The Long Road | A Protestant Pastor's Journey to the Catholic Faith

In the first part of a three-part series, Bishop Donald Hying sits down with Tristan Borland – the Diocese of Madison's Associate Director of Marriage and Family Ministry, and a former Protestant pastor – to begin the story of his conversion to the Catholic faith. Tristan opens with his upbringing in Evangelical Protestantism, the misconceptions of Catholicism he carried, and the first encounters that led him to take the Catholic faith seriously. He reflects on the reasons that slowly drew him toward the Church, the personal and relational realities that made it a long and gradual road, and the Catholic friendships that accompanied him along the way.

Transcript

Bishop Donald J. Hying 0:00

Welcome to Things Visible and Invisible, a podcast that discusses life, faith, current events, culture, history, and more, all in relation to Jesus Christ and his church. I'm Bishop Don Hying, and today's episode we are blessed to have Tristan Borland, who works for our diocese in the area of formation and catechesis, and he will be speaking about his conversion to Catholicism and the factors that brought him to the faith. We are blessed to have Tristan Borland with us today. He works here for the Diocese of Madison, and his deep faith and his experience as an evangelical pastor brings a richness and depth to his service and his ministry. Tristan works in the areas of formation and catechesis and specifically marriage and family. And all those are the intersection points today where people encounter the Lord and come to a deeper understanding of how the Lord is leading us into salvation and into relationship with Jesus. Welcome, Tristan. We're so blessed to have you.

Tristan Borland 1:19

Oh, it's great to be here, Bishop. Uh it was it was a long journey that brought me here. So it's it's good to good to be with you today.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 1:25

I've heard you speak often about bits and pieces of that process of that journey from being uh a pastor in a Protestant evangelical church and then not only coming to Catholicism, but working for the church in a different state, in a different place. So the floor is yours in terms of just expressing that to Catholics. And Catholics always love to hear from converts, like what brought you to the church.

Tristan Borland 1:51

Yeah, there, man, it's it's there's a lot to there's a lot to share. And I think uh today my focus is gonna be on just some of the journey over really about 20 years uh of the things that led me to the Catholic faith. And then in the coming weeks, we'll talk a little bit more about my personal journey and some of the things that uh maybe specifically led us into the faith, and then uh to Madison as well. Um but but I was my wife and I were both raised as evangelicals and and really uh we're so grateful for our background. We there were so many gifts that we were given, uh a love of Christ, a devotion to him, uh, a love of people, many people of goodwill and faith, and uh that were super genuine. And um we both grew up in pretty devout evangelical families. Um and I would say to a large degree, we were both raised uh pretty ignorant of Catholicism. You know, we didn't have a whole lot of background of what the Catholic faith was. And so neither of us, it wasn't really on our radar. Um, I had a couple of good Catholic friends early on, and so I think uh my disposition to Catholicism was at least a uh disposition of friendship and seeing that these people had a genuine faith, I didn't really understand many things Catholic, but it was at least open to seeing these as my Christian brothers and sisters, and my wife, I think, too, had some of those experiences. But also uh around my upbringing was a number of people that were pretty anti-Catholic. And so a lot of what you hear, maybe as a young evangelical, is the maybe stereotypes or straw men arguments against Catholicism that are just kind of baked into the the environment. And um, so so that was our our upbringing, but um, we love the Lord. Um, faith was really important to both my wife and I. And so um you don't question what you're you're raised in. And so it was a really good upbringing, a lot of devout people, a lot of beautiful people that we loved uh dearly. I do remember like an early experience. I wouldn't say that my my church and my family was anti-Catholic, but I definitely had a number of those people that I encountered through uh different churches. And I remember hearing one, this was probably around the end of high school, beginning of college, a very anti-Catholic uh preacher speak one time. And I remember thinking, this doesn't seem right. Like whatever he is saying, I don't know that I fully agree with. And he was um pretty vicious towards the Catholic faith. And right around the same time, I encountered a documentary of Mother Teresa, and I was transfixed by this film, uh, depicting just her life, uh, her beauty, her faithfulness, her devotion, uh, this deep love and holiness of Mother Teresa. And I I watched it multiple times, and I just remember thinking, she's so beautiful, there's something here. And I remember having this thought of this, you know, this very vicious kind of anti-Catholic preacher and Mother Teresa and the juxtaposition of these two. And I thought, I thought, you know, if I ended up dying and standing before St. Peter in in heaven, and he said, uh, well, pick a line, and there's two lines, one going to eternal life, one going to destruction. And if I saw the vicious preacher in the one line and Mother Teresa in the other line, I thought, I think I would pick Mother Teresa's line because I'm I'm pretty sure she is a legitimate Christian. And it just I her beauty and love just drew me in. And so that was like one of the earliest experiences I had of just kind of being open to the Catholic faith. But um, but that was early on, and there was no real reason for me to pursue it actively. And so I continued to uh grow in my faith. I ended up uh going to a Christian college and going to seminary, continued to be trained to serve in uh pastoral ministry. And so um, so that was my early, my early journey.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 5:44

