Christian Coalition head (in Ala.) becomes Catholic

AP/Birmingham News ^ | May 26, 04 | KYLE WINGFIELD

[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."

[Cronos]

when we show you to be wrong.

And I've yet to see that. Most of your posts contain opinions posted as facts, the rest post plain lies about the Christian church. To say that Catholics worship Mary is a lie, yet you claim it to be a fact. When asked for proof, you say you know that it is true. Hence you do NOT show the Church to be wrong, but just keep touting the lies dressed up as facts.

[Cronos]

Nobody hates you.

Then what about these samples ofthe posts by you? Post #171:
I know there are misconceptions with any religion. But Catholicism has historically been a religion, to quote a favorite movie, with six faces and three tongues.

Then more lies in the same post:
It's hard if not utterly impossible to reconcile Christ's words with Catholic doctrine or action often times. A single example is 'let you who are without sin cast the first stone' or his command to Peter to put down his weapon for he who lives by the sword shall die by it.. vs. the Catholic example of murdering people who disagree with their views in the inquisitions and the like.

The 'Catholic example' of murdering people? IT's NOT in Church teachings. And if you want to bring up kilings, what about hte slaughter of Catholics in England, in northern Europe? What about hte discrimination against Catholics in WASP lands?

[Cronos]

To quote you: prejudice, is PRE-JUDGEMENT.

And yet you freely admit that you do not know what hte church teaches, you have never bothered to learn what it teaches and you don't bother to verify your accusations.

[Cronos]

And some more anti-Christian garbage: Peter wasn't the Bishop of Rome. And Pope is the title, not Bishop. Remember "Vicar of Christ". That title came from the Roman Emperors. In place of Christ = antichrist.

In place of Christ = anti-Christ? Huh?

[Cronos]

Hey, I can't help it you guys came up with a system that refers to sainthood as a process of canonization of individuals who the church deems worthy..

Furthermore, the church acknowledges there to be anonymous, that's why we have all saints day. The church tells us that ALL of us can aim for sainthood.

[Cronos]

You have a process for canonization of people you call saints.

True, we have a process of Canonization for saints that are known. The Church acknowledges anonymous saints as well and tells us that all are called to sainthood. Do read up on Christian teachigns before debating on them.

[Cronos]

Question by Eisenhower directed at Havoc:
That's another one I forgot to mention before. If you think they are so "different," where exactly did the foundations of all other Christian denominations come from? Thin air?

Question answered? No.

[Cronos]

Cronos:So, the true, true works were the Gnostic works, eh?
HavocWell, not exactly.

What do you mean by that? Do you consider Gnostic works to be true?

[Cronos]

Nor were the scriptures exclusively handed down by Catholicism. And largely, they were handed down in spite of Catholicism.

Strange, then if they were NOT handed down by the church how did the Protestant groups in the 1500s get them?

[Cronos]

Monks couldn't produce Bibles in the bulk needed to put them in the hands of commoners.

Were all folks in the middle ages literate? No. Where did most folks get their scriptural teachigns from? From the church. The monks made enough copies of the bible for the churchs and for liteate individuals

[Cronos]

You say : Nobody hates you.

Then what about what YOU posted in post #291:

Havoc: You keep forgetting all the "Christian" people that you guys slaughtered through the years

When you murder the competition, then try to tell everyone there wasn't anyone else, you got some splainin to do

[WinOne4TheGipper]

No, no. You can find that in Revelation 22:18.

[Cronos]

Coo, at the start of your post you say:
Catholics and Christians are not enemies; but, Catholic doctrine and Holy scripture are enemies.

And then completely fail to provide any proof int he rest of the post.

[Cronos]

In Christianity, All christians are priests. In Catholicism, though scripture proclaims that so, that very notion is anathema

More blindness again. The church says that ALL christians are part of Christ's Holy priesthood. The ones that take up the vocation of earthly priesthood are called priests. You have pastors, should we call our priests pastors? same difference.

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.

And when has the church said that? More projecting, eh?

[The Grammarian]

Re: your string of posts on Protestants' "hatred" of you, you fail to see that disagreement with doctrine, or even disgust with the institution (no matter how vehement) does not equate to hatred for the institution's followers.

[Cronos]

And some more bigotry with no explanation, from post #547 now:

You have a different system of belief than does Christianity

Your religion has all the form and none of the substance

Christianity is as far from Catholicism as it is from Buddhism and mormonism.

And quoting and claiming opinions to be facts
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.

Yet, throughout this diatribe against Christ's faithful, there are no examples put forth, just opinions.

You quote:
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.

And that is Christ's church's teaching.

[Cronos]

The Church teaches that salvation is through Christ. And since the church is a community of God's faithful, it comes natural that those who believe in salvation through Christ and His teachings would be in communion with the rest of Christ's followers in Christ's church.

[Havoc]

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???

The old covenant ordained a priestly cast and the system was being abused by the pharisees and saducees in Jesus' day. God had already forseen that and brought the messiah in to correct the situation - to lift, as it were, salvation out of the hands of abusive men and put it into the hands of all. That was the new covenant promised and delivered. Romanism rejected that. Romanism is now basically a mix of Judaic legalism, Christian appearances, Doctrinalized speculations, vain oral traditions that don't withstand scrutiny, and "baptised" pagan rites and traditions. It is truly the Roman religion of respect and inclusion of all religions but amalgumated and painted to look like Christianity. But it explains a great deal about why there was not massive revolt when the old religions of Rome were essentially done away with by forced conversions.

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.

If you want to see some real entertainment, you should see catholics debate Mormons. LOL.

[Havoc]

And some more bigotry with no explanation, from post #547 now:

Oh, stating that there is a difference is bigotry? Oh, I get it - disagreeing with you and pointing out the truth is bigotry. Well, now it all makes sense...

[Havoc]

Your church teaches that salvation is granted through dispensations of grace from the church. Saying it comes from Christ is just a convenient face to put on it. Salvation comes directly from Christ according to Paul by Believing on him and confessing him. That don't leave any place for Rome to step in and start distributing anything.. and it rather makes Rome's bank of grace on deposit from the good works of others useless - unless you have a different system that requires the intervention of the clergy for salvation by rewriting the salvation plan and still incorporating Christ - which then allows you to make a general statement that you teach salvation through christ. You just don't tell anybody about the slides, chutes, gears and whirly gigs added in your contraption that look nothing like the salvation plan outlined in scripture. That's because no one knowing the difference would accept it if you showed that up front. And that's why it takes guys like me to come up and point it out. It's also why you guys get so riled that your propaganda can't work if someone scuttles you by giving away the game.