Most unusual faith journey. I thought it might be because Calvin lays out in the most lucid way possible the case for Protestantism. In order to answer him, one must have a very good grasp of Catholic theology.
John Calvin made me Catholic, John Calvin made me Mormon, John Calvin made me a Campbelite, John Calvin made me atheist, John Calvin made me Wiccan, John Calvin made me an evolutionist.Balderdash! Why it flies in the face of predestination!
*************
Amen.
What is double predestination? Seems like an odd phrase.
Christ made me an adopted child of the Father and wrapped me in His righteousness
Here is where I would like to post a graphic similar to those planes in WWII where they had the enemy with a cross through it, on the exterior of the fuselage. Keep ticking them off, Titanites!
One more for your list.
Maybe it was this kind of occurrence that inspired Marx's "opiate of the masses" axiom. :o)
From the contents of his web page, he could just have easily said "Tinkerbell made me a faerie", or "William Gibson made me a writer."
In addition to *trying* to have a real life, I usually have a good handful of stories that I'm either brainstorming about, writing, editing, or agonizingly waiting as an editor looks them over. If you're interested in the sort of stories I write, or want to know the status of things, this would be the place.
Published Works:
-- "Green Magic" -- This short scene was one of three winners in The Harrow's Animanga contest, and appeared in Vol. 9, no. 10. (You may need to be logged in to read.)
-- "The Blue Flower" -- A young freedom fighter in the future is told that a flower can bring hope to a repressed world. But was he told the truth? This work received Honorable Mention in The Sword Review's 2006 Fiction Contest.
-- Two drabbles (100 word stories) of mine aappear in The Drabbler #8, published by Sam's Dot Publishing. The theme of the issue is "Alien Pet Care".
-- "Outwitted" -- When her fiance's transformation spell ggooes horribly wrong, is a young sorceress's magic enough to save him? Now available at Quantum Kiss.
-- "Command Performance" -- A western SF sttory, this piece appears in Science Fiction Trails, an anthology edited by David B. Riley and published by Pirate Dog Press.
Accepted Works:
-- "Irula's Apprentice" -- Set in a fantasyy world of my own design where the sole sentient species is a race of anthropomorphic lions, "Irula's Apprentice" tells the story of a young shamaness who has to chose between love and duty. Accepted by Renard's Menagerie.
-- "Kogane-dono" -- A modern horror story, where the horror may or may not be merely psychological. It is about rose gardens and Japanese beetles. Really! Accepted for an anthology being edited by Mark Deniz and Sharyn Lilley.
Works under Consideration:
-- "Inflation" -- A *very* short flash piecce (200 words or so) about rising prices and the Underworld.
-- "Butterfly Dreams" -- Virtual Reality annd revenge.
-- "Digitus Dei" -- A boy whose single mothher sends all their money to a televangelist works a rather biblical revenge on her.
-- "ReNew" -- A new medical treatment to coombat aging has unexpected results. Under the title "Rebirth" this story was awarded an Honorable Mention in Alien Skin Magazine's "Science Fiction Good Writing" contest.
-- "Big Bad" -- Has a black Thing really taaken over the body of Jean's grandmother? Or is it all in her head?
-- "Ghost in My Mind" -- A harpist tries too contact the soul of her husband on All Souls' Night.
-- "Brian's Quest" -- A mother starts to woorry that her teenaged son is spending too much time playing Role-Playing games.
Works I'm Editing before sending out again:
-- "Stannard Rock" -- Set in Lake Superior,, what Thing makes its home in the reef under Stannard Rock Lighthouse?
-- "The Necromancers of Parnasus IV" -- A mmobster in the future visits rather unusual aliens with the ability to reconstruct the dead in order to talk to the wife he murdered.
-- "Crapgod" -- A sewer worker falls througghh a broken sewer pipe to find himself paralyzed in a chapel made from human bones.
