Several years ago when I was once a Calvinist, I remember reading this quote by John Calvin and being impressed by it: We must confess, then, that if the representation which God gives us in the Supper is true, the internal substance of the sacrament is conjoined with the visible signs; and as the bread […]

“Justification is the article upon which the Church stands or falls.” Luther didn’t actually write this anywhere so far as I know, but he did express the sentiment. He said, for example, that without the doctrine of justification “the Church of God is not able to exist for one hour.”  And that amounts to much […]

Jason Stellman, at his provocative blog De Regnis Duobus (Concerning the Two Kingdoms) recently composed a fascinating reflection on Protestant confessionalism entitled “The Complexities of Confessionalism”. Stellman writes: The options, as I see them, are as follows: confessional denominations like the PCA [Presbyterian Church in America] ]can either (1) broaden our theological parameters to make […]

Disclaimer: This brief account of the process that led to my conversion to the Roman Catholic Church is designed to offer a very general overview of my journey and not a detailed academic apology. While I may write such an apology at some point, this account is only meant to introduce the readers of Called […]

John Kincaid Tom Riello interviews CTC’s newest member, John Kincaid, on his conversion to the Catholic Church. John Kincaid is a doctoral candidate at Ave Maria University. This is more than a typical conversion story and a bit longer than our previous podcasts but well worth the listen. John shares some insightful theology and gives […]

Our contemporary use of the word “symbol” in theology is rather weak. My guess is that this goes back to the 11th century Eucharistic controversy between the erroneous “symbolic Eucharist” belief of Berengarius and the orthodox “substantial presence” articulation of Lanfranc of Canterbury. For the heretic Berengarius, the term “symbol” entailed “not real”. Berengarius’ usage […]

If we are to have a right ecclesiology it must be boldly grounded in the Incarnation.  2nd Clement’s letter can help us to do just that. To begin with, the letter is not of Clementine authorship; moreover, it is not a letter but a homily and likely of second century origin; perhaps written in Corinth […]

In the earliest Christian communities, creeds were widely used among catechumens received into the Church to affirm that the initiate understood and affirmed the fundamentals of the Christian faith.     The early creeds offer us some insight into the ecclesiology of the early Church.  The earliest form of what we now call “The Apostles Creed” was […]

In May of 2007, Dr. Francis J. Beckwith, at that time the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, announced that he was returning to the Catholic Church in which he had been raised.

St. Augustine, God rest his soul, can’t be happy about how Western Christians have been fighting over the rights to his theological legacy for the last five hundred years. This in-fighting notwithstanding, a few issues make Augustine stand out as decidedly Catholic. Recently we discussed the issue of the canon, and Augustine clearly supports the […]