Posted on 08/05/2010 12:36:10 PM PDT by NYer
Is there a growing trend of Evangelicals converting to Catholicism? Many think so, including this recent article:
[There is a large] community of young believers whose frustration with the lack of authority, structure, and intellectualism in many evangelical churches is leading them in great numbers to the Roman Catholic Church. This trend of “Crossing the Tiber” (a phrase that also served as the title of Stephen K. Ray’s 1997 book on the phenomenon), has been growing steadily for decades, but with the help of a solid foundation of literature, exemplar converts from previous generations, burgeoning traditional and new media outlets, and the coming of age of Millennial evangelicals, it is seeing its pace quicken dramatically. [source]
The article gives the example of many such notable Evangelical converts from our generation, such as Scott Hahn, Marcus Grodi, Thomas Howard, Francis Beckwith and others. (It also mentions Patrick Madrid, but he is actually not a convert, from what I understand.)
The common threads that seem to be drawing many of these Evangelicals into the Catholic Church are its history, the Liturgy and its tradition of intellectualism.
So is this trend significant? Or is it dwarfed by what seems to be many more Catholics who seem to lose their faith or become complacent with it?
According to a 2009 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, four people leave the Catholic Church for every one person that joins it. Keep in mind that this stat doesn’t count those born into Catholicism as “joining” it. However, it’s still a sad statistic. But we shouldn’t be misled by it.
There are also studies that show Catholicism has a higher rate of retention than all other religious groups. In other words, when people convert to Catholicism, they don’t do so because they didn’t like where they were and just wanted to try something new. Their conversion is deliberate and intentional and they generally stick with it. On the other hand, when people leave the Church, they generally drift around a bit from one denomination to another. This says a lot. The Catholic convert is actually experiencing real, lasting conversion. Those leaving the Church seem to be lost and searching souls that most likely had no idea what they were leaving in the first place.
I’ve long noticed, as have many others, a kind of trend as well. It’s not so much from “Evangelicals” converting to Catholicism necessarily. It’s that of intellectuals converting to Catholicism. And that’s not to say these intellectuals were strictly intellectual. But I mean it to say that they took their reasons for believing very seriously. We only have to look back a few generations to find Chesterton, Merton, Newman, etc. as part of the same trend.
In my own experience, I’ve seen that more people who convert to Catholicism do so on account of their reason. Whereas those that leave the Church do so based on some emotion or negative experience associated with the Church.
When I ask an evangelical why they left the Church. The answer is almost always an emotion. Something made them feel a certain way. Or they just didn’t like the way something was done in Catholicism. Or it didn’t suit their lifestyle. Or some other experience made them feel nice.
There is a long list of protestant (and other) leaders and scholars who have converted to Catholicism. The list for those going the other direction is devastatingly short.
This is why I think we are seeing, and will continue to see even more, protestant thinkers converting to Catholicism. Protestantism is running its course. All the protest is getting tired. And they are running out of places to find answers that don’t lead them deep into Church history, back to the ancient liturgy, and into the intellectual tradition that ultimately leads to one place: Rome.
Protestantism has drifted far enough away from orthodox Christianity that it can now look back at the trees and recognize the forest. And if you’re not entirely in the Catholic Church, that just might be the next best place to be…
“There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place; and I tried to trace such a journey in a story I once wrote. It is, however, a relief to turn from that topic to another story that I never wrote. Like every book I never wrote, it is by far the best book I have ever written. It is only too probable that I shall never write it, so I will use it symbolically here; for it was a symbol of the same truth. I conceived it as a romance of those vast valleys with sloping sides, like those along which the ancient White Horses of Wessex are scrawled along the flanks of the hills. It concerned some boy whose farm or cottage stood on such a slope, and who went on his travels to find something, such as the effigy and grave of some giant; and when he was far enough from home he looked back and saw that his own farm and kitchen-garden, shining flat on the hill-side like the colours and quarterings of a shield, were but parts of some such gigantic figure, on which he had always lived, but which was too large and too close to be seen. That, I think, is a true picture of the progress of any really independent intelligence today; and that is the point of this book.
The point of this book, in other words, is that the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. ” - G. K. Chesterton (Everlasting Man)
Do you KNOW when Constantine paganize the church?
Glad my source is biased but your catholic source is not LOL
“410, when the Goths laid siege to Rome for months, devastated the surrounding country, and plundered the city itself. This naturally put an end to burial in the catacombs.”(Catholic encyclopedia)
That was after Constantine
But they ARE Catholics ...they are not listed as “unchurched”
VERY WELL PUT. THX.
“Their works are not those of faithful Catholics. “
Clean your own house before tearing down mine.
No. People become Catholic when they realize the unbiblical heresy of Protestant teaching on salvation.
1) Lie Number one: the Church has no problem with you getting a divorce, none. they do have a problem with you living in sin with a man you are not legally married to and engaging in fornication.
