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 This, we sang, was the 'newer rite' that had superseded the former 'types and shadows'.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).

Sinners In Christ are assured their salvation... for Christ has completed the work necessary for them to be acceptable before a Holy God, other wise His death, burial and resurrection were for nothing at all:

“They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mt. Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even forever” ...(Psalm 125:1-2).

“I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good. I will put my fear in their hearts. They shall not depart from me”.

Our Savior promises,... “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one” (John 10:27-30).

In Romans 8:28-39, the apostle Paul tells us that God is for us in his sovereign providence ...in his saving purpose ..... and in his substitutionary provision.

... And “if God be for us, who can be against us?” “God shall confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”..... (I Corinthians 1:8-9).

“Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (I Thessalonians 5:24).

Read I Peter 1:2-5......

All of these texts of Scripture tell us one thing:.... God’s elect are eternally secure in Christ. They shall never perish. “The foundation of God standeth sure.” Salvation is the work of God alone. And that which God does is done forever ......(Eccles. 3:14).

Wrong...prove the churches of Rome were catholic..... lets use the process of elimination...they weren't Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian,or any of the other 20,000 or so protestant denominations. They were Catholics pure and simple. They called themselves Catholic (universal) before the end of the first century. They indeed, thought of themselves as soon to be worldwide (they knew nothing, of course, of the undiscovered continents on Earth) but they were following the order to spread the word to all nations. They also honored Peter as their leader and he happened to be the leader of the church in Rome....could have been anywhere, God chose Rome. Your protestant denomination, whichever one of the thousands that it is, came along about 1,500 years after the true church of Jesus Christ came into being. I have no idea who you think was there during, and for a century or so after, Christ's life. The apostles, disciples, followers, baptized, were all people who formed the earliest (Catholic) church. If they weren't Catholics, what were they???

you say that they didn't operate exactly as the Catholic church does today.....well, the Catholic church consists of more than a billion members. We've pretty much moved out of the catacombs and put up a few buildings...in virtually every country in the world. The Catholic church is, of course, an organization operated by humans and using human methods to do so. We have buildings, museums, money, art collections, whatever...The Catholic church, unlike most protestant denominations accepts responsibility for her staff members, hence the lawsuits pertaining to errant members of the clergy. You don't sue the Lutheran church, as such, if one of her members does something wrong.You may sue a local congregation, but they don't have the big bucks.

the problem with local assemblies, in this day and age, is that they all tend to do things their own way.(see protestantism)The United States has military posts throughout the world, however, to insure some sense of order, they are all under the direction of one commander-in-chief (unfortunately we have the present one) but you could not have post commanders all doing things their own way. I can attend Mass anywhere in the world and it will be the same. The same readings (different languages of course) but the same message and the same sacraments. It was at one time all the same language, maybe sometime we will return to latin, but that's not important.

Wrong...prove the churches of Rome were catholic

lets use the process of elimination...

.....you have got to be kidding....'Process of elimination' to determine if the churches of rome were catholic or not?????? and your response is avoidng the proof.

The earliest post-apostolic document written by the Roman church, First Clement, contradicts the teachings of today's Roman Catholic Church. It teaches salvation through faith alone,... for example (First Clement, 32).

The Shepherd of Hermas, an early post-apostolic document written by a member of the Roman church, teaches the doctrine of limited penance, which Catholics reject.

Some of the early Roman bishops, such as Leo I, denied that Mary was immaculately conceived.

The earliest generations of Roman Christians were not Roman Catholics.

We are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. Jesus promised that those who believe in Him would NEVER perish. I’ll believe Him over the Catholic church any day.

me too, but if you think that Jesus gave mankind free reign to do whatever they pleased and still be worthy of heaven, I think that you are in for a rude surprise. I agree that mon our own we could never come close to atonement for our sins. Christ came to cover our butts when it came to the sinful nature of mankind....only He could do that. However, that does not give us the authority to do as we please, ignore limits, act as savages. You are saying that Moslem terrorists need not worry because Christ died for all mankind and that they will not be held accountable. I don't think so. I would hate to think that Christianity is so mealy mouthed as to allow any and all behavior and still attain salvation...how about abortion doctors, are they OK because Jesus died for their horrendous sins...I hope not.

Additionally..... There are so many examples of early Christians disagreeing with the Roman church or denying that the Roman church had universal authority,..catholics may suggest that such things were just exceptions to the rule, but the problem is that there's no evidence that the alleged rule existed.

We have example after example of early Christians denying the concept of a papacy, but nobody in the earliest centuries supported the concept...... Denials of the papacy aren't exceptions to the rule in the early church.... They are the rule.... There's no evidence of a papacy existing in the earliest centuries, because there was no papacy at the time.

The Council of Toulouse (1229) and Tarragona (1234) forbade the laity to read the vernacular translations of the Bible

oh please...do you have any idea at all of how few affordable bibles there were in the 1200's...NONE. The opposition for the people to read scripture was based on the fact that there were false versions available and the church, the only protector of the true scriptures, had no qualms whatsoever, in forbidding the reading of any scripture not approved by the church itself. That's how you protect truth, do not allow lies to exist...Good job Catholics!!!!

