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."
But but but but -- didn't Jesus teach JUDAS to love one another, and no man can serve two masters -- God and mammon?
By your logic, doesn't this throw the whole validity of Christianity into question if not even closest of Jesus' followers could uphold His teachings?
The inquisition... ummmmm Salem witch burnings anyone? Were those... uh.... Protestant types dragging the innocent to their deaths?... Hmmmm.... SLAVERY? How many of them non-Papist Christians were treating human beings like disposable garbage while the Protestant churches... remained... silent... ...?
Are Protestants in the habit of hanging pictures of dead loved ones in their homes for the purpose of honor?
2. Can you give me one example in the Bible of a person praying to anyone but God?
Ummmmm... does the transfiguration count? You know, when Jesus was praying to Moses and Elijah? OH -- but they were already DEAD!! Oh -- that must mean -- it isn't USELESS to pray to those who've already died!
You'd have to point out where as I think you're mistating the record rather liberally.
Matt 17:9 And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.
3705 // orama // horama // hor'-am-ah // from 3708 ; TDNT - 5:371,706; n n AV - vision 11, sight 1; 12 1) that which is seen, spectacle 2) a sight divinely granted in an ecstasy or in a sleep, a vision
Other instances:
Acts 9:12 And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.
10:3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.
10:17 Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean *, behold *, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made enquiry for Simon's house, and stood before the gate,
11:5 I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me:
16:9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood * a man of Macedonia, and prayed him *, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
16:10 And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.
Revelation 9:17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
This is not all the listings, I grabbed them at random based on the word Vision showing up in the NT. Everywhere it shows up, it's a supernatural event, not a visitation. The usage stands. You've got an unclimbable mountain that you intend to tell us is not there. To look at something so bleatin obvious and deny it does happen. We can see it in scripture as a matter of fact; but, you wouldn't like the reason scripture gives lol
Much better.
In order to stop, I would need to start.. the which I haven't done. Then again you've done little but come in and wing baseless charges. Let us know when you have some capacity to converse.
You're blinder than Hans Blix.
You'll need to point that out for us, cause now you're outright lying.
Bingo. This is actually fun (watch this):
http://www.catholic.com/library/What_Catholic_Means.asp
What "Catholic" Means
The Greek roots of the term "Catholic" mean "according to (kata-) the whole (holos)," or more colloquially, "universal." At the beginning of the second century, we find in the letters of Ignatius the first surviving use of the term "Catholic" in reference to the Church. At that time, or shortly thereafter, it was used to refer to a single, visible communion, separate from others.
The term "Catholic" is in the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds, and many Protestants, claiming the term for themselves, give it a meaning that is unsupported historically, ignoring the term’s use at the time the creeds were written.
Early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes: "As regards ‘Catholic’ . . . in the latter half of the second century at latest, we find it conveying the suggestion that the Catholic is the true Church as distinct from heretical congregations (cf., e.g., Muratorian Canon). . . . What these early Fathers were envisaging was almost always the empirical, visible society; they had little or no inkling of the distinction which was later to become important between a visible and an invisible Church" (Early Christian Doctrines, 190–1).
Thus people who recite the creeds mentally inserting another meaning for "Catholic" are reinterpreting them according to a modern preference, much as a liberal biblical scholar does with Scripture texts offensive to contemporary sensibilities.
Included in the quotes below are extracts from the first creeds to use the term "Catholic"; so that the term can be seen it its historical context, which is supplied by the other quotations. It is from this broader context that the meaning of the term in the creeds is established, not by one’s own notion of what the term once meant or of what it ought to mean.
Ignatius of Antioch
"Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop or by one whom he ordains [i.e., a presbyter]. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church" (Letter to the Smyrneans 8:2 [A.D. 110]).
The Martyrdom of Polycarp
"And of the elect, he was one indeed, the wonderful martyr Polycarp, who in our days was an apostolic and prophetic teacher, bishop of the Catholic Church in Smyrna. For every word which came forth from his mouth was fulfilled and will be fulfilled" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 16:2 [A.D. 155]).
The Muratorian Canon
"Besides these [letters of Paul] there is one to Philemon, and one to Titus, and two to Timothy, in affection and love, but nevertheless regarded as holy in the Catholic Church, in the ordering of churchly discipline. There is also one [letter] to the Laodiceans and another to the Alexandrians, forged under the name of Paul, in regard to the heresy of Marcion, and there are several others which cannot be received by the Church, for it is not suitable that gall be mixed with honey. The epistle of Jude, indeed, and the two ascribed to John are received by the Catholic Church (Muratorian fragment [A.D. 177]).
Basically the point I was trying to make is that any Church that places itself above the revealed word of God so much to the point that it contradicts it is a false church. the Bible (on earth) is the only way to know the will of God.
Some chucrhes follow the Bible others are apostate and do not but follow men instead.
No, it's a happenstance that just happens to stand in the way of your other claims. Which is why you give us this gobbledy gook.. good grief.
PM, I've been to many Protestant churches where questionable prayers are offered.
If you find offense on prayers from post #207, you might not be unreasonable at all. Your Christian conscience should be your guide.
All I can tell you is that as a Catholic, all my prayers are done according to biblical models.
This is abject ignorance. The "Bible" didn't exist for three hundred years after Christ's death. St. Paul didn't have "Gospels" to rely on and verse-and-chapter to back up his claims. He and everyone else giving birth to Christianity had nothing but the Scriptures of what we know as the "Old Testament", and good old, reliable... spoken TRADITION.
These were most definitely MEN, and most definitely FOLLOWED. St. Paul practically had his own cult of personality among believers, he was so revered.
By your logic, the founders of Christianity were apostate since they had an incomplete understanding of faith and God's will without a leather-bound Bible to cart around.
Do your homework on other faiths before throwing around words like "apostate".
No he wasn't. He was a Gemanic barbarian of uncertain lineage who deposed the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus and styled himself King of Italy, ruling briefly till he was murdered by the Ostrogoth Theoderic.
The Church founders did not have to back up "claims" they were holy men of God who wrote and spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Paul clearly outlines what a Christian needs to believe in order to be saved. Anything else is from the enemy.
Obviously you are one of those who believe the liberal viewpoint that the Gospels were written 2 or three hundred years after Christ??? I don't subcribe to that belief. I believe the Bible is God's holy complete and preserved word. No man can correct it especailly a pope.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.