My Journey to Christ

The conversion testimony of Kevin McGrane, elder of Bury St Edmunds Presbyterian church.

I was raised in a Roman Catholic family, my father having been born in Dublin of Roman Catholic ancestry. Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion and Confirmation followed in regular course. After junior education under Ursuline nuns, I moved to a boys' grammar school established by Jesuits. The education was of a high standard (four years of Greek being particularly useful later). However, no student could take an 'O' Level in Religion as every examination board required study of the Bible, which was not permitted. Instead, we were fed a diet of Roman dogma, the sacraments, sacerdotalism, history of the Jesuits, and the Church Fathers. Catechisms instructed that doctrine was not always to be sought in the Bible but in the infallible teaching of the Church. We learned much about Christological heresies, but at no time could we have explained why Christ had died - we supposed that it was that we might have the Mass. Every week the whole school gathered for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, where we worshipped what we were assured was the Lord Jesus Christ, in appearance as a consecrated wafer fixed into a golden sunburst-style monstrance, borne at arms length by a Jesuit priest amidst clouds of incense. This, we sang, was the 'newer rite' that had superseded the former 'types and shadows'.

The great tragedy was that there was never anything more than crumbs of truth to be gathered - a starvation diet of Scripture alongside a surfeit of error. Even my father, who hardly accepted the Vatican II reforms promoting a more enlightened view of the Bible, became critical of this policy when I left the Roman fold. And leave I did. At sixteen, though convincingly devout, I knew this heritage was slipping like sand through my fingers. I had no safe grounds for believing this dogma, and would no longer do so. My parents referred me to the parish priest, who plied me with liquor but could not induce me to recant. For me, the pursuit of truth became an overriding aim, which included opposing error, superstition and hypocrisy. I rapidly drifted into atheism, keenly pointing out to my classmates the unreasonableness of Roman dogma. I refused to attend Mass with my family, or the compulsory Masses at school. I was prepared to accept any sanctions that might be imposed. With regard to truth, I felt this would be found through the scientific enterprise, and thus it was that I became a physics undergraduate at the University of Oxford. It was easier to be a radical atheist at Oxford, away from Roman Catholic pressure, but I was also exposed to those of genuinely Christian convictions: one training for the ministry at Wycliffe Hall; another, John Hughes, a student at my college; and others. I spent many hours discussing theology with them, and also came into contact with the theologian Michael Green, then Rector of St Aldate's. I read books given to me on Christian apologetics, but these, and all the discussions, merely served to sharpen my counter arguments.

Those who knew me as an atheist have spoken of my unyielding spiritual blindness. My response to evangelism was anything but indifference or apathy, more a reaction of fighting fire with fire. I distributed atheistic tracts, and had a determined zeal to promote atheist ideals. I should add that this was not like the contemporary New Atheist brand, which sneers and peddles weak discredited arguments. The likes of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens would have dismayed me as much then as now.

But my faith in science as a path to truth was severely shaken when I discovered at Oxford a systemic corruption in the enterprise. Science had a fatal flaw: human nature. This was a devastating and life-changing experience - the second time the bottom had fallen out of my world. Later, coming to understand more of the philosophy of science, I have never resiled from the stand I took against the corruption of science that I glimpsed at Oxford, and have seen with greater clarity since. As an idealist, perhaps, I had a very high view of the scientific enterprise, but I now see that atheism will eventually destroy it.

After leaving Oxford, I started a job in radar engineering in Chelmsford, and some months later arrived in Southampton to pursue further studies in electronics. Three hours after moving to the city, I was confronted by a Christian couple doing door-to-door evangelism. They asked me where I had studied previously. 'Oxford University,' I replied. 'That's interesting,' said the woman, 'Which college?' 'Hertford College,' I answered. 'Really? Did you know a student there called John Hughes?' 'Yes,' I responded, 'He often came to my room for discussions about Christianity.' 'He's my brother,' she replied. 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!' (Rom. 11:33).

I was invited to attend a course of Bible studies, but the leaders were ill-prepared for presentations of alternative persuasive answers to their questions. They eventually asked me to stop attending Bible studies - I mention this to their shame as well as mine, and as an example never to emulate - one of them stating that I was not interested in truth. Such a statement was quite unfair: was it not precisely because the Apostle Paul understood the implications of Christian doctrine and had a passion for what he believed to be the truth that he was so zealous to extirpate the church? Likewise, I was far from apathetic about truth, and had made bold and difficult adjustments in my life in my search for it. Yet it was a zeal not according to knowledge.

