One Year Bible – Dr. Bill Creasy

It surprised me in three ways.

Firstly, it wasn’t what I thought it was. It was a commentary or a Bible walkthrough rather than actual readings. That wasn’t a problem for me.

The second thing that surprised me was that the Bill Creasy audiobook was more a series of lectures than an audio version of a book, but I suppose he could put it in book format if he wanted to. That didn’t disappoint me because I enjoyed the talks. I have access to an abundance of free audio resources already, but I was instantly impressed when I started listening to it. If you’re not on Audible, you can often get your first audiobook free or get a good deal when you subscribe.

The third thing that surprised me was his denomination. I generally read or listen to books by evangelicals. I do listen to liberal/modernist scholars sometimes. They’re not really my taste though. They take every opportunity to deny the inspiration of the Bible and find errors, inconsistencies and so on. I was always taught to be aware of what others believe so that I’m in a better position to argue my case. I do that, but it does little for me spiritually. And even when I buy evangelical books, I have a preference for those who hold my own theological outlook, which is known as “reformed”. However, in recent times, I have become a bit more open to listening to other points of view.

Anyway, I was surprised to discover that Bill Creasy was a Roman Catholic. When I listen to him, he sounds like an evangelical. Years ago, when I read Roman Catholic books, they were either traditional, which is big into promoting Roman Catholic distinctives, or modernist, which sees the Bible as a largely human book and tags along with liberal scholars who deny the inspiration of Scripture. It’s a joy to hear someone who is truly enthusiastic about the Bible. Now, for all I know, he mightn’t hold to the verbal inspiration in the way that I do, but generally speaking, I’m pleased with what I hear. It’s nice to get an overview of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, which isn’t always easy reading.

I was a little puzzled recently when I saw a survey stating that 38% of Northern Irish Roman Catholics identified as evangelical. I must investigate this. It sounds a little bit too good to be true. If it is true, I wonder if modern evangelical music has something to do with it.

Back in my day, you did have the Roman Catholic charismatic movement. It had an evangelical flavour to it back in the 1970s. Some groups and individuals started leaving the Roman Catholic denomination and forming independent evangelical fellowships. It was said that the Roman Catholic church took more control of it then, whatever that means 😀. I don’t hear much about Roman Catholic charismatics nowadays or evangelical Roman Catholics, but I have met a few. Evangelicalism is generally categorized as Protestant, so saying that you’re an evangelical Catholic is like saying that you’re a Protestant Catholic. Yet, I don’t see why a Roman Catholic shouldn’t be able to emphasize what we emphasize – love for the Bible, importance of personal faith and the work of Jesus on the cross and the need to spread the faith. And not all Catholics might be into all the dogmas that developed over the centuries such as praying to the Saints and Mary and so on.

I left the Roman Catholic church when I was 18. My main reasons were that I believed that evangelical churches were more aligned to the teaching of the New Testament church. And I didn’t like everyone being told that they were already Christians because they were baptized as a baby. I’ve always believed that you need to become a Christian by personally repenting and believing in Jesus. That’s a fundamental teaching of evangelicalism. Of course, one thing that we should recognize is that sometimes people might do this in a subtle way, even as children. But having a particular point at which I committed my life to Christ and attending evangelical churches has been hugely helpful to me. Still, I do like to see all these historic Christian denominations across the world. Whenever I look at cities on GoogleEarth, I’m always pleased to see church buildings. Even if they don’t have evangelical preachers, I’d hope that at very least, people would be reminded about Jesus, and nowadays everyone can avail of the abundant Christian web resources.

But I’d like all churches to be more evangelical even if they don’t transform into evangelical reformed Baptist churches, which is generally my kinda church.

Here are a few evangelical modern songs that feature Roman Catholics.

I often speak of how I differ from Roman Catholics. Some evangelicals avoid this because they like to focus on Christ rather than theological differences. But when I was a Roman Catholic, I was always interested in the differences between different denominations and schools of thought within denominations. So, I see no problem with discussing opinions, provided that it’s done in a gracious, respectful manner.