The power of the saints to evangelize, I was just having a conversation about that point with others that in the saints we see the Catholic faith lived, and there's a power and truth, certainly in evangelicalism, you know, love for scripture, the importance of a relationship with Jesus, the understanding that Jesus has died for us, the the possible mystery, you know, the charisma being central. But there's no Protestant Francis of Assisi, as far as I know. There's no Protestant Saint Theresa of Calcutta. I mean, there's something about Catholicism that uh makes um saints who love the Lord intensely and then transform the world around them. So I think the the lives of the saints, as you aptly say, Tristan, are uh a powerful witness to the truth of our faith and uh the grace operative within Catholicism to bring people to sanctity and to holiness. So so that seed was planted, you go to a Christian school, you end up becoming a pastor. Talk about that a little bit.

Tristan Borland 6:49

Yeah, I I mean again, I I I love being a pastor. It was uh it was um something I felt like called to and was good at. And and yeah, it's interesting, right? It was it was the life of Mother Teresa, it was the lives of other Catholics that drew me in to like soften me towards the Catholic faith. And then I got into you know apologetics and reading and reading theology. And so people always ask me the question, and when they hear I was a Protestant pastor, like, what you know, what made you convert? And that's really hard to distill down into a very short answer. Because I, you know, there's there's many things that I read, many things that like influenced me that was deeply Catholic. Uh, but you can become very Catholic without becoming Catholic. And so as a Protestant pastor, for 20 years, I encountered great spiritual writers from the Catholic faith. And I wasn't afraid to read them and to dive into them because they were just so rich and beautiful. Um, and so when people ask me, you know, the reason for converting, I always say it's it's a little bit more like a case argument. It's many things over a long period of time uh that had a uh an effect of just slowly drawing me to the faith. I I did a I did a reflection maybe six months ago of like what were the reasons? And I I wrote down my my pros and cons list of of why I converted. And my my pros list was very long with all kinds of theological points, but my my cons list was very personal. It was it was very difficult. And so that whole 20-year period, you're wrestling with these beautiful people who I love and I care about, and they clearly love Jesus, and they're my friends, and um, I'm serving them, and I'm I'm serving in a in a church that I love and a community that I love. And then there's all these points of theology and faith that just were I was that were that I was wrestling with. And so for many years, this these things kind of became integrated into my life. And so if you had met me uh 10 years ago, I would have been a very pro-Catholic evangelical, but I was still an evangelical because the point of conversion is just very costly and very difficult to cross over. Um, but but so it was a collection of many things over a lot of years.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 9:02

Especially when you're a pastor. I mean, you were not just simply a member of a congregation, you were their spiritual leader. So for the members of your congregation to experience the conversion of their pastor to Catholicism, for some of them that was probably easier than for others, but for some it must have been, what's happening here? You know, how can uh how can Tristan leave us and become Catholic of all things?

