iMonk: Thoughts on a day of Catholic radio

I spent the entire day yesterday listening to Catholic radio. I took in EWTN and Ave Maria in about equal portions, along with a couple of archived hours of Catholic Answers. I thought it would be interesting to the IM audience today to hear some of my thoughts on the “Catholic radio” experience. Let me [...]

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Adaptability or Consistency?

I just finished the book Christianity’s Dangerous Idea by Alister McGrath.  First of all, I highly recommend the book.  It’s an excellent treatment of the issues surrounding the Reformation and all its major players from Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Bucer and others. One of the things it talked about was how Protestantism, outside of the Lutheran [...]

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I Wish I Believed…

Back in the age of dial-up, when regular people were just beginning to get on the internet, the first things I discovered were message boards. There were tons of them. And the ones I seemed to gravitate to the most were theology boards and ones devoted to debating Christianity with atheists and agnostics. Generally speaking [...]

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Vain repetition

A recent dustup on another blog inspired me to post something about this notion of repetitive or recited prayers. Typically, a certain canard gets thrown out when discussing liturgical worship with certain evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants. Catchphrases like “man’s traditions”, “dead ritual” and “repetition” are bandied about. You could set a sundial by this entirely [...]

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“Liturgy…lets me be”

If you don’t read Amy Welborn’s blog, you need to start. Especially now. I’m amazed at her bravery as she blogs through the aftermath of her husband’s unexpected death. It’s really powerful, emotional, cathartic and redemptive. This little part at the end of today’s post stuck out to me. I agree with the sentiment at [...]

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Arminianism and “Once Saved, Always Saved”

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up Methodist and then in my early teens became a member of the Assemblies of God. These two groups make up the first 24 years of my life as far as churches go. And both groups are firmly in the Arminian camp with regard to soteriology (the study of [...]

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The role of feelings

The kids were sick this past Sunday and it was my turn to go to church, so I took the opportunity to go to the Anglican church. I needed some liturgy in my life. Anyway, as I was in the service I was struck by how ruled by feelings I can be. The main part [...]

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10 Really Bad Reasons Not To Have The Lord’s Supper

From The Blogging Parson. My favorites:7. We haven’t had it for so long that now it is weird. 10. Having done away with the old formal ways of doing the Lord’s Supper, we can’t decide on a new, less formal way of doing it that isn’t awkward and weird. Read the rest at his blog.

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A Dilemma for Protestants

Here’s an interesting dilemma for Protestants. We argue against the infallibility of the Pope on the basis that no man can perfectly hear God and infallibly declare doctrine. There’s also some confusion about the difference between infallibility on matters of doctrine and personal sinlessness but we won’t dig too much into that. Now, at the [...]

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Protestants and "Spiritual" Means vs "Tangible" Means

I’m reading This Is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers The Real Presence by Mark Shea. It’s a short read, only about 50 pages long. But it’s really posing some interesting thoughts to me and one passage in particular stuck out. He’s speaking of the Protestant suspicion of anything that smacks of “works” religion or falling [...]

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Silence is golden

I’ve now visited two different Anglican churches and two different Catholic churches and there’s something strikingly different about the atmosphere before the service compared to the atmosphere before the evangelical churches I’ve been part of. Walk into your typical evangelical church (especially if its of the more contemporary variety) and this is the norm: People [...]

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Confession is good for the soul

I’ve been thinking about this recently. Right now, the groups or denominations of Christians that practice confession to a pastor or priest are Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, some Anglicans/Episcopals, some Lutherans and possibly one or two others. The vast majority of Protestants don’t do this for reasons we’re probably all familiar with: arguments about no mediator [...]

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Who decided?

As I’ve been exploring more traditional worship approaches in recent months, I’ve noticed something going on and I’m still trying to work out in my head what it means. When I first began to ponder what I was looking for, I thought what I wanted were a few simple traditional elements: more hymns and less [...]

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I just want to know

I’m frustrated. And the more I read and pray the more frustrated and desperate I become. I envy my friend who converted to Catholicism. I really do. He’s settled on this and happy. I’m neither. The matter isn’t settled for me. Not in my head, not in my heart. I’m unhappy with my own personal [...]

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I’m not dead

Just ruminating on some things. When I have something coherent to put out there regarding what’s going on in my head, I’ll be here with bells on. In the meantime, due to a very generous reader and friend, I’m reading The Meaning of Tradition by Yves Congar and The Spirit And Forms of Protestantism by [...]

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20,000 Popes vs. 1

One of my favorite reads in the blogosphere, Michael Spencer (aka The Internet Monk) posted this quote in a post about Catholicism: “I would rather have 20,000 “little popes” with their Bibles, all believing they can err and be corrected by scripture, rather than one pope who cannot err or be corrected by scripture.” What [...]

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Being wary of legalism and man-made traditions

So, getting back to my background in legalistic Christianity… All of this stuff from my past makes me highly suspicious of anything that smacks of man-made tradition. I spent so long trying to earn God’s favor, trying to live up to standards that humans, not God, imposed on me and the thought of ever getting [...]

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How do you find a true church?

I was reading someone’s testimony of their struggle with this question and found he was asking a lot of the same questions I am. Let me post it then I’ll continue: As an active Protestant in my mid-twenties I began to feel that I might have a vocation to become a minister. The trouble was [...]

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Assurance of salvation

One of the Big Issues that I’m grappling with as I evaluate the Catholic and Reformed views on salvation is the issue of assurance of salvation. The confidence in the mercy of God to handle human weakness and frailty as we grow in Christ during this life here on earth is a big deal and [...]

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Isn’t it ironic…don’tcha think?

This won’t be a terribly long entry, but I just wanted to comment on an interesting exchange I had on a message board with someone of a more Reformed background. As I’m working through all this stuff in my head, I’m engaging Catholics and Protestants in some debate over various differences in doctrine between the [...]

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The Journey Begins

First, a little background since none of you know me from Adam. You can decide later if you care. I’m an evangelical Protestant. I’ve been a Christian since shortly before my 17th birthday and am coming up on the 20-year anniversary of the day I came to Christ. I grew up in the Methodist church [...]

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