-- "Galateus Unbound" -- My efforts to re-ttell the myth of Pygmalion, but with the sexes switched.
-- "Whalerider" -- A shipwrecked Portuguesee sailor is saved by a group of people who use whales and dolphins as living vessels.
-- "The Canni-Ball" -- "People... People whhoo eat people... Are the luckiest people in the world..."
-- "Silver Lining" -- Can Megan Petrov survviive a new treatment for her lycanthropy while finding a way to pay a mob boss back fifty thousand dollars? This had been submitted for "The Clinic" storyline of Quill-Pen.net Press's Magazine of Unbelievable Stories. I'm going to try to retool it for submission elsewhere.
Things in various states of completion that I hope to submit someday:
-- Lion of the Veldt -- A working tiittle for my novel-in-progress set in the same universe as "Irula's Apprentice". In a world where males are forbidden to use magic, what place is there for a young lionman who discovers he has unusual abilities? And what relationship does his abilities have to the ancient evil rising once again?
-- "Et in Arcadia Ego" -- A young man encouunters Death playing pachinko in an arcade.
-- "Dole in Astolat" -- My attempt to re-teell the story of Elaine and Lancelot in a SF (space opera) setting.
-- "Doug's Last Halloween" -- When a town cceelebrates Halloween the weekend before instead of on October 31st, it's up to the children of the town to save their community when the baddies come prowling for real.
-- "Jelaan's Choice" -- A young lionman choooses to take on a radical disguise in order to find his twin who has been taken by slavers.
(last update 04-06-2007)
Once again, a Catholic convert’s story is not a screed against Protestantism but a description of his faith journey.
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**a class I was taking in the fall semester on early and medieval theology. **
Many forget that the Early Fathers were part of the first church. Some were part of the writing of the Bible that happened from years 60 on. And it sounds like this person found that out in his early and medieval theology class.
Going Catholic - Six journeys to Rome
My (Imminent) Reception into the Roman Catholic Church
A Convert's Pilgrimage [Christopher Cuddy]
Lutheran professor of philosophy prepares to enter Catholic Church
Patty Bonds (former Baptist and sister of Dr. James White) to appear on The Journey Home - May 7
Pastor and Flock Become Catholics
The journey back - Dr. Beckwith explains his reasons for returning to the Catholic Church
Famous Homosexual Italian Author Returned to the Church Before Dying of AIDS
Dr. Francis Beckwith Returns To Full Communion With The Church
Catholic Converts - Stephen K. Ray (former Evangelical)
Catholic Converts - Malcolm Muggeridge
Catholic Converts - Richard John Neuhaus
Catholic Converts - Avery Cardinal Dulles
Catholic Converts - Israel (Eugenio) Zolli - Chief Rabbi of Rome
Catholic Converts - Robert H. Bork , American Jurist (Catholic Caucus)
Catholic Converts - Marcus Grodi
All right, I say “enough, already” with all the internicene opuses. I think it should be like leaving FR. If you wanna leave, just shut up and leave. A letter of resignation is not necessary. Just leave your decoder ring at the door.
But since many seem to want to keep “score,” I suggest we institute a “One Card” system, whereby when you convert, you swipe out on your way out, and swipe in at your next stop. A centrally maintained database can anonymously track migration, and weigh each for factors such as education, rank, tenure and hereticism (acknowledging of course that anyone who leaves a faith must have been “heretical” to that faith all along).
How about it guys? Do I get the contract?
I have some friends on the faculty of Calvin College, an admirable lot, although we differ on many theological points—notably, double predestination.
You have to wonder, how could a young Christian boy get all the way into high school before he ever heard the words “Hail Mary”? Didn’t he ever read the gospels? Didn’t his pastors read the Christmas story at least once a year?
There it is, right in the gospel, spoken by an Angel: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” Slightly different in the Geneva Bible, but not a whole lot.
There are two types that convert to Romanism.
Those who want “smells and bells” and those who want to work their way to heaven (or both).