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Denominational Hopscotch: Starting Out in Mayberry with a Clean Slate
It may sound crazy and it probably is
In the ongoing account of my resettlement in the wilds of East Texas, I have mentioned on a few occasions that one of the biggest adjustments has not been the number of people with pistols on their hip or the suspicious glances I get when I tell people I write for a living (both of those things happened with alarming regularity in Dallas as well) but rather the long distance I have to drive to find the nearest Catholic church. The distance is made even worse by the poor quality of the preaching I have experienced during my Sunday visits (a problem throughout the Catholic Church that even Pope Francis has complained about; watch for a story on this soon). I have been doubly vexed.
I have also mentioned before that I have not lacked invitations to visit other churches from my new friends and neighbors. For those cradle Catholics who have never strayed beyond the Church of Rome, this may seem like a non-starter, but for me it’s definitely not. I have long described myself as a semi-Evangelical Catholic, having spent half of my life in Catholic churches and half in Baptist and non-denominational ones. It has made me fairly ecumenical in my outlook, though the more hardcore members of each group find the idea that I am as comfortable with…
