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Magazine: Growing Trend--Evangelicals ‘Crossing the Tiber’ to Catholicism
TheSacredPage.com ^ | August 6, 2010 | Michael Barber

Posted on 08/07/2010 3:38:50 PM PDT by Salvation

Friday, August 06, 2010

Magazine: Growing Trend--Evangelicals ‘Crossing the Tiber’ to Catholicism

The magazine Religion Dispatches has a new piece up by Jonathan Fitzgerald, entitled, "Evangelicals ‘Crossing the Tiber’ to Catholicism: Under the radar of most observers a trend is emerging of evangelicals converting to Catholicism."


As he points out, there are an increasing number Evangelicals coming into the Catholic Church. In fact, while my wife and I were at Fuller we witnessed this phenomenon firsthand. Indeed, students would come up and ask us if they could follow us to daily Mass (which was celebrated at a Catholic Church down the street). I went to Mass with many fellow students who had never experienced a Eucharistic liturgy. . . and, for many of them, once they started attending they couldn't stop.

Here's the story as Fitzgerald reports it:
In the fall of 1999, I was a freshman at Gordon College, an evangelical liberal arts school in Massachusetts. There, fifteen years earlier, a professor named Thomas Howard resigned from the English department when he felt his beliefs were no longer in line with the college’s statement of faith. Despite all those intervening years, during my time at Gordon the specter of Thomas Howard loomed large on campus. The story of his resignation captured my imagination; it came about, ultimately, because he converted to Roman Catholicism.

Though his reasons for converting were unclear and perhaps unimaginable to me at the time (they are actually well-documented in his book Evangelical is Not Enough which, back then, I had not yet read), his reasons seemed less important than the knowledge that it could happen. I had never heard of such a thing. . .

. . . [M]y parents never spoke ill of the Catholic Church; though the pastors and congregants of our non-denominational, charismatic church-that-met-in-a-warehouse, often did. Despite my firsthand experience with the Church, between the legend of my parents’ conversion (anything that happens in a child’s life before he is born is the stuff of legends) and the portrait of the Catholic Church as an oppressive institution that took all the fun out of being “saved,” I understood Catholicism as a religion that a person leaves when she becomes serious about her faith.

And yet, Thomas Howard is only the tip of the iceberg of a hastening trend of evangelicals converting to Catholicism. North Park University professor of religious studies Scot McKnight documented some of the reasons behind this trend in his important 2002 essay entitled “From Wheaton to Rome: Why Evangelicals become Roman Catholic.” The essay was originally published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and was later included in a collection of conversion stories he co-edited with Hauna Ondrey entitled Finding Faith, Losing Faith: Stories of Conversion and Apostasy.

Thomas Howard comes in at number five on McKnight’s list of significant conversions, behind former Presbyterian pastor and author of Rome Sweet Home, Scott Hahn, and Marcus Grodi founder of The Coming Home Network International, an organization that provides “fellowship, encouragement and support for Protestant pastors and laymen who are somewhere along the journey or have already been received into the Catholic Church,” according to their Web site. Other featured converts include singer-songwriter John Michael Talbot and Patrick Madrid, editor of the Surprised by Truth books, which showcase conversion stories.

Would Saint Augustine Go to a Southern Baptist Church in Houston?

McKnight first identified these converts eight years ago, and the trend has continued to grow in the intervening years. It shows up in a variety of places, in the musings of the late Michael Spencer (the “Internet Monk”) about his wife’s conversion and his decision not to follow, as well as at the Evangelical Theological Society where the former President and Baylor University professor Francis J. Beckwith made a well-documented “return to Rome.” Additionally, the conversion trend is once again picking up steam as the Millennial generation, the first to be born and raised in the contemporary brand of evangelicalism, comes of age. Though perhaps an unlikely setting, The King’s College, an evangelical Christian college in New York City, provides an excellent case study for the way this phenomenon is manifesting itself among young evangelicals.

The King’s College campus is comprised of two floors in the Empire State Building and some office space in a neighboring building on Fifth Avenue. The approximately 300 students who attend King’s are thoughtful, considerate and serious. They are also intellectually curious. This combination of traits, it turns out, makes the college a ripe breeding ground for interest in Roman Catholicism. Among the traits of the Catholic Church that attract TKC students—and indeed many young evangelicals at large—are its history, emphasis on liturgy, and tradition of intellectualism.