Tristan Borland 9:26

Yeah. And I left, I left the church before publicly going down the path of Catholicism. So there was a little bit of a lag there. And I think for um for some of them it was very disorienting because I think some of the stereotypes of Catholicism still very much exist. Um, one of our dear friends, uh I'll share one story that makes me at least feel like I have some integrity in this process. We were meeting with people uh after I'd been a pastor, I was meeting with a dear friend, and we were breaking the news that we were going to become Catholic. And I was concerned how this conversation was going to go uh because there were there were some difficult conversations. And um when we broke the news to this couple, the wife said, Do you think this surprises me? And so she had she had watched me for a decade and just my theological development and who I'm reading and who I quote. And so it wasn't for her, she had a good enough view of Catholicism that she could see kind of the continuity of our conversion. Um with others, that wasn't the case. Um it was painful for sure with other um friends and family relationships, but but but God was faithful uh to to bring us on this long journey to the Catholic faith.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 10:35

I think your conversion, Tristan, teaches us several things. One is that in many cases it's gradual. You know, when we're in the work of evangelization, we want to see immediate results. We want to see this person's life dramatically changing in a very short amount of time. And yet, think of all the uh analogies Jesus uses, you know, mustard seed, uh wheat being sown, uh there there's a gradualism to God's grace working within us. And it requires us to be patient and persevering, you know, to persevere in cultivating those relationships in which we're seeking to evangelize another, but but also to be patient that this is God's work. And often it takes years of grace working on a soul, working on a heart, you know, working on a mind to to come to that decision point. I think the the other is just the the intellectual aspect to your conversion. I think many of the Protestant pastors that have come into Catholicism became convicted of its truth when they read the Church Fathers. And the Church Fathers are really the bridge between the Church of the New Testament, the Church of the Acts of the Apostles, and then the the emerging early medieval church. And I think historically, this may be a caricature, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Protestantism has to somehow deny the historicity of Catholicism or the continuity of Catholicism. The Church Fathers show, thinking of Ignatius of Antioch in particular. Ignatius is writing his famous letters on the way to his martyrdom in Rome around the year 100. His letters, it's already clear there's uh an established hierarchy in the church with deacons, priests, bishops, there's the institution of the Eucharist, there's the veneration of the saints, there's the role of the papacy. So all of the uh components of the church and of the faith were already profoundly present in those early years, even as the canon of the scripture wasn't even finished. So I think that historical continuity, discontinuity is a question, and uh reading or studying your way into the faith is a way of overcoming kind of that ahistorical approach that I think sometimes Protestants take. Please correct me if any of that's wrong. No, I think it's a perception.

Tristan Borland 13:04

I think there's there's truth to that, and I think that's very much my my process was the more I reckoned with the historical continuity of the church, like I knew that the church didn't pop into existence in like the 1800s, or you know, this there had to be some sort of continuity. And I think you have to believe that because you have to believe that that Christ established a church and the Holy Spirit has been guiding his church. Even I think even a Protestant should have to reconcile with that, but it's much more difficult to do, I think, historically. Uh, reading Ignatius of Antioch was definitely one of those pieces along the way, especially real presence uh clearly in the Eucharist, that and he's writing in the year 100, right? So, so you know, he and others, and and you start to see this historic thread that that uh is hard to deny. And um and so for me, um but it's interesting, Bishop, when you say um this long process, that's when I look back, it feels like a long, continuous process of the Lord leading me deeper into my faith. And really, Catholicism is just kind of entering into this next step, this fullness of things. Other people probably see it much more as a I was Protestant and now I'm Catholic, but I think most Protestants that convert look back and are are grateful for all that they've received. And yet, for for those who maybe uh don't see Catholicism as legitimate or have problems with Catholicism, it's very disjointing for them or uh but it's really for from my perspective, it's this long path towards entering into the fullness of the church.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 14:43

Yeah, it wasn't a conversion to Christ. You you love the Lord, you you serve the church, you're immersed in the scriptures, you're living a life of faith. So it's really, as you said, it's uh it's a natural logical development to come into the Catholic Church and to have that fullness of relationship with the children.

