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."
My enemy is Satan. Running toward his goal line is called attack. Oh, and why are you defending his goal line?
Be sure and start real soon, because your current spiel isn't working.
Because, his soul like Havoc's is filled with hate and spiritual pride.
Well, yes. It would seem so.
Ha ha ha, you are reduced to trying to twist my words. Classic sign of a weak position.
Like the situation of a horse. He can offer all the water he wants but the horse has to choose to drink.
As you would see if you yourself didn't want to be blinded, Pet is twisting my words.
One prominent name of Pride on this earth is the Roman upper case by man "Catholic" church. (This does not refer to those PEOPLE who call themselves Roman Catholics who are in fact saved by grace through faith. Yes it does happen.)
Yes, people who go to Roman upper case by man C Catholic churches can be saved. But if so, it's in spite of the upper case by man C Catholic church's teachings, not because of them.
In the end, though I hope otherwise, I fully expect you will go off thumping your Roman upper case by man C Catholic church breast. Fine, you made your choice. Live (or die) with it.
I just wish we could unite in our belief in Christ and pray but when I have said that on this forum I have been told that they don't want a Catholics prayer. Needless to say I posted a Hail Mary for them!
I don't understand the hate.
And then there's that whole Council of Trent thing, never repealed, "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema" (Sixth Session, Canon IX).
Well, it isn't spin. And it just isn't working with you. But then you prefer your doctrines and traditions to the authority of scripture. And I learned long ago that many of you will not see because you don't want to. Which is fine - like I said, you have free will and I respect that. You just don't respect anyone elses. Nor do you appear to want the truth known about your own religion - just the spin on it you try to employ to sucker people in. Which is why in a previous thread, there was no bank of grace in trust with the Roman church till I pointed out the specific references in Vatican II, then oh boy.. just the usual. I'm used to it. I'm defending Christianity. You're trying to sell Romanism. I try to do mine with civility in line with the instruction of scripture. You have no such burdensome constraints. But then, as Loyola said, whatever is white is black of the church so states... right. The means justify the ends and all that. Sounds vaguely familiar, albeit unchristian. But definitely sop for ya'll.
The hate is a pile of bunk you've been taught via indoctrination. I can't say I know a single christian soul that hates catholics. It's just utter and complete crap. You are trained apparently with such a self martyrdome complex that it is staggering. And it seems to be a matter of indoctrination because it runs in all of you. The minute someone takes issue with something you say, they hate you. Now stand back and think about that for a minute - is that childish or what? Seriously. You guys just don't seem to understand that if Christians hated you, they'd shut their mouths and let you casually saunter off to hell if they felt that was where you were headed. It's the worst possible thing they could do considering that one would appear in hell and think for an undetermined time that it was purgatory and you'd eventually suffer enough to get out..
The hate, prejudice and bigotry charges are bunk. Many in my experience whine and use the charges as a debate tactic in hopes that someone will feel sorry for them and take their word for it when they make an otherwise unproven claim that can't be substantiated.
Moreover, I would say it's more a projection. Do you guys actually ever take time to sit back and look at what you do on many of these threads? Seriously. Look at this one. You got Cronos and Pet in here slinging epithets and false accusations left and right in place of discussing actual differences because they can't defend their ground and detest anyone that puts them in that position. And granted, it's far better now than when I first came to FR. There used to be a guy that went by the handle ChinagotthegoodsonClinton If memory serves, that would just absolutely cuss Protestants out at the drop of a hat.
Some understanding on ya'lls part might go a long way. You don't want to because you veiw all non-catholics as heretic schismatics of a religion you don't even share. You have similarities in your religion; but, that don't make them the same religion. And it doesn't require that one hate you to say that. It's just pure pragmatism and frankness.
As far as being told not to pray for other Christians, I can understand that from a spiritual standpoint because I know the rammifications. I've personally asked Catholics that if they're going to pray for me, to say an "our father" and pray it in Jesus name. Many Christians do that because for those of us who are evangelical types, we have first hand regular experience with the stuff and know the spiritual consequences that you guys can't see. There are spiritual principles that you have not been taught and don't understand as a Catholic. You aren't alone because the protestants and cultists are largely as uninformed on the subject too.
And as a matter for consideration, if you don't respect the person's wishes, you don't respect the situation your praying for nor the soul of the person in question either - which rather defeats the purpose of praying for them in the first place - doesn't it, that is unless you're saying it for the sake of piety rather than sincerity. Praying a specific way out of spite is a display of contempt, not concern. I'm bushed. Freepmail me later if you want specifics. I gotta get some sleep. Long day ahead.
Havoc, I appreciate you invoking my arguments but I hope you realize that I am not a Protestant or a chr*stian. I'm a former chr*stian who became a Noachide.
As one who once believed exactly as you do I must inform you that however your beliefs may square with the plain words of the "new testament," Protestantism is always and everywhere a recent invention. And Roman Catholicism is not the only ancient alternative to Protestantism, nor is Eastern Orthodoxy. If you go to those places on the globe where chr*stianity was first preached by the allegedly Lutheran/Calvinist Paul you will find that the very descendants of those first chr*stian converts belong to ancient liturgical churches (Greek, Syrian, Coptic, Assyrian, Indian) that teach infant baptism, confession of sins, and salvation as a lifelong process rather than a one-time event. Furthermore, you can't blame Constantine for all this since many of these churches (the Assyrian and the Indian especially) were never at any time under the emperor Constantine. Why then do they have "all that Catholic stuff" that Constantine allegedly invented? I'm afraid that this is chr*stianity, and it is quite disappointing to learn this. Evidently the Nazarene really did come to earth merely to replace one ritual/works system with another. This being the case, what was the point? If I must live my entire life, even as an orthodox liturgical chr*stian, in fear of "eternal damnation" then my "savior" wasn't much of a "savior" after all.