Lucas Croslow was one such student to whom these and other attributes of Catholicism appealed. This past spring, graduating from The King’s College was not the only major change in Croslow’s life, he was also confirmed into the Catholic Church.

Croslow’s interest in Catholicism began over six years ago when he was a sophomore in high school. At the time, Croslow’s Midwestern evangelical church experienced a crisis that is all too common among evangelical churches: what he describes as “a crisis of spiritual authority.” As a result of experiencing disappointment in his pastor, Croslow began to question everything he had learned from him. This questioning led him to study the historical origins of scripture and then of the Christian church itself. Eventually he concluded that Catholicism in its current form is the closest iteration of the early church fathers’ intentions. He asks, “If Saint Augustine showed up today, could we seriously think that he’d attend a Southern Baptist church in Houston?” The answer, to Croslow, is a resounding “No.”
 
. . .

You can read the rest here.



TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; History; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; catholiclist; converts; evangelical; freformed
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To: RnMomof7

That was the most deranged, tortured reading of John 6 I have ever seen. Truly another gospel: Calvinism is of the devil. I’ll continue to pray for you.


1,121 posted on 08/10/2010 12:53:25 PM PDT by conservonator (How many times? 70 x 7!)
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To: bronx2; wmfights

Do you know what the gospel is? Do you know how one is saved?


1,122 posted on 08/10/2010 12:54:28 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: bkaycee
Do you also know the source for the so called 30,000 denoms also lists the RCC as having been responsible for 5 million deaths.

The IRS?

I don't think so....

1,123 posted on 08/10/2010 12:54:35 PM PDT by papertyger
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To: verga; Amityschild; Brad's Gramma; Captain Beyond; Cvengr; DvdMom; firebrand; GiovannaNicoletta; ...

Where’s any remotely convincing evidence to the contrary of my points in that post?

Pontifical not air bluster & blather is not AT ALL convincing to most Proddys.


1,124 posted on 08/10/2010 12:59:54 PM PDT by Quix (C THE PLAN of the Bosses: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2519352/posts?page=2#2)
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To: Iscool

I think you’re misreading what I’m writing. I’ll try again.

I’m obviously a Catholic partisan, I’m a Catholic because I believe it works and makes sense, because I believe it is the truth. I’m not a Protestant because I don’t believe Protestantism works, I don’t believe it makes sense and I don’t believe it’s the truth. That shouldn’t offend you anymore than I should be offended that you don’t believe Catholicism is true.

If adhering to my beliefs makes me act just like the worldlings around me, then what’s the point of it? If the practical application of my Faith allows me to lie or cheat or steal or beat my wife or carry on like a hectoring jerk on an internet forum then it’s useless. My belief is that Catholics who adhere to the Faith will be exemplars of 1 Corinthians 13, or at least will be working on it.

I don’t have similar expectations of Protestants because I think Protestantism is of the devil. Please notice the distinction.

So when a Catholic is “defending the faith” and the defense is the equivalent of “You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny” I think that’s a failure of the person to faithfully reflect the Church. When a Protestant is “defending the faith” and the defense is the equivalent of “You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny” I think that’s a failure of Protestantism.


1,125 posted on 08/10/2010 12:59:59 PM PDT by Legatus
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To: RnMomof7

. . . evidently in one of Augustine’s brighter, more honest-with-self moments.


1,126 posted on 08/10/2010 1:01:01 PM PDT by Quix (C THE PLAN of the Bosses: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2519352/posts?page=2#2)
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To: Deo volente
Well, there you go! Read a little Scripture in the kitchen, and throw the Fathers of the Church and 1500 years of Catholic Tradition in the trash can.

Do all the church fathers agree with each other?

And all this time I've been trusting the Church, guided infallibly by the Holy Spirit as promised by Jesus Christ. I should have just popped open my Bible and saved myself a lot of trouble.

Salvation is the work of Christ, not the work of men..so it is not a lot of trouble

1Ti 4:9 Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation.

