Anyway, so I happened across the parish's book rack. Among other selections, Steve Ray's Crossing the Tiber stood out. I'd heard a lot about it thanks to the Catholic Answers podcast, where Ray is a frequent guest. The back of the trading card summary is that Ray started out as an evangelical Christian but slowly drifted away once he began, y'know, ACTUALLY READING WHAT THE CHURCH FATHERS WROTE. The drift eventually took him into the Mother Church's embrace, where he's been happily ensconced ever since.
The book, thus, is about how he made that transition. And as he goes through the matter, he makes it clear how often his evangelical friends looked at him askance when they discovered he was joining the Catholic Church.
There are other items I could mention but the major point is that it's a little eerie how his journey somewhat parallels my own. True, he left the evangelical world by choice whereas I was pretty much shown the door. He was a self-styled "Lone Ranger" Christian for what seems like several years while, in my case, that phase lasted only a few weeks (if that). But otherwise his study and reactions to his findings are a pretty close mirror to my own.
Understand, I'd been listening to the Catholic Answers podcast for a few weeks by the time I heard a Steve Ray episode. I thought of it as a nice little rounding out of my Anglican beliefs. My view was that the Catholics were only mistaken about maybe a handful of beliefs. And even there, it was a matter of degree more so than substance. So I could listen to Catholic Answers and filter out the Catholicisms of it as I went along.
Well, Ray made several comments that challenged me. So of course I checked out his sources... all of which were easily verified and, surprisingly, easily proven to be true!
Eventually I came to the same conclusion that Ray originally did. The Catholic Church is either the real deal, the Church founded by Our Lord and perpetuated through a succession of bishops or else the Church simply does not exist in this world. Considering the impossibility of the latter, that left only the former.
Thus I am enrolled in RCIA.
So in a matter of simple intellectual honesty, I must acknowledge Steve Ray as my unwitting entry point into the Catholic Church. And considering his own Protestant background, reading Crossing the Tiber was an immensely intriguing idea. And I must say that the actual book certainly doesn't disappoint.
So think of this as a recommendation. Protestants leave Protestantism sometimes. Or they think about it anyway. And it helps to know (A) other people have been through the same thing and (B) there are justifiable and intellectually honest reasons for doing so.
Of course, the edition of Crossing the Tiber I bought is abridged because it only cost $6 or $7. So I guess you get what you pay for in life. Still a good book though.
