Posted on 05/01/2008 5:07:35 PM PDT by annalex
Happy Easter and happy Ascension Thursday. Christ is risen!
Alex.
Anti-Catholicism, Hypocrisy and Double Standards
Hauled Aboard the Ark
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part I: Darkness
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part II: Doubts
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part III: Tradition and Church
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part IV: Crucifix and Altar
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part V: The Catholics and the Pope
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part VI: The Biblical Reality
His Open Arms Welcomed Me
Catholic Conversion Stories & Resources
My Personal Conversion Story
My (Imminent) Reception into the Roman Catholic Church
Catholics Come Home
My Journey of Faith
LOGIC AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF PROTESTANTISM
"What is Truth?" An Examination of Sola Scriptura
"Have you not read?" The Authority behind Biblical Interpretation
The Crisis of Authority in the Reformation
Our Journey Home
Our Lady’s Gentle Call to Peace
A story of conversion at the Lamb of God Shrine
Who is Mary of Nazareth?
Mary and the Problem of Christian Unity
Why I'm Catholic
A Convert's Response to Friends
My Story
Courage to Be Catholic
Finally Catholic! My Conversion to the Catholic Church
Also see:
Sheep That Go Astray
Pope Benedict Goes to Washington Ecumenical Meeting at St. Joseph's Church, New York
Orthodox and Catholic Churches are allies, (Orthodox) Bishop Hilarion says
“Of course, we don’t hear of the Catholics who leave the Church for Protestantism.”
Well, if you are Protestant, then you can post your own threads. Feel free, but don’t expect Catholics to post about converts to Protestantism.
Yes, obviously. However, Catholicism and Protestantism aren’t enemies. We are all one Body under the Headship of Christ.
Can I please get on your ping list? I find myself reading an increasing number of your posts...
In case you are wondering, I'm Anglican, but attend a Catholic bible study with several friends, and (not surprisingly) find we agree on most issues.
Thanks,
Paridel
We wouldn't want to hear stories of people who truly got saved.
Post one.
From what I’ve seen, the template is entirely different, as you might expect from people moving from a highly demanding and countercultural early medieval institution to something simple, modern, and democratic.
Of course not. Incidentally, I hardly ever see hostility to the community of faith that Catholic converts left; invariably, conversion is seen as movement from some faith to a completeness of faith. I cannot say the same thing of the converts that move in the opposite direction.
Certainly. Thank you for asking.
Certainly. Thank you for asking.
Hard as I look, I don't see any "problems", -- what he describes is a trully blessed life as a family man and a Christian.
All I'm saying is that it doesn't surprise me. This kind of thing happens all the time with weird outcomes. If he's happy where he is, fine, it's between him and God. However, his basis for theological conversion seems to be one of his own failings - not the fallibility of his former faith.
And of course there are more defections from the Catholic Church to Protestant Churches, so I am not sure what this series if postings is suppose to show.
I have known equal numbers of Catholics, who left the Catholic faith to become Protestants, and Protestants who have left their faith to become Catholics...so my real life experience does not agree at all with your statement....
So I would like to see some facts and evidence to back up your assertion that many more Catholics defect to Protestant churches, than there are Protestants who defect to Catholic churches....
Not that actual numbers mean anything...what does mean something, is who has got their interpretations from the Bible correctly...
However, thanks in advance for any evidence or facts that you can present to prove your point....I like to see such assertions, backed up with facts and evidence, rather than with anecdotal stories, which is frankly, all I have to go on, anecdotal stores from my own life....if I relied on my own anecdotal stories from my own life, I would have to say that defections from Catholic to Protestant, and Protestant to Catholic, are about even, but you seem to state as fact, something quite different...
Also one must take into account that the reasons that one goes from one religion to another, are often many and varied, and are not always based on a newer or different understanding of Scriptures...sometimes the reason for the defection, is actually something quite different...at least, that has been my real life experience, based of course, only on anecdotal stories...
More Hispanics Leaving Catholicism for Evangelical Protestantism
SANTA MARIA (By Stan Oklobdzija, Santa Maria Times) February 20, 2006 — In immigrant communities across the United States, a battle is being waged for the souls of Hispanics - and a distinctly American style of worship is beginning to take hold. According to a landmark study, as many as 600,000 Hispanics in this country leave the Catholic Church every year in favor of Protestant evangelical churches.
Furthermore, of the approximately 30 percent of Hispanics nationwide who identify themselves as non-Catholic, the vast majority are affiliated with an evangelical or “born-again” church. Catholicism remains by far the largest religious denomination for U.S. Hispanics, but because Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, any shift in the way they worship promises to make a huge impact on America's religious landscape. Examples of this trend can be seen in the Santa Maria Valley as small storefront churches pop up in shopping centers and some Catholic priests report the loss of some members of their flocks.
And this site makes the claim, but I don't have access to the source:
Romeward Bound: Evaluating Why Protestants Convert to Catholicism
True, the number of Protestant converts to Catholicism is less than the other way around.[1] And there are less actual converts to Rome today than during previous points in the history of Catholicism.
[1] O'Neill, Dan, editor, "Introduction," The New Catholics: Contemporary Converts Tell Their Stories, (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1989), p. xi.
Being a Baptist ... I have an immediate distrust for a former fellow Baptist who would essentially formulate his theological understanding of basic doctrine (especially in the area of ecclesiology) by translating from the church fathers instead of the Bible.
Agreed!
Thank you for posting these testimonies. I enjoy reading them. They give me great joy. All of these people truly have a love and appreciation for their roots and the faith they left. Tying together Sacred Scripture with the Early Church Fathers brought them to the only logical conclusion. I sometimes envy these people. They had to search. Their knowledge is awesome. Being a cradle Catholic, I take my Faith for granted. We have Bible study at our church, but I wish we had studies of the Fathers as well. We teach the scripture, but ignore the Tradition. When you put them together, as these converts all did, then the picture becomes complete.
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