Earlier this year, after a lifetime in charismatic Evangelical churches, including 13 years helping to lead a Baptist church, I became a Roman Catholic.
For the last 6 months I have not written or talked about this change publicly both because I wanted to give a chance for my family to adjust to our new lives and because I do not consider myself qualified to be an internet apologist for Catholicism. However, I have just begun a new academic year as a Catholic University Chaplain (you can follow me here and here) and, since posts have begun to appear that look conspicuously Catholic, I thought I had better say something for those who are confused or bewildered.
Catholicism is Great
First, I really like being a Catholic. I don’t want to come across as a triumphalist convert. I am acutely aware of all the foibles, failures and frustrations of the reality as well as the theory of the Catholic Church. But notwithstanding all of that; I love her. Catholic Christianity is saturated with grace, makes coherent sense of Scripture, invites me to participate in the single greatest intellectual and spiritual tradition in the history of humanity, provides me with beauty and wonder, enfolds me in the most diverse organisation in the world, and, most significantly, offers me the substantial body and blood of my Saviour. I go to Mass often; I would go every day if I could.
My wonderful, intuitive and succinct wife pointed out to me a while ago that we used to speak often of being hungry and thirsty for Christ. Now I feed on him each week in the sacrament. When my priest hears my confession and speaks the words of forgiveness and cleansing over me it does not merely communicate a spiritual reality, it brings that reality into existence in my soul. The liturgy in my local parish is not as much fun as a really well constructed and executed worship set. But it brings me the voice of Scripture and prays in return everything that needs to be said in a way that is both concise and beautiful.
Moreover, to become Catholic is to join oneself to the whole communion of the Saints throughout the ages in a way that is real and powerful. My experience of the history of the church and her great heroes as a Protestant was similar to the way I might think of great Spurs players of the past; I can look at them and learn from them but not play with them. Indeed, I am being generous here; as a Protestant I could only really publicly learn from or acknowledge a few – principally Augustine and the Reformers. Aquinas, Bonaventure, Therese of Liseaux and so on were, to say the least, suspect. Were they great heroes for us or suspect? Now I not only learn from the saints, I pray with them and they with and for me. My whole understanding and appreciation of the truth of the resurrection of the dead and the communion of saints has been transformed by the knowledge that those who go before us still stand with us, pray for us and do so powerfully.
Being a Catholic is great.
I Still Love Protestants
I still love Protestants.
Becoming Catholic is obviously a huge decision. It has meant changing job, moving house and has put strain on relationships I had previously thought strong. There are obviously some profound theological differences between the evangelical and Catholic understandings of Christianity. I don’t want to diminish those differences. Some are relatively trivial. Others are more profound. But for all this I do believe that my brothers and sisters in Protestantism are just that: brothers and sisters and I have nothing but love for them.
My own reception into Catholicism is not, from my perspective at least, a repudiation of the evangelical charismatic world or a denial of God’s work within it. I remain grateful for all God did in me and my family through the work of bodies like New Frontiers and the brothers and sisters we worshipped with and pastored at HBC. I believe the Spirit is really at work in and through them, changing lives, saving souls and healing bodies. The work those churches do is extraordinary and profound as is their love for Scripture and the Spirit. I would not be who I am without them; I love them and continue to pray for them.
This is, no doubt, hard for some to hear. Inevitably there is a sense of loss when someone becomes Catholic, especially if, like me, they have worked and pastored in a Protestant context. For those who hear of my conversion and feel some sense of pain at it, I hope it will be reassuring to know that I became Catholic because I positively believe the Catholic understanding of Christianity to be a true and good fulfilment of everything I experienced in my Protestant faith. It is not, in this sense, a rejection of anyone but rather a continuation of the same pursuit of Christ that characterises evangelical piety. Indeed, a crucial part of my own emotional journey towards Catholicism was reading the works of Joseph Ratzinger and deeply desiring the knowledge of Christ and the joy in his beauty that I discovered there.
