the list of girls that would be there and so I thought I may need to to go to this and it's I I committed to go to lake champion the summer and between my junior and senior year in high school which turned to be a real pivotal moment in my life now when I was with young life it was the usual Wednesday night meeting for everybody and then a more deeper meeting at Monday nights called campaigners that's all training people for weekends and then for the summer camps it was a process so you connected in that whole process yep we went to young life camp and it was there the first time that I really heard and I was a pretty rebellious teenager and I wasn't in juvie or anything but I was you know drinking and experimenting with some drugs and alcohol and and and it was a young life camp where I kind of heard a unwatered down presentation of Christianity about here is the reality of God's intention for the world to be in relationship with us that he's a God in love but this has been severed from sin and disrupted and there's nothing I can do to fix that but the God has provided the remedy in Christ and and there was a something supernatural that happened a young life camp where I realized that I had this need and I'd never experienced that before and embrace Christ accepted Christ en life camp and and came home I think to my parents surprised at a pretty different kid and one of the things that happened with that before before young life camp I was never into into school at all I was never into reading books and with my conversion very quickly came an immediate love for reading and and and wanted to pick up anything I could find and within a few months got onto CS Lewis and I was hooked right away so would you say that that message you kind of summarized the five spiritual laws there or the Roman Road or however people had not been there before and then all the sudden was here or was that by grace you just all of a sudden start hearing yeah I think it's grace I started hearing it I think at different times and especially in the nondenominational church and organ or in the Methodist Church you know there was the Scriptures were being read I'm sure it was preached at some point where I I'm I heart at that point wasn't open to hearing anything and I think especially that moment where you realize I've got sinned and that's a problem and I need to figure this out and come to Jesus in faith and accept what he's done to to ride my relationship with God there it is such the beauty of grace is just amazing in you never know when it's gonna wake in someone's heart you just don't know so evangelization is I'm not gonna know when it's going to happen so I just got to tell and tell that at some point and not be disappointed if it doesn't happen today or tomorrow but just keep telling which is what young life was all about yeah you never know when the kids and even you can't guess when that moment the drinking whatever kid you never think that kid will never hear Jesus yeah ever no yeah yeah and that can't my lifelong best friend from fifth grade on that we've been getting in trouble with all through middle school converted as well and it was a real a real grace of friendship that was strengthened at that moment and then it continues to this day and then he's also since then coming to the Catholic Church oh wow which is exciting alright but see us Lewis dropped in your life yes and in a very big way a mere Christianity was a total game changer for me I remember reading it over and over senior year in high school and the the common sense argument I think that he starts off with at the very beginning that we can though we all recognize this kind of natural invisible law in the universe then we all recognize it we break it and was really compelling and and I had gone through public school and hadn't in terms of a worldview I think see as low as a mere Christianity was beginning of trying to develop a Christian worldview okay all right all right so from there then yeah I mean that that really does change everything when you start realizing wait a second there's a vertical element to life it's not really just the horizontal ISM is that there's something going on here that's much deeper yeah yeah and I remember even at young life camp processing you know this is all true I I want to spend my life telling people about about Christ and and so almost immediately I wanted to you know for a while I wanted to be a young life area director I loved that they were doing I wanted to connect with kids to do the same work and then when I got into college and I'll speak about that in a minute and kind of weave my way around through some denominations and traditions ended up very much in the reformed kind of camp and wanted to go into pastoral ministry in the Presbyterian Church in America you didn't want to become Catholic at that point all right so you take us from there then see you graduate from college this is after high school after high school went down to Louisiana to Louisiana State University go Tigers and spent four years very much different from high school I think where I was entirely focused on kind of a social scene and and high in college at times I was a bit of a hermit and reading everything I could get my hands on and freshman year in college I was kind of tore in the different campus ministries I was plugged into a young life and I was doing ministry in there laughing and working there and connecting with high school students but I wasn't sure where to go myself and so I spent time at the Baptist Student Union met some great people there I spent several months with Chi Alpha which is an Assemblies of God Fellowship and and had a you know a few months where you know I'd been baptized with the Holy Spirit I experienced the charismatic expressions of the faith and I was always kind of the one who was asking too many questions you know just questions questions questions and