Posted on 10/08/2014 11:39:09 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
Why would intelligent, successful people give up their careers, alienate their friends, and cause havoc in their families...to become Catholic? Indeed, why would anyone become Catholic?
As an evangelist and author who recently threw my own life into some turmoil by deciding to enter the Catholic Church, I've faced this question a lot lately. That is one reason I decided to make this documentary; it's part of my attempt to try to explain to those closest to me why I would do such a crazy thing.
Convinced isn't just about me, though. The film is built around interviews with some of the most articulate and compelling Catholic converts in our culture today, including Scott Hahn, Francis Beckwith, Taylor Marshall, Holly Ordway, Abby Johnson, Jeff Cavins, Devin Rose, Matthew Leonard, Mark Regnerus, Jason Stellman, John Bergsma, Christian Smith, Kevin Vost, David Currie, Richard Cole, and Kenneth Howell. It also contains special appearances by experts in the field of conversion such as Patrick Madrid and Donald Asci.
Ultimately, this is a story about finding truth, beauty, and fulfillment in an unexpected place, and then sacrificing to grab on to it. I think it will entertain and inspire you, and perhaps even give you a fresh perspective on an old faith.
(Excerpt) Read more at indiegogo.com ...
There is no mystery except why what church they identify is critical as to the issue, as it has to do with a distinctive view of Scripture and the conservative views that accompany it, and which transcends denominations, so that even Catholics who hold to the view of Scripture that is typical of evangelicals are as conservative as they are, yet that is a minority view among Catholics.
As i recall the "evangelical" classification is based upon their self identification, but typically they equate “born again” with “evangelical,” or they are classed based upon a basic doctrinal criteria (Barna ) or the doctrinal position of their denomination, or less
Catholics can also be divided into classes of weekly attendees or Traditional Catholics, versus Catholics in general, or as Orthodox Catholic versus Rome Catholic.
Given that the Apostles remained in unity and are fulfilled by the earlier parts of this prayer, how do you reconcile the latter portion, especially if one supplants the Catholic Church and replaces it with X number of names who are not in communion with each other ? Did Jesus prayer fail for all these centuries (I speak as a man, God forbid; Jesus never fails) ?
The apostles did remain in overall unity, if not without conflict, which was also seen among the churches along with errors in doctrine and practice, (Acts 15:36-39; Gal. 2:11-14; Rv. 2,3) while comprehensive doctrinal unity in the depth it can go into was ever a goal not fully realized.
Moreover, Rome today can hardly be described as one, since Rome's unity is limited and largely on paper. For not only can Catholics disagree with each other, and do, but they also testify to disagreeing with their church more than most, and whom Rome treats as members in life and in death.
And as what you do and effect constitutes the evidence of what you do, (Mt. 7:20; Ja. 2:18) thus what Rome really believes is that immoral and heretical views are to be allowed, and as long they die a Catholic no real concern is shown. It is only when a Ted Kennedy Catholic becomes an evangelical that real alarm is raised, as the preeminence of Rome is the primary concern.
Rome has organizational unity, but so do cults, and under the sola ecclesia model the problem of errant personal interpretation can be expanded to corporate error. Obeying the pope can mean torture of suspected dissenters and even witnesses, as well as believing fables not seen in Scripture.
In the light of the above realities, the meaning of "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me," must be examined.
This cannot mean full ecclesiastical unity which the visible church never had for long, and which the world will use as reason not believe Christ. Nor can it mean organizational unity of the visible church, as a church can have such and be dead.
But what is most essentially mean is the supernatural "unity of the Spirit" (Eph. 4:3) resulting from regeneration, with unity in core salvific Truths which are necessary for it. Only upon that can "they may be made perfect in one" be realized, which is yet a goal in much universality.
It is only those who are born again thru casting whole-hearted repentant faith upon the mercy of God in Christ, trusting the risen Divine Lord Jesus to save them by His sinless shed blood, (Rm. 3:9 - 5:1) that have Christ in them and they in Christ, which answers to the Father being in Christ, and Christ in the Father. And which unique "unity of the Spirit" is seen most among born again evangelicals, being due to a common conversion and relationship with Christ, and which is greater than their differences as seen in the many diverse evangelical ministries that transcend denominations.
Last night i went to a Spanish service in a house that i was invited to, from a evangelical church i new nothing of, yet we had blessed worship, prayer, testimony of Christ's working and fellowship, a spiritual unity around Christ being exalted as the one who saved us and with (translated) Bible teaching. Bless God.