So, how did it happen?
Conversion is Both a Process and a Punctuation Point
Coming to the Catholic Church was very like getting engaged. I can tell you the time and place I became engaged to Heather. It was a Sunday evening in late August in my parents’ living room. I know what we ate just before it (lasagne) and how it happened (I wrapped a ring in a series of boxes like Russian dolls before going down on one knee). I asked her to marry me, she promised to do so and we were engaged. In the same way I can tell you the day and the time I became a Catholic. On 20 March 2025 at about 1845 I stood before Fr Con Foley at Christ the Prince of Peace in Weybridge, promised to receive all that the Catholic Church teaches as revealed by God. He laid his hand on my head and prayed for the Spirit to fill me and use me. I was filled with joy and then received my first Eucharist. It was, like our engagement, one of the most important days of my life.
It is important that both our engagement and my reception into the Church were definite moments. Before I asked Heather to marry me, she had made no promise to do so. We were not pledged to one another. Something changed in that moment as we went from one state to another. In the words we exchanged and the physical pledges we offered, our status was altered. Before that service on 20 March I was not a Catholic. I had not promised to obey the Church’s teaching, had not acknowledged it as revealed by God, and could not receive the Eucharist. When people ask me when I became a Catholic, therefore, I tell them that I can name the day and time just as I know the moment I became a fiancée (and later, even more so, a husband).
At the same time, conversion, like engagement, is the culmination of a process that takes time, sometimes years, proceeding on occasions dramatically and at others imperceptibly. My engagement to Heather was the fruit of a year of friendship and love between us. Going back further, it flowed from the work of God in both of our lives shaping our desires for a partner and a life lived for God. Over time it became increasingly clear where that process would likely be leading until Heather was sat at a dining table with a ring on her finger and a crying man at her feet. We were not engaged until that moment, but that moment came because of everything that had gone before.
My coming to the Church was similarly a process that, viewed in retrospect began many years ago. It proceeded through a thousand questions, prayers and experiences that led to it. It came through my wrestling with Scripture, with prayer, with pastoral work and with history. It came through moments of grace and joy, tears and frustrations, through pain and through the providence of God.
I mention this to reassure those who find themselves on a spiritual journey of whose destination they are as yet unsure. I did not believe my journey would lead to the Church until it was nearly over. Christ led me through all my preaching, friendships, prayer and pain to a place I did not anticipate. It was a hard journey. And yet, from this side I can see his grace and love in it.
For me my conversion is a process and a punctuation point. Prior to 20 March I never preached or taught anything that was distinctively Catholic. My theological arguments proceeded using Protestant sources and logic. Nor did I receive communion in a Catholic Church. I was not a Catholic until that time. And yet from the perspective of my being a Catholic I can see how that evangelical work, the love of Scripture, of the Church, of God’s people and work, led me to find my home in Rome. I hope it will lead me deeper and deeper into God’s love and his Church.
Where To from Here?
If you are still reading this post, I imagine you may be interested in what I am going to do next and what has come of my wonderful wife and her ministry. I am at present working on finishing my PhD examining Baptist doctrines of the Church in conversation with Joseph Ratzinger. While I am doing that, I am the Catholic chaplain at Royal Holloway University and about to begin teaching RS at a local secondary school. I have no idea what God’s plan is for me in the future save that I would love for it to involve bringing as many people to know Jesus, to find love in his Church and to receive his grace as I can.
Heather’s story is her own to tell. For the moment I can say that she, too, has experienced a great joy in becoming Catholic and has found particular peace and fulfilment in the Eucharist and in a deepening relationship with the Saints of the Church. She is currently working in a prison as a chaplain. I have never seen anyone more obviously used by God to bring light into darkness.
If you would like to know more about how this all happened, please feel free to reach out to me privately. We value and covet your prayers above all.
Deep Church 