Actually, those two worlds are a lot more interconnected than we might assume, and my life over the past few years has, at least in part, centered around trying to make sense of the relationship that they bear towards one another.
Alright, already -- what in the heck is this kid who calls herself the Catholic Protestant spouting off about?
Ok, ok, let me be more specific, then.
Where I Come From
I come from a solid evangelical Protestant background, from two generations of evangelicals in ministry and evangelism on my mom's side. My dad became a Christian in his twenties and made up for lost time remarkably fast by getting very involved in ministry after his conversion. His master's is in Jewish Studies from Moody Bible College. By the time I was eight, my parents had moved the family overseas to continue my grandparents' ministry of evangelism and church ministry.
You could say that at the most foundational level I owe the depth and character of my own faith not just to my parents, but also to my mother's parents and my uncle, who was an Anglican rector for many years. My grandparents have been among the most wise and godly people I have ever known, with a keen desire to pass their faith on to others -- especially their grandkids.
Then I got my foot in the Catholic -- should I say evangelical Catholic -- world. My sophomore year, wearied of studying in a secular university where I felt hardly anyone shared my heart for "the Faith" (as some have called it), I decided to transfer to a tiny Catholic college I had recently discovered, called Southern Catholic College. There I was introduced for the first time (in any depth, that is) to the Catholic faith. I began to get to know it not just on a propositional level, but on an experiential level, too. I had chosen a college in the Catholic tradition because I felt that the best environment to nourish my faith would have to be not only orthodox but also different in tradition from my own evangelical background. It was a wonderful experience. The college closed unexpectedly in the spring of my sophomore year, and I found myself transferring to another, bigger Catholic university in Steubenville, Ohio. It was a charismatic Catholic college -- not only had I never really heard of it, but neither had I heard of charismatic Catholics. With some misgivings, I agreed to visit with my friends, and after attending Mass and then a Tuesday evening praise and worship, I was hooked. The spiritual atmosphere was vibrant, rich, and alive. It combined the liturgy which I had already grown to enjoy (even before my college years, in the Anglican church) with a thriving charismatic spiritual life. These Catholics knew how to participate in reverent liturgy one moment, and the next to enthusiastically lift their hands or fall to their knees singing praise choruses for hours. One evening they might be found silently praying in the chapel, on their knees or on their face; the next they would be attending Bible study or even praying in tongues during a prayer meeting.
The name? Franciscan University. (If you hadn't guessed the name, I highly recommend that you visit on a weekend where a Festival of Praise is happening, or even better, during Holy Week, especially for the Easter Vigil. That is an unforgettable experience.)
Why Catholic Protestant...?
Yes, that's right, your friendly neighborhood Catholic Protestant is a Frannie. And proud of it. I call myself by that name, by the way, because (oddly enough) in some ways I find that I am more Protestant than I am Catholic; while in other ways I am definitely more Catholic than I am Protestant. The rather unique problem this created required me to create a blog where the Catholic and the Protestant in me could live and discuss together in peace. I hope that it will allow others like me, as well as Catholic Catholics and Protestant Protestants, to do the same. :)
As a last thought, "Catholic" is really a term that every Christian should seek to possess, because it means "universal" -- as in, part of the universal Body, the Church, that together proclaims the one, holy, apostolic Gospel across space and time. The question is not really whether Christians should be Catholic, but how. In some ways, Protestants have a lot to learn from Catholicism. And yet there are things that God has given in a special way to the Protestant community that needs to be fostered everywhere, even among Catholics in communion with Rome. If we could unite the best in our various communities and seek together to purify what does not belong by learning from one another, I think we would be farther along the path to healing the wounds of division that have plagued us for centuries.
This blog is a space where I will post my personal musings without fear of being "too Protestant" or "too Catholic" or too -- anything else. To think well, you must think freely; and that is what I intend to do. Please join me on the journey :)
~ The Catholic Protestant
