Rod,

Basically what Mary just said. I came to examine protestant beliefs and found them not to be in accordance with the teaching and practice of the early Church.

Posted by: Joe | February 26, 2008 6:46 PM

We started asking who is right, meaning which denomination? Jesus prayed that we all may be one, not 30,000 different (whatever the number of Christian denominations there are now). So we started looking back to the early church and realized that there is a lot of stuff that was left out. There were several hundred years of Christianity before the bible was canonized. That means there was a lot of oral teaching. Paul says to do those things which he has taught, whether by word (speaking) or epistle. We were missing the oral history. Once we really started looking at the early church and realized that the Bible wasn't suddenly dropped from the sky as a comprehensive book to the church in acts, sola scriptura started falling apart. Who was first, the church or the bible? Who decided what went into the bible.

Posted by: Jeremy Heise | February 26, 2008 7:29 PM

I was raised Episcopalian, drifted away from faith altogether for about 20 years, then came back to God with a bang, at a time when I was in desperate need of His help. He helped. And, I realized then that I needed to go to church, to read the bible, and to go deeper into my faith.

I returned to a great Episcopal church, with an excellent priest, and had we continued to live there, would probably have remained Episcopalian for life, even though the issues ripping apart the national church bothered me. As it was, though, we moved, and the Episcopal church in our new town just wasn't nearly as vibrant, and, it seemed to me at times, that the priest, although a good man, had some doubts. That bothered me, and it bothered me even more that there didn't seem to be much help from the diocese for a struggling priest (true of all protestant denominations, I think.) Being a priest is a tough job, and anyone can have a crisis of faith-- it's not a sin, more of a tragedy-- and a priest in that position needs help, as does the congregation. It seemed to me that a more hierarchical church, like the Catholics, would make that help available.

But, I had been interested in Catholicism before. Having now attended a Catholic church for over a year, and having done a lot more reading (old books, plus JPII Theology of the Body, and the Catechism, and some Pope Benedict), it seems to me that the Catholic church is the only one that is truly catholic. Every kind of person-- from the highly logical and analytical to the pure mystic-- fits in there. The protestant churches seem to me to be more tied to a national temperament of their country of origin-- the stiff upper-lipped Brit is a natural Anglican, the dour Scot a natural Presbyterian, etc..

Anyway, the Catholic church fits my temperament, as being more welcoming to the mystical sorts, and I just love the whole thing-- the music, the liturgy, the community, everything. I even see the importance of confession-- not fun, but definitely helpful. I think the Protestants lost a lot when they lost that.

Doctrinally, I don't think there are any important differences between Episcopalians and Catholics-- people like to make a big deal of the "real presence" of Jesus in the Eucharist, but I don't have a problem with that. I felt that way as an Episcopalian-- Jesus was always making himself present to us in an important way in the Eucharist-- arguing about exactly how is, I believe, unimportant.

Posted by: Lisa | February 26, 2008 7:42 PM

As I said in a previous combox, the non-denominational Bible Church I grew up in described a 'close, personal relationship' that exists between the Christian and Christ.

I never felt it, never sensed it, never had any indication that any of the cast of supernatural beings described by the Church actually existed.

I think it would be nice if I could believe that was the way things were - that I could believe the universe was created by a loving Deity with a wonderful plan for my life. But, despite years of prayers, I just don't have any inkling that such a One exists.

Which makes staying in a church sort of pointless.

Posted by: John E. | February 26, 2008 7:54 PM

I love my roots as a Baptist preacher's kid, I honestly do. But here is how I would explain, in a few words, what pushed me toward the ancient church and all the way to Eastern Orthodoxy. I was looking for a beautiful, non-fundamentalist expression of traditional, basic, conservative Christian faith.

Posted by: tmatt | February 26, 2008 8:09 PM

My denomination (pcusa) deciding that you can call the trinity Mother, Child, Womb was the straw the broke the camels back for me. I'd been fed up with 'entertainment church' and not only missed the liturgical/traditional feel of how church was when I was younger, but was sad that my kids weren't experiencing anything deeper than pop-culture church.

It's taken me years of studying to grasp orthodoxy/catholicism, and I found it a very hard change. But, I felt where else could I go? Then Mark Shea posted an article about protestant joining the catholic church who are still really protestants at heart, just joining the catholic church in protest at what's going on in the protestant church. That made me stop and think - did I do that? I still can't answer that for sure.

