Christian Coalition head (in Ala.) becomes Catholic

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."

"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."

"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."

I think the two Jimmy's were dealt with pretty swiftly when they got in trouble and compromised their witness. So, I fail to see the offense in such as that. I'm pretty pleased with how quickly they were dealt with. I never followed Baker. And in regard to Swaggert, I just think it's a cryin shame. Especially with Examples in modern time like Lester Summerall who was still alive in the time the Jimmy's screwed up. The difference is that they had to answer to their congregations.
In the case of rome doing such things, they answer to no one, as displayed publicly in the recent US problems - that is, until the Government got their dander up and came in to force the issue. The Jimmies actually showed the biblical standard being applied. The sexual abuse scandals showed the Hierarchy of Rome being applied - cover up, keep quiet, move the pawns about so no-one's the wiser and gag and threaten those that were abused in order to preserve the natural order of things - the power of Rome..

Christians aren't afraid to let it be known they are Christians and that some of them make mistakes from time to time. But you guys have so many things in writing that are betrayed by the scandal that covering up the scandal is necessary to protect the rhetoric in print. Infallibility was defined in an age of superstition and uneducated masses.
It was defined to keep people in line by assuring them that what seems wrong Can't be because the leader is protected by God and can't do anything wrong.. In the modern times, with educated societies and so much light, that can't be gotten by with anymore. Makes for fun debates now and again though lol.

Here is that prior post you seem so upset over. Perhaps you might point out a lie or two that we can address? Just thought I'd try to be helpful so we can clear this up.. :

Catholics and Christians are not enemies; but, Catholic doctrine and Holy scripture are enemies. Zionist's remarks compliment my own and vice versa. God has always maintained that what he says to us gives life if we believe him. That was what Jesus the Anointed was telling us. That we must believe God instead of Satan.. IE that we have to turn from Satan's deceptions and believe the truth God speaks instead.
How ironic, huh, that the preferring to believe satan got us kicked out of eden; but, preferring to believe God is what gets us back in. How revolutionary. But God chose the simplest things to confound the worldly wise. It can't be that easy. So the carnal mind decided God was wrong in saying that belief is all it took, and now you have people thinking that if they eat God, they get a dose of grace from a bank full of grace held in store by the Catholic church to dole out on occasion as payment for piety.

You have a different system of belief than does Christianity. The forms are irreconcilable. Which is why Zionist's commentary is so interesting for the moment - stating it is easier for a pagan to become a catholic because they just incorporate the pagan ritual and baptise it as christian by changing the name of the rite. Jesus came and changed the sacrifice, not the way God does business.

Your religion has all the form and none of the substance. Outward appearances won't save you. Nor will the bank of Grace held over from good deeds performed by others.

As I've stated before to others, it's your religion. You have every right to believe what you will - God gave you that choice. But, belief and truth are not synonymous. Believing something doesn't make it true. Claiming something doesn't make the claim true. And Christianity is as far from Catholicism as it is from Buddhism and mormonism.
You can set a can of coke and a can of beer side by side and tell them apart. But when you obscure the label, we have to rely on the witness of the contents to tell the tale. The deeper we get into examining the content of catholicism, the further from coke the beer looks, smells,...

I'll quote someone that will probably rile a few; but, it's a good quote: "Just as Roman Catholicism seemed to have little to do with what many people called Chrisitianity, so the Jesuits seemed to float free of the Catholic Church" - p60,Francis E. Peters, "Ours: The making and unmaking of a Jesuit", New York, R. Marek Publishers, 1981.

Just one of the many fun quotes that is going into my work.
If you don't follow Christ; but, instead follow philosophy, it's rather a matter of truth in advertising that seems to be at issue. You can't convert someone to Chrisitianity if you aren't Christian to begin with. Nemo dat quod non habet, I think is the operative phrase. If you don't have it, you can't pass it on.

As Zionist so succinctly pointed out, you have some kind of modernist evolving system that changes with each passing day and year. That isn't the covenant God delivered to us sealed in His son's blood. Your clergy failed to grasp the essence of the new covenant. There is no system of blood sacrifice in the new covenant. A single sacrifice sealed the covenant - destroying the need for a sacrifice and rendering belief as the operative issue.

Christianity is essentially Judaism without the need for blood sacrifice removed and Physical penalty of the law no longer hanging over our heads. Faith in God is believing him and believing in him. There's that issue again - believing what God has said. Faith is believing what God has said. The work of God is believing on him whome God has sent because he SPEAKS what GOD gave him to say. IE, believing Him is believing God because it's God's words, not his own. Both of those come from John.

John 12:49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.

[50] And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Luther for all his failings got at least one thing right without question - it's all about faith. But to say that nullifies all need for a hierarchic clergy. To note that the position of priest was removed from a select few and placed in all of us shatters the entire basis of your system at ground level. Christ made us a spiritual kingdom of priests. Gee, where'd all the mystery go all of a sudden..

So, you might check your truth in advertising section and re-examin what you thought you were buying into if you wanted Christianity, cause you didn't get it. If you wanted an imposing, burdensome and legalistic hierarchical religion that would make you feel good about yourself, then perhaps you got what you were looking for. Perhaps it was something else you sought. Who knows. But don't try to tell me you're Christian becaus a Roman Emperor thought someone did something silly and misinterpreted it on it's face once upon a time. If Simon Magus hadn't been documented as having tried to buy the Holy spirit and being rebuked for it, I'm sure Catholicism would be selling the Holy spirit for a donation just as they did indulgeances. I feel a running theme coming on so I'll quit and let you ponder.. or look for something to get mad about - whichever suits you.

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