I was angered and stung into reading more Christian apologetics. The arguments seemed no more persuasive than before, but now the Scripture verses underpinning them came to me as hammer blows. Why should those sentences leap off the page like a battering ram against the strongholds of my mind? How could these mere words land such devastating blows? Prayer was being made for me, and the Holy Spirit was convicting me of sin, righteousness and judgment, yet also showing me the way of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ - not through the lens of Roman Catholicism, but through the Word of God. The force of truth was irresistible, and I was granted repentance unto life. 'Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD' (Psa. 25:7).

I was given a Bible that day, which I read avidly, and that week I ventured into a Christian bookshop in Southampton and was amazed at the treasury of books available. The Lord, there and then, gave me a love of Reformed truth, and I was delighted to come away that day with Hodge on The Westminster Confession of Faith, Cunningham on The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, and a Greek New Testament. Before I returned to Chelmsford I had come to Presbyterian convictions, though such was a rather exotic species in those days.

The reaction of my parents was actually somewhat favourable to begin with: to be a Christian was surely better than to be an atheist. But when it began to dawn that this Christianity was decidedly Protestant, and Calvinist, and that I wanted them to know and believe the gospel, then a certain amount of antagonism became evident. My father quite genuinely enquired whether there were as many as twenty persons in the world who could possibly believe such things.

During my time at Chelmsford I regularly studied biblical truth within the framework of the Westminster Confession with Dennis Lewis and John Titcombe (who served as elders in the London congregations of the Free Presbyterian and Free Church of Scotland respectively before their call to be with the Lord), praying that God would again revive a commitment to full-orbed Reformed truth in England, and in Chelmsford in particular. In 1986 I attended the London Presbyterian Conference, which took the first tentative steps towards a Presbyterian denomination. I married and removed to Bury St Edmunds without yet seeing an answer to those prayers for Chelmsford, but God surely answered them by raising up a Presbyterian church in that town and elsewhere within a few years. Indeed, in 1991 my family, with a number of others, were founder members of Bury St Edmunds Presbyterian Church, where I continue to serve as a ruling elder.

'Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen' (Rev. 7:12).

However, no student could take an 'O' Level in Religion as every examination board required study of the Bible, which was not permitted. Instead, we were fed a diet of Roman dogma, the sacraments, sacerdotalism, history of the Jesuits, and the Church Fathers. Catechisms instructed that doctrine was not always to be sought in the Bible but in the infallible teaching of the Church. We learned much about Christological heresies, but at no time could we have explained why Christ had died - we supposed that it was that we might have the Mass. Every week the whole school gathered for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, where we worshipped what we were assured was the Lord Jesus Christ, in appearance as a consecrated wafer fixed into a golden sunburst-style monstrance, borne at arms length by a Jesuit priest amidst clouds of incense. This, we sang, was the 'newer rite' that had superseded the former 'types and shadows'.

I was raised a Roman Catholic, and he is 100% on the mark.

I found Christ in later life, or a better way of saying is that Christ found me.

I’m RC. I took a similar journey as the writer and ended up back in the Church but now read the Bible every day and have gone through it multiple times. I also greatly value the Christian radio I listen to which is all Protestant as well as the devotional daily reader that I use. But I have to be a Catholic. I don’t know whether it is my upbringing but I think it’s probably the Eucharist as well as the Tradition. It’s a bit like CS Lewis saying he had no choice - he had to pray. I’m in the flood and have to swim along as best I can. Mercat stands for Mere Catholicism which is a play on Mere Christianity which I read every year.

It always amazes me that people forget that the Bibke was given to the world by The catholic church....and 400 years went by before the Bible was promulgated as Inspired Scripture. And protestants would have us believe that the Church promulgated a set of letters and books that contradicted its own teachings and practices...not much logic there...sorry

Your logic escapes me. However, I must dispute the statement that the Bible was given to the world by “The catholic church”. This is simply NOT true. First, all scripture is inspired by God. The Greek here states that scripture is inspired or “God breathed”. Scripture comes from God for the benefit of the Church.

