Catholic Converts - Israel (Eugenio) Zolli

I, and Benedict XVI, agree with you that the first world has lost much faith as well as the intensity of the faith.

I try for the most part to avoid revealing too much personal information on this forum (when I joined in '99 I posted my e-mail address, as did many FReepers, but then one of Bill Clinton's buddies came online and started yelling at everyone to reveal themselves, so that was the end of that), but I think the following is called for.

Despite my years of defending American Fundamentalist Protestantism on this forum (which I fully intend to continue to do), I have never been a member of a Fundamentalist Protestant church. Ironically, the only church I have ever actually been a member of is the Catholic Church, and that only for six years (though please believe me that I tried very hard to submit). In fact, I have never enjoyed attending Fundamentalist Protestant churches. There is something about them that makes my skin crawl. I'll try to explain what it is, but first I want to tell you what it is not: "Biblical literalism." I am a committed inerrantist and literalist and six day young earth creationist (and I'm quite open to the idea of geocentrism, for that matter). So it most definitely is not the "fundamentalism" of Fundamentalist Protestantism that has always turned me off.

I believe the thing that has always and forever becoming one of the people I so admire (and who produced me) is the radical subjectivism and superemotionalism of their faith. Now please note: I am not, not, NOT opposed to emotionalism. How in the world can one contemplate G-d without some emotion? And I join FP's in comdemning the emotionless intellectualism of the liberal and liturgical churches.

However, with real Fundamentalist Protestantism (at least the missionary kind; there are still traditional Calvinists who believe everyone's fate is preordained and who would not presume to try to convert anyone), the whole point is the salvation of one's individual soul, which is accomplished directly by G-d without any intervening objective marks. This being the case, how in the sam hill can anyone ever be sure? After all, "if you're saved you'll know it, but you can think you're saved and not be." Have you ever heard of such a thing?

For most of my life I prayed for the "new birth" experience but it was never given to me. I had all the beliefs, I was fundamental as hell (please pardon the expression), but for whatever reason G-d withheld from me the emotional experience (verging on spirit possession) of "knowing that I know that I know that I know." What do you do when you do what you're supposed to do to "git saved" and you can't do it? From a FP perspective either Calvin was right and I'm not among the "elect" or else "I didn't do it right." Well I'm sorry, but I did and I know that I did. The entirety of ever American folk Protestant service is to "get folks saved," as if, apparently that were up to us when, in my case at least, it was and is not.

The one thing about the Catholic Church I could identify with was the objective nature of conversion and being a chr*stian. When you stand at the font and the priest pours water over you, you've been "born again," and that is an objective fact and not an opinion. Furthermore, I thought, my intellectual faith (fundamental and Southern though it may have been) would be recognized by the Catholic Church and I would not be told it didn't count until I felt electricity going up and down my spine.

Therefore I hope you will believe me when I tell you that I really wanted and needed the Catholic Church to be what it claimed to be. But unfortunately, in addition to all the zillions of things that made no intellectual sense to an intellectual Fundamentalist (on Mary, saints, justification, eschatology, etc.) there was all the liberalism. To join the Catholic Church I had to put aside my prejudices against intellectual faith (even though that was the kind of faith I myself had). I had always been taught that intellectual faith didn't mean bo-diddley-squat, that it all hinged on the electricity and suddenly wanting to jump up and down and holler. Fundamentalist Protestants tend to believe the Catholic Church's liberalism on the fact that it doesn't offer the Protestant "salvation experience." Certainly, they reason, Catholic priests, bishops, and theologians are "unsaved," else they would not be so prone to liberalism. If the Catholic Church were to ever restrict orders or theological recognition to people who had "felt the electricity" this liberalism would not exist, since their faith in that case would surpass the mere and vain intellectual kind.

But all my prejudices were confirmed. Where I live the Catholic Church is the only liberal church. The "born again" churches are all "orthodox" (or "fundamental"), so that seems to confirm my old prejudice that intellectual faith is meaningless without "the experience" (as tenuous and subjective as it may be) it always degerates into coldness and liberalism.

But then, when I see where I am now, I realize that my own intellectual faith (and that's still pretty much the only kind I have) I see that that is no excuse for Catholicism's liberal clergy and theologians. I mean, my own faith has always been, and remains, purely intellectual (no "experience" for me), yet I'm a fire-breathing, scorched-earth, full-throttle religious fanatic. I'm probably more fundamentalist than most Fundamentalist Protestants, and no "experience" was ever necessary. This teaches me that a purely intellectual faith is no impediment to genuine "zeal" (or "fanaticism," if you choose to call it that). So what is the excuse of the liturgical churches that their hearts are so dead and they are so eaten up with modernism and liberalism? Even Eastern Orthodoxy, which is supposed to be more mystical than rational, has hitched on the evolution/higher critical bandwagon and now proudly tells itself that the "isms" of the world are not aimed at the "real G-d" but at a "false gxd" which Fundamentalists have created in their own image. Well, that's one way to avoid being made fun of by liberals; all you have to do is say "look at those funny rednecks!"

Though I have left chr*stianity of all kinds behind (after all, the problems I've mentioned with Fundamentalist Protestantism exist in seminal form in the ancient liturgical churches), I shall always defend the people who produced me from the cruel prejudice of anyone, be they liberal, Jewish, Catholic, islamic, or "new age." Because there are so many conservative Catholics (and because the Catholic Church claims to be what "conservatism" is all about) attacks on my people from that quarter push some very sensitive buttons. And unfortunately, the traditional Catholic position in America as an urban immigrant (and perhaps "oppressed") minority has led many Catholics to adopt the same double-standard on "bigotry" that Blacks, Hispanics, and other "minorities" have historically held.

Just the other day there was a thread on the persecution of evangelical Protestants in Mexico (the country that is supposed to be the current bete noire of all American conservatives) and there was at least one poster who was absolutely elated, because Mexico is a Catholic country and Protestants have no right to be there. Can you imagine the Catholic reaction if anyone were to say the same thing about Catholics in "Protestant America" (or Britain or whatever)?

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