Thursday, February 9, 2012

Yet another OPC pastor has entered the Catholic Church


Earlier today, I learned that yet another ordained pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has entered the Catholic Church. On February 7th, 2012, at the website, Called To Communion, the thread, An OPC Pastor Enters the Catholic Church, was posted. The following selection is from the opening of that post:

Please welcome our first of two newly added authors at Called To Communion, Jason Stewart. Jason was an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) before he and his wife Cindy entered into full communion with the Catholic Church in January of 2011. He earned his Master of Divinity from Mid-America Reformed Seminary (Dyer, IN) in 2005, and subsequently served for 5 1/2 years as pastor of Trinity OPC in eastern Pennsylvania. Jason and Cindy live in Rockford, IL, and have four children.

A bit later, Jason Stewart writes:

Our decision to leave Presbyterianism for the Catholic Church surprised many. We can sympathize given that in the past we’d have been incredulous if told we’d be Catholic one day. And yet looking back now from our vantage point we can trace the trajectory that led us to full communion with the Catholic Church, and it’s a trajectory that progressed naturally and imperceptibly over time - a growing appreciation for the necessity and role of the visible Church; a deepening understanding of the sacramental nature of the Christian faith; the apostolic quality intrinsic to Church authority; the unique function of the Minister of the Gospel in the liturgy and life of the Church; the inescapable dynamic of tradition within the Christian Faith; and an increasing awareness of the implications of the adjectives “one” and ”catholic” as used by the Nicene Creed to identify the Church of Jesus Christ. Each of these areas of faith track back from where we are now as Catholics to where we were when Reformed. They prepared the way for us to give serious consideration to the Catholic faith when the time came.

There is, of course, so much more to Jason's conversion story, and I see that there is already 64 comments!!!

I am off for a bike ride; when I return, I will get to those 64 (and possibly more) comments, which should prove to be almost as interesting as the original post itself.


Grace and peace,

David

4 comments:

Ken said...

comments are up to 106 now, Sat. Feb. 11, - about 1:30pm my time.

Brian Lee's (A Reformed Pastor) comments are very good and interesting.

David -
Have you read AD 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Mono-Theistic State by Charles Freeman ?

If so, what do you think of this book?

Ken said...

Brian Lee's comment, # 27 is especially good:

Two different questions, whether to say “The Fathers are Roman/Reformed” vs. “our Roman/Reformed view is consonant or in agreement with what we find in the broad emphases of the Fathers.” The first is anachronistic and naive (and is how Jason framed his discoveries). The second is a sound way of searching and weighing the evidence one finds in the fathers. And the second one, by the way, is fully in agreement with what I said. The fathers are a mixed bag. That’s why the Reformers reject what they say at many points (Rome, not so often), while presenting a case that their views of salvation and scripture and authority are consonant with what they generally taught.

One might say that it was merely a rhetorical slip on Jason’s part, and that he actually meant the latter. I’m happy to grant that, but the flow of the argument as presented (and many others I’ve seen similarly structured) implies that the naivety and anachronism is actually inherent in the thinking.

David Waltz said...

Hi Ken,

Thanks much for input. In your first post you asked the following:

==David -
Have you read AD 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Mono-Theistic State by Charles Freeman ?

If so, what do you think of this book?==

No, had not even heard of the book. Have you read it? If so, what is your impression?


Grace and peace,

David

Ken said...

No, I have not read it; but you are so widely read, and that is an area that you are really up on; I wanted to get your take on it first and see if it may be a worthwhile read.

It looks really interesting.

Google it and research it.