Posted by: Momathome | February 26, 2008 8:46 PM

I was raised Protestant, so I qualify for this thread. I don't think it was anything specific to that denomination, but in my teens I started having serious doubts. The religious narrative I was taught seemed unlikely, had no evidence to back it up, and seemed logically inconsistent. At first I fought harder to believe, but then one day I stopped believing.

So at 19 I became a member of "no religion" group and I'm still in that group at 43. This is not quite the same thing as being an atheist as I think a god might exist, but it is not the same thing as the God.

Posted by: MH | February 26, 2008 8:55 PM

It would be interesting to see a similar post about why so many people have left the Orthodox church.

Posted by: Daniel | February 26, 2008 10:18 PM

I ceased being an active Protestant simply because I ceased being an active Christian (or theist at all for that matter). I've reached a point where I have to admit to myself that I don't actually believe that any God or gods exist. I'm not ashamed to say that I want to believe. I want the universe to be somehow other than what it seems to be. But I don't. Nothing I've ever experienced personally, nor anything I've ever learned through science or human history leads me to believe that God is anything but a perfectly explainable human construction. I've never encountered an argument for the existence of deity, or the Christian deity in particular, that wasn't riddled with logical fallacies, stolen bases and unnecessary conclusions. Everything I've learned in studying astronomy and physics indicates that if there is a deity, it is completely superfluous and unnecessary to explain the universe as we know it. The misdeeds of religion has nothing to do with it. Quibbles over points of doctrine or practice have nothing to do with it. A God to conform myself to would be a great relief to me. But I've no reason to believe in such a thing, despite wanting to.

As far as Protestantism goes in relation to other strands of Christianity, assuming the basic tenets of the faith are true -- I can get on board with 4 of the 5 solas. Sola Scriptura just falls down on too many levels, although I believe that the Prima Scriptura approach is entirely tenable. I was raised Methodist, and still have a great affection for the church I grew up in. It is an extended family for me.

As I was taught, Scripture is final authority, but Tradition, Revelation, and Reason are the means of interpreting Scripture. We receive salvation by faith through God's grace (and are able to reject that grace as beings of free will), and since true faith will always entail works, "sola fide" and "sola gratia" are simply a way of making sure to attribute our salvation to God rather than our own eternally-insufficient efforts. Our works reflect and evidence our salvation, they do not earn it. Of the remaining two solas, solus Christus seems like a no-brainer -- Christ is the only Redeemer, and the efficacy of the sacraments and the hierarchies and all the rest lies only in His grace. Soli gratia Dei -- all of the glory of the saints, the popes, even Mary, is simply a reflection of the true glory of God, without whom they would be nothing. I'm far less versed in Catholic and Orthodox theology on these points, but nothing in the above seems to contradict scripture or the witness of the early church.

Posted by: allen | February 26, 2008 10:50 PM

Must agree, I also want to see the thread on why Orthodox leave Orthodoxy. I know that there will be many fewer responses, but I met one myself who left Orthodoxy for Protestantism for a very similar reason to that which one hears about leaving Catholicism for Protestantism. That is, that the faith was not "feeding" him. That Orthodoxy was just about the gestures and the liturgy, and not about meeting Christ and having a personal relationship with Him. Basically, Orthodoxy was described as just an "empty shell". Now, I found that very insulting, and I'm not Orthodox--I'm a very happy Catholic girl. My guess is that those who left Orthodox worship for a Protestant form don't read this blog, but it could still be interesting to ask the question. Oh, yeah, those who leave Orthodoxy for the Catholic Church would also be interesting to read--but I doubt that there are many of those. There are, however, many who are in mixed marriages between Catholic and Orthodox. I would very much like to hear how they deal with that. I personally have friends who are in this situation, and seem quite happy despite their different faiths (married for around 25-30 years).

Posted by: mary margaret | February 26, 2008 11:23 PM

"Interesting. I'm still Protestant, but many of the same things you guys are talking about are what has drawn me out of contemporary evangelical churchdom and toward Anglicanism. Especially the first point Mary brought up: longing for worship (not teaching in the place of worship)."

