Posted on 05/24/2004 9:17:25 PM PDT by churchillbuff
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- As president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, John Giles is no stranger to a pew. Yet he remembers well the time he got lost in a Roman Catholic church.
"I couldn't even follow the order of service, it was so foreign to me," Giles says of that day some six years ago.
Since then he's found his way and a new home in the Roman Catholic church — a home that might seem foreign to the overwhelmingly Protestant church population of Alabama.
"I have to admit to you that the whole time that I was in that church service, I was reduced to tears, and I couldn't explain it," Giles said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.
"In fact," he jokes, "you would have thought I had been spending the whole weekend down at the House of the Rising Sun down in New Orleans, that I had all this sin in my life that I had to get out."
In any case, Giles and his wife, Deborah, were received into the Catholic Church at St. Peter's Parish in Montgomery on Easter Sunday.
Such a decision normally wouldn't be a matter of public interest, but Giles says he anticipated the questions that have followed his conversion from the Protestant faith.
"It would be nice if my private, Christian walk could be my private, Christian walk, but it's very difficult in my job for that to be the case," he says.
Giles says he knew the questions would come because as a Protestant he, too, had mistaken notions about Catholics. And the most frequent question he gets from his friends is "why?"
With that in mind he wrote an eight-page letter explaining his reasoning. In it, he explains that he had attended a variety of Protestant churches in Montgomery, including Christian Life Church and River of Life Church.
But once he visited the Roman Catholic church, he found himself in awe of its history and ritual, particularly its use of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch in each service.
Trips to Israel and Rome spurred his curiosity. And the deeper he looked into the faith — which is the largest in the United States but lags behind Southern Baptists and other Protestant denominations in the South — the more he says he realized that many of his beliefs about Catholicism had been wrong.
"There is a perception among Protestants — you kind of have this perception that if you're Episcopal or Catholic, you're not even saved, you're not born again, which is totally a myth," he says.
He recalls one example from the New Year's holiday, which he spent in Florida with the chairman of his board. He had told the chairman of his and Deborah's plans to convert, and he says they were well-received.
"But we went to some other friends of theirs' house on one of the nights we were down there," Giles remembers. "And so we're sitting around visiting and this one lady was teaching a Sunday School class on cults. And she began to name off all the cults that she'd be teaching and named Catholic in there."
He acknowledges that the reaction by his Protestant constituents may be mixed.
"We didn't make this change to win friends and influence people and do it from a popularity standpoint, because we knew that in the state of Alabama, this is probably not a popular position to take in the Christian movement," he says. "So it remains to be seen."
But he hopes they, like he and his wife, will keep an open mind.
"We hope that we could have a small contribution to building bridges where there weren't bridges," he says. "Because Christians are Christians. There's no such thing as Christians and Catholics."
With all due respect, there are a few, very few, on the religion forum here who do say that.
**They don't sing well and after Mass, everyone heads out. They have been trying to get us to be collegial for year with only partial success.**
Please don't lump us all together in one barrel. We sing well and we have over 100 people who stay after Mass for coffee and donuts each Sunday.
At all of our parish functions, we blow the hall out. In another year we will probably be building a new church, making this church the gym and building other facilities.
**Sola scriptura is never mentioned in the Bible.*
A bump for the truth.
And Luther added the words "faith only" to the Protestant Bible. (Which many Protestants don't know.)
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Thank you all. I am reading a lot on the web sites that have been recommended and a few books I got at a book store! I will also take into consideration your comments to me! Appreciate them.
Well, more power to him. As a Baptist married to a Catholic, I've learned a lot about Catholicism; nothing earth-shattering like they don't have tails and horns or anything like that (LOL!) since I knew that already, but I've learned a lot that I didn't know before. My experience has been the more I learn, the more I respect and appreciate the Catholic faith, but at the same time, the more I know I'll always be Baptist. I don't know if that makes sense to anybody, but that's how it is for me.
***It simply does not mean what you want it to mean.***
I am simply amazed at the catholic responses I get to the plain meaning of the scripture.
I just got finished with a conversation where a catholic was telling me that the verse...
"For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,"
Does not mean there is ONE mediator between God and man and that I had misunderstood the verse.
And not long ago a catholic blasted me for believeing we are not to call people "Father" in a religious way based on the following verse...
"But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven."
And now you tell me that the scripture is NOT... "able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." And that it CAN NOT make us... "complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work".
Sorry, I'll take the plain meaning of scripture.
LOL Ain't it the truth. My daughter and I used to go to the 7:30 Mass for a while. We called it "the Mass where people resolutely refuse to sing" I liked it fine, it was very quiet and reverent, but the guy with the organ in the balcony seemed a little frustrated.
Cheap shot. I do hope you got the point of the analogy however.
Luther added and deleted a number of things, I understand. Whole books!
7:30 Mass people are there for quiet. They don't mind music, but would rather it be quiet. My parents and a lot of their friends go to 7:30 or 7:00 for just this reason. And, to be honest, why I go to the 8 at my parish. It's quiet. There's enough noise the rest of the week.
God will bless you.
***singing in church by the congregation is a fairly new thing... And a lot of people don't think it's cool either.***
I don't know. Look like the tradition goes back pretty far...
"Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives."
Sadly, you have been brainwasjed...probaly by baptist parents....at least my friends that are Baptist te;l me their parents have brainwashed them as such.
The POPE is St. Peter's representative on earth...or don't you believe in St, Peter?
***Luther added and deleted a number of things, I understand. Whole books!***
It's not quite that simple. Please see the following...
http://www.probe.org/docs/apocrypha.html
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