eventually that led me to January of my freshman year of college going to a reformed university fellowship and and met one of the most brilliant people I will ever know that k the campus director at the time and a do graduate brilliant man and he was willing to talk they had just launched our UF at LSU when I got there and so there weren't too many kids around asking first time so we would meet and within about a year I'd come to really embrace the reformed distinctives of the faith became a member of the Presbyterian Church in America and then this decided that after college I would go to seminary and pursue ordination in the PCA our guest is Jeremy Tate it sounds like your awakening at young life as a young man by grace affirming the seeds that had been planted brought you to a commitment to Jesus and then through your work in college and you you you came with distinctions of doctrinal understanding of Jesus but it doesn't sound like church per se was an important part of your you know I mean I mean it was Jesus it didn't matter really what church yeah and you narrowed down to I like this reform perspective but it wasn't like the church you were committed to it was a way of thinking you were committed to yeah yeah and it was the the reformed understanding of the church that I think began to change that with with the idea of church membership and starting to understand how that matters and then understanding and kind of reform language the sacraments as a means of grace where this is this is how being sanctified it's not just me in my room with with my Bible spending time with Jesus but it's through the Lord's Supper it's through hearing the word preached that this is a very necessary component of the Christian life and so my view of the church started to really grow when I was once I became reformed and I think ultimately it grew to desire something that could not be found in the PCA or other Protestant denominations but you were drawing to the idea that that we live in the age of the church and there's sacraments and and grace and it isn't just me yeah and Jesus it's part of a part of a community yeah okay okay and but as you you mentioned Calvin's distinctive of the preaching and the and the sacraments yes there's there's the church the Calvin's perspective yeah yeah and and it's interesting you bring that up when I I graduated from LSU in 2004 and then I started up at Westminster in Philadelphia for just one class that I did online before going down to DC to attend RTS in DC and the first class I ever took was the ancient church and the sacraments and was really interesting because in Calvinist circles there's a real emphasis rightly so on God's sovereignty and the professor that I had dr. gamble for church history ancient church history class talking about the Arian crisis controversies in the fourth century but God's grace and protecting the church from err and heresy at these early church councils and and I remember thinking well God was protecting the church from error then why would he stop doing that if during the time of the Reformation you know and at Trent you know if he ever did this why would he why would he stop doing this and and that was was interesting they said the first class I ever took was ancient church and and then the second class I took once I got down to DC was actually with an Anglican priest and it was on the church and the sacraments and suggest a way in God's providence I could have taken at all of the seminary classes in any order but just the way that it stacked up they planted a lot of seeds that informed the way I was I was reading theology in the rest of that the time I was in seminary yeah so I'm guessing that let's let's be careful not to read back into it your eventual Catholic view yeah and I'm not saying you're doing that but I want to make sure but at the time you were already becoming aware of the fact that that our faith is not merely intellectual that there's a physicality to things through the church and through the sacraments you know that that's not held by your Christian or Methodist backgrounds as much as it was Jude sounds like you were coming to realize yeah yeah I think slowly I think at the time I I would not I wouldn't have seen that one of the things that happened along the way when I was at LSU my parents got stationed and my dad was with ATF Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and they got stationed actually in Lyon France for a few years and so for Christmas and summer breaks I would go out there and and just spending time in Europe and walking around with them there was I was so anti-catholic at the time but I was so drawn to the beauty of these old churches and wondering what kind of world produced this you know a world that was so thoroughly informed and saturated with the faith that you know at a time when there is there's great poverty that that they're able to spend resources and energy in creating this beautiful cathedrals and as I was very much I think drawn to the beauty at the same time as well that I think all came together and actually converted yeah well that that realization and you mentioned earlier I don't wanted them I don't want to distract from that and that your professor right saying yeah that the church was protected during this time and you were starting to think boy disma what happened did you ask him that or did that that become vocalize of that just an inner seed starting to brew in you yeah I think it was one of Accession once we got down to RTS in started to have conversations with students and saying that there were there were many Anglican students in the class and I think there was a growing discomfort that was was growing there and being a young life convert as well I didn't have a lawyer particular denomination and I didn't really grow up with a loyalty to Methodism or Presbyterianism and so I was very much wanting to find just authentic