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."
so, you were a Biblical fundamentalist that became Catholic then Jewish, then.....? Any experiments with Mormonism, Hare Krishnas, Scientology? Just asking....
Ah, now that is a sensible argument. Does the church support the idea of grace? Yes it does. God however DOES give us the free-will because God does not want mindless automatons. The other concept that I think you hint at is fate, destiny, karma -- is that correct?
Yip. Yip. Yip. Do you need a bone or what?
As a Christian I disagree with the Catholic Church on more than a few doctrinal issues, but still I accept them as fellow Christians who believe the fundamentals of the Gospel message.
"Tariq Aziz is a member of the Chaldean Catholic church -- one of those ancient churchs that survived away from the mother church under oppressive rule -- like the church in china."
Tariq Aziz met with the Pope as Saddam's minister, not as member of the Chaldean Catholic church.
How deliciously ironic that you choose to join forces with Zionist, who has long since rejected your fundamentalism, against your Christian brothers.
That'll be the day! ;o)
If remonstrant is other than windbag's substitute for protestant, would you please clarify.
Somehow I find that much less offensive than "you folks" sending loads of money to the the two Jimmy's.
Ah, so if I say Kmart isn't walmart no matter how much it tries to look like it. That is Bigoted? No. It is the truth. Something that apparently smarts a bit to you in order to cause you to lash out in foulness instead of addressing the actual differences - glaring differences - that exist. You evidently can't amicably discuss your religion. And you continually proceed upon the false assumption that anyone bears you malice by stating the facts. I've noted that you have every right to your religious beliefs. Nobody is denying you that, threatening or berating you for having a different religion. I'm merely taking you to task on the notion that you're christian just because you claim to be. If the only differences we had were such things how long a man's hair can be or whether one should wear a tie or not, I'd say there isn't a difference. But we aren't seperated by such trivial matters as those. What seperates us is a gulf defined by two entirely different and seperate forms of salvation - the central issue. The system of salvation is different. The definition of sin between Christianity and Catholicism is different. In Christianity, All christians are priests. In Catholicism, though scripture proclaims that so, that very notion is anathema. I can go on and on, right down to specifics like whether a man of God has the right to stand in mortal judgement over another human being. Christ said let he who is without sin cast the first stone and that he who lived by the sword shall die by it (put your weapon down Peter). Catholicism on the other hand, says it's heresy to say that it's against the Holy Spirit to stand in mortal judgement over another man. Who is the catholic church to contradict God?!
I understand that it is uncomfortable to have guys like me out here that aren't afraid to speak the truth whilest your religion is busy trying very hard to pull the wool over everyone's eyes and blur the distinctions by concentrating on matters of piety and hiding the differences. Ooh how bigoted it is to say that a frog and an antelope are not identical things. Woe is us. Sorry. The truth is the truth. You can't address the specifics without making that abudantly clear. If anyone doubts what I say, I can back it up. Vatican II re-endorsed all the Anathemas of trent. Very revealing reading for anyone that bothers to read what your clergy really believes and teaches.
You're projecting again. But thanks for bumping the thread.
Deliciously ironic. What I find deliciously ironic is that I give specific reasons and examples for saying what I say and all you can do in the aftermath is describe the scenery. Three of you in a row. But otherwise, Silence. Afterall, what can you do? Dispute that you have a different system of salvation which relies upon tokens of Grace dispensed by your church out of a bank of Grace held on deposite - the leftovers of good works performed by those who had more grace on credit than needed for salvation... Comes right out of your own literature. Heck, your own head of Catholic answers even elaborates on that publicly. So it's not like you have any defense. I would suggest that you guys lash out because the gig is up and you're mad that you ain't gettin by with it.
I'll bump your poison any day of the week.
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