You could have gotten a cert of nullity and there would have no problem getting your second marriage recognized.
2) You knew he was abusive before you married him and you thought you could change him, or that it would be different after you were married.
3)You can be buried in Hallowed ground and you can even receive a Christian funeral in a Catholic Church. Chapter 11 Para 1183, subsection 3: In the prudent judgment of the local ordinary, ecclesiastical funerals can be granted to baptized persons who are enrolled in a non Catholic Church......
My three very best pieces of advice to you are first stop lying when Catholics keep Canon law books right next to the computer. Second Pony up the meager amount that it will cost you to get you first marriage examined and certified as null. Third get to confession and have your second marriage recognized by the Church.
Yeah this may sound nasty, but some times the truth is hard to hear.
"I don't think grace should be a free gift of God. I want to work for it....now, where can I go so I can work at it, and have LOTS of saints to pray to, and venerate, and just ALL that holy stuff that comes with holiness....where are those yellowpages...let's see, Cathlicism...that's IT...stairway to heaven, here I come!,,,"
You wrote:
“Pure b.s. and wishful thinking.”
I work in a Catholic establishment. There are only five fulltime employees. Two are converts from Evangelicalism. One is a former non-denominational minister who is now bringing in one friend after another. The other convert was a Evangelical seminary student before converting. My best friend wants to convert, but his wife won’t let him. Another good friend is my first godson (he was two years older than me I was when he converted!). He was a fallen away Mormon by the way. Another close friend is a former Lutheran pastor and very much an Evangelical.
One of the people I mentioned converted 15 years ago.
Another 11 years ago.
Another 2 years ago.
Another 18 months ago.
It’s happening all the time. Fo you to dismiss what I see before my very eyes at work every day makes no sense.
“My wife and I left the catholic “church” and will never return to it.”
That in no way makes the article inaccurate.
“We have found God in Spirit and truth; not in idols.”
Me too. I’m Catholic.
“If you want to see the future, look at Latin America, and see how catholics are becoming evangelicals by the hundreds of thousands. Or you can stick your head in the ground.”
Africa is becoming Catholic. Much of Asia is becoming Catholic. Latin America will come back one day.
Satan and his demonic minions are chuckling right now at us believers tearing each other apart over what constitutes the TRUE church. Jesus is the head of HIS church, we are the body, that is, those who put their trust in Him for salvation.
It’s really quite simple.
Hell is burning while the church sleeps.
God permits tares to grow up among the wheat. Catholics are experiencing the result of chastisement in this age of apostasy. None of this justifies the spreading of lies about Catholic teaching. Many Protestant denominations have completely surrendered but a remnant in the Church is still fighting.
The NT church has no priesthood, no pope, no apostolic succession, no purgatory, no prayer to saints, no assumption, no statures, no mass, and you say protestants are unbiblical???? LOL LOL LOL...Ohh yea..no rosary
Here Kitty Kitty...
“God permits tares to grow up among the wheat.”
Why does the Catholic church allow heresy?
“None of this justifies the spreading of lies about Catholic teaching.”
Nor does it justify the spreading of lies about evangelical churches.
“Many Protestant denominations have completely surrendered but a remnant in the Church is still fighting.”
Many? Some have just as the Word tells us will happen.
Unfortunately your fantasy does not stop 54% of them from voting for Obama.
I partially agree but we must allow Jesus Himself to define what constitutes the TRUE church. He did so by the Apostles and charged us to hold fast His teachings. Anyone preaching a new gospel is leading the sheep astray.
Reputable historians including the secular agnostic types acknowledge that Catholicism started with Jesus in the 1st Cent and only those who are in the UFO mode believe that Constantine started the Church. The Emperor Diocletian 280 310, the predecessor of Constantine, orchestrated one of the largest persecutions of Catholicism . But these erudite Evangelicals don't let facts stand in their mindless way.
True, anyone preaching a new or false gospel is leading the sheep astray. I guess my problem is...the Catholic church seems to be telling non-Catholics that they are false and that the Catholic church is the only true church. I have been attending Calvary Chapels for most of my adult life. The word is taught exclusively and most CC’s use Acts 2:42 for their “model”. It works pretty good. I don’t have a beef with Catholics.
Is there no common ground between Catholics and those that are not?
Let’s find that and move on.
You are mistake once again:
Hebrews 7:
"15 And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there rises another priest,
17 For he testifies, You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
22 By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.
26 For such an high priest became us, who is holy"
So scripture proves that Jesus is the NT High Priest.
The Book of Acts and history proves that the Apostles believed that Jesus anointed them priests of the Order of Melchisedec and granted them the authority as bishops to anoint additional priests and successors.
Boy, does that bear repeating.
The NT has a priesthood Heb 7 15. Just read your BIBLE and attempt to comprehend the most elementary parts. No wonder this thread concerns itself with the turning of the Evangelical to Catholicism. Attempt to debate in a forthright manner.
Agreed.
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