The service performed by the church in the early centuries was to attest to those writings which were to be included in the Canon and which were to be discarded. They did not produce the books of the Bible neither was it a popularity contest. Instead, the early churches served as a witness to the authenticity of those letters and books.

In my Sunday school class I circulated three envelopes marked ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’. In two were U.S. dollar bills. In the third was a green piece of paper which had been decorated by my wife to look like an imitation dollar bill. As the class members examined the contents of the envelopes they were able to attest as to the authenticity of the contents of the envelope. They did not add or detract from the authenticity. They merely attested as to which bills were authentic.

In the same manner, the early church witnesses to us as to which manuscripts should be included in the Bible.

As far as the Old Testament goes, it is really audacious for anybody, other than the Jews to take any credit.

Great thread, Gamecock. A Sunday jewel.

we were fed a diet of Roman dogma, the sacraments, sacerdotalism, history of the Jesuits, and the Church Fathers. Catechisms instructed that doctrine was not always to be sought in the Bible but in the infallible teaching of the Church. We learned much about Christological heresies, but at no time could we have explained why Christ had died...

Same old, same old. Missing the point entirely.

Great thread, Gamecock. A Sunday jewel.

Same old, same old. Missing the point entirely.

Liar wrote:

“We learned much about Christological heresies, but at no time could we have explained why Christ had died - we supposed that it was that we might have the Mass.”

So, never once in all those years, in those schools, in those classrooms, from all of those teachers (priests and nuns), and in all those sermons at Mass, this guy is claiming he was never once told “Jesus died for our sins”?

He’s a liar.

I interpret your comment as meaning “your were born again.” Having been raised Protestant and baptized in my mid teens, I considered myself Christian, but it was, in reflection, an ordinary way, with not much affect on my life except as moral code and toward honesty. It was only later, in my late 40s that I came actually understand my Christian faith and what following our Saviour actually means. Thus I consider myself “born again” in the faith, and practice. one can know but not understand.

my, my, my, his logic was perfect. Yes, the bible verses were inspired by God, yes the old testament was Jewish and completely established, and yes, the Catholic Church did not write the bible, but they did compile it. They took the old testament books, edited, fact checked, and sorted the new testament books, and compiled what you now know as the bible. Having done so, they would be pretty obvious if they did not follow, word for word, what they themselves compiled. There were no editors, no protestants to judge, no critics who could stop them, they were pretty much on their own when it came to what would be in the bible and what would not. As the Catholic church grew, is followed the book, which they has compiled, to a "T". ...1,500 years later came the protestants and guess what, they protested the interpretation of the bible by the group that had compiled it. It took about 300 years (we are less removed from the revolutionary war than that) for the bible to be edited, compiled, proof read, whatever...it took until the 1400's before anyone except royalty, major libraries etc. could afford to own a bible (printing press). The Catholic church, through the efforts mostly of her monks, hand copied who knows how many copies of the bible and without their efforts, you wouldn't even know what a bible was. Please do not ever say that the Catholic church is not biblical....they are the ONLY Christian church (not denomination) that is. The protestant movement actually removed some books from the bible which, at that time, was 1500 years old....just what the bible needed..editors!!

That'll happen when you're under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Something I'm afraid that many Catholics cannot understand, having never experienced it.

Because when you do, you KNOW!!!!

It always amazes me that people forget that the Bibke was given to the world by The catholic church.

The absolute epitome of brazen blatant blasphemy.
The WORD of YHvH comes to us from YHvH
not some man-made international cartel.
Seek the face of YHvH in His WORD !

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

The force of truth was irresistible, and I was granted repentance unto life. 'Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD' (Psa. 25:7).
That'll happen when you're under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Something I'm afraid that many Catholics cannot understand, having never experienced it.

Because when you do, you KNOW!!!!

He is indeed wonderful!

He’s a liar.

_______________________________________________________
Perhaps he’s just a very poor student. I don’t believe for an instant that he was prevented from reading a bible during his years in school....what would have been the point. I do believe that he was taught the Catholic interpretation of the scriptures, but that’s because the Catholic church teaches that they are to be considered the authorities on biblican interpretation, and that we are not all free to interpret the bible to our own ends. There are many thousands of protestant denominations based mostly on individual interpretations and most of them slightly differ from each other...sad

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