"I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history." -Cardinal Francis George

Monday, September 24, 2012

Yet Another Reformed Bigshot Renounces the Reformation


The tide is turning... (cue Lord of the Rings type ominous music)

The Church, as She always has done, is winning... (slow-mo shot of pope offering the Eucharist at mass) 

As the cobbled together raft of Evangelicalism sinks before our eyes, with vapid emergentism on the starboard, and Purpose Drivel Life on the port, with wide-eyed, happy clappy Pentecostalism and every-man-a-pope fundamentalism filling the hold, Reformed Theology seems to beckon as the solid, traditional refuge from the theological anarchy engulfing global Protestantism. The problem for Reformed theology is, that when you give people an inch of authentic tradition, they will take a mile. And that mile means becomming Catholic or Orthodox.

Jason Stellman, who PCA and Reformed types will know as the prosecutor of the Peter Leithart heresy trial, and as a young up-and-comer in the Reformed world, has entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. Please read his brief article on Called to Communion titled "I fought the Church and the Church Won". (man, that is a clever title!).

I will try not to be triumphalistic here...

It is really hard not to. Bear with me...

WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
Ok thanks for letting me do that.




 
This guy looks like a cool cat. I would love to share a hookah and some scotch with him.
Perhaps read some poetry or talk about how the new Star Wars movies suck.
 As a former PCA guy, let me just say that it gives me a lot of comfort to know that all these smart guys are coming over to the Church. I mean, I would still be here if they didn't keep coming, but seeing them come, and reading their arguments and reasoning for their choice really bring me much peace about my decision. I find it so fascinating that his crucial "breaking point" issue was Sola Fide. Mine was Sola Scriptura, and for him S.S. was important too, but the lack of biblical and historical evidence for forensic imputation (which is what sola fide boils down to in it's essence) seems to be what really did it for him. Is the dunghill still dungy yet covered with snow? Or does God transform the dung into snow? That is the Protestant/Catholic paradigm difference in a nutshell, and unfortunately for the Protestant position, scripture and history know nothing of forensic imputation. Facts is facts.
This man is giving up his pastorate (his job), and really has nothing worldly to gain by this choice. Much of his Reformed schooling will be of little employment value now. He has a wife and kids. You got to respect a man willing to give everything to follow Christ.

So please pray for him, and Catholics reading could offer their next mass intention for him.