Catholic Catechism #002 — Why should Protestants study the Catholic Catechism?
Overview:
Dan grew up as a Pentecostal Missionary kid in South America.
His worldview, shaped by true pentecostalism (not the tv variety), although he couldn’t articulate it at the time, was more aligned with Catholic and Orthodox Christianity than it was with Protestantism. Pentecostalism is an embodied, incarnational worldview. Whereas Protestantism, in his view, is just as much a product of the Enlightenment as it is Christianity — evident in the modern assumption that God seldom acts in any supernatural way.
He attended an orthodox service at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Church in St Petersburg, Russia on Pentecost Sunday and was electrified by the presence of God intermixed with incense and bells and liturgy.. He began reading Orthodox writings and became friends in the US with Evangelical leaders of Campus Crusade who were converting to Orthodoxy — see Becoming Orthodox book by Peter Gilquist below.
He didn’t become Orthodox because he said he didn’t want to join any church that wouldn’t allow him to sing Amazing Grace — he said he felt like he was being led into an ethnic trap.
He attended a service at an Episcopal church and was surprised that he was welcomed to the Eucharistic table. When he encountered the African Anglican Church who was founding the Anglican Mission in America, he felt at home. He could be at the same time Protestant, Charismatic, and Catholic.
Reading Aquinas shocked him how such an intellectual was also charismatic. Aquinas talked about seeing angels and maintained a deep sense of the supernatural.
Aquinas led to the Catechism which covered so much ground and was so graceful in it’s approach. It didn’t prescribe — meaning it never said “if you were a real Christian, you’d believe or do this.”
On the importance of reading the Catholic Catechism, he says that Protestantism went way too far in making Christian formation solely an intellectual pursuit rather than emphasizing prayer and practices of Christianity. Christian formation is about a formation of the whole person- something the Vatican Council II Catechism does very well.
Resources Mentioned:
- The Orthodox Church, by Timothy Ware
- The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, by Vladimir Lossky
- Becoming Orthodox: a journey to the ancient Christian faith, by Peter Gilquist — evangelical leader of Campus Crusade who became Orthodox
- Summa Theologiae: a concise translation, by Timothy Mcdermott