Christianity and was willing to kind of go where where that led just through through asking questions alright so so you studied sacraments what else did you study that yeah I may have pulled you either closer or away from the sacraments class was the first systematic theology class I took at RTS and again it was the only class I ever took with with an Anglican priest and I remember during the class he was relaying a dialogue that he would have with a Catholic friend of his who may have been a Catholic priest and I think the point of him reeling this conversation was to dissuade us from really considering Rome but for me it was it was kind of had the opposite effect you know kind of hearing this what you really need to do that do you think people work we're leaning in that direction I I think so and I think that there's been a wave of converts which at the time I didn't know about and then Seminary for me was also I had no idea but before I hundred seminary then especially from reform circles there's been a wave you know anyone from Peter creeped in the 50s or 60s Scott Hahn yourself that there's been plenty of converts and maybe you no reason to be pre-emptive if you're a reformed seminary professor to start that conversation all right all right so so you're having this conversation with the sacraments like I said did any of the next courses to pull your push away or yeah one of the things that really stuck with me that was both from the sacraments class and then also from the ancient church history class is that the the view of the Eucharist from the earliest Christians and even that they would at times be accused of cannibalism and we were thinking that they must have had a different view of the sacrament than I have for outsiders to think that this is this is what's going on here and so I saw that there was a a devotion to Mary as well that I was uncomfortable with and there was never part of my Protestant faith at all and even I'll get into Mary maybe at the end we'll talk about being a Catholic but those were distinct is where I thought you know these early Christians don't look PCA to me they don't look for form they seem to have leaved something pretty different on some really crucial questions yeah you brought a good to the particular question yeah because I'm wondering you having two barriers or that's right because at this point you're still not open yeah was it open and I was really blessed in seminary that I I had a great relationship with a local church that was paying for seminary and I was also doing some youth ministry at the church as well and I was it was actually when I was preparing a talk on Galatians 5 and I was where I believe it speaks about the works of the sinful nature and part of that as factions divisions rivalries and in this in the process of just research searching and preparing the talk I came across a statistic for Protestant denominations they really blew me away and I was sure that it was wrong I would said that 33,000 I believe and so I started researching to make sure that that was wrong and was coming up with other really high numbers no matter where you looked and Wow how started to ask the question if if the Protestant Reformation was a great recovery of authentic Christianity how would it lead to this fragmenting of the church and and I I kind of obsessed over that question for for a few weeks and within maybe a month I came to the conclusion that perhaps the problem was the Protestant doctrine of Sola scriptura and adapt when I hadn't connected the dots that this would mean I would no longer be a happy presbyterian I just was trying to figure out what went wrong and I remember the first time I heard a proc Affleck asked a question you know where does the Bible teach Sola scriptura that I realized there was not a good answer for that I feel like I'd been in seminary long enough and was familiar with scripture enough to know that there was not a a clear teaching of Sola scriptura within scripture itself and so that was was all quick and I think I thought for a while that perhaps I could I could become Anglican at some point and and and you know keep my my concerns about Sola scriptura intact without having to go any further than that yeah I'm trying to remember back myself to my seminary days and and I might be totally wrong on this but I think on the one hand you kind of enter seminary with the assumption there's a god you know you're not you don't go through the first-class proofing there's God you kind of that's an assumption and I always felt the same way about scripture you know because I'm wondering you know did you have any seminary formulated argument for the the sole authority of Scripture yeah as it just assumed yeah I think as a reformed Christian believing that the self attesting nature of Scripture itself that there was nothing outside of scripture that can validate scripture because it was a validation for everything else and so that was very much and I know other traditions you know would have maybe different arguments or approaches for it but it was I think in our apologetics classes that's that's where we went is that it was self attesting so if you read it the Holy Spirit lets you know it's true yes exactly through the preaching and reading of Scripture the Holy Spirit illuminates to heart that's the exact same argument the Mormons give away they want to give you the Book of Mormon and just say read it and then pray for the Holy Spirit the exact same argument they give for that yeah okay that's all there is to it subjective yeah understanding but but you didn't question it during the time until later you start to see yeah what is there yeah so this led to a bit of a crisis and I was had I had two kids at this point I had a great situation in that you know the again the church was paying graciously for me to go to seminary and that was under care as well and it seemed like it was a real quick