Category: Theology

Catholic Confirmation

For the following explanation of Catholic Confirmation, we can give thanks to Magisterium.com, ChatGPT, the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and our priest who recently led a Man’s Prayer Group discussion of the subject. This is a summary statement from Magisterium.com: “Confirmation is an indispensable sacrament of initiation, bishop-administered, Apostolically transmitted (by the […]

Truth and Love

It is unfortunate that the 21st Century meanings of truth and love do not do justice to the important ancient Greek and Hebrew words translated as truth and love in most English Bibles. Now we tend to talk easily of scientific truth, religious truth, and personal truth, giving the most weight to scientific truth but […]

7 – More on Sola Scriptura

The Protestant Reformation was a rebellion against some positions and practices of the 1500-year-old Christian Church which had been described as catholic or universal since the second century. The use of Roman Catholic Church as the official name became common after the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church today, with about 1.4 billion members, still considers […]

5 – Mary, Mother of God

The Catholic teachings of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Perpetual Virginity, and Assumption into Heaven are certainly among the most mysterious to Protestant believers in Jesus. Granted these are not specifically stated in the Bible but even among the Reformers agreeing on Sola Scriptura, there were two positions. Some argued that unless something is specifically stated in […]

4 – God?

It is a common temptation to see God as a sort of superhuman, created in our image but perfected, no character flaws, no sin, and the ability to do perfectly all the things we fail to do or do imperfectly. He is sometimes seen as the kindly “Man Upstairs,” waiting to hear from us and […]

3.5 – My Theological Journey

I grew up in the shadow of the East Tennessee Smoky Mountains. All my exposure to church was Southern Baptist. I remember my dad’s skepticism about local Episcopal and Presbyterian churches. They did not forbid alcohol consumption! Except for some delinquency during my college years, I have always been a church attender actively involved in […]

3. Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium

Introduction The Catholic Church emphasizes Bible readings in its worship, hearing readings from the Old and New Testaments at Mass and usually hearing a homily about one of those readings. However, tradition and Church authority are also important. The pertinent words from the Nicene Creed are these: I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic […]