Tag: Triablogue

Revisiting some of my old writings

Roman but Not Catholic Acknowledgements

As a blogger, I probably have written some 2000 or more blog articles for various blogs over the last 15 years. That includes more than 1200 at Triablogue, the home of the late Steve Hays, who was one of the most brilliant thinkers who’s ever lived; 175 at Beggars All (James Swan’s site), 400 at this blog (johnbugay.com), and another 400 at a blog entitled “Reformation500”. Those last two are blogs that I have set up.

Some of these blog posts were very long, and some were short. Some were extremely detailed, and others (as in the case of what I was doing during Bethany’s struggle with leukemia) were merely photos with short, if any, captions.

I have always thought of myself as a writer. During my college years, I studied journalism; I have tried all my professional life to “be a writer”; early on, say, during the 1990s, I was able to accomplish that, in a couple of very fulfilling career positions. But the marketing and advertising world changed. Though I was largely a “news” writer, with a strong emphasis on writing newsletters and corporate public relations in those days, technology changed, and my roles later changed too, to documentation and marketing, and eventually, I moved almost completely out of writing and into marketing automation.

But I continued to write personally. I have been dedicated to understanding the truth of things, and writing clearly, so that others would understand. That’s been a foundational definition for me I’ve always sought to be truthful, and in many cases, I’ve sought to be provocative. In some cases, I was a bit too provocative, and instead of fostering understanding in my readers, I’ve actually gotten some of them riled up. You live and learn.

While some of my personal writing revolved around Beth and her difficulties, the vast majority of what I’ve written centers on religious struggles that I’ve had over the years, most particularly with regard to questions surrounding, “what are we to do with Roman Catholicism?”
These are questions that occupied my intellectual efforts for most of my adult life. I am 62 as I write this. I was dogged by the question of Roman Catholicism during my early years – maybe from age 17-24. I went back, for a while, and even thought about studying for the priesthood (I had gotten accepted to St Paul’s seminary in 1983-4). But I couldn’t go through with it, and beginning around age 35, I started revisiting those questions again. A few years later, I made a final break with Roman Catholicism.

It wasn’t a spurious decision. It was something that I deliberately studied, and thought about, and prayed about, and I came to the clear, unmistakable conclusion that I could no longer remain Roman Catholic.

And even after I had left, there were the “concerns” from friends and relatives, the “oh yeah, whaddabout this” questions. I was honest enough in those years to try and answer all the “whaddabouts”, and in the process, I became knowledgeable about Roman Catholicism to continue to write about it at a very high level.

Over the years, my experience studying and writing about various aspects of Roman Catholicism enabled me to become well known enough that a couple of Protestant writers, seeking to write a kind of textbook for Protestant college and seminary students, contacted me and asked me for source materials that they could refer to. My name appears in the acknowledgements of that book; the Kindle image appears at the top of this article.

I should say, all of this came in the context of what I’d describe as a deep faith in Jesus Christ, and a deep love for Christianity.

Christianity has provided the philosophical underpinnings for my entire life, even my young life, even though I might not have described it that way. I’ve always looked to take care of “inner things” before the externals.

[As an aside, I knew a woman who focused exclusively on externals –dressing properly, or folding her napkin the right way when she was done with dinner; but her inner life was a complete mess.]

My goal in life has always been to take care of the most important thing first. Things you might call “the heart of the matter”. Is there a God? Am I right with “The God who is There”? (Shades of Francis Schaeffer). Am I living in a way that is honoring Him? Am I being a good husband? Am I being a good father? All of those things have tended to preoccupy me, ahead of questions of externals.

There was a time when wars were fought over the kinds of issues I had studied all of my life. In our day, God is marginalized, and Protestant vs Roman Catholic question now seem more like tempests in tea pots.

This just shows how far our culture has moved, away from the most fundamental things. Maybe the economic malaise we’re seeing will persuade some people to take another look. I hope it does.

My intention now is to re-edit, re-package, and re-publish some of those blog articles here, in a way that will, I hope, be meaningful for some people today. That includes people who are close to me, and it likely will mean that some family members who are still Roman Catholic will read these things.

My religious sentiments won’t be a surprise to many people, I hope. But I also hope that my lines of reasoning will help people to understand why I think the way I do.

Martin Luther’s “Theology of the Cross”

If you look down the blog roll on the right, you’ll see links to a couple of blog sites where I do some of my other writing: Triablogue, Beggars All Reformation, Reformation500. Generally speaking, I’m quite involved in an activity known as “Christian apologetics,” and in this context, that tends to mean “arguing about religion”.

Down below, I’ve provided a post about My Roman Catholic Background . Someone from work, who was interested in looking for sources that could help us out financially, suggested St. Vincent DePaul, and asked me if I was Roman Catholic. I used to be. I grew up that way, and even wanted to be a priest. In 1983, I was accepted into Seminary. But I never went for a variety of reasons, and over the years, I came to the conclusion, strongly reinforced by a very tender conscience, that if I wanted to be a follower of Christ, I could not remain a Roman Catholic.

I’m sure that some of you reading this would take issue with me, and I’m happy to answer any questions on that topic. I’ve got lots to say about it. I’m convinced that the Reformation was, in the historical context, “the right thing to do”.

According to the Harvard historian Steven Ozment, Martin Luther was “the most brilliant theologian of the age”. Luther is known for his posting of the “95 Theses” on October 31, 1517, but his theology was not an epiphany; rather, it gradually developed over time as Luther taught theology from 1510 onward.

Along with his teaching on the justification by faith alone, which was probably the doctrinal heart of the Reformation, Luther also responded to the attitude of the church of Rome in general, with what became known as his “Theology of the Cross”. This he contrasted with the “Theology of Glory”, a prevailing attitude of the day which was not shy about preaching on the glories of the Roman church.

And this brings me to my point. In circumstances that will cause anyone to ask, “why is this happening to me,” Martin Luther’s “Theology of the Cross” can provide a tremendous amount of comfort and context. Carl Trueman says:

[Luther] is taking Paul’s explosive argument from 1 Corinthians and developing it into a full theological agenda. … God’s wisdom is demonstrated in the foolishness of the cross. Who would have thought up the foolish idea of God taking human flesh in order to die a horrendous death on behalf of sinners who had deliberately defied him, or God making sinners pure by himself becoming sin for them, or God himself raising up a people to newness of life by himself submitting to death? We could go on, looking at such terms as life, blessing, holiness, and righteousness. Every single one must be reconceived in the light of the cross. All are important theological concepts; all are susceptible to human beings casting them in their own image; and all must be recast in the light of the cross.

When your life brings you into a context in which you have to watch your wife suffer with cancer, you end up asking yourself a lot of hard questions. I believe Luther’s Theology of the Cross helps provide some profound answers to those questions.

So this is a topic I hope to explore as we continue to live through this experience.