road easy road to ordination and and this created a crisis with Sola scriptura and as I as I talked to more and more questions people that's led to reading more and more Catholic sources and so I started reading Chesterton I think that the book that ultimately did it was a little Peter Crieff book called the God who loves you and he talks about the great ideas he's ever heard at this point and he affirms the the rightness of Luther's understanding of salvation is a free gift completely and that's not the issue that separates Catholics and Protestants and when I so this was the next question for me as a reformed person is I believe that the Catholics had it all wrong beginning at Trent in fact one of my seminary professor said the Catholic Church ceased to become a be a church the Council of Trent you know when it anatomized the the understanding of justification that the Reformers had and and and through reading Trent myself which I I came to realize that most of my fellow seminarians had not done and even many my professors hadn't and I went back in I read Trent and I you read the the causes of justification and it's God it's entirely God there's nothing saying and then the person has to do this to save themselves there was not the works righteousness said I'd always been told Catholics believed in so I think once I started going directly to the source and and just saying as well this is supported by all of the Church Fathers this is in continuity it's not this break and I think for me this is where the journey home kind of came in actually as I was trying to find anyone and anywhere who was having similar thoughts and so I was you know looking online for different blogs came across a group called the communion as well as they were starting to launch O Brien cross who is on not too long ago it's very influential yeah and and and I think for especially the journey home just making me think okay I'm not totally crazy for thinking this that the people who have put this together in the past and you know part of the story I've left out my wife was a cradle Catholic and we we met actually a young life camp I'm only not wearing a ring is I have poison ivy we met a young life camp dated dated through college and and and I for a long time just waged anti Cass like arguments against her well and so for a while I was kind of hiding the Catholic books I was reading you know if she fell asleep I turned on the journey hone I'm listening you know I I should pull her out coming up yes yes so she left the Catholic Church and and didn't want her to find out that I was I was you know reading this and really really considering and there was no easy way to bring up the conversation and finally I got a talk so you watch the journey home a few times several time this would have been about 2010 2011 I was gonna say did you have to wait until she was out of the house or even report it sometimes and and watch it later and I think especially when there be somebody coming from a Presbyterian or a reformed perspective because even as a reformed Presbyterian people in different circles of Protestantism I didn't see his Christian at all especially you know some people who were were Pentecostal or charismatic and and I had a lot of suspicions there I kind of believe that if you didn't understand my view of Christianity through a very reformed Calvinist lens you probably didn't get it at all and and I think even PCA folks sometimes looked under the you the PC USA folk that I was a part of they wondered whether we were a part of the fold yeah yeah so eventually I think yet it was reading the God who loves you Peter Chris book where I I i came to the conclusion the Catholic Church did not condemn the gospel at the Council of Trent did not cease to become a church at that point and if that was the case if the Catholic Church and I at that point I was only at a point of saying the Catholic Church was at least a legitimate church but if it was at least a legitimate Church it wouldn't make sense to not be at the First Church you know that ever was and to be in this tradition and and so it was probably February or so of 2000 2010 I told Erin you know we've got to talk and I said I think I have to become Roman Catholic and she knew at least that I was interested in Anglicanism and I think she knew that I was having a bit of a theological crisis in seminary so it wasn't completely left field but I think that I was ready to say there's not another simple answer besides actually being Catholic was a bit of a shock and she ended up coming back into the church about six months after I did I think some of my bad arguments had stuck around and but but we've been together in the church now for about seven years which has been great all right Jeremy well let's take a pause now I will come back one of the first things I want to talk about we come back because I'm gonna talk about some barriers and some other specifics but also you know it's one thing to discover that as you said that if the Catholic Church is it being considered a church well at least we recognize it was probably the first mm-hmm but is that still a mandate to become a part of it because you might recognize that that first church the first bank on the corner here was the oldest bank in America but I mean everybody's gonna quit their other banks and get their money in that bag yeah so let's talk about that I love it all right [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host and our guest is Jeremy Tate - former Presbyterian PC a PC a MCA one of the many split peas they say I won't be rude about that but the reality is that yeah if the Presbyterians really are divided yeah yeah the PCA is that the smaller more conservative I think more faithful to historic Presbyterianism right as well and yeah all right so you and your wife came into the church now let me ask you a couple questions there are significant differences in