Posted on 03/03/2010 10:14:34 AM PST by NYer
NO PRICE TOO HIGH (1 hr)
The profound conversion story of a Protestant minister who brought his congregation with him into the Catholic Church. The viewer will discover the sacrificial yet triumphant journey of a man of deep integrity and love for Christ.
Wed 3/3/10 10:00 PM ET / 7 PM PT
Sat 3/6/10 5:00 AM ET / 2 AM PT
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When Detroit-born Alex Jones became a Pentecostal minister in 1972, there was little question among those who knew him that he was answering God's call to preach.
Now, many of his friends and family have dismissed the 59-year-old pastor as an apostate for embracing the Catholic faith, closing the nondenominational church he organized in 1982, and taking part of his congregation with him.
At this year's April 14 Easter Vigil, Jones, his wife, Donna, and 62 other former members of Detroit's Maranatha Church, was received into the Catholic Church at St. Suzanne's Parish. For Jones, becoming a Catholic will mark the end of a journey that began with the planting of a seed by Catholic apologist and Register columnist Karl Keating. It also will mean the beginning of a new way of life.
Jones first heard Keating, the founder of Catholic Answers, at a debate on whether the origins of the Christian church were Protestant or Catholic. At the close, Keating asked, "If something took place, who would you want to believe, those who saw it or those who came thousands of years later and told what happened?"
"Good point," Jones thought, and tucked it away. Five years later, while he was reading about the church fathers, Keating's question resurfaced. Jones began a study of the Church's beginnings, sharing his newfound knowledge with his congregation.
To illustrate what he was talking about, in the spring of 1998 he re-enacted an early worship service, never intending to alter his congregation's worship style. "But once I discovered the foundational truths and saw that Christianity was not the same as I was preaching, some fine-tuning needed to take place."
Soon, Maranatha Church's Sunday service was looking more like a Catholic Mass with Pentecostal overtones. "We said all the prayers with all the rubrics of the Church, all the readings, the Eucharistic prayers. We did it all, and we did it with an African-American style."
Not everyone liked the change, however, and the 200-member congregation began to dwindle. Meanwhile, Jones contacted Detroit's Sacred Heart Seminary and was referred to Steve Ray of Milan, Mich., whose conversion story is told in Crossing the Tiber.
"I set up a lunch with him right away and we pretty much had lunch every month after that," said Ray. He introduced Jones to Dennis Walters, the catechist at Christ the King Parish in Ann Arbor, Mich. Walters began giving the Pentecostal pastor and his wife weekly instructions in March, 1999.
CROSSROADS
Eventually, Jones and his congregation arrived at a crossroads. On June 4, the remaining adult members of Maranatha Church voted 39-19 to begin the process of becoming Catholic. In September, they began studies at St. Suzanne's.
Maranatha closed for good in December. The congregation voted to give Jones severance pay and sell the building, a former Greek Orthodox church, to the First Tabernacle Church of God in Christ.
Father Dennis Duggan, St. Suzanne's 53-year-old pastor, said the former Maranatha members and their pastor along with about 10 other candidates comprise the 750-member parish's largest-ever convert class.
UNITY AND DIVERSITY
Although not all parishioners at predominantly white St. Suzanne's have received the group warmly, Father Duggan, who also is white, said he considers the newcomers a gift and an answer to prayer.
"What the Lord seems to have brought together in the two of us — Alex and myself — is two individuals who have a similar dream about diversity. Detroit is a particularly segregated kind of community, especially on Sunday morning, and here you've got two baptized believers who really believe we ought to be looking different."
Father Duggan hopes eventually to bring Jones onto the parish staff. Already, he has encouraged Jones to join him in teaching at a Wednesday night Bible service. And, he is working on adapting the music at Masses so that it better reflects the parish's new makeup.
The current European worship style at St. Suzanne's has been the most difficult adjustment for the former Maranatha members, Jones said, because they had been accustomed to using contemporary music with the Catholic prayers and rituals. "The cultural adaptation is far more difficult than the theological adaptation," he said.