1Ti 4:10 For to this end we labor and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.

1,127 posted on 08/10/2010 1:03:56 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: metmom
Your catechism
isn't clear
because
you can
use it
to play both
[1,101] sides
against the middle.

CONVENIENT,
indeed.
until one
faces God
for the accounting!

.
.
.

UPON THIS ROCK
SANDI PATTY

1,128 posted on 08/10/2010 1:06:00 PM PDT by Quix (C THE PLAN of the Bosses: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2519352/posts?page=2#2)
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To: RnMomof7
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
WELL DONE!

.
.
.
WE SHALL BEHOLD HIM
SANDI PATTY
(FULL)

1,129 posted on 08/10/2010 1:10:03 PM PDT by Quix (C THE PLAN of the Bosses: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2519352/posts?page=2#2)
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To: vladimir998

There is something in the American Catholic church tho, that supports liberal views. Our former priest (who I speak with on Face Book) is so liberal, I can hardly believe it. I have known many liberal voting Catholics thru the years (having been Catholic myself). It always surprised me, but it’s something that cannot be denied. Many of them vote liberal/democrat. I don’t know if it’s true in the rest of the world.


1,130 posted on 08/10/2010 1:10:21 PM PDT by brytlea (Jesus loves me, this I know.)
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To: RnMomof7

2)They are told even if they did they can not say what it means

3)The magisterium has never written a systematic theology or “official” inspired commentary of the entire bible.

Other than the proof texting in the catechism, scripture’s teachings and meanings is undefined by the catholic church


THAT’S my sense, too.


1,131 posted on 08/10/2010 1:11:04 PM PDT by Quix (C THE PLAN of the Bosses: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2519352/posts?page=2#2)
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To: metmom; Iscool
So, what's the truth then? Is it that Peter is the rock on which Christ built His church or not? Your catechism isn't clear because you can use it to play both sides against the middle.

Can it be that there are people who have no idea what an analogy or a metaphor is?

Jesus compares Peter to a rock and Himself to a builder. Fine. One metaphor. Which is superior, the rock or the builder? How is calling Peter a rock usurping Jesus when, where Peter is the rock, Jesus is the builder?

In other places, other metaphors and analogies, Jesus is compared to a rock. Either a cornerstone or the kingstone of an arch or a capstone. In THOSE analogies, it would be silly to make Peter analagous to a the rock of foundation.

so no matter what a non-Catholic says and posts, Catholics can tell them that they're wrong and that they don't *really * know or understand Catholic teaching.

But anyone who insists that Peter is NOT the rock of Foundation in any sense OR who insists that he IS the rock of Foundation in EVERY sense IS wrong. He is wrong because he doesn't 'get' the idea of a 'figure of speech.'

And Iscool who taunted us with suggestions first that the pope never washes feet and then that he only does so in splendid ceremonial, now taunts us with suggesting that the catechism says Peter is NOT the rock of foundation.

When these suggestions are looked into, they turn out to be false.

Maybe if the approach were not one given to "I'm right and you're wrong," there would be a little more factual truth in some of the posts, a little less concern with 'winning' and a little greater ability to perceive what is actually going on.

1,132 posted on 08/10/2010 1:13:06 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.)
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To: Legatus; Amityschild; Brad's Gramma; Captain Beyond; Cvengr; DvdMom; firebrand; ...

Methinks that understanding of all the factors, motivations and goals

is GREATLY lacking.


1,133 posted on 08/10/2010 1:13:46 PM PDT by Quix (C THE PLAN of the Bosses: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2519352/posts?page=2#2)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg; AnotherUnixGeek
Because many RCs tend to say whatever is expedient to the conversation at hand, even going so far as to contradict their own catechism, if that is what it takes to win the point. And the RCC catechism teaches that outside the church (of Rome) there is no salvation.

"....do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing....
-- Matthew 6:3b

-------------
Who, then, can be saved?

Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments.
Other Christians can be saved if they submit their lives to Christ and join the community where they think he wills to be found.
Jews can be saved if they look forward in hope to the Messiah and try to ascertain whether God’s promise has been fulfilled.
Adherents of other religions can be saved if, with the help of grace, they sincerely seek God and strive to do his will.
Even atheists can be saved if they worship God under some other name and place their lives at the service of truth and justice.

