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."
Cronos, If you even read what was said, I'd be astonished.
Seem to have misplaced your memory of our last run-in LOL.
I hope I won't have to call on your Catholic brothers to set you aright again ;)
BTW, I asked a simple question and got smoke as an answer.
Getting generic, nonspecific rhetoric from you in your traditional manner is expected; but, unwanted. If you wish to converse, by all means do so. If you're going to play the usual role of ankle biter, I'll ignore you.
Are you serious? Come on. That is the way most people are who go to church.I guess I don't understand the point of your comment. Is that a bad thing? If so who is better?
And,
- Dr. Bernard Nathanson, founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, who was personally involved in 75,000 abortions, before becoming a prominent pro-life advocate with the book "Aborting America" and the stunning video, "The Silent Scream."
- Lawrence Kudlow, a CNBC economic commentator, whose career was nearly ruined by a cocaine addiction before his conversion.
- Robert Novak, a syndicated political columnist for 40 years and a non-practicing Jew, often called "The Prince of Darkness" for his gloomy presence on CNN's "Crossfire" and "The Capital Gang."
- U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, a Methodist and a conservative who teamed up with liberal Sen. Paul Wellstone to sponsor a law to curb sex trafficking, which brings 50,000 prostitutes for brothels in the U.S. annually.
The list is quite literally endless.
With all due respect, D, you are well aware of Ecclesiastes 9 I'm sure after the countless bouts in other threads. There is a stark and defined difference between talking to a living person and trying to communicate with the bodily dead. So stark a difference that one of them is given the death penalty in the Old testament - that would be the attempt to communicate with the bodily dead. Ecclesiastes 9 tells us it is impossible anyway. So trying to compare 'asking a girl to dance with you' with 'asking a bodily dead person to pray for you, heal you, do favors for you, etc...' is utterly misguided on it's face.
Ecclesiastes 9 states that the bodily dead, whether they be just or damned have no part anymore in anything that goes on under the sun. As long as they are dead, they aren't allowed to interact with the living. Quite plain - enough for the Israelites to have taken it seriously. And need it be said for the billionth time that Paul was put to death for trying to communicate with a dead prophet for good intentioned purposes.. It was so innocent, all he did was ask the prophet to... Communion of saints and all of that muck, right. God didn't see it that way.
Well stated.
As a Catholic, I do pray to Jesus directly. I also ask my brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for me.
Why do we even pray if Jesus already knows what we want? We don't understand all the reasons for prayers, but we pray.
Yes, praying directly to Jesus is part of our prayer life, the same way that asking others to pray for us is also part of our prayer life.
It's not an either-or dichotomy.
Correction:
And need it be said for the billionth time that *Saul* was put to death for trying to communicate with a dead prophet for good intentioned purposes..
Trying to respond too quickly sometimes can get ya.
Are there many 144 hour creationists at your synagogue?
Google it and you'll be even more confused!
Including, notably, C. S. Lewis.
Had not heard about Brownback. What a pity it will be if the Rembert Weakland wing of the church prevails.
Good to know that they appreciated fine wine. And of course, there is no question that this is wine as we commonly understand it...and not grape juice.
You exhibit a finely honed Protestant sense of humor Madam.
ping
If a day is like a thousand years to God, that doesn't mean a day *IS* a thousand years or anything else of the like.
It means that a 24 hour period isn't percieved by God in the same way. That doesn't mean it's any less a 24 hour period.
Here's a good one for you - great trivia. Genisis chapter one states in verses 9-13 that Land and sea were divided and the vegitation created. That's day three. The sun, moon and stars are created on day 4 starting at verse 14.
For those in Rio Linda, I'll pause a moment for that to sink in.
Hint - plants live by photosynthesis .. light absorbed from the sun.. Tapping foot and chuckling. Everyone got it now? Any stragglers?
I see you are relatively new here. PLEASE don't waste your time with Havoc.
Re Z C's Bible, he means HIS selections of the old testament.
Wait'll you get down a ways where one of our fundamentalist brethren will imply that you can't sing because you ain't had a real good bonk on the head by the Holy Spirit. ;o)
I'm sure he's running for cover without you telling him to.
He hasn't been able to answer my simple question yet and doesn't know what Prejudice is. But, hey, make a claim and run for cover when someone calls you on it seems to be the
norm.
I don't know. It's sometimes like talking to the Joker (from Batman), don't you think?
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