Presbyterian theology from Catholic theology and lots of things and it just isn't easy just to step over a little creek and then now you're in the church yeah the debts a pretty big river what about what were some specific hard barriers for you yeah the church for me and since seminary one of the conversations that I remember going around and around was was over infant baptism you know and I was as a Presbyterian I believe it infant baptism but a lot of the reformed Baptists did not and there would be a back and forth that that Professor as well it was almost like in the course of those arguments and debates there was just a need you could almost feel it for a final authority on these matters and and so I think for me the in some ways the first Catholic doctrine I really embraced was actually it was the Magisterium III felt and saw that there was a need for an authoritative infallible interpreter of Scripture and so they my experience was that there were doctrines that I wasn't very comfortable with but I was trusting the authority of the church that perhaps something was wrong with my thinking I loved Chesterton's quote and I'll probably mess it up here where he says that you know the Catholicism is a bold idea that perhaps somebody knows more than you and I and that was very much a part of my convergence I remember thinking I might not be comfortable with Mary or purgatory but I am also not coming with me being my own final authority and the greatest authority in interpreting Scripture and so I defer to the Magisterium and I'll try to test or my own thinking out as we go and try to figure this out you've mentioned a bunch of things that all kind of come together you know you were looking at there's thousands of denominations that even are separated brethren recognize so the guy explained that sometimes they explain oh well we're all so different than God needs different groups well it's all different ways okay that doesn't that means God's promoting division that doesn't make sense but also you had your wonderful professor that talked about the protection of the Holy Spirit during the Arian controversy yeah you know and when did he quit doing that yeah you know and your acceptance of the Magisterium recognized he didn't quit doing that yeah as a fulfillment of Christ's promise of the sending of the Holy Spirit yeah the guide them into all truth yeah yeah and that and even the protection of the church that jesus promises it it'll it'll prevail you know that there's not an even though the use of the word church there there wasn't a conception of this of the church is simply an invisible construct which is how I had come to interpret that as a reformed person because you couldn't really understand in any other way that there would be an actual physical bodily entity that would stand the test of time and seeing that this prophet this this promise of Jesus made was very much fulfilled in the continuation of the Catholic Church yeah the you mentioned purgatory as well one of those things you had to accept but in your journey of accepting that you almost have to re-examine what sin is all about yeah and the Presbyterian view of sin and the Catholic view of sin is a little bit different very much yeah yeah and even the whole concept of staying in a state of grace as well was brand-new I remember very well the first time going to confession I was not even Catholic at this point but I had read enough and realize I was going to make this decision at some point and I remember going actually at the Baltimore Basilica and and standing in line and there were six or seven people in front of me and sitting as people would walk out almost invisible kind of freedom and relief you know that and and I loved I loved the sacrament now and I can't imagine living the Christian life without this this great gift you know and you know and even the first time I ever went you you know you you you do this you've never done before you confess all your sins and you're kind of wondering like and you hear nothing but the words of God's love for you and this full forgiveness and freedom with that and and so this was definitely new and I think it's almost hard to go back and imagine kind of living the Christian life apart from it yeah I remember back in seminary days that there were very committed men and women loved jesus committed you know calling to sentiment a pastoral life they were very committed with that but their private lives were not very holy and when you look back or it was kind of obvious that a part of that was the result of the theology mm-hmm yeah did if you were once saved always saved then what yes and in fact I'm one of my buddies in college who is in a pattern of pretty serious you know habitual sin that wasn't seeming to change it I remember talking to him about it and and and he said you know I feel like this is God's Way of you know he's having me say in this so that I'll understand it's the third thoroughness and my depravity and then I can be more grateful for you know the the provision Christ made on the cross and it was it was really a way that he did at least interpreted reformed theology where there was not a need to because the main thing is that he understood his you know wretchedness and his need for Christ and and in the theology itself prevented living a holy life you know in a state of grace I mean I'm one of the audience appreciates what you've just described you know because here's this individual friend of yours deciding then for him the theology of grace and sin and life and eternity right I've decided that this is what God's doing for me and I can live this that's not that I can but Eve almost wants me live this sinful life because it helps me appreciate the grace that I yeah he's decided that yes yeah and and there's such a strong concept in some ways of sin within you know a reformed understanding of it that everything becomes sin every every