My First Apology — Defending the Faith as a RCIA Candidate
Introduction
This is the story of the very first time I made a defense of the Catholic faith. For background, my siblings go to John MacArthur’s church. I myself had attended a couple of services. As an outsider looking in at the time it seemed like a quasi-Baptist/Reformed church, sadly I learned it was much worse than that.
I am a Latin Rite Catholic Christian, and I had attempted to join a fellowship event with my siblings who invited me in September of 2022.
The Study
I was still in RCIA at this time, and at the fellowship event, I had an ecumenical dialogue with a second-year seminarian of Grace Church’s Masters Seminary and was able to intelligently defend church dogma and doctrine and correct him on some things too. I had been doing a lot of extracurricular reading at the time and continued to read as a general practice to learn more about the faith.
My only regret was that, at the time of the engagement, I was not as well-read on the scripture, I could paraphrase but not quote the book, chapter, and verse.
A few months later the seminarian personally invited me back, so I thought this kind of ecumenical discussion was welcome. This time I went and thought everything was fine. The topic was the Trinity and, in the group setting we all agreed on 90% of things, and it seemed like things were okay.
After the formal discussion ended, I was talking with one of the other folks and was talking about 1 Corinthians 3 and purgatory, since a question about sin’s temporal component came up. The seminarian pounced on me, and it was clear that it was to chastise me, not to have a good-faith discussion. He called me a heretic, said the church was the whore of Babylon, and that we worship the pope as God on earth. I countered these claims with the church’s teachings, history, and tradition, and even with scripture. He refused to listen, even claiming the Catholic Church was only made to make money. He refused to listen to me no matter what I said. I even said, “We have a lot in common, we believe in the same triune God.” His answer was a flat “No, we do not.” He then proceeded to uninvite me from the event because of my Catholic perspective and in the interest of protecting his flock. I was not trying to be disruptive, but he got very angry, and I will admit I did match his energy at times, but I never called him names or anything. I defended the faith respectfully regardless, and I understand that it was not the set or setting to discuss Catholic doctrine.
Later on, the Elder who graciously runs this event out of his house lectured on Catholic doctrinal distinctives, and this led me to create an apologetic video on YouTube, which began my journey toward the defense of the faith. The video is titled Refutation of Anti-Catholic Calumny (youtube.com)
Conclusion
I have since been accepted into full communion with the Catholic Church in May of last year. My siblings still attend Grace, and I don’t make overt attempts to dissuade them from doing so.
I have since learned that this is the general view of those who follow John MacArthur about Catholicism. I saw on his website he has around 10 hours of anti-Catholic rhetoric from his radio program, where he misquotes the Catechism and Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, in a defamatory manner. This is what their seminarians are taught as well.
As Catholics, we should pray for the members of Grace Community Church, that they find the fullness of truth held by the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church, and that the Holy Spirit enables them to do so through His guidance. Amen.
