Posted on 10/08/2014 11:39:09 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
Why would intelligent, successful people give up their careers, alienate their friends, and cause havoc in their families...to become Catholic? Indeed, why would anyone become Catholic?
As an evangelist and author who recently threw my own life into some turmoil by deciding to enter the Catholic Church, I've faced this question a lot lately. That is one reason I decided to make this documentary; it's part of my attempt to try to explain to those closest to me why I would do such a crazy thing.
Convinced isn't just about me, though. The film is built around interviews with some of the most articulate and compelling Catholic converts in our culture today, including Scott Hahn, Francis Beckwith, Taylor Marshall, Holly Ordway, Abby Johnson, Jeff Cavins, Devin Rose, Matthew Leonard, Mark Regnerus, Jason Stellman, John Bergsma, Christian Smith, Kevin Vost, David Currie, Richard Cole, and Kenneth Howell. It also contains special appearances by experts in the field of conversion such as Patrick Madrid and Donald Asci.
Ultimately, this is a story about finding truth, beauty, and fulfillment in an unexpected place, and then sacrificing to grab on to it. I think it will entertain and inspire you, and perhaps even give you a fresh perspective on an old faith.
(Excerpt) Read more at indiegogo.com ...
That's not quite it. If something is neither proved nor disproved (ruled out) by the Bible, we can credit ancient belief and practice of the Church. That's not exactly "enough people." It's not a numerical thing, a vote. It's history, using the ordinary rules of historic investigation, and weighing the antiquity, the authority and the credibility of the various sources of evidence. You may underestimate how conservative andwha sticklers for details the ancient churches were. Homousios vs homoiousios and so forth. If the doctrine of the Assumption had been heretical, I think the introduction of liturgical celebrations of the same would have caused rioting and schisms on three continents.
It's important that our evaluation of such sources take fully into account the profound conservatism of the local Churches (by which I mean, in the Catholic sense of the term, Dioceses) involved. And their extreme disinclination to let sister local Churches deviate by one iota from what they had received from the APostles.
Did you read the article I referenced?
(I copied it from the cache version and then zoomed it up in size, because that small print bothers my eyes. I wish I had a more legible version to offer you.)
Thanks. I am having eye muscle surgery. My right eye is turned outwards. I have done some research and people say there is nothing to it. No pain afterwards, etc. I just do not like having someone do anything with my eyes. I do read my Bible every day. That is one of the features I like on my ipad. The Kindle on it. Plus I can adjust the text size. I started this whole process about a year ago. The eye surgeon I have is the best in the state and one of the top ones in the country. I noticed on one of my trips to MS that I would see double the number of cars on the Natchez Trace. My regular eye dr told me to wear an eye patch. I have to tell you something. I put it on my other eye. I kept running into the wall, doors, chairs so I decided that was not the thing to do. It was so funny. I told a friend if that is what being drunk was like, forget it. :)
The Catholic Church has declared the assumption is something its members must believe. That makes what they teach "another gospel". Paul taught that anyone teaching something they didn't teach would be accursed by God. If you are really teaching that in a class you had better know it's something the apostles taught. Please don't risk an eternity in hell.
Chesterton reminds me again that before examining your reasoning process, examine the presuppositions which underlie your reasoning process. To be too brief (egad, it's almost 6 pm) I would say the classic Protestant assumption is that the Scriptures gave rise to the Church rather than t'other way around. In some form or another, it is the background of almost every argument here in the FR Religion Forum.
This thread may hit 2,000 but it'll do so without me. I've got to cram in some BBQ chicken thighs and then I'm outta here!
Have an excellent evening. Beers all around when we hit 2,000 -- have one for me, OK?
Mine at #1944. Have a beer!
Thought you’d lapsed into native German.
I have a different perspective, come at it from another angle, so to speak.
כל ישראל חברים – All Israel are brethren.
