Cameron Bertuzzi's Conversion to Catholicism: A Reflection
Protestantism Needs to Transform, not just Reform
I will begin stating that I am personally happy for Cameron Bertuzzi. He is a great intellect and apologist in the Christian faith who has followed through his convictions. My prayers for him and his family today, may Christ carry them through all of their days on earth into the Kingdom of Heaven both above and one day that will be on earth forever and ever, amen.
You can see the full interview of his conversion on Matt Fradd’s channel, Pints with Aquinas:
This post will not be an objection to the Papacy (I actually don’t have as big of an issue with it as my other reformed and Lutheran brothers do), Justification, Faith Alone , Christ Alone, Scripture Alone, Grace Alone, Mariology, The Saints and Sainthood, Apocrypha, and numerous other important theological and extra biblical discussions. That is not of my present concern. Rather, I would like to use this important cultural moment to highlight the failures of Protestantism. I am preparing a letter to all of Christianity that I will use to mark the higher calling of Protestantism, but for now let’s highlight the essentials.
Reforms for Whom?
Luther’s 95 thesis was in hopes of reforming the Catholic Church. Quickly after, history turned the pages towards another distinctly different approach. Lutheranism was and does in many ways represents the, New Catholic church. Calvin and Knox also built new institutions to pivot the Catholic Church’s unwillingness to admit its wrongs. Through the Council of Trent, despite some push for reforms, Protestants were excused from the tables as flies that needed to be swatted.
Whatever reforms that were to be brought to what was once the true church, disintegrated. Mind you, a previous reformation had already long begun in 1054 in the East–West Schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
There was nothing to be reformed inwardly as the doors of Rome were closed. Perhaps the reformers could have tried additional approaches, yet in no uncertain terms, Pandora’s Box was opened and could never be shut again.
To this day, talk of reformation and reform is a long and dead concept in one very important sense. Catholicism rejected core Protestant beliefs. The reformation is over. Dead. No more.
A Lesser Singular Voice
Under Zwingli, Calvin, Luther, and Knox the divisions only grew overtime as their voices, though important, did not carry unity in constructing not only a singular Protestant church, but dare I say more importantly they failed to encourage and forge a Protestant Church Council. This failure on their part doomed the movement from its early stages.
Yet, God has blessed the divisions just prior to the decade of the reformation with saints such as Jan Hus, John Wycliffe, and Peter Waldo; and afterwards upward into the 21st century under banners of Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, Lutheranism, Baptist, Methodist, and so forth.
However at the heart of the matter, even within these denominations, Protestants either Calvinist, Arminian, or Wesleyan, have not only continually splintered but continually apostatize.
We failed to bring unity as the Apostle Paul called us to do. Instead we chose “Paul” over “Apollos” without considering our Lord’s divine calling of each. 1 Cor. 3 reads:
3 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
Does that mean we have no differences? No. Can we debate over theological matters? Yes. But in the end our disunity speaks not only a lack of unity as a body but in authority. We claim Scripture Alone as our authority, yet we are truthfully alone in our scriptural interpretations without a unified church and single church council to carry forth the differences and required unities of the Christian faith.
One True Church
Over the decades of my own studies, I have come to the belief that not only is there one true church, but the differences presently being expressed in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism are indeed elements of that one truth.
Christianity and Christendom can be unified yet there is a desperate need for us, Christians, to make the move. Christ is calling us to be one. To proclaim the Trinity and the ancient, one true faith from Old and New Testament, Traditions, Creeds and Confessions, and Orthodox commitment to Christ as Lord and Savior in the name of the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the admiration and proclamation of all the Angels surrounding God, and the Saints dead and alive on earth and in heaven cheering us on.
This proposal is coming and more will be written on what a single Protestant church will look like.
PS: Check out Dr. Gavin Ortlund’s response to this conversion as a sound, Protestant perspective that is both rounded and generous in spirit: