In this blog, I am introducing a new series called, Bridging differences between Catholics and Protestants. Here is the why and how:
A few months ago, I met with a priest at a local parish to discuss a multi-part apologetics course I would like to teach to fellow lay Catholics: Drawing on my video / blog series, “Dialoguing with Doubters” — and one of the key reasons I have a YouTube channel in the first place – I proposed to the priest that I wanted to split the course into three sections: Dialoguing with Atheists, Dialoguing with Spiritual-but-not-religious, and Dialoguing with Protestant Christians.
Almost immediately after I had mentioned “dialoguing with Protestants”, the priest chimed in with “Don’t worry about Protestants – let God deal with them.” I was a bit stunned when he said this, as I had figured that particular topic could drum up a lot of necessary discussion among Catholics, as well as help them be that much more equipped to deal with Protestant objections to the Catholic Faith.
And considering the Catholic Church has existed for 2000 years now (and what I half-amusingly call the “The O.C.” or “The Original Church”), why wouldn’t we want to get more in front of Protestants and possibly unify all Christians? Isn’t it true that both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition tell us we are to be one body of believers in Christ? And what about the Protestant factions out there with a quite blunt agenda against the Catholic Church?
I must admit: After that revealing conversation with the priest, my mind turned into a championship wrestling match over whether I should heed his advice. After all, having spent the past few years reading a whole lot of books and articles about dialoguing with Protestants; watching a whole lot of videos showing how Sola Scriptura (“scripture only”), Sola Fide (“faith alone”), and other shaky claims against the Catholic Church are simply not true; and even planning on having more Catholic apologists on my channel to discuss engaging with Protestants – I was supposed take all of this accrued knowledge and hand it back to God , as I say, “Here you go, God – you deal with them”?
Then, it hit me that the answer was already staring me in the face: Yes, we Catholics already have a ton of resources – books, videos, Catholic discussion groups, and great swath of Catholic channels on social media – that refute Protestant objections from just about every intellectual angle conceivable. Knowing that, what exactly can I contribute to this discussion? Well, I don’t claim my new approach to be revolutionary, yet I think it is a crucial angle: How much are we Catholics and Protestants seeking to bridge our differences, work much more on ecumenism, and perhaps unite again as One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church?
Sure, thanks also to social media, some of that conversation is already happening. However, most conversations are still often formulated as debates. And to re-quote the character, Oscar, from an episode of “The Office”, “the problem with debates is both sides usually end up staying entrenched in their own position.”
Not to say debates do not have their place when discussing social topics – I may even coordinate a few of my own debates on this channel, at some point the future – yet in our modern world of light-speed information delivery, even if some of that information is flat-out wrong, we now have an ever-growing population of information seekers who are becoming increasingly complex in how they process the information, the questions they ask, and the skepticism they build.
This reminds me of a video I recently watched, “How the Internet is killing religion”; that is, information saturation is turning intellectual discourse into a train wreck of conflating fiction with truth, and which has spawned a mind-numbing number of arm-chair “experts” who not only cling to conspiracy theories, fringe ideas, and other questionable information as absolute fact, but also frequently project the need to be right — rather than all of us seeking out, discovering, and then embracing truth as one people.
The “us versus them” mentality has infected just about every area of discourse – and I sure would like to see any studies out there that show the value in being perpetually polarized and devolving into tribalism. I am just not seeing any good coming from this. Quite the opposite, I must say.
But I digress: My point here is it’s more than time that — together — Catholics and Protestants see the proverbial forest through the trees about Christianity – and what kind of message it is sending out the world: The more we are divided, the more that skeptics see our division as proof that the Christianity is utter nonsense, the more we keep debating in an “us versus them” manner, the more we keep pushing to the side that we Christians are supposed to be a unified body of believers – through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit –the more *all* of us must be accountable for not living according to the world that God intended.
And yes, while my Catholic friends out there may point out that “not even the gates of Hell” will bring down the Catholic Church, we are also reminded, in Scripture and in the Catechism, that facing trials and tribulations goes hand-in-hand with our choice to accept Christ as our Savior. Meaning that even if the first goal is to establish a relationship with God and accept His grace — another ultimate goal is that we live in accord under one belief system.
With that in mind, this series will cover the following: Church Authority, Scripture and Tradition, Salvation, The Sacraments, Mary, Eschatology, and Catholic doctrine. Now, here is a large part of how I came up with these topics, and why I think they could lead to more productive conversations: I just finished yet another book on answering Protestant challenges –in fact, the book, by Catholic apologist, Karlo Broussard, is literally called Meeting the Protestant Challenge. And of all the books I have read on Catholic-Protestant debate topics, this one has stood out as a possibly solid approach to having more ecumenical conversations.
In fact, my original plan for this series was first to give a thorough review of “Meeting the Protestant Challenge.” Instead, I have decided to use the sections in this book (and of which my topics essentially mirror, and I will cite frequently), along with other some resources, to make this series into a two-fold approach:
1.) Choose key objections from each section of Meeting the Protestant Challenge and show how we Catholics answer those objections.
2.) Using Broussard’s approach of asking questions in return / taking a more exploratory approach to the questions, I hope this leads Protestant visitors to this channel to want to go on this journey together.
In other words, let’s get the core of our differences. Let’s understand why some of our differences are so staunch and how we can reconcile them. Let’s explore how we can grow more together into one body of believers. Let’s fully understand that if we don’t start bridging these differences, the secular world – which has already shown its agenda to supplant truth and reality with subjective feelings — may inevitably exert control over all domains in life, even while Christianity remains present.
Are you ready? Let’s do this!
Stay tuned for the next blog in this series: Church Authority