God’s saving grace, channeled through Christ the one Mediator, leaves no one unassisted. But that same grace brings obligations to all who receive it. They must not receive the grace of God in vain. Much will be demanded of those to whom much is given.
-- concluding paragraph (formatting mine) of Who Can Be Saved?,by Cardinal Avery Dulles, found at Catholic Education Resource Center

It “is not the case,” [Cardinal Levada] said, as some have argued, "that the Church of Christ can subsist in churches outside the Catholic Church."
-- from the thread “Somewhat surprised” Cardinal Levada tries to clarify Vatican statement on non-Catholic churches

The multiplicity of theological positions present within the Catholic Church. These positions vary according to which premises or postulates are used in reflecting on the sources of revelation, according to the methodology employed, and according to the cultural tradition within which theology does its speculation. On the first bases, the two principal philosophical premises are the Platonic, stressed in Augustinianaism; and the Aristotelian, emphasized in Thomism. On the second level, theologies differ in terms of their mainly biblical, or doctrinal, or historical, or pastoral methodology. And on the third basis, the culture of a people helps to shape the theology they develop, as between the more mystical East and the more practical West, or the more reflective Mediterranean and the more scientific Anglo-Saxon. The Church not only permits these diversities but encourages them, always assuming that theologians who are Catholic are also respectful of the rule of faith and obedient to the magisterium of the hierarchy under the Bishop of Rome.
-- from the thread Catholic Word of the Day: THEOLOGICAL PLURALISM, 11-10-09

Related threads:
No Salvation Outside the Church
The “Necessity” of Being Catholic (Ecumenical Caucus)
Can Non-Catholics Be Saved?
The Great Heresies [Open]
Why Can't Protestants Take Communion in a Catholic Church
(Audio) My Advice to Catholic Parents: Don't Let Your Kids Date Non-Catholics

The Radio Replies Series: "The Failure of Protestantism"
Radio Replies Volume One: Protestantism Erroneous
Radio Replies Volume One: Luther
Radio Replies Volume One: Anglicanism
Radio Replies Volume One: Greek Orthodox Church
Radio Replies Volume One: Wesley
Radio Replies Volume One: Baptists
Radio Replies Volume One: Adventists
Radio Replies Volume One: Salvation Army
Radio Replies Volume One: Catholic Intolerance Radio Replies Volume One: "Outside the Church no salvation"

Congregation for the Defense of the Faith's June 29 statement, approved by Pope Benedict XVI:
"Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church”

At Long Last..... [New President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity]
“Somewhat surprised” Cardinal Levada tries to clarify Vatican statement on non-Catholic churches
Pope: Some Christian Denominations Not True Churches
If it isn't Roman Catholic then it's not a proper Church, Pope tells Christians
Protestants aren't proper Christians, says Pope
Vatican says other Christian churches "wounded" (Non-Catholics not fully Christian)
Vatican reiterates hardline on primacy of Catholic Church
Survey of recent news articles
Vatican Church Declaration: A Radical Departure from Traditional Teaching
Pope's declaration of Catholic primacy has protestants, other faiths miffed
'Kill the pope!' [WND's Joseph Farah on the Vatican announcement re "true Churches"]
Nobody's picking a church fight
No, I'm Not Offended [R. Albert Mohler, Jr./Southern Baptist Theological Seminary]
[PCUSANEWS] Stated Clerk issues statement to Presbyterians concerning latest Vatican declaration
Pope's Anti-Protestant Diatribe Signed for Pope by Sex Molestation Advocate, Cardinal Levada!
The churches that aren't ["what is the point of religious dialogue with the Vatican?"]
Cardinal says Protestants overreacted to Vatican document, seeks to reassure them
Pope's comments irrelevant to non-Catholics (CNN Opine)
Cardinal Levada: ‘Union with the Catholic Church is the Goal of Ecumenism’
The Roman Catholic Church on Non-Christians and Salvation [Catechism excerpts]

1,134 posted on 08/10/2010 1:19:14 PM PDT by Alex Murphy ("Posting news feeds, making eyes bleed, he's hated on seven continents")
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To: Iscool; bronx2
but Jesus has given us the sacraments to impart the graces necessary to obtain eternal salvation.