Tristan Borland 14:59

And we still love our dear Protestant brothers and sisters, and uh so so this continuity is is a big thing. But there were there were several things that just you know, when people ask the the reasons or want to give an argument, I after I'd resigned from the pastorate, I um I had a friend who was doing his PhD in systematic theology, and I thought, if I'm crazy and wanting to become Catholic, I need somebody to tell me that I'm crazy. So I I sat down, I wrote a five-page letter to this friend of mine, and I said, Look, I'm really considering becoming Catholic, and I can't give you all the reasons. And we had already had some conversations about these things, so I was like, I need to distill this down in a way that is manageable. And so I came up with really four things that were just hard to ignore. And so the four things that I wrote to him about was one was questioning sola scriptura. If Christ established the church, then that holds weight. And I felt like the problem with sola scriptura, and I had probably wrestled with this for at least 15 years at the time, was it seemed to me to lead to relativism. There's no way of settling any theological debates. And is this what Christ established? Did he establish a church where everybody just reads the Bible and interprets it in any way they want to? And so I felt like that can't be the case. Like relativism cannot be true. Like the law of non-contradiction says, like, if we disagree on something, both sides can't be right. And the uh the fracturing in Protestantism became like a major issue. And so I had come to believe for quite a long time, at least in the um, the authority of the invisible church, whatever that means. But but I believe that Christ had to have established a church that he would preserve. But for many years, I just wasn't sure that that was the Catholic Church. The second area I wrote to my friend about was the um was theology of the body. Um we we live in a time of great confusion when it comes to sexuality. I feel like these are the the biggest issues of our day as far as like what is what is the human person, uh, what is uh our call to like sexual holiness. And um, there were many issues, even as a pastor, where I would just like read and uh controversial issues, things like you know, IVF and surrogacy and um contraception and other things. And I would look in the Protestant world and I would find there's so much debate and so many uh fractured views on things that I thought were pretty clearly like moral issues. And then I would read Catholics on theology of the body, and I think, boy, they seem to get this right. And it just really convinced me of so many things to grow in holiness in my own uh life sexually, but but also just in how do I speak of the truth to others. So that was really influential. I think it like the Catholic Church claims to have this authority, and on the most important issue of our day, they seem to be maintaining this authority. Uh the third issue I talked to my friend about was the desire and need for confession. And in the Protestant world, and of course the scripture is very clear that we should confess our sins. One, you know, we should in James, uh, we should confess to others. And uh the Protestant um movement started with what was said is like the priesthood of all believers. But but what I think it became is uh there's just no priests. And so while in Protestantism there can be accountability and things that are actually quite beautiful, it just doesn't happen all that often. And even as a Protestant pastor, there were so many times, especially after we went through great suffering and people saw us broken and vulnerable, there would be people that would come into my office and pour their heart out. And and what I came to find is they're they're looking for something. They they are looking and in a beautiful way. And I prayed with them and I would walk with them, but they weren't just looking for somebody to pray with them. They were looking for uh forgiveness, they were looking for absolution. And I just thought, boy, we have gotten away from this beautiful sacrament of confession, and it just seemed to ring really true. And the last thing that I wrote to my friend about was probably the deepest area for me, which was a longing for unity and seeing the unending breaks in the church, and and when there's a division, you know, there's always a split and then another split, another split. And I thought, is this what Christ intended? Did he intend a church that's going to be fractured and fractured and fractured, or did he intend one church to come together? And so uh so I sent this document off to my friend just as a synopsis of and this and and many other things that slowly over time led me to the church. Uh clearly uh real presence in the Eucharist, uh, Saint Ignatius of Antioch and others that um really led me down that path. So that those are just some of the backdrop of the things that eventually led me to the church.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 19:55

What was your friend's response?

Tristan Borland 19:57

My friend's response was well, he came into the church about a year after I did.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 20:02

I was gonna say it'd be compelling to me to say these are pretty good reasons to become Catholics.

Tristan Borland 20:08

Yeah, he's he's been a dear friend. It was a gift to like walk with me during that season and uh praise God for him and uh his journey as well.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 20:16

So we could talk for hours about this uh subject, Tristan, but I'm just very grateful for your presence with us, not only on the show today, but clearly in the diocese and your service. And your unique perspective really helps people to understand what is it that's unique and beautiful about the church that we can really use as points of discussion to satisfy people's desires and curiosity to know that the Catholic Church is the fullness uh of the church that the Lord uh created, founded, and intends for us. And the power of that unity and the power of the sacraments. So thank you for being with us, and uh, we continue to pray that God continues to move many, many hearts to draw closer to Him. Thank you, Tristan. Thanks, Bishop.