Ragamuffin--I feel much like you do about this thread. My wife grew up Protestant with a non-Practicing Catholic father, and a kind-of practicing Protestant/evangelical mother, and went to a Catholic School until 8th grade. She is also currently a teacher at a Catholic school. She has expressed a desire to convert to Catholicism, but is sticking by me and my reluctance to convert. (Her mother has since converted to Roman Catholicism) I was inundated as a child with all of the evils of Catholicism (and pretty much all denominations that weren't fundamentalist/charismatic/evangelical), so it is really difficult for me, and this is hard to admit, to accept things like the intercession of the saints, and I'm not quite sure how to say this, but the elevation of the Virgin Mary to more than a blessed human being, and the idea of purgatory.

Right now, I believe that orthodox Anglicanism is what I have been looking for, but at the same time, I am very curious about Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church. So many of the reasons that so many of you have given for leaving Protestantism really appeal to me in the same way that orthodox Anglicanism has--much like Ragamuffin wrote. I really appreciate the respectful and civil tone of this thread, and I am really starting to see more and more how the stereotypical images of Roman Catholics, and EOC Christians are not at all what I was taught, nor are the reasons that you have chosen your tradition. This is a tremendously difficult decision for someone who was pounded with misinformation, but I can almost tangibly sense God leading me from the traditions of my parents--so thank you all.

Posted by: Mike D | February 27, 2008 12:29 AM

Mike D:

Leaving Protestantism for Orthodoxy was one of the hardest things I've done. I fought it tooth and nail, mentally at least, and alluded in the other thread to the existential angst it caused. I fully sympathize with your predicament. It can be an extremely difficult, distressing, and discomforting time or process in one's life, and for some it lasts years (I've read testimonies of converts who said it took more than 10 or 20 years before they would or could make the change). On the other hand, some people take to it like a duck to water, as if they have found what they have been searching for.

Bill:

I don't know exactly which comments disturbed or irritated you, or have you grinding your teeth, so I can't respond to your concerns or apologize or explain myself if it was something I wrote. Feel free to explain why you stick to your guns, as well as which guns they are, since "Protestantism" encompasses quite a range of Christianities.

Posted by: Eric W | February 27, 2008 8:31 AM

Especially because the smaller religions (or atheism) may have been covered on the "Why'd you leave? Why'd you stay?" thread.

Posted by: Rod Dreher | February 27, 2008 8:55 AM

The short answer: I was tired of the hypocrites.

In college I "accepted Jesus as my personal savior" and began over 20 years of life as a conservative, evangelical Christian. I was headed towards seminary, fully devoted to preaching the Gospel. I was active in all the religious right organizations (Promise Keepers, Christian Coalition, etc.) and was very serious about both my internal walk with Christ and my external walk before men.

Somewhere after the '96 election and before the 2000 election I began to see how the religious right was more interested in power than in the Gospel. We were supposed to stand up against the "homosexual agenda" but not rock the boat about adulterers in the movement (Charles Stanley, Newt Gingrich, Jimmy Swaggert, Rush Limbaugh, and others) because they were on our side. Spending on the poor was bad, but tax cuts for the wealthy were good. Standing against abortion was wonderful, but talking about innocent men and women who had been killed by the state under the death penalty was not tolerated, lest we be seen as soft on crime.

In short, the Bible's restrictions were used to apply to everyone else, but not ourselves. We made Jesus a cheap whore to the GOP, and anyone who suggested that we were putting party ahead of Christ was a heretic.

I left the GOP in 1998, and by 2000 I had enough of the crap that passes for evangelical Christianity in this country. It has become a tool for those who wish to grab power and prestige in this country, and is as corrupt as the most rotten corpse. Today's conservative evangelicals would not know Christ if he were painted raspberry red and hitting them on the foot with a 20# sledge hammer.

2 Thessalonians talks about a great falling away that must occur before Christ returns. Conservative evangelical Christianity, which has married itself to the whore of Babylon (the GOP) represents that falling away. I want nothing at all to do with it. If the devil exists he will be found today among the leadership of that movement, insisting that to be a good Christian one must support the GOP.

Posted by: ds0490 | February 27, 2008 9:26 AM

So, ds0490 - are you an ex-Protestant, an ex-Evangelical Protestant, or an ex-Christian?

Posted by: Eric W | February 27, 2008 9:30 AM

"2 Thessalonians talks about a great falling away that must occur before Christ returns. Conservative evangelical Christianity, which has married itself to the whore of Babylon (the GOP) represents that falling away."

That's a rather novel take on eschatology...