Unbelievable!! Now sacraments are needed for salvation. I guess the RCC instructs their subjects not to receive a Gift from God.

PERFECT Scriptures, Iscool!
Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

2Pe 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
1,135 posted on 08/10/2010 1:21:43 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: Legatus
So when a Catholic is “defending the faith” and the defense is the equivalent of “You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny” I think that’s a failure of the person to faithfully reflect the Church. When a Protestant is “defending the faith” and the defense is the equivalent of “You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny” I think that’s a failure of Protestantism.

Always provided that the party of the second part is not in fact ugly and sartorially challenged and has not made his or her as the case may be personal attractiveness and haberdasherous excellence the topic of conversation. In all such cases the party of the first part may indeed say You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny, especially in cases when the party of the second party is dressed by his mother, whether she wears combat boots or not.

(Sorry I've been reading court opinions today. It's affecting my brain.)

1,136 posted on 08/10/2010 1:24:05 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.)
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To: Deo volente; Dr. Eckleburg

Jesus refers to the cup as the fruit of the vine in all three Gospels where the Last Supper is recounted.

And besides, why not take it literally when Jesus said His flesh was bread? That His was made of bread dough?

Or that He is green and leafy because He said He was the true vine?

Or that He was made of wood, because He said that He was the gate?

Christ died once for all and is seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father. His work on earth to pay the penalty for sin was accomplished. He Himself said that it was finished.

The Last Supper being a symbolic representation of His death and a foretelling of His coming again, both of which things communion commemorates, fits in well with all the rest of Scripture, as the Passover meal was symbolic.

Nor could Jesus have broken the Law and eaten blood and remained the pure and spotless Lamb of God who could have died for the sins of the world. He would have defiled Himself and made Himself unclean by eating blood so He could not have done it at the Last Supper.

And no Catholic has yet answered the question of just when the Eucharist becomes the body and blood of Christ and why it’s a white wafer and not a chunk of raw, bloody flesh, if it’s literally turned into His flesh and blood.


1,137 posted on 08/10/2010 1:28:55 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Quix
Praise God! I Believe!
1,138 posted on 08/10/2010 1:30:37 PM PDT by roamer_1 (Globalism is just Socialism in a business suit)
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To: bronx2; wmfights
My knowledge of Sacred Scripture was formed at an early age and refined by dealing with ones like you bereft of a true knowledge of the Lord. It is not merely the knowledge of scripture which will obtain one entrance to salvation but as James 2 14:26 states one must have faith infused with the saving graces and imbued by the Spirit.

May I quote James to you?

Jam 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one [point], he is guilty of all.

So the thief is also a murder in Gods eyes.

No where does Jesus or any apostle say or imply that one is saved by works.

The book of James was written to a converted church , not heathens seeking salvation .
It tells them how their conversion is seen by the unsaved world . It is not about becoming saved or being saved. It is about the fruit of your salvation.

Jam 2:17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Jam 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

This is an amplification of the teaching of Jesus that we know a tree by the fruit it bears. >B>It is how we know the saved from the unsaved. It does not declare that the man has faith ...but that he SAYS he has faith.

This addresses a hollow profession of faith , not a saving one .Can a hollow profession save him? NO, any more than works can save.This scripture says to the church that this faith is non existent , it is dead.

The bible is clear that it is God that gives the faith and it is God that ordains the works of the saved

Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Hbr 13:21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom [be] glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Phl 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.

Our salvation is all of grace .. 100% Not graces we earn, for then it would not be grace

1,139 posted on 08/10/2010 1:31:34 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
“Therefore the correct question to ask a Roman Catholic is “can an Evangelical Protestant go to heaven if he never accepts the papacy and its church in Rome as the one true church?”

According to the Athanasian Creed, not a chance:

“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly
He therefore that will be saved is must think thus of the Trinity.
This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.”

1,140 posted on 08/10/2010 1:33:13 PM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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