PROTESTANT ISSUES
Jones said the four biggest problems Protestants have with Catholicism are teachings about Mary, purgatory, papal authority, and praying to saints. He resolved three of the four long ago, but struggled the most with Mary, finally accepting the teaching on her just because the church taught it.
"It is so ingrained in Protestants that only God inhabits heaven and to pray to anyone else is idolatry. ... The culture had so placed in my heart that only the Trinity received prayer that it was difficult."
He is writing a paper on the appropriateness of venerating Mary for a class at Detroit's Sacred Heart Seminary, where he is taking prerequisite courses for a master's degree in theology and pastoral studies. He also is writing a book for Ignatius Press and accepting speaking engagements through St. Joseph Communications, West Covina, Calif.
Jones, the father of three married sons and grandfather of six, is leaving the question of whether he becomes a priest up to the Church.
"If the Church discerns that vocation, I will accept it. If not, I will accept that, too. Whatever the Church calls me to do, I will do."
Although he has given up his job, prestige, and the congregation he built to become Catholic, Jones said the hardest loss of all has been the family and friends who rejected him because of his decision.
"To see those that have worshiped with and prayed with me for over 40 years walk away and have no contact with them is sad."
It was especially painful, he said, when his mother, who had helped him start Maranatha, left to go to Detroit's Perfecting Church, where his cousin, gospel singer Marvin Winans, is the pastor.
Neither Winans nor the pastor of the church that bought Maranatha's building would comment on Jones' conversion. Jones also is troubled that those he left behind do not understand his decision.
"To them, I have apostasized into error. And that's painful for me because we all want to be looked at as being right and correct, but now you have the stigma of being mentally unbalanced, changeable, being looked at as though you've just walked away from God."
Jones said when his group was considering converting, prayer groups were formed to stop them. "People fasted and prayed that God would stop us from making this terrible mistake. When we did it, it was as though we had died."
He said Catholics do not fully understand how many Protestants see their church. "There's this thin veneer of amicability, and below that there is great hostility."
But he remains convinced he is doing the right thing.
"How can you say no to truth? I knew that I would lose everything and that in those circles I would never be accepted again, but I had no choice," he said.
"It would be mortal sin for me to know what I know and not act on it. If I returned to my former life, I would be dishonest, untrustworthy, a man who saw truth, knew truth, and turned away from it, and I could just not do that."
Why the change? Ignorance born of sloth and bad catechists is one reason. That is not to say that having the opportunity to receive under both species is anting other than a glorious blessing, it does not make the sacrament any more "effective". Another reason has to do with some wanting to "go back" to the primitive Church practice which was to not only receive both species but to receive the Consecrated Host in ones hand. the later started out as an illicit practice which was regularized some years ago...bad move in my opinion, but that's another topic. A third reason may have to do with a move to reintroduce in the west that which the east never ceased for ecumenical reasons.
To understand the Church's teaching on the Liturgy and the sacraments go Here to do otherwise and continue to comment on that which you are ignorant is telling.
Wow, no insult there.
I suppose you could take that as an insult, though my primary intent is to challeng a belief/teaching which people have been martyred by the “church” for opposing.
I take it as abuse to teach cannibalism to impressionable children.
If it is as the Catholics say, they can easily test their assertions, which I merely suggested.
Jesus called the bread and wine he personally served on the Passover his flesh and blood...was he speaking literally?
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
Another nice tradition without biblical support.
“There was never any duplicitous reasons for withholding the Precious Blood form the faithful. One simple and obvious reason was the problem of spilling. The Church had for nearly a thousand years and probably longer understood that Christ is truly present in either species of the Eucharist so to insist on both implies that one is lacking with out the other.”
“Yes, I believe someone who comes to faith in Christ, which is a choice, ought to follow the Lord’s command to be baptized, even if they were sprinkled as an infant.”
Then you reject the principle that there is “One Baptism for the Forgiveness of Sins.”
You reject Nicaea. You cannot ‘rebaptise’, it is a complete misunderstanding of how baptism works. If you can be rebaptised, then there is no point to baptism in the first place.
“Regarding baptism of/for the dead, there is some discussion as to whether it was practiced early in some “orthodox” churches, which I assume the Roman Catholic Church would lay claim to. I have no idea if it has been practiced since the early centuries of church history.”