thought everything you do is just sin sin since then almost at the point where nothing is not sin because of everything is in nothing nothing is really not sin and there that I think that can lead to despair I know in my case it did a little bit as well but I feel like as a Catholic you're able to say because I am United to Christ I can I can live I can abide in him and and then and there's also with that a healthy fear of sin that that was new to me as a Catholic that it's been very helpful I think for the Christian life yeah did you grow to see purgatory as a grace absolutely and and and of course CS Lewis I don't think you have to get past CS Lewis where this is something that we would desire you know that who wouldn't want to be presented to God you know for fully fully cleanse from their sins and yeah what about discovering of the Catholic sacramental view of marriage did that make a difference in your life so so much you know and this was it was interesting we got married actually in a Catholic Church my mother-in-law hi Julie she um she she that was kind of the we we had to get married in the Catholic Church if you're gonna marry my daughter it's gonna be the Catholic Church and so we had a joint wedding with a PC a pen at this point even though your wife was pulled away from yes both yeah mother-in-law knew that we'd be late it probably was what you have your fingers crossed when you win and get murdered this is yes it was it was really tough because we you know we had a great we had pretty Cana that we had to go through him and then we had a joint wedding we also did Pat marriage counseling with a PC a couple as well and in fact going through the pre-cana process with this this Catholic couple it was one of the first times I met a Catholic couple who loved Jesus lived an amazingly holy life had you know Gillian kids and they wanted to pour their life into others as well and in that was not at all what I expected in some ways that kind of ruined our premarital counting as I turn it into a debate over Catholicism and reformed theology and went back and forth that this guy the whole time we were supposed to be talking about marriage but that was one of the points as I said marriage is not a sacraments the sacraments their baptism in the Lord's Supper that's what I've been taught as a reformed Christian at the time but the grace I mean it is so good for a marriage for both people to realize that this is this is part of the way god saves me and redeems me and restores me to who have meant to be is through this relationship and so that is an in irony you know my wife she is funny I told the priest before the wedding I said you know I really don't believe this is a sacrament can you please not refer to it as a sacrament at any time during the the ceremony he probably called it a sacrament 20 times just just on purpose you know so it was it was funded in God's providence we were able to and we also almost couldn't get married because we had to make this promise to raise our kids in the Catholic faith and and but in God's providence we were able to talk fulfill that which is great yeah yeah you know the the mystery of the oneness of the marital sacrament is not all that different than the mystery of the grace that changes an infant when they're baptized where they have no clue of what going on we're talking about the same thing yeah there's the mystery of that the mystery of a that changes a person when they're ordained to the priesthood or or the mystery of what's been changed in you when you come out of the confessional yeah you know that mystery is truly a uniquely Catholic thing that isn't quite there and in our separated brethren yeah yeah it's been a it's been a great home seven years now into the church and and saying that we can have a marriage that's so enriched by the sacraments as well and one of our concerns in converting was a we'd experienced great community in in Protestant circles and that was my wife's biggest concern coming back in and I think what we've found is that we're we're able to in our particular parish st. Andrew by the bay we're able to have great community that that's as rich as anything I experienced in Protestant circles as well but then the grace of the sacraments that strengthens that and then strengthens everyone else's marriage as well well you did mention earlier our lady yes as much talk about her yeah of your journey I think I think for me Mary when I became Catholic was again I believe in the Magisterium this all seems very weird I'm not very comfortable with this but I trust it in the church and I think it's only been for me over the past four or five years where I've really seen Mary's become mom you know and in a very personal way and that that's that that's really good and that Mary desires nothing more than that I am in relationship with her son and and so that's been it wasn't so much again a theological barrier because of a belief in the Magisterium but it is one of the big warnings that I was given you know as a as a Protestant that you know Catholics worship Marian and remember I believe it was Scott Hahn and a talk I heard they said you know Catholics understand worship fundamentally as a sacrifice you know and nobody's sacrificing you know Mary that Mary is the queen of the Saints and who gives us you know we behold Christ through the eyes of Mary and the way that I think any parent you know would want their kid to be seen most most accurately is through the eyes of mom and that's how we behold Christ and his fullness is through her eyes I was thinking that as I was a Presbyterian pastor in the PC USA which is the really PC us everybody would be a big one but we had a book of confessions so it had 21 or so confessions that were our handbook so I'm assuming the PCA had its was cradle yep right absolutely yes and I had memorized the West entire Westminster Shorter Catechism and which in itself kind of