Posted by: Rob G | February 27, 2008 9:39 AM

My stay in Protestantism was relatively brief. It encompassed the first 3 years or so of our marriage. Why I left the Baptists:
1) Catholic Biblical justifications seemed equally plausible to Baptist ones.
a) Stepping out of the Pauline letters, the Gospels and other letters seemed to suggest that faith did indeed manifest itself in observance of the commandments, in works, and not just in oral testimony. They suggested that these things were necessary for salvation.
b) The Bible seemed to suggest that one could and that people had lost their faith.
c) It was not inherently obvious that the Lord's Supper was symbolic and not real.
2) Reading an old encyclopedia and finding the Baptist claim of lineage to the apostles was rejected by secular academics. (My Baptist church emphasized this. Others don't.) So, they were indeed Protestant despite their protesting otherwise.

Posted by: M.Z. Forrest | February 27, 2008 10:02 AM

I grew up in a nominally Congregationalist family in New England in the 70s, although I have few clear memories of anything save scarlet hymn books, bare white walls in church, and being thrown out of sunday school for being a hyperactive, annoying kid around 3rd grade. When my parents divorced, that was the end of church.

I ended becoming a lazy agnostic (as opposed to one who actually came up with intellectual rationales for the position) from the age of 10 until my late 20s. I lived with a Pentecostal family in central Africa whilst doing doctoral research who invited me to visit their church, which turned out to be an "invitation" to immediately convert to Christ and join after my first visit. Although my conversion was more like that of the Saxons to Charlemagne than anything else, I ended up learning quite a bit - mainly about how deeply people in the congregation felt about their faith, and how radically different their views were from the vague touchy-feely approach of my Congregationalist past.

After returning home, I immediately skipped out on the faith. Once I returned to the same country for a year, I found myself, much to my own suprise, attending a mainline Protestant church every Sunday. At the same time, I became close a Catholic family living next to my Pentecostal hosts who seemed to do a much better job of living the spirit of the Gospels than anyone else I knew. I was invited to Mass, and found it frankly a puzzling experience the first time. The second time, I immediately knew God was indeed fully present in the Body and Blood of Christ.

I walked out of the Mass in shock. This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen to supposedly well-indoctrinated leftist grad students in the humanities, you know. I had been a forgettable secular agnostic grad student up until that moment, and now I knew I had to sort out my life to become an equally forgettable Catholic believer. It took me several years to bring my life in accordance to the Church, but I finally joined the Church 5 years ago. The intellectual reasons for my conversion to Catholicism came after the encounter with Christ.

More power to y'all who had a less erratic path in the faith than I, or took a route that doesn't make you look quite as mentally unstable as my own.

Posted by: Jeremy | February 27, 2008 11:04 AM

I grew up MO synod Lutheran (luke-warm, drop the kids off for Sunday school, but don't stay for adult services variety). I am very, very thankful for that influence in my life because when I went through the usual explorations of young adulthood, I had an innate understanding that religion was a serious affair and not a feel good project, social gathering, or project to do worldly good works.

In my investigations, I was very impressed with the historicity of the Catholic Church, the origins of various practices in the Catholic Church and the apostolic origins for the faith. I didn't do any scholarly study about the Church Fathers or anything like that, but learning about the long history of many mundane things like vestments, incense, beeswax candles, Stations, structure of the Mass, and comparing the Didache with the modern Mass gave me a real sense that the Church was more or less continuously consistent for 2000 years (and even earlier if you consider Judaic origins of many practices). Since then, I have done more study, but those types of interesting little factoids gave me the initial impetus to leave Lutheranism and embrace Catholicism.

So, now I am a very convinced Roman Catholic who believes that an apostolic Church is necessary for salvation, but who yearns for the seriousness (at the parish level) of my Lutheran origins.

Posted by: Mark | February 27, 2008 11:17 AM

I left Anglicanism for the Orthodox Church twenty years ago. Early in college, I fell in love with the Anglo-Catholic expression of the faith in which I grew up. Such a love affair was sparked both by stories of the high churches in which my parents were deeply involved before I was born, and through reading and study. I had even planned to become a priest. This was all an awakening to Christian orthodoxy, both theological and liturgical. In just a couple of years, though, the chasm between my Anglo-Catholic ideal—an orthodox one--and the reality of the Episcopal Church became unbearable. Finally, the ordination of the first woman as a bishop in ECUSA sent me scurrying to the local Orthodox parish in Austin where I had already made contact in the spirit of good ecumenical relations. The priest there had been an Episcopal priest who sought out Orthodoxy during the Bishop Pike heresy in the 1960s and was very, very helpful to me.