Sez who? You? I’m sorry, I don’t believe you here. Evidence would be nice.
Yes, by my own judgment, aided by my admittedly finite and somewhat fallible understanding of Scripture and adherence to the leading of the Holy Spirit who only has me with all my limitations to deal with.
Of course I alone am not the holder of all truth, but I am the holder of some truth.
Is the pope or the church going to be there to answer for me and get me a pass into heaven on judgment day.
Or will I stand alone except for my advocate, Jesus?
It is done out of charity. Implying that Christ is present in both, implies that it is sufficient to take the bread.
You stated:
Then you reject the principle that there is “One Baptism for the Forgiveness of Sins.”
No, you assert that the baptism of infants IS for the forgiveness of sins. I disagree.
If that is Nicea’s position, then I disagree with that council, in that area, as well.
Actually, I don’t believe Christian baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, but a step of obedience for those who have already been forgiven of their sins. So you could say that baptism symbolizes the actual transaction, just as the blood and the wine symbolize the actual reception of Christ’s life.
The blood of christ is given to all. I’m not sure what you are saying. Occasionally it will be in only one species. It’s not withheld from us at all.
As I said, another nice tradition without biblical support.
Not that I have anything against charity, either the current giving kind, or the biblical, KJV, loving kind.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Jesus is the Word.
Jesus said that bread alone is not enough.
The blood used to be withheld, apparently the Catholic church has changed their traditions/practice since I attended (long ago).
“If that is Nicea’s position, then I disagree with that council, in that area, as well.”
That’s a rather bold statement. Are you even a trinitarian?
“Actually, I don’t believe Christian baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, but a step of obedience for those who have already been forgiven of their sins.”
Scripture doesn’t share this view. “You must be born again of water and the spirit”.
“So you could say that baptism symbolizes the actual transaction, just as the blood and the wine symbolize the actual reception of Christ’s life.”
It’s no symbol. It confers salvation, which is why you baptise children. Of course I could believe that everything is symbolic, including death on a cross, but what is the point? Baptism is an indelible mark that you are the property of Christ. A brand if you will of his claim on you.
“I suggest you experiment by spitting out the host after you have chewed it up. Your “faith” that it turns into an actual mass of “flesh” might be in for a rude awakening.”
I suggest that it wouldn’t be wise to take of the flesh and blood in an unworthy manner.
“However, I have no problem with the belief that those who partake in Christian communion are receiving the benefit of the broken body and shed blood of our Lord Jesus, which, by the way is for every believer, not just the “priests” (in the case of the wine, grape juice, or “blood”).”
Then perhaps you ought not to ridicule those who defend the principle.
“That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
My faith doesn’t rest on church creeds, but in our Lord Jesus and the Scriptures.
Yes, I’m a trinitarian. That would be an interesting discussion, whether you follow the Cappodocian Fathers or not, etc.
I believe the Trinity is taught in Scripture, whereas infant baptism is not...big difference!
Your/your church’s interpretation of “born of water” as meaning baptism, often quoted in this discussion, in nowhere near a universal viewpoint in Christendom.
I agree with you that baptism is the “brand” that you belong to Christ, but not that you are saved by it. I’ve branded cattle, and it is a serious crime to brand those that don’t already belong to you.
As far as Christ’s death on the cross, of course I believe it is a literal, physical death followed by a literal resurrection to flesh and bone.
So do you hold with the Roman Catholic Church burning Ridley and Latimer at the stake for holding that the Lord’s Supper involved the “real presence” of the Lord as opposed to the “corporeal presence” that your church teaches?
The problem is that Christ doesn’t teach it as a spiritual change only. He treats it as becoming an entirely new person. As for the baptism of infants, Christ says, “let the little children come to me and do not hinder them.” I see no evidence in scripture to argue that Christ said, “wait until you are older.”
What we do see is infant baptism as a part of the church from early on. So the question is, are the people who knew the Apostles wrong and you are right?
Your comment makes no sense to me. Could you clarify what you mean?
The blood used to be protected due to the fear of spillage.
It has always been given on Holy Days through the method of tincture which is the dipping of the Host into the Chalice.
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