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Andrea Palpant Dilley explains her own shift from Presbyterianism to apostacy to generic evangelicalism to high church: “In my 20s, liturgy seemed rote, but now in my 30s, it reminds me that I’m part of an institution much larger and older than myself.

There are many, many "former-Protestant-turns-Catholic" conversion stories posted on FR that bear these same marks. The majority focus on converts with a poor command of their former faith, who swam the Tiber in their early to mid twenties. Some bear witness to converts already being swayed by "every wind of doctrine" before they converted. Most of these conversion stories fall into a common theme - "fringe member (or non-member) starts out illiterate and ignorant of his/her own confession, then gains publicity and fame on EWTN by making a loud, trumpeted conversion to Catholicism."

Take, for example, the story of James Akin. A convert in his mid-twenties, he was actually a whole lot of things before he became Catholic in his mid-twenties, but one Catholic FReeper hawked James as being a "former Presbyterian".

Another favorite is the story of Rodney Beason, supposedly a former Calvinist, and re-solicited as "a powerful conversion story". A first year college student, he claimed to have "a library full of Calvin, Luther, Warfield, Hodge, Murray, Owen, Machen, etc" and to have "helped plant a local Orthodox Presbyterian Church". A little digging on Google, however, and his conversion story was called into question. In the end, Rodney Beason himself signed up to FR just to provide all with the rest of his "powerful conversion story". Having abandoned the Catholic Church within two years of his 2002 conversion, he wishes Catholics would stop (re)publishing his story.

And then there's the tale of Rob Evans. I know what you're thinking - "who is Rob Evans?" Evans' previous claim to fame was a direct-to-VHS children's series titled The Donut Repair Club, marketed to children in Evangelical households in the early 1990s. When he wasn't entertaining children, Rob was a Presbyterian Pentecostal Baptist multiple-church-splitting spiritual wanderer, who was kicked out of at least one congregation before his conversion to Catholicism. His conversion nicely coincided with EWTN acquiring broadcasting rights to his out-of-production Donut Repair Club.

Finally, there's Fr. Erik J. Richtsteig, billed as a "former Mormon" The problem is, Fr. Richtsteig stopped being Mormon by the time he was just eight years old, meaning he had never held office, never been on a mission, never been through a Temple ceremony. His "Mormon" experience was limited to Sunday attendance (without his mother) "sporadically".

I wonder how many of these Catholic converts actually attended churches that proclaimed the whole council of God? A question I would ask is how many Catholic converts previously went to churches with strong systematic confessions of faith, like the Westminster Confession, and how often were they taught the confession, like in a Sunday School class, and how well did their minister cover all the doctrines in the confession of faith? I would expect some rather weak answers.
-- from the thread Systematic Theology and Catholic Converts

7 posted on 07/26/2013 6:02:53 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: Alex Murphy

Add another ex-evangelical who swum the Tiber to your list!


21 posted on 07/26/2013 6:50:44 AM PDT by JCBreckenridge ("we are pilgrims in an unholy land")
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