The problem with liturgical chr*stianity is not that it isn't chr*stianity but that anyone coming from a Fundamentalist Protestant background can clearly see that the alleged "revolution in religious thought" J*sus brought about was not a revolution at all--it merely "replaced" one elaborate ritual/works system with another whose chief difference is that it is not Biblical. If salvation must be "appropriated" from J*sus by a lifetime of praying, confessing, communing, doing good deeds, avoiding sins, participating in rituals, etc., then why can not "salvation" be "appropriated" directly from HaShem by observing either the Torah of Moses (for Jews) or the Seven Laws of Noach (for non-Jews)? I will never understand why it is that liturgical chr*stians seem absolutely ignorant of how similar their anti-Protestant arguments sound to anti-chr*stian arguments made by Orthodox Jews. But they don't!
I merely state all this to make sure that you and your opponents understand that my position is that of neither of you. The problems with liturgical chr*stianity (which really is the authentic historical variety) are 1) that their anti-Protestant arguments actually invalidate the claims of chr*stianity vis a vis Judaism and 2) that they have bought into ever new liberal theory to come down the pike because their hostility to "sola scriptura" has made them need to feel that no Biblical verses (except for "this is my body, this is my blood") mean what they seem to mean on the surface.
Finally, lest you feel the need to preach at me and show me the error of my ways, I must remind you that I once believed exactly as you do and came to reject it. I know the arugments you would make (ie, without the vicarious damnation of the divine scapegoat all mankind would of necessity be eternally damned) and the reasoning behind them (which I once shared). However, you are arguing from erroneous premises, which is how I was able to reject them. No one can "earn" anything from G-d, but if He has commanded us to do certain things and refrain from certain others and has chosen to reward our obedience and punish our disobedience then He may certainly do so (are you liturgicals listening?). There is no sin that HaShem is not able to deal with, and no "evil counterpart of G-d" has ever taken G-d's place as the "gxd" of this world from which it has had to be "redeemed." Have you ever considered how much of what you believe in regard to these things come from the "new testament" alone and are not found in the Hebrew Bible at all??? You're really counting on that NT being true, aren't you? What if it's not? What if it's just like the "holy qur'an" or the scriptures of the h*ndus or something? That "new testament" of yours was written by the founders of the hypocritical liturgical churches, and sticking it in between the same covers as the Hebrew Bible does not necessarily make it the true continuation and conclusion of that Bible. In fact, until the invention of the printing press a few hundred years ago Biblical manuscripts were hand-written and probably existed in several volumes. The single volume Bible you are used to is in fact a recent artificial creation of the printing press. The canons (for both Jews and chr*stians) existed, but one had to be cognizant of the canonizing authority, since there was no such thing as the single-volume Thomas Nelson variety Bible.
If you are truly opposed to liturgical chr*stianity then I urge you to reject their "new testament" and come to the pure Truth which they so oppose (and don't panic; despite G-d's demands on us and His scrutinizing of all our thoughts and deeds, the slightest slip up does not result in "eternal damnation."
Why is it that the "creations" of the rabbis are myths while the extra- and post-scriptural stories, doctrines, and practices of the church fathers are considered "holy tradition?" If you attack Jewish oral tradition but not chr*stian oral tradition then you are a hypocrite.
Those rabbis who you think were such perverters of the Bible in fact had (and have) the only true tradition on earth by which the Bible may be transcribed by hand so that it correctly matches the authentic original editions. They have the rules that govern the writing of a Torah Scroll, which is the source of your printed Thomas Nelson Bibles. If the same tradition that assures that the Torah is transcribed so as to match Moses' original edition exactly then that same tradition is certainly competent to tell us the details that are only hinted to in the written text.
Experience has taught me that these questions will go unanswered, but have you ever pondered about how similar your anti-Protestant arguments are to Judaism's arguments against chr*stianity?
If G-d truly did ordain a legal/ritual system for mankind to live and be judged by, then what was wrong with the Torah (and the Seven Laws of Noah) to begin with???
You Catholics don't seem to understand how your anti-Protestant polemics can be applied to chr*stianity and in favor of Judaism/Noachism. At least Havoc is consistent in his antinomianism. Yet you attack him while using the exact same arguments he makes against Judaism/Noachism! All you have done is replace HaShem with J*sus and the Torah/Seven Laws with the "new law" of chr*stianity.
Perhaps one has to actually come from a Protestant background to see the point I'm trying to make. But believe me, blind as you may be to it, it jumps out at those who demand more internal consistency in religion, whether nomian or antinomian.
No, but your retorts are ongoing proof of the vindictiveness you guys hold when we show you to be wrong. I'm not the one foul mouthing you every post or 2 out of three posts. That is going the other way around. Nobody hates you. You just hate everyone else for correcting you and have to project in order to justify your own actions. Sorry it has to be that way; but, that's your choice not ours.
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.