Posted on 01/22/2012 2:16:36 PM PST by Gamecock
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 This, we sang, was the 'newer rite' that had superseded the former 'types and shadows'.
From Romanism to Atheism
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.
Unyielding spiritual blindness
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).
From darkness to light
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).
It always amazes me that the Catholic church promotes that lie and people believe it.
The OT was recognized and verified as Scripture by Jesus Himself, long before the RCC came into existence. And Paul's writings were recognized as Scripture pretty much at the time they were written.
Given the Bible Canon was complete about the end of the first century and the how the Doctrines of the Catholic Church contradict it (shall I count the ways?) it’s easy to see why credit for it’s existence would be claimed.
Ah...another “poorly catechized” ex-catholic...? It’s amazing to me the number of “poorly catechized” ex-catholics who speak of being convicted by the Holy Spirit. THAT’S why they leave the RCC. Coincidence? You decide.
So what? That is not *writing* the Bible as Catholics claim the RCC did.
They took the old testament books, edited, fact checked, and sorted the new testament books, and compiled what you now know as the bible.
EDITED????? Who the heck do they think they are to *edit* the word of God? How condescending of them to give God breathed, inspired divine revelation their stamp of approval.
Like God couldn't take care of preserving HIS Scripture Himself. What chutzpah.
The protestant movement actually removed some books from the bible which, at that time, was 1500 years old....just what the bible needed..editors!!
And yet in this very same post, you said the RCC edited Scripture. I guess then, it depends on who does the *editing* whether it's good or bad.
How hypocritical.
“The OT was recognized and verified as Scripture by Jesus Himself, long before the RCC came into existence.”
That’d be the Septuagint, given how many times the New Testament quoted from the Septuagint. And as to the latter part of your words, Jesus was the one who created the Roman Catholic Church. So if your statement were accurate (and it isn’t), it would have said The Septuagint was recognized as Scripture by Jesus Himself, before He created the Roman Catholic Church. There. Fixed it for you.
Do you have any proof of this? Of course not. So you slander a pious individual who has given his life for God for over 60 years simply because as a small kid he was conscripted to the army and deserted it on the first opportunity he got. Why not try reading the book for the theological masterpiece that it is.
“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.”
So how the heck did he get through studying the Church Fathers without comparing their writings to Scripture? Calvin himself had great respect for the Church Fathers and their comments on Scripture. It would be impossible to understand the Church Fathers without examining the Scriptures. Oh and one big reason for the study of Greek was to prepare for the reading of Scripture in that language.
“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.”
So how the heck did he get through studying the Church Fathers without comparing their writings to Scripture? Calvin himself had great respect for the Church Fathers and their comments on Scripture. It would be impossible to understand the Church Fathers without examining the Scriptures. Oh and one big reason for the study of Greek was to prepare for the reading of Scripture in that language
Because when you do, you KNOW!!!!
Exactly! It happened to me on 12/24/2010 at a Christmas eve service I was invited to by a friend. It has transformed my life in all the right ways.
The “proof” is in his own autobiography. Why don’t you read it?
But apparently Ratzinger’s own words aren’t enough “proof” for some apologists.
Absolutely right. Peter acknowledges Pauls writings as scripture in 2 Peter.
As compared to the number of poorly catechized Protestants who swim the Tiber?
Furthermore...the catholic church forbid the reading of scriptures..and brought on the Dark ages for such a ban. Additionally bringing into the church heathen practices in order to maintain the power they coveted once Rome fell. And were quick to put the people under bondage and further inflicted all types of atrocities toward it's members if they failed to comply.
Pagan rituals and practices continue to this very day within it's doors and an outright refusal to abide by the absolute clarity of God's Holy word these are not to be done....by their practices and their beliefs they have nullified the very salvation Christ's death, burial and resurrection affords to men. Therefore they keep the souls of men from the very assurance of salvation Christ gives...further adding insult to injury Catholicism teaches it is sinful to “know” ones security rests in Christ.
Catholicism is not even remotely close to the early church they so often claim as their beginning,.....they left and forfeited that years ago and to this day continue to deceive and mis-lead it's members.
No, as opposed to the number of lost souls who have ignored the convicting of the Holy Spirit in favor of works and wafers for salvation.
This from the JewsishVirtualLibrary.org: Nothing about shooting at allied aircraft. You need to call of the slander.
Pope Benedict XVI, officially in Latin Benedictus PP. XVI, born Joseph Alois Ratzinger (Latin: Iosephus Ratzinger) on April 16, 1927, was elected Pope of the Roman Catholic Church on April 19, 2005. As such, he is Bishop of Rome, rules Vatican City and leads the Roman Catholic Church including the Eastern Rite Churches in communion with the Holy See. He will be formally installed as pontiff during the Mass of Papal Installation on April 24.
Early Life
Joseph Ratzinger was born in Marktl am Inn, in Bavaria, Germany, the son of a police officer who was anti-Nazi. In 1937, Ratzinger’s father retired and setled in the town of Traunstein. When Ratzinger turned 14 in 1941, as required by law he joined the Hitler Youth. According to his biographer John Allen he was not an enthusiastic member. He requested to be taken off the rolls and reportedly refused to attend a single meeting.
In 1943, at the age of 16, Ratzinger was, along with the rest of his class, drafted into the Flak or anti-aircraft corps, responsible for the guarding of a BMW plant outside Munich. He was then sent for basic infantry training and was posted to Hungary, where he worked setting up anti-tank defences until deserting in April 1944.
In 1945, Ratzinger was briefly held in an Allied POW camp, where he attended de-Nazification classes. By June, he was released, and he and his brother (Georg) entered a Catholic seminary. On June 29, 1951, they were ordained by Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich. Ratzinger’s dissertation (1953) was on Saint Augustine, his Habilitationsschrift (second dissertation) on Saint Bonaventure. Ratzinger’s supporters say his experiences under the Nazi regime convinced him that the Church had to stand up for truth and freedom.
Ratzinger was a professor at the University of Bonn from 1959 until 1963, when he moved to the University of Münster. In 1966, he took a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, where he was a colleague of Hans Küng but was confirmed in his traditionalist views by the liberal atmosphere of Tübingen and the Marxist leanings of the student movement of the 1960s. In 1969, he returned to Bavaria, to the University of Regensburg, eventually rising to become its dean and vice-president.
At the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), Ratzinger served as a peritus or chief theological expert alongside Justinae Janisch, to Josef Cardinal Frings of Cologne, Germany.
Kevin McGrane needs to be told he is still a Catholic. Just not an active one.
And to you, Mercat, welcome home!
Or “Rome Sweet Home” by Scott and Kimberly Hahn who left the Presbyterian Church for the Catholic Church.
BTW, pray for Scotr Hahn’s health right now.
88Roman 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,**
**EDITED????? Who the heck do they think they are to *edit* the word of God? **
LOL! Who edited the Word of God? Luther, of course,
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