So why not Rome, even though I loved the Tridentine Mass--mostly in English, of course--and prayed the rosary? Based on what I had seen of contemporary RC liturgics and other developments, such a move would have been a step even farther away from tradition and deeper into the Protestant ethos I was leaving behind. Plus, I perceived and do perceive deep theological and ecclesiological problems with Rome. What if the Orthodox parish to which I had access did not use English? I don’t know. I simply thank God it they did.

Posted by: James P. | February 27, 2008 11:58 AM

I'm still a Protestant with no immediate plans to stop being one ;)

As I mentioned before, I was raised as a liberal secular humanist agnostic. To this day, my mother cannot fathom how I became a Christian. She would have been OK with a liberal mainline denomination (she herself used to attend a Methodist church because she enjoyed singing in the choir), but I had to go and become a Bible-thumping evangelical who actually BELIEVED all that Jesus stuff. The horror!

My husband is the son of a pastor in an charismatic church. I cannot even describe how weird their church is. I still think they are pretty bizarre, and I'm still not convinced they are actually speaking in tongues rather than just spouting random gibberish, but they do love the Lord. I was a confirmed agnostic when my husband and I began dating, but he dragged me to church on Easter and my future father-in-law gave a sermon on Christ's literal bodily resurrection. I was shocked that modern, educated people could believe such a myth, but a seed was planted and several weeks later I found myself reading the New Testament just to see where they could have gotten this absurd idea. Much like C.S. Lewis, the more I learned about Christianity the more sense it made and two years later I was baptized as a Christian.

I did not much care for the charismatic aspect of our church, and neither did my husband, and when we moved to a different state we joined a small church that was part of the Christian Church/Church of Christ (another rather obscure denomination). They were very Protestant but not Calvinist (in fact, one of our sister churches had a huge row and split up when it was found that an elder secretly believed in predestination). We joined mainly because we lived around the corner, and because we liked the pastor so much. I didn't really know much about what I believed, I just knew I did. It was a good church in many ways; although they were suspicious of higher education (that was for liberals), and quite convinced that all other denominations were Getting It Wrong (the Baptists had that whole Calvinist thing going on, many of the other Protestant churches didn't do TOTAL IMMERSION baptisms and thus they weren't REAL baptisms, and don't even get them started on the Catholics). There were also a lot of people who enjoyed explaining at great length exactly why every time the Bible says "wine" it really means "grape juice" (and don't you know, Jesus preferred Welch's?) and why God was a Republican. Still, we made some wonderful close friends and they really emphasized studying the Bible.

When we moved back up North, we found the church selection to be rather slim pickings in Cambridge, Mass. There were a lot of Unitarians, and a lot of very liberal mainline churches, but not very many that actually believed the Bible. We belonged to a large orthodox Congregationalist church in Boston (not to be confused with the completely non-orthodox UCC Congregationalists), and when we moved up here we joined a non-denominational community church.

I love my pastor, the people at our church, and we have a lot of seminary students in our congregation so the Bible studies are excellent. I am not nuts about the clappy-happy contemporary style of worship, but I deal with it because I otherwise really think it's a great church.

Still, I find myself intrigued by Catholicism (perhaps because I read a lot of Catholic blogs, and have two good friends who are strong Catholics). Despite coming from church traditions in which Catholicism was reviled, I can't help thinking that the current proliferation of Protestant denominations and sects is a good thing as far as Christian unity is concerned. I mean, I have *personally* witnessed congregations splitting over predestination vs. free will, whether baptism should be sprinkling, pouring or immersion, whether you should have Communion once a month or once a week (and whether it should be pita bread, regular bread, or those strange little chiclet-like wafers). There's a lot to be said for the consistency of the Roman Catholic church over the past two millennia, and lately I've been reading the writings of the early Church fathers and have been pretty amazed that the Protestant church manages to ignore them so completely.