says sola scriptura yes it was a part of that but also was a part of that was communion of saints so how do you understand that before and how did you make the transition to understanding you did in a very practical way as a Catholic yeah yeah I think in a practical way and again seus Lois is so helpful as a transition here because he never made the move of becoming Catholic but he very much affirmed community the Saints as we understand a Catholic perspective and I believe at the end of his life he wrote that you know if he couldn't ask his friends who had died before him to pray for him you know who could he ask because so many of his friends passed on before he did and and I found that if we really believed even from a reformed perspective that believers that have passed on or not are not dead but are far more alive than we are you know how could we possibly object to asking them to pray for us yeah we're here on earth yeah I'm also it doesn't seem like that's one of the biggest barriers that helps prevents Protestants from opening Marys they just don't have yet an understanding of that connection we have with those have gone before us yeah once you're open to that then then we wouldn't be open to the those of it that Christians throughout the world have always recognized as great models of faith yeah what about the rituals of the Catholic Church because you you weren't always liturgical yeah yeah what about the liturgies and the rituals of the Catholic yeah that's great I think even as a Methodist I remember the I guess it's a doxology praise God from whom all blessings flow that kind of getting into your blood I I love I love that in a way that it was so different from any kind of contemporary kid music and and so that's been an even even as I referred to earlier walking around in Europe with my my parents when they were in France and going into the churches and saying seeing the holy water and that again that the Catholicism is so thoroughly incarnation all that the whole story of Christianity is God breaking into the physical world that we live in and that in Catholicism you experience that through all the sacraments they're all the sacramento's as well which is again it's hard to imagine kind of life without it now all right we've got an email and from Springfield Illinois writes as a lifelong Catholic I always have hard time explaining and understanding our view of the relationship between Christ's saving death and our cooperation with works for salvation my Protestant friends claim that the Christ that Christ's death was enough and that there is nothing we can do to add to it how can I better understand this issue yeah yeah I think especially in reform circles you know the question of justification and and reform people speaking of Catholicism as if it's saying you we must add something to Christ work to make it complete is not how Catholics are understanding it at all I think the the meritorious cause of justification is very clearly articulated and trend is the Passion of Christ on the cross and it's through the other Grace's is through the grace of baptism that we are brought into that that we do we experience that but it's not through some kind of addition that we just muster up on our own to add to it and I know that you know the number of talks that I listen to from PCA pulpits that would speak of the finished work of Christ in no way is the Catholic Church undermining you know what Christ did on the cross in fact I think through this the other sacraments it is it is God pouring His grace out on the church on the world on believers in a way to actually make it a reality would you say as you look back I don't want to be careful I don't want to be critical of our separated brother at all but I'm trying to under think through a little bit this distinction of faith and works yeah it almost seems I looked back that the nervousness that had arisen as a resolve the Reformation and others about the fear of works as somehow trying to manipulate God into owing me salvation that what ends up is almost a gnostic view of the mind and the body and then what really makes sense is what I do with my mind it's faith and believing in God and and and my body isn't connected to that what I do with my hands or my feet or the other that's not we're from a Catholic perspective since we recognize the person as body and soul where we United faith is more than what's going on up here it's everything yes yes yeah that's a great way to put it and that we are acting out our faith as well that you know reform people will say you're saved by faith alone but a faith that never is alone when you kind of peel that back say well so this is only a hypothetical that you the kind of faith that is saving you're saying can never be alone and so I think when you peel that back you start to actually get towards something of an agreement and that they're there recognizing that God infuses you know we as we understand and infuses charity accuses agape into our hearts which is part of how he saves us reform people are saying that without that you can't be saved and so I think a lot of it is and these are the conference late-night conversations that I like I have had way too many to go round and round and round and round where it's difficult sometimes to see how substantial the disagreement is something was true for me and I've heard it many times the journey home is that that's often the the journey from especially a Presbyterian back room to the Catholic is a journey in Scripture from almost an overemphasis on Paul and a diminishment of the Gospels to a rediscovery of the gospel what was that true final you could absolutely in every way and I remember thinking as we would read the Gospels you know that we had we had to have a totally conditioned by the way that we understood Romans and Paul and and very much there seem to be these conditionals you know that if you abide in me the