An Evangelical meets another one who has realized regeneration with its profound effects and realizes a spontaneous fellowship around the person of Christ, with the church they go to being peripheral. This is still relative remnant, but which fellowship i have rarely realized with Catholics.
The famous Evangelical preacher Charles Spurgeon states regarding Jn. 17,
In all the truly Elect children of God who are called, and chosen, and faithful, there is a bond of Divine mysterious Love running right through the whole, and they are one and must be one, the Holy Spirit being the life which unites them.
There are tokens which evidence this union, and prove that the people of God are one. We hear much moaning over our divisions. There may be some who are to be deplored among ecclesiastical confederacies, but in the spiritual Church Unity in Christ of the Living God, I am really at a loss to discover the divisions which are so loudly proclaimed. It strikes me that the tokens of union are much more prominent than the tokens of division.
But what are they? First there is a union in judgment upon all vital matters. I converse with a spiritual man, and no matter what he calls himself, when we talk of sin, pardon, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and such like themes, we are agreed. We speak of our blessed Lord. My friend says that Jesus is fair and lovely - so do I. He says that he has nothing else to trust to but the precious blood; nor have I anything else. I tell him that I find myself a poor, weak creature; he laments the same. I live in his house a little while - we pray together at the family altar, you could not tell which it was that prayed, Calvinist or Arminian, we pray so exactly alike, and when we open the hymn book, very likely if he happens to be a Wesleyan he chooses to sing, "Jesus, lover of my soul." I will sing it, and then next morning he will sing with me, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me." If the Spirit of God is in us, we are all agreed upon great points.
...leave the letter and get to the spirit, crack the shells and eat the kernel of spiritual truth, and you will find that the points of agreement between genuine Christians are something marvelous. But this union is to be seen most plainly in union of heart . I am told that Christians do not love each other. I am very sorry if that is true, but I rather doubt it, for I suspect that those who do not love each other are not Christians. Where the Spirit of God is there must be love, and if I have once known and recognized any man to be my Brother in Christ Jesus, the love of Christ compels me no more to think of him as a stranger or foreigner, but a fellow citizen with the saints...
Believers address the Throne of Grace in the same style, whatever may be the particular form which their Church organization may have assumed. So is it with praise . There, indeed, we are as one, and our music goes up with sweet accord to the Throne of Heavenly Grace. Beloved, we are one in action; true Christians everywhere are all doing the same work. Here is a Brother preaching; I do not care about that white thing he has on, but if he is a genuine Christian, he is preaching Christ Crucified; and here am I, and he may not like me because I have not that white rag on, but still I delight to preach Christ Crucified. When you come to the real lifework of the Christian, it is the same in every case, it is holding up the Cross of Christ! - http://www.ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons12.titlepage.html
“Oh,” you say, “but there are many Christians in the world preaching this and that and the other.” I am saying nothing of them or about them; I am saying nothing about their ecclesiastical belongings; I am saying nothing about those who merely cling to the Church; I am speaking of the Elect , the precious ones, the simpleminded Christ-taught men and women, and their motive of action is the same, and there is among them a true union which is the answer to our Lord’s prayer. He did not plead in vain—what He sought He has obtained—and the truly quickened are this day one, and shall evermore remain so.
Although upon doctrines of grace our views differ from those avowed by Arminian Methodists, we have usually found that on the great evangelical truths we are in full agreement, and we have been comforted by the belief that Wesleyans were solid upon the central doctrines.
Now I hate High Churchism as my soul hates Satan; but I love George Herbert, although George Herbert is a desperately High Churchman. I hate his high Churchism, but I love George Herbert from my very soul, and I have a warm corner in my heart for every man who is like him. Let me find a man who loves my Lord Jesus Christ as George Herbert did, and I do not ask myself whether I shall love him or not; there is no room for question, for I cannot help myself; unless I can leave off loving Jesus Christ, I cannot cease loving those who love him. (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 12, p. 6; http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols10-12/chs668.pdf)
While i was raised devout RC, it was only at age 25 that i became manifestly born again at age 25 and realized its profound heart and life changes (and no, i was not a drug addict). Even nature seemed new to me. Yet my sense of sin was even greater. I hungered to know how to please God from the Bible, wanted to talk about Jesus much, and sought fellowship with RCs at weekly mass, but only a couple wanted to, or could even share with the basic changes God mercifully wrought in me (not that i thought or think i "arrived", but much the opposite).