Posted by: Salamander | February 27, 2008 12:21 PM

Although I was raised Roman Catholic, I started to drift away from the Church in high school as a result of doubts raised in my mind by the teaching of the Christian Brothers in the Catholic high school I attended. This was the period immediately following Vatican II when all kinds of nonsense was going on. When I was 21 I went to hear Josh McDowell speak and gave my life to Jesus. Knowing nothing but Catholicism I returned to the Church but most of my friends were Evangelicals from Campus Crusade for Christ. They kept asking me questions I couldn't answer regarding why I believed certain doctrines. (To be honest, I put no effort into trying to find the answers. I just assumed they didn't exist.) Eventually I left the Church and ended up attended a Baptist church.

I became one of the adult Sunday School teachers and decided to teach a class on the beliefs of the Catholic Church. In doing the research for the class I began to discover why the Church held to those doctrines I could not previously explain. I began to see that the teachings of the Catholic Church fit much better with the Bible than Evangelicalism so I returned to the Church.

Posted by: Gary J Sibio | February 27, 2008 12:37 PM

I was raised Presbyterian, but dropped out of church at 14. I have attended Mormon, MCC, and non-denominational churches since then. I currently don't go to church and consider myself unaffiliated (which I believe according to the study, is the fastest growing segment of faith).

I think the reason faith in America is so fluid is because our lives are so fluid. There are so many changes that can occur in one's life, that one church or denomination can't meet all the needs all the time.

Another point to consider is maybe people have periods in their lives where they don't need organized religion of any kind. Pastors, priests, and rabbis don't like this, but that is the way it is.

Posted by: Tom | February 27, 2008 1:10 PM

ds0490: "2 Thessalonians talks about a great falling away that must occur before Christ returns. Conservative evangelical Christianity, which has married itself to the whore of Babylon (the GOP) represents that falling away."

Rob G: "That's a rather novel take on eschatology..."

No more so than comparing the Catholic church to the whore of Babylon, or considering the "apostate" liberal faiths as being the great falling away.

Today's church would do well to post the following on their doors, and on the front of their Sunday programs every week.

"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Posted by: ds0490 | February 27, 2008 1:40 PM

My favorite books explaining the faith were apologetic and intellectual in nature. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" and "The Catholic Church and Conversion" along with Belloc's "How the Reformation Happened", Karl Keating's book and magazine, Pat Madrid's book.... all good. Even though Mark Shea is politically retarded, his "By What Authority?" is one of the single most comprehensive explanations of why Sola Scriptura is wrong and I recommend it to everybody. I also listened to many tapes by Peter Kreeft, Scott Hahn (who didn't have any books out at the time), Thomas Howard.

Peter Gilchrist's book "Becoming Orthodox" helped me realize the Catholic church is the true church since even though he didn't quite make it into the church, he failed to provide any argument against it except "I don't agree with Papal infallibility".

I tried to read 7 Story Mountain but I found it boring an impossible to relate to. It was too much based on his own experience which bore no resemblance to mine. Many people I know and respect love Merton, so I don't have a big problem with him as a spiritual writer. His leftist politics took over his life and he ended up with a mistress, though.

The Catholic Church makes some pretty bold claims. Some people think the church is the "whore of Babylon". If the church is wrong about just one thing it's much worse than some ol' whore. It's more like a pimp... probably worse. But Peter had the best line "To whom shall we go?" Maybe this partially explains why I see the world so much differently than Rod. To me the Pope could launch a nuclear warhead and kill a million people and that wouldn't shake my faith, I'd jsut say "He was wrong to do that; that was a bad prudential judgement."

Pauli

Posted by: Pauli | February 27, 2008 2:29 PM

Bill, Ragamuffin and any others:
Please do not be discouraged by remarks such as "heresy tickles the ears". I'm sad in a personal way and ashamed in a communal way, reading things like that.
There are some people who, though moving into the Orthodox or Roman Catholic Church, retain love and respect for the Protestant churches. You just won't hear much from us here.

Posted by: SusanF | February 27, 2008 2:46 PM

As a Catholic, I used to wonder why the Orthodox were so worked up over the filioque clause. Only later would I understand that it all goes back to authority, which is to say, is the ultimate authority in the church papal, or conciliar? It seems like a small question, but in fact it's an enormous one.

Posted by: Rod Dreher | February 27, 2008 3:05 PM

As a Catholic, I used to wonder why the Orthodox were so worked up over the filioque clause. Only later would I understand that it all goes back to authority, which is to say, is the ultimate authority in the church papal, or conciliar? It seems like a small question, but in fact it's an enormous one. Posted by: Rod Dreher | February 27, 2008 3:05 PM

It's not an authority issue, or a Trinitarian-model issue, but a language issue. I.e., they had said ... το εκ του Πατρος και υιου εκπορευομενον instead of that odd-fangled "fee-lee-O-kwaaay" stuff, it might have been acceptable. ;^)

Posted by: | February 27, 2008 3:36 PM

"It's not an authority issue, or a Trinitarian-model issue, but a language issue."

