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."
PS, I'm afraid that I can't blame the higher criticism of the Vatican web site merely on the site maintainer. I'm absolutely certain the Pope is himself a higher critic (he's certainly an evolutionist), and I don't think there's a bishop in the world who doesn't share those opinions with him. Basically only Orthodox Jews, Noachides, and Fundamentalist Protestants retain the traditional view of the Bible. The Catholic Church, including very much its clergy all across the board, are the most enthusiastic supporters of German critical theories in the world today.
Not in traditionalist Catholic circles....
***the same way that asking others to pray for us is also part of our prayer life.***
I invite you to take a look at the prayers in post #207 and assess whether they are simply "asking another to pray for us".
I submit to you they are not.
You should be aware that when Havoc asks you to list "horrible stereotypes and prejudices against Catholics," it is only so he can check them against his personal inventory to be sure none are missing.
I think you need to go back and read before presuming to put words in my mouth. I didn't say Augustus anything. I noted that the term in usage came from the Roman Emperors. Odoacer didn't give himself the title of "Vicar of the Emperor". He was a Patrician; but, he didn't have that authority and if he presumed to have done so on his own, he'd likely have found his head sitting near his feet. All I had to do is go grab one instance from a History book at random and was able to show it's usage. You're problem is that you leap to conclusions, say things I have not said and then proceed to try to beat your strawman. I didn't entertain you then because it was so obvious that anyone could have gone out and grabbed it. But no one among your side did because it was more expediant to think yourselves more intelligent while beating on me as though I were not lol. IMO, if you want to wear the egg and won't listen - wear it. But don't handwring now. It's unbecoming.
The Catholic Church believes very differently than most protestant churches, especially the Baptists. One church believes in the Bible as supreme authority, one does not.
Huge difference doctrinally, huge difference.
He IS sacrificed "once for all". The offering made to God of the Body and Blood of His Son, Jesus, from the altar, is happening in Communion with the actual Crucifixion in the eyes of God. Eternity is timeless. What will come has already taken place in the eyes of God. What has gone is taking place this very second. In short, our sins today are contributing to the crucifixion that took place 2000 years ago in linear time. In God's eyes, it's still happening...
You've also been proven wrong. 'Vision' is the secondary meaning of the original word used. Cronos is correct and you are not.
A classic Havoc oldie-but-goodie.
Don't need to lie. Someone else was kind enough to give an assist and post the dictionary listing it as synonymous. I can go a step beyond that and have before. If you want to make hollow unfounded charges and get by with them, it might be a good idea to know that people are already onto the game and know the truth. You might try to be mindful of that for your next slur. If you want to pull the wool, it is better that people are dumb to the subject first.
So stop.
Not being entirely forthright are we. LOL. Didn't expect you to be either.
Nope, you first incorrectly called Julius Caesar an Emperor and then you say he was the Vicar of Christ. Then backtracked and said Augustus. Then you said Vicar of Christ means in place of Christ and that it meant the anti-Christ.
SEriously, you need to be born again in Christ in the Christian church.
Jesus himself stated that the appearance of Moses and Elias was a vision…
You are leading down the same path of those who claim "Jesus was a magician."
This is a false exegesis, internally inconsistent, resulting in a Christology opposed to that which all Christians share.
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