PiusIV ruled that local priests should first ascertain that the scriptures were true Catholic versions. That was a wise move because there were false versions available. The Catholic church has been around for a long long time, and for the most part, was the sole defender of scripture and the bible...There wasn't anyone else around to do it. Scripture and the entire bible itself did not self preserve. Yes the scripture is God inspired, yes God could have somehow preserved it without the Catholic church....He didn't, He intentionally used the early (Catholic)church to carry His word forward and they did a great job of doing so.

the quotes from any period after the protestant revolution are meaningless. The Catholic church, for over 1,500 years had been the only defender of the word of God. Now along comes Martin and the other "reformers" and they decide to challenge the truth of the church. What would you have done???? We protect the word of God, you may not read anything that contradicts the word of God...in that day and age, that's the way things were done. Now we would experience political correctness and we would scream censorship at the Catholics for not allowing multiple versions of scripture to exist ( wait a minute, that's the protestant revolution)...sorry

The first statement of the New Testament Canon was included in the Easter letter (367 A.D.) of Athanasius. Who was this person? He was the Bishop of Alexandria, NOT Rome. What was going on here? during the first several hundred years of the Church the Bishops of the major churches shared responsibilities. That year it fell to the Bishopric of Alexandria to publish an annual letter to declare when Easter was to be observed. In this letter Athanasius included the first known list of the books of the New Testament Canon.

So the earliest list is not demonstrated to be published by a Bishop of Rome. In fact, it was only well after over 350 years before the Bishop of Rome asserted a preeminent position within the Church.

So yes, the Church compiled the early Canon, but the Church at Rome had the help of churches throughout the Mediterranean; e.g., Alexandria and Carthage.

Pius IV required the bishops to refuse lay persons leave to read .."even Catholic versions of the Scripture",... unless their confessors or parish priests judged that such readings was likely to prove beneficial.’.

‘Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm than good, the matter is in this respect left to the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor, who may with the advice of the pastor or confessor permit the reading of the Sacred Books translated into the vernacular by Catholic authors to those who they know will derive from such reading no harm but rather an increase of faith and piety, which permission they must have in writing.

For real??? Reading the Bible will harm someone?????

All they're afraid of is that whoever reads the Bible will have their eyes opened to the truth (something hearing truth can do for someone) and LEAVE the Catholic church, which tends to happen when one learns the truth.

Truth has this annoying tendency to set people free.

lets use the process of elimination...they weren't Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian,or any of the other 20,000 or so protestant denominations. They were Catholics pure and simple.

That is the lamest reasoning I've seen yet. Process of elimination and viola, MY church is the oldest? FOTFLOL!!!!!!!!!!

It's worthy of this answer.

The oldest denomination is Baptist. You know, John the Baptist? It's even in the Bible.

What Catholics need to unwrap their mind from is that denominations, denominational tags, denominational affiliation, denominational ANYTHING means anything to the true believer in Christ.

They are just convenient labels.

Our identity is who we are IN CHRIST, not what church we’ve been baptized into, what local assembly we happen to attend on Sunday mornings, not who our parents or spouse like, or any such things.

Nothing and nobody saves but Jesus. I am HIS. I belong to HIM not a church. The church doesn’t save, HE does.

me too, but if you think that Jesus gave mankind free reign to do whatever they pleased and still be worthy of heaven, I think that you are in for a rude surprise.

My word. You have GOT to stop believing the lies fed to you by the Catholic church and other Catholic in that area.

Show me ONE poster who holds to that line of thinking. Show me ONE verse in Scripture that supports it.

I can point to plenty of Scripture verses that teach exactly the opposite and plenty of FReepers who will do likewise. Not one of us looks at freedom in Christ as license to sin. Period. I've said it before and posted Scripture to that effect before and I'll do it again if need be for it to finally sink in.

However, that does not give us the authority to do as we please, ignore limits, act as savages. You are saying that Moslem terrorists need not worry because Christ died for all mankind and that they will not be held accountable. I don't think so. I would hate to think that Christianity is so mealy mouthed as to allow any and all behavior and still attain salvation...how about abortion doctors, are they OK because Jesus died for their horrendous sins...

Show me where I said or implied that or admit to bearing false witness. I'll wait for you to provide the link. Or admit that you were wrong.

It teaches salvation through faith alone,...

NEVER in the bible does it say faith alone..In fact somewhere in James, say 3:18 but some men will say thou have faith and I have works, show me thy faith without works , and I will show you my faith by my works. 3:22 seest thou that faith did cooperate with his works and by works faith was made perfect.

would it be that simply saying "I believe" with no responsibility whatsoever for our behavior would gain us eternal salvation??? I think that it is harder than that, At least I hope so or all our efforts at compassion,charity , consideration,love, etc. would be all for naught. Jesus saved us all so we have no responsikbility whatsoever for our salvation...nice thought but wrong.

This comes from not understanding that God is not dealing with nations during this age. No groups, or tribes, or nations. We are looked at as individuals. He is not saving denominations or groups. We each one come to Him as He died for each one of us. That's why genealogies are "foolish" (Titus 3:9). It does no good to group ourselves. The Church the BOdy of Christ is composed of individual believers, joined one by one into the Body of Christ.

He WILL be dealing with nations and tribes and groups again, after the rapture, during the tribulation and Kingdom reign of Christ. But right now, it is about the reconciliation of God and each man. By the finished work of Christ for each man.

For real??? Reading the Bible will harm someone????? All they're afraid of is that whoever reads the Bible will have their eyes opened to the truth (something hearing truth can do for someone) and LEAVE the Catholic church, which tends to happen when one learns the truth.

you are very hard to get through to..the Catholics brought the bible from Christ's time to the present We are not afraid of people reading the bible, we compiled it. Why would anyone who reads the bible that the Catholic church compiled, protected, preserved, copied (by hand) be mislead by its contents...get serious, the Catholics did it, there were no others, for over 1,500 years we were the only ones there...and you doubt our sincerity?????please

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