From one angle this is true, but from another point Rod is correct, I think. The Western Church claimed the authority to unilaterally alter the creed without consulting the East. So while the precipitating disagreement may be due to language, the row over the creed has to do with authority.

Posted by: Rob G | February 27, 2008 4:17 PM

"It's not an authority issue, or a Trinitarian-model issue, but a language issue." - Eric W

From one angle this is true, but from another point Rod is correct, I think. The Western Church claimed the authority to unilaterally alter the creed without consulting the East. So while the precipitating disagreement may be due to language, the row over the creed has to do with authority. Posted by: Rob G | February 27, 2008 4:17 PM

I was being sarcastic/humorous. ;^)

And persons like Perry Robinson at energeticprocession.wordpress.com would also argue that the double procession of the Holy Spirit that the Filioque declares distorts the proper or Orthodox understanding of the nature of the Trinity, which is an even graver problem than the authority issue.

Posted by: | February 27, 2008 4:52 PM

DS0490: "I find the tenets of Progressive Christianity, with it's broad view of the Scriptures, salvation and the Christian walk, appealing."

Rob G: "Heresy is always appealing. It tickles the ears."

LOL...so how many of those pedophile priests or adulterous ministers had the right theological positions regarding the Bible? How many of those opportunistic political wonks in the GOP had the right Christology while they were accepting bribes and channeling money to their pet casino projects? How many of those mega-pastors in their mega-churches had the right systematic theology while they built their multi-million dollar buildings and bought their custom-made Lexus or Rolls and flew around in their custom-built jet?

The last quarter-century of religious reich empowerment has demonstrated that theology doesn't mean a damn thing compared to political power and money. When the GOP Christians were all up in arms about Clinton's adultery while saying not one word at all about Newt Gingerich, Rush Limbaugh, or any of the dozens of other adulterers in their midst speaks volumes about the sincerity with which these "Christians" hold their theology.

Today's evangelical Christians of the political right (and in a lesser extent the political left) are simply spoiled brats from the boomer days who have grabbed on to yet another social construct that builds up their fragile egos. Most of them wouldn't know beans about taking up a cross and following Jesus. The idea of personal sacrifice for the sake of others is as foreign to most of them as how to build a medieval seige machine. To many of them their Christ is simply yet another badge of personal empowerment and a way to make them feel better than those they disagree with.

Luke warm...not worth spit.

Posted by: ds0490 | February 27, 2008 5:03 PM

ds0490, you are making a rather common mistake, thinking that since correct theology does not somehow guarantee moral behavior, therefore having the correct theology doesn't matter. Your examples of Christian hypocrisy are valid, but they're just that, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy on the part of a religion's adherents does not necessarily indict the religion.

The key to a true Christian life is to have both the right beliefs and the right corresponding actions. Without the former you have heresy, without the latter you have hypocrisy, both of which a person can be judged for.

Posted by: Rob G | February 27, 2008 5:14 PM

I grew up nominally Protestant. We went to a Methodist church for awhile, then a Presbyterian. But we rarely went to church, even on Easter and Christmas. Once in fifth grade, a classmate called me an "Easter lily" because we only went to church on holidays, if ever. I always admired the faith of my Catholic friends (during the 1970's no less). My (otherwise very conservative) parents didn't baptize me or my sisters, because they wanted us to choose our own religion. So in college, I converted to Catholicism, because of it's history and tradition. Boy, were my parents mad! They wanted me to choose my religion, but not THAT one. Now, I still believe the Catholic church is the one true church, but I cannot stand the liturgical abuses. I wish I could be an Eastern-rite Catholic, but there aren't any such parishes here.

Posted by: Lisa M. | February 27, 2008 6:19 PM

"If you are a Roman Catholic, you know that your religion was founded in the year 33 by Our Lord Jesus Christ; the One True Faith, ". . . outside of which no one at all can be saved."

Posted by: Tom | February 27, 2008 4:32 PM"

Tom, your post reminds me of an old line from "All in the Family" Mr Jefferson was at the Bunkers trying to convince Archie Bunker that Jesus was Ethiopian. Archie's response was "yeah, the Ethiopians say he was Ethiopian, the Lutherans say he was Lutheran...."

