In October 2012, in a very public move, Andreas Theurer, originally a Lutheran pastor in Württemberg, converted to Catholicism. In his book, Why Shouldn't We All Become Catholics?, he outlines the reasons for this dramatic step. The present essay scrutinizes the principal arguments beneath the surface of Theurer's self-defense, tracing their underlying religious motives which Theurer himself divulges in an unusually overt way. Theurer presumes a fundamental concept of the Christian religion which envisages humans as basically being able to respond in a constructive manner to God's gifts and commandments which the Church presents to them so that they can earn eternal life thanks to divine grace. He claims that, unlike Protestant churches, only the Catholic Church fits the requirements which he posits in this concept of Christian faith and life. For this reason he dismisses Protestantism as an historical failure. The essay points out that Theurer's arguments, apart from their purely scholarly shortcomings, underline precisely the fact that Catholicism and Protestantism represent two essentially different varieties of the Christian religion.

Enthalten in:
Kerygma und Dogma; 2013/2 Zeitschrift für theologische Forschung und kirchliche Lehre (2013)

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Serie / Reihe: Kerygma und Dogma

Personen: Ohst, Martin

Schlagwörter: Essay Konversion