Circumstances Converge, Part 1

Contrary to what I said in my last post, there are times in my life where I can see occurrences building on each other which just have to be more than a coincident. In this case, it has to do with my recent posts on Catholicism.

Let me take you back to when this all started. A few months back I wrote a post called 50 Things About Me where I mentioned in one of the bullet points that I was a “recovering Catholic”. Elena happened to read that post while visiting for the first time and asked: “what is a recovering Catholic?”. It was like the shot heard around the world. Okay, it wasn’t that dramatic, but it did cause me to write a second post describing my upbringing in the Catholic Church called something ingenious like My Version of A Recovering Catholic. There was some minor discussion in the comments section of that post, but it got quiet quickly.

A couple of months later I read a post at Challies about Rome and The Beast of Revelation. I made some comments on that post back and forth with what seemed to be a Catholic apologetic. It was that thread which inspired my True or False Test post (defending the Bible as God’s one and only authoritative Word). Around that same time I received an email from Beth who stumbled upon my Recovering Catholic post and had a few comments about it, resulting in the Dialogue with A Catholic Posts (okay, I’m tired of linking-you're on your own). Are you still with me? I promise, I’m almost there.

Following the comments on the Dialogue posts, I wrote another post replying back and also posted a chart (because I came across it and thought it was informative) which compared the non-biblical traditions of Catholics, Mormons, and JWs. I was just about to move on to another topic when Elena suddenly appeared on the scene to rebut some of my comments on Catholicism and defend Marian doctrines (remember: her question is what spurred the Recovering Catholic post, which spurred Beth’s email, which started the whole discussion up again months later) Okay, we have come full circle. But since this post is already so long, I will have to make this a two part-er.

Are you disappointed you came this far for nothing? Sorry, Part 2 should be better. Maybe I should have opened with a joke?

(Seriously, is this terribly boring? I hate these kind of stories from other people)