Jesus was very clear about and that we had to kind of explain away I think and so I think we were out as a Catholic very much able to come and take Jesus at his word you know if you take Matthew the the the sheep and the goats parable I mean I don't remember what I did with that because that's pretty clear yeah it's how we treat other people that becomes a bottom-line criteria for being entrance entrance into the kingdom yeah yeah like a member how I dealt with that back then I wish I know that it was eating away at me when I was a pastor because I preached the Gospels every week you know but again as you were saying I always looked through it through a lens of the way I understood Paul hmm rather than just taking for what our Lord taught us yeah another email Steve from the West Coast how can i as a dedicated Catholic explain to my neighbors who are hardcore presbyterian that the reformation wasn't a positive thing for Christian to go through and that it really didn't recover the true Christianity but rather just served as a means to fragment the body so this is such a great question the the radical secularization of the West I remember this coming up in seminary and that our professors would say this was not a cause of the Reformation and I think now even knowing reform guys that are saying that's just not the case you know that we absolutely had the unraveling really of the very fabric of Western civilization which was so thoroughly Catholic that began with the Reformation and and I think is now led of the radical individualism and secularism that we have today and so I think that we've we've seen that then nobody's benefited in some ways you know from from the Reformation and yeah I mean a it's amazing just in our lifetime because when I was young of course I'm a little older than you but I do remember I was young people were loyal to their denominations their Methodists you went across a country you generally went Methodists or Presbyterian you were pretty we've gone all the way now where their church is starting every day that have no connection yeah and on a without any apology they're just totally disconnected yeah yeah I think it's been the kind of the end of denominationalism almost as we've known and I think you still have some pretty intact brain you know PCA I think being one and some in different denominations as well but I think you're right that new churches that are launching there's not a whole lot of thought given to what tradition do we fall under as well and so but I think right now we're also seeing more more than ever a hunger for what's only offered in the Catholic Church and that there is a a disconnect that is very palpable for a lot of people as you're in the pew wondering how is this baby different from Christians 2,000 years ago than what I'm what I'm doing here today it's kind of like we talked about it earlier in the show and that is there's a hunger out there and we may look at people that we see and imagine there was no way they would ever be open to the Catholic Church but that's not our question our cause to tell yeah I mean that's what happened to you it coming to Christ when you're in life young life right yeah all right now let's let's suppose for as in closing we got a couple minutes oh I know what if they asked yeah your work that you're doing I have a feeling that what you do in your work was shaped by your conversion yes so so I am Catholicism for me kind of derailed in my career path in many ways I was again gonna be a PC a pastor and kind of frantically needed a way to feed the kids after after conversion and so I started an SAT prep company and I think I had the experience a lot of students do and they study for the SAT or the acct that they're they're setting a bunch of kind of meaningless material and meaningless reading passages and and kind of saw there that there could be a real opportunity to to put students in front of great thinkers great literature even a lot of Catholic authors as well and so we launched about three years ago an alternative to the SAT and a CT called the classic Learning Test which now we're partnered with 120 colleges including a lot of the great Catholic colleges Franciscan Thomas Aquinas Christian Roman and they've been really enthusiastic to have a test that better reflects their own mission as a college they can then be used as an entrance exam as well and so we've combined that with with same-day results and it's been exciting for for students and and doing it with my my best friend he came into the church as well it's been a lot of fun to get a website for that in case they're we do it's CLT exam calm all right okay let's see in one minute to go real quick let's say there's a PC a person watching yeah why should you tell them they ought to make the same journey a minute yeah I think the core of Catholicism is an encounter with Christ and I think to to miss out on receiving Christ in the Eucharist I think one should be very sure that that is the case that there's something wrong in the doctrine or that it's not actually Christ I think for me personally the the center of my Christian life certainly is encountering Christ in the mass and in the Eucharist on Sunday and anytime I can and I think that is why become Catholic because of Jesus more of Jesus alright Jeremy thank you Marcus earlier having all thank you for sharing your story with us and and also for the work that you do that's really nice I think it's a really great option for homeschooled kids particularly they're trying to connect with the Catholic school so god bless you my friend and thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I do pray that Jeremy's journey is encouragement to you god bless you see you [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 17,165

Rating: 4.75 out of 5

Keywords: ytsync-en, jht, jht01621

Id: f-9tIpjBsYk

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 07 2018