There is one holy catholic and apostolic church. If one declines to identify one's affiliation while attacking the Catholic Church, I assume subterfuge, barring some compelling reason otherwise. There are do many denominations, sects, and cults. Take Marc Driscoll; take Bill Gothard; take Jim Bakker; take Ernest Angeley; and we have not even started with the prophetesses yet. None of the antiCatholics seem willing to openly share their denomination as an alternative. They freeze up and recite cultic like answers to deceive the listeners. You don't get to know what you bought until later when they indoctrinate you in home Bible studies and/or get you on the donor list.
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Yeah, sticklers all right.
Revelation 2:1 These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place
Most of the assemblies had already strayed not 60 years after Christ's ascension. And you want us to trust those who lived hundreds of years later?
Local non-denominational evangelical Christian fellowships are not quite big enough or flashy enough or old enough...are they?
I assure you that we are members of the Church founded by the Lord Jesus Christ based on His word, His Father’s promises, and the leading of and sealing by The Holy Spirit.
There’s not any way to convince some who are determined to have the mindset that the RCC is the it and the only it...is there?
Except for the many former RCC members who are yet even today part of the Body of Christ worshipping in our fellowship locally.
Whoa! The phone has picked up Dutch/Greman heritage!! It IS a smart phone!
Why would they? Christ didn't start an organization. He surely didn't start any who incorporate pagan practices. He simply converted individuals who became part of the body of believers. The ekklesia, those called out, chosen by God to be part of the body of Christ.
>>They freeze up and recite cultic like answers to deceive the listeners.<<
Adhering to the teaching of scripture is not "cult like". Demanding membership and obedience to a fallible earthly leader is "cult like".
>>You don't get to know what you bought until later when they indoctrinate you in home Bible studies and/or get you on the donor list.<<
Yeah, that's why we have those here who want to go private. True followers of Christ search scripture only. It's Catholics who keep telling us to go to the " classes" to be taught the "catechism" rather than to simply study scripture. It's Catholics who tell us we must be "taught" because only their leaders can understand. You talk "cult like"? Catholicism is not only " cult like", it matches most of the definitions of a cult.
Following a man who says he heard God talk to him while hiking and that it can be okay for a husband to sodomize his wife and vice versa may be trendy, yet I really think the holy catholic apostolic church must be historic, like the Jews, to be authentic. I'm not interested in joining the latest Gentile cult, which is not to say all denominations and sects are cults; there are, however, legions of them. I understand the community church model, do just disclose where the pastor graduated from Bible college/seminary, as well as the gender of said pastor." (I know, shouldn't have to ask, but look at where we are now).
Did Peter graduate from Bible College/seminary?
BTW do nuns teach religion classes in Catholic schools?
Catholics prohibited from owning Scripture
COUNCIL OF TOULOUSE - 1229 A.D Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.
Source: Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, Edited with an introduction by Edward Peters, Scolar Press, London, copyright 1980 by Edward Peters, ISBN 0-85967-621-8, pp. 194-195, citing S. R. Maitland, Facts and Documents [illustrative of the history, doctrine and rites, of the ancient Albigenses & Waldenses], London, Rivington, 1832, pp. 192-194.
The Council of Tarragona of 1234, in its second canon:
“No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days after promulgation of this decree, so that they may be burned lest, be he a cleric or a layman, he be suspected until he is cleared of all suspicion.” (-D. Lortsch, Historie de la Bible en France, 1910, p.14.)
But now you want to demand Bible college/Seminary?
>>Listen, you'd better listen, to the nuns who used to teach religious classes or you'll get your knuckles rapped for insubordination.<<
So Catholics have women teaching Bible classes yet are on here excoriating women here for defending scripture! Amazing!
The LORD Jesus Christ built his church on the Jewish apostles and prophets, himself being the chief cornerstone. He told them to be the light of the world. Imagining them in hiding for nineteen centuries to be re-formed and re-marketed by every Tom, Dick, and Harriet that wants to set up shop and sell a book ... well, I don't see that as one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
You look with disdain on what you don't understand naturally. Were I to tell you plainly that you are the one who has been hoodwinked into remaining in a gigantic cult, would you even consider that possibility? Well, I tell you truly.
Sodomy is unnatural. Marc Driscoll should not have misled sheep by sanctioning it.
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