Prima Verba – Part 14

Note: If you haven’t read Part 13, I highly encourage you to go back and do so before reading this, as this is essentially Part 13b.

The last installment ended with an unanswered question: How was I processing [my growing interest in the Catholic Church] while being confessionally bound as a Reformed pastor? I’ll answer that question here, but before I do, we need to go over some preliminary matters…

The Way of the Road

I had all but lost my internal sense of call to pastoral ministry and was persuaded that I needed to resign. At some point, anyway. It was in the fog of that reality that I began running scenarios about what church life might look like for Cami and me when I was no longer a pastor.

And since I knew it wouldn’t work for us to remain in our denomination, it was inevitable that we would end up in a church with at least some beliefs that were different from those I was bound to as a Reformed pastor.

For example, if we had ended up in a conservative Lutheran church (as I had initially assumed we would ), I would need to adjust my view of both baptism and the Lord’s Supper. There was no getting around that. Or, if something more radical had occurred and we had joined a conservative Methodist church that had broken away from the UMC, there would have been theological adjustments there as well.

This was simply the reality of what the future held for us. It wasn’t unique to our becoming Catholic. It was the way of the road, no matter its destination.

Share

The Truth about Confessionalism

There is a real sense in which what I was going through was simply a manifestation of what nearly every Reformed church officer experiences with the confessions. Though I suppose I should qualify that statement by saying that every Reformed church officer who studies the confessions and thinks deeply on them experiences this phenomenon.

And what is this phenomenon? For lack of a better term, I’ll call it confessional drift.

I should clarify that when I use this term, I’m referring to a process in which the church officer remains orthodox in his theology, despite some change in his understanding of this or that doctrine. I am not referring to a process in which the church officer alters his understanding of this or that doctrine to the point of denying the Faith. For example, arriving at the point in your theological “understanding” where you no longer affirm the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is not confessional drift. It is unbelief.

Confessional drift comes in at least two forms, or really, degrees. In the first degree, the church officer may come to view a particular doctrine in a way that, while not necessarily in conflict with the confessions, is nevertheless preferable to what the confessions teach, at least in his estimation. He has come to believe that the confessions miss the mark in a particular area—sometimes by a great distance.

An example of this in the Presbyterian tradition is the teaching of the Westminster Standards regarding the Sabbath. They are so stringent that most officers file a formal exception to their Sabbath teachings.

In my own confessional world, there was growing disagreement among many officers about how the Heidelberg Catechism (HC) addresses the “descent clause” of the Apostles’ Creed—he descended (in)to hell. The HC ignores the logical and temporal flow of the clauses concerning the life of Christ and ends up saying nothing at all about Jesus’ descent to the place of the dead (Sheol/Hades) and the harrowing of hell. Here’s what it says:

Q. Why does the creed add, “He descended to hell”?

A. To assure me during attacks of deepest dread and temptation that Christ my Lord, by suffering unspeakable anguish, pain, and terror of soul, on the cross but also earlier, has delivered me from hellish anguish and torment.

Now, even if one is inclined to agree with what this says about the assurance we can find in considering Christ’s suffering and death, the fact is that it completely disregards the historical context of what Christ accomplished between his death and resurrection, and it ignores what the early church actually meant by this clause.

So, it’s not a stretch to say that the HC is wrong on this point. But would saying that mean that a Reformed officer is out of compliance with the confessions? Some might say yes. I, and many others, said no. We were experiencing (and embracing) first degree confessional drift.

So, what would second degree confessional drift look like? This would be holding a doctrinal conviction that—though not heretical—directly contradicts a confessional teaching. An example of this from my Reformed tradition is the surprising number of elders and deacons who were (and probably still are) opposed to infant baptism.

This wasn’t a simple matter of thinking that a confession didn’t say what it should have said on a particular doctrine, as with the HC and the descent clause. This was a matter of outright disagreement with something explicitly taught in the HC:

Q. Should infants also be baptized?

A. Yes. Infants as well as adults are included in God’s covenant and people, and they, no less than adults, are promised deliverance from sin through Christ’s blood and the Holy Spirit who produces faith. Therefore, by baptism, the sign of the covenant, they too should be incorporated into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, which was replaced in the New Testament by baptism.

So, an uncomfortable truth about Protestant confessionalism is that, practically speaking, it isn’t as precise and binding as people often assume. People grow (and diminish) in their understanding, and they often explore and examine the teachings of other traditions—comparing them with their own and sometimes becoming persuaded by them, while remaining in their office.

This is just reality.

My reality was that I had been doing this mental exercise for over three years. Not to repudiate any doctrines of my own tradition, but because I knew the day was approaching when I would be stepping outside of my tradition. And I wanted to identify a safe place for us to land, theologically.

So, why then have our new theological convictions proved so shocking to so many people? Simply put—because they’re Catholic.

If we had become conservative Lutherans and had embraced baptismal regeneration, it would have barely registered on anyone’s radar. But becoming Catholic and embracing baptismal regeneration? Well, that’s a whole different deal. If we had become conservative Methodists and had affirmed that Jesus died for everyone, it would have been a veritable non-issue. But becoming Catholic and affirming that Jesus died for everyone? Stop the press!

Leave a comment

Back to the Future

So, let me close by returning to the question at hand: How was I processing all this while being confessionally bound as a Reformed pastor?

I was processing it as a pastor who loved the people of his church, and who didn’t want to leave them but knew he had to—for his sake and for theirs. And I was processing it as a husband and a father who felt the weight of responsibility to plan for his family’s future—a future in which they would need to find a new church home, and in which he would no longer be a pastor.

In the midst of all that, God eventually led not just me, but Cami as well—along with our two youngest children—to the Catholic Church. I can assure you, no one was more surprised by this than we were.

And it’s probably time for me to start writing about how Cami and I ended up on the same page—seemingly against all odds—regarding the Catholic Church. I’ll begin that part of the story next time.

*******

For many of you, this is your first “new” chapter of Prima Verba, having subscribed after seeing my interview with Lila Rose. I want to welcome you and thank you for your interest in my story! And I want to thank all of you for your ongoing support and encouragement. It means the world to me!

If you are so inclined, please share my recent interviews and my Substack with your friends. Please also keep Cami and me, and our family, in your prayers. And be assured of our prayers for you.

May the Lord bless and keep you all.

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Aaron