Before I start my journey of the historic Christian faith, I want to give the Baptist tradition most of the credit for introducing me to the Word of God. I grew up in the Episcopal/Anglican Church, and it laid a beginner's love for Jesus and the historic Church, but I didn't make the connection between loving Jesus and submitting to the authority of Scripture until I was approached by evangelical Protestants at Baylor University during my college years. Sadly, I had never opened a Bible until age 19 even though I was raised in the Episcopal/Anglican Church and was an altar server for ten years, but this particular Church upbringing gave me the desire to seek God with all of my heart, to learn theology and Church history, and that is where my Christian faith all began. I owe an eternal gratitude to the Baptist and Anglican/Episcopal traditions, Evangelical Protestants, Christian families, pastors, Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican priests, my parents, and my husband for my faith in Christ today. I also want to give special thanks to the Coming Home Network who shared the journeys of other Catholic converts and gave me the courage to finally make the jump to the Catholic Church through the Anglican Ordinariate.
I have done some praying and even some agonizing over when and if I should share my faith journey. I will start by saying that conversion into Catholicism through the Anglican Ordinariate was a long journey over many years, and it was a case of finally surrendering which I will explain in further detail throughout this blog. I told myself and others that I would NEVER become Catholic which many converts say repeatedly before they actually convert. As I studied and taught Early Christian Church history and catechism in the Anglican Church as an adult, my findings kept routing back to the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope/Papacy, but I didn't want to admit it. The Anglican Church was in and out of papal authority throughout its history which I also didn't want to admit. Each time I discovered this, I still told the Lord "no" to Catholicism until we tragically lost our entire Anglican faith community in 2017 for a second time which I will write more about later. Out of respect, I am leaving all names in this blog anonymous.
If you want to read about the Anglican Ordinariate within the Roman Catholic Church, here is the website and the history behind it. https://ordinariate.net/. This jurisdiction gave me the familiar link between my upbringing in the Anglican/Episcopalian tradition that eventually brought me into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, the way the English/Anglican Church was for centuries before the English Reformation of the 1500s. I finally converted with the support of my children and encouragement plus extra support from my husband. I reached a point where I could no longer separate the Authority of Scripture from Church history and those who actually co-authored and co-canonized the Bible with God's Divine Guidance. These Biblical co-authors were the obvious authors we already know of like Paul, Luke, Matthew, Peter, Mark, and John, etc.... but there were also the Early Church Fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch (35 - 108 AD), Pope Clement I Rome (served 88-99 AD) , Polycarp (65-155 AD), Tertullian (160-220 AD), Irenaeus of Lyons (140-202 AD), Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), and many others.plus 7 Ecumencial Church Councils like the First Council of Nicea (325 AD), the First Council of Constantinople (381 AD), First Council of Ephesus (431 AD), the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), plus three additional Church Councils through 787 AD totaling seven. All of these Church Fathers, Church Councils, and Bible book authors together established the doctrine of the Early Church and interpreted the Bible in unity over centuries, almost 700 years before the Protestant and English reform movements of the 1500s. I finally submitted my own will to what the Church Fathers and Early Church Councils taught about the Bible collectively over the first 1500 years verses what I prefered through my own modern-day theological lense or the theological lense of my single favorite Protestant reformer or the combination of a few.
Many of you may know this. Jesus did not hand His Apostles a closed canon of Scripture which I will refer to later through videos of the top Catholic Bible scholars. Jesus started the Church and gave her the authority to pass on the Christian faith (Matthew ch. 16:18-19). The full canonization of Scripture took almost 4 centuries with a total of 8 centuries to fully establish doctrine through 7 Ecumencial Church Councils, not individual people interpreting and establishing Biblical doctrine each on his own.
In this blog you will also learn about the many differences of opinion between the Protestant reformers that were so great among one another in some cases that it caused severance of relationships. The Early Church Fathers and Ecumencial Church councils had disagreement for certain, but they agreed enough to canonize the Bible during the first four centuries and establish Church doctrine collectively by nearly 800 AD, 700 years before the Protestant Reformation and English Reformations.
After our family lost/had to leave 2 Anglican Church homes to either rebellion and/or great theological and moral differences of opinion (once in young adulthood and one nearly two years ago). I finally asked the Lord, Where does the Bible come from? How did it get here? Who canonized it? Do the Canonizers and their successors still have the authority over the Bible? and most importantly, did Jesus Christ Himself give the 7 Early Church Councils and Early Church Fathers and their successors the authority to collectively establish theological and moral doctrine and interpret the Bible for the Christian faith and the Church?
Anglicanism is a smaller version of the entire span of Christianity because it is the "via media" or midway between Protestantism and Catholicism, and every belief within this spectrum of Christianity is held within Anglicanism, both morally and theologically, from Pentecostalism, to Calvinism, to Arminianism, to Anglo-Catholicism and from women archbishops to all-male altar servers to traditional marriages to same-gender unions, all within one Church body. I can say that seeing this scope in Anglicanism of different beliefs from a birds-eye view has been incredibly valuable. But at the end of the day, I finally asked myself, which beliefs and practices are within acceptable limits and which ones are not, and who has the authority to decide which beliefs and practices are acceptable and which ones are not?
Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Barron talks about authority and the Word of God in this video. This central idea is why I finally surrendered and became a Roman Catholic through the Anglican Ordinariate, but there are many facets, life experiences, and research to this faith journey which I will give in more detail throughout this blog.
I am hoping that by sharing my faith journey with others, including links to the top scholars in the field of Catholic theology and apologetics, quotes from the early Church Fathers and various Protestant reformers, links to modern-day Protestant theologians with quotations, extensive historical and Biblical support plus links, that this blog may do three things. 1. help Roman Catholics realize that even with the current scandals occuring and with some of the difficult history of the Catholic Church, that I in unity with many historians and the majority of the Church Fathers believe that Jesus Christ Himself gave His Apostles authority to start the Catholic Church universal, and their successors collectively still have an authoritative voice today, even 2000 years later. 2. I wish to help soften hearts towards Roman Catholics, that Roman Catholics are also Christians, and they were some of the very first with other Catholic Christians from Eastern Orthodoxy, Great Britain, and other regions under One universal Christian Catholic Church until 1054 AD. They all shared key components in common such as the Real Presence Eucharist (names vary), the Virgin Mary as the Mother of Our Lord (not a demi-god or goddess), an altar, the historic priesthood, the Pope/the Papacy (to various degrees), and most of all, Christ as Lord and Savior. 3. I also want to help those people who are currently considering the ancient Christian faith, that they can be encouraged. I am also including my personal life journey, my Church background, raising a child with Autism, my marriage journey of nearly 25 years, protected aspects of my work, and my battle with Parkinson's Disease, all of which have contributed to my love for Christ and my journey of faith.
See you on December 27th as I will talk about my upbringing in the Episcopal/Anglican Church.
Blessings in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Have a blessed Advent Season and a Merry Christmas
Julie Nichols, MEd
wife of 24 years
mother of three young adults
Academic Language Therapist
introduction content proofread by Michael Farley, Catholic Convert Administrator
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