Posted on 06/20/2005 10:35:27 AM PDT by TFFKAMM
Classical pianist Jacqueline Chew rebelled against her Christian upbringing and became an atheist while attending the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in the 1970s. But her love of music eventually led her back to a spiritual life.
Chew was so taken with the work of Olivier Messiaen, a pioneering French composer known for his sacred Catholic music, that after hearing his composition "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus" ("Twenty Contemplations of the Infant Jesus"), she began questioning her belief that God does not exist. The more she learned about the music, the more religious she became.
Next month, Chew, who released a CD of "Vingt Regards" last year, will take her interest in Catholicism to a new level. She will be received as an oblate, a layperson living outside a monastery who promises to follow the rules of St. Benedict in her private life, at the New Camaldoli Hermitage, a community of monks in Big Sur.
Tell me about your upbringing. Were you raised in a religious family?
Yeah, my whole family is Christian. My parents came from different places, but they ended up in Oakland and met at a Chinese Presbyterian church there. They were very active in the church while I was growing up.
Do you remember any spiritual experiences as a child?
Well, I remember that when I was in the sixth grade, I did a report on different religions. I decided that even though I was brought up as a Presbyterian, I wanted to make my own decisions about what I believed...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
"CS Lewis was not a Catholic"
Tolkein convinced him to convert.
Exactly. It's the paedobaptist faiths that create parochial schools to raise their children in the faith they value more than life itself. It is the anabaptist faiths that outsource their children's minds to statist schools.
The website explains: it's a humourous "translation" of the name of a work that they (apparently) practiced but have never performed.
"CS Lewis was not a Catholic"
I stand corrected. I remember reading that he eventually converted at the behest of Tolkien. That doesn't appear to be correct though.
"It's the paedobaptist faiths that create parochial schools to raise their children in the faith they value more than life itself. It is the anabaptist faiths that outsource their children's minds to statist schools."
Paedobaptist/Anabaptist? What are they and what is the difference between them? You're talking to a layman here.
Tolkien played a major role in turning Lewis from an agnostic/athesit to a Christian. But Lewis remained an Anglican, much to Tolkien's dismay. Both men were, of course, intellectual giants and great Christians, and will be remembered long after their fashionably agnostic contemporaries at Oxford and Cambridge are totally forgotten.
It is the heavyweight. It is The Church, the reason the first letters are always upper case. All other Christian groups are considered "sects" because they broke away from the first Christian church, the first church: The Church.
That doesn't make it "better," but their doctrine, tradition, and everything are the basis of it all.
Partially right. Tolkien encouraged Lewis to convert to Christianity. He did, but did not become a Catholic as Tolkien was. He became an Anglican. (That may have been the church of his parents, I don't remember. I don't think, though, that they were particularly religious either.)
-ccm
Our priest says, "Entertainment substitutes for doctrine."
He is referring to the "contemporary" services, the show-like atmosphere in some of these pole-building churches that are springing up everywhere with names like "River of Life" church.
When I was studying and considering converting from being a Southern Baptist to a Seventh-day Adventist, I studied my Bible like I never studied it before but I wanted to be sure so I discussed what I was learning w/ my Southern Baptist pastor. I showed him the scripture texts about the "state of the dead" and the ultimate annihiliation of the wicked at the end of time. Since he had no coherent defence of the traditional SBC interpreation of everlasiting hell-fire and the fact that people don't go to heaven right afte death, I left the SBC gladly.
Then when I went onto study the merits of Messianic Judaism, I also went into an intense mode of Bible study. As far as I am concerned, the intellectual appeal of a particular denomination depends far more on the person than the religion.
This lady is NOT an example of an intellectual conversion to Catholicism, she converted based on emotion, which I could never do.
Paedobaptists -- baptize the infant children of the faithful.
Anabaptists -- hold infant baptism in contempt, insist on "believer's baptism," even of those who were already baptized. While disparaging "ritualism," most anabaptists have a rigidly choreographed procedure that excells at making false conversions. You walk down the aisle in response to very sophisticated manipulation, fill out the record form, get dunked, then resume living like you did before. Such is the case all too often, anyways!
I went to one of these modern holy-roller churches with my brother-in-law and his family. The lyrics to the "hymns" were put up on the wall with an overhead projector, and were some of the most banal and repetitive dreck I've ever heard. The simple melodies were as dull as dishwater. Even so, barely one in ten people was really singing whole-heartedly. These are not churches for people who wish to contemplate the Infinite in music. Frankly, their entertainment was a good deal shakier than their doctrine.
I don't go to the Episcopal church any more, but I went to Christmas services with a cousin last year, and I was exceedingly impressed by the high quality of the music and singing. Every voice was raised in praise. I had not heard such good religious music since my childhood. Of course, the sermon was typical mainline-Protestant mush.
Why, in today's churches, is the rigor of their theology inversely proportional to their musical talent and complexity?
Tolkien regarded his mother as a martyr for the Faith, since her ill health was brought on by the ostracism of her Protestant relatives.
Actually, neither of us is really correct. Further investigation reveals that Tolkien converted to Catholicism with his mother when he was eight years of age. However, I still think it is safe to say he did not do so based on its appeal to his intellect.
-ccm
-ccm
It's logic.
The teachings of the Church follow logically from the basic belief that Christ is who he said he is.
The writings of St. Thomas Aquinas have helped to convert many intellectuals to Catholicism. His best known work, which used to be studied in the seminaries, is The Summa Theologica.
I'm not familiar with Vingt...
But his "Cathedral" is not a bunch of beeps and twangs...
In Catholicism lies the synthesis...
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