Posted by: | February 27, 2008 7:23 PM

The key to a true Christian life is to have both the right beliefs and the right corresponding actions. Without the former you have heresy, without the latter you have hypocrisy, both of which a person can be judged for.

So when Bono, lead singer of the world's premier evangelizing band, sings "What you don't know you can feel somehow", that's heresy?

Posted by: Jillian | February 27, 2008 8:17 PM

Rod: "I took Tom's post down. It's not original; that Catholic triumphalist thing he's claiming as his own has been around since forever."

Ain't that the truth. Even the Pope is spreading it these days.

Posted by: ds0490 | February 27, 2008 11:37 PM

My father was raised Baptist. He once joked he left because he wanted something "colder", which I don't think is precisely untrue.

My Dad is not very talkative and some of this is guesswork. However what I gathered was that the Baptists he knew were too emotional and unintellectual for him. My Dad didn't go to college, but he's quite intelligent and self-educated. Anyway in early adulthood he became atheist or agnostic.

He knew few Catholics when he met my Mom. He was somewhat intrigued by the fact that, although she's not conventionally intellectual, she was able to explain various things about why she believed in her religion. His background was that you mostly believed because you "felt it" and because the Bible said it. Why the Bible said things or what those thing mean was apparently left unexplained or just not to be questioned. Most ministers where he lived were uneducated and even suspicious of smart kids. So being smart and unable to feel what they felt he apparently figured it was just something for dumb irrational people. Still in part he wanted to learn more so he could show Mom up and Mom apparently worried it was an elaborate effort to mock her religion. Instead he found the priest he talked to was quite erudite and he found Catholicism convincing. Presumably there was an emotional aspect as well, but my Dad is very emotionally guarded so his internal spiritual life is mostly unknown to me. I do get the vague sense he wasn't really happy as a nontheist. What he knew of religion before my Mom was just not for him while atheists/agnostics seemed smart and reasonable.

As for Orthodox the Pew study showed they have a greater retention rate than Catholics or mainline Protestants. Still 21% of those raised Orthodox are listed as converting to another religion and 7% as just leaving religion. I've read of a some Orthodox who just come to doubt Christianity itself. They seem to either become non-religious or Muslim. I've heard some criticism of the faith as "stagnant" or too specific to a certain ethnic group. In my own life I know of a Greek Orthodox convert who is somewhat lapsed because it's too difficult to find a Greek Orthodox Church where he lives.

Posted by: Thomas R | February 28, 2008 12:17 AM

The Eucharist is why I am no longer Protestant. I wanted to eat of His Flesh and Drink of His Blood, so that I could have Life in me.

Posted by: Claudia Mair Burney | February 28, 2008 10:04 AM

ds0490 -- no argument from me there. The problem with "Progressive" Christianity, however, is that it tends to downplay right belief at the expense of right behavior. My point is simply that both are equally important -- there is a synergy between them. If either aspect is missing, the whole thing goes off the rails.

Posted by: Rob G | February 28, 2008 10:40 AM

danielle says:
She married a Greek man and she told me Protestantism was the only solution to the RC/Orthodox divide they would otherwise have faced.

How interesting. The RC and Orthodox have a bit more in common with each other than with Protestants.

Posted by: BG | February 28, 2008 11:19 AM

Rob G.: "ds0490 -- no argument from me there. The problem with "Progressive" Christianity, however, is that it tends to downplay right belief at the expense of right behavior. My point is simply that both are equally important -- there is a synergy between them. If either aspect is missing, the whole thing goes off the rails."

For some time we have watched people starve while "good Christians" insist on enacting laws against homosexuality and abortion from the pulpits of their glorious cathedrals and mega-churches. Perhaps it is time we err on the other side of the equation for a few centuries and feed some of the hungry folks who have been waiting on the church to quit being so full of itself and start being full of the holy spirit.

If God chooses not to open the gates of heaven to me because of it, so be it.

Posted by: ds0490 | February 28, 2008 9:39 PM

'The statement you quote doesn't have enough cognitive content to be considered either heretical or orthodox. It is subject to too many conflicting interpretations.'

"Yeah, right."

Well then explain it, genius. I'm all ears.

Posted by: Rob G | February 29, 2008 7:45 AM