I found more life in a Catholic charismatic group, which were marginalized by the hierarchy and made to join a social gospel "peace and justice" work of nuns who likely had too much time on their hands, while the group were still too tied to traditions of men. Meanwhile i was trying to share my faith, if not boldly, and for want of fellowship i finally reverently prayed to God that if it was His will for me to go to another church then He would do so. And which was answered the next day in a very manifest way, and which journey to evangelical faith the Lord has only confirmed, despite me.
And it was when i met or meet another believer who has met Christ via the basic transformative regeneration that i found and find fellowship of life with life.
Certainly strong evangelicals can easily find disagreement, much because they are more intent on doctrine than your typical Catholic, and thus the strongest divisions within Rome is due to Catholics who also are more intent on doctrine than your typical Catholic,
But this does not mean that holding Scripture supreme and sufficient does not enable the basic unity of Jn. 17:21,22, of Christ in them and they in Christ, and which testifies to the world of a supernatural cause, though they world did not see full unity in the NT church for long..
But this regeneration excludes most RCs, as for one, their regeneration is based upon the false premise that infant sprinkling effects regeneration, and thereby justification on the basis of their own holiness (infused charity), thus making them fit to enter Heaven, thus usually culminating with suffering in purgatory to once again become good enough (and atone for sins) to enter Heaven.
In addition, unity under the Roman model for it, while more conducive to it, is not Scriptural, as it places the church as the supreme infallible authority (sola ecclesia), not Scripture, and which sola ecclesia model is what most cults essentially operate out of, and which is why the greatest degree of unity is found among them.
But the church did not begin or operate under that, as instead the church actually began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses, and instead they followed an itinerant Preacher who established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis.
And the level of attestation in word and in power the apostles manifested made it unmistakable that they and their message were of God,
Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses...,
By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, (2 Corinthians 6::3-4,6-7)
Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. (2 Corinthians 12:12)
And thus we saw the degree of unity the NT church had, which was not universal for long, and as with Moses, manifest apostleship did not prevent many from following "false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ" (2Co. 11:13) which is what Rome's "apostles" are, lacking both the qualifications (Acts 1:21,22; 1Cor. 9:1; Gal. 1:11,12) and credentials of apostles.
Protestantism also lacks such apostles, and so if it was only with difficultly that the NT church had its level of enduring unity, lacking such apostles today it is no surprise that today we see more disunity. The body of Christ is alone the one true church as it alone is made of 100% believers, yet these exist in tribes, and the scope and degree of disunity is a judgment against the church for lack of such apostles. If the apostles of Scripture came back today it would be the evangelicals who followed them most, as they are most intent upon doing so according to what we know they taught thru what is written, while the apostles would shake their head in dismay at what Rome has adopted under the premise of amorphous oral tradition being the word of God when they say it is.
For indeed, as said, Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
And the RC argument is that an assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium is essential for determination and assurance of Truth (including writings and men being of God) And that being the historical instruments and stewards of Divine revelation (oral and written) means that Rome is that assuredly infallible magisterium.
But which presuppositions are as invalid Scripturally as the premise of a perpetual assuredly infallible magisterium, and along with other unscriptural novelties it much renders Rome to be an invisible church in the NT, following of which is to be avoided to follow Christ.
True; but there IS a limit to how many fingers a fella can have cut off!
No donkeys in Heaven?
RATS!
Mormon ALSO make this claim: "We have His name on all of our buildings!"
But when you actually see what they PRACTICE; things are quite a bit different.
All their meeting houses have Moroni on the steeple; and THAT is a high point in their doctrine.
*for some reason; he's NOT on the steeple on the building just south of the Santa Clara volcano...
37° 14' 57" N
113° 37' 22" W
Burning brimstone isn’t...
Mary is dead.
So you are claiming that Mary is a MACHINE?
do you have any idea of how many people personally witnessed miracles while the children witnessed their apparition???? Tens of thousands....close enough for me!
http://www.bing.com/search?q=false+miracles&src=IE-TopResult&FORM=IETR02&conversationid=
close enough for me!
I know...
The angel said it ONCE.
kind of sounds like the biblical words of the angel, doesn't it???
Hail Mary... Mother of GOD sounds NOTHING like biblical words!
He has about 6 pictures.
Wait for them...
there was a Saturday evening Mass, and probably at least three more on Easter morning. How many attended each one?
no wonder you ARE A Catholic, you don't believe the very words of Christ....how sad.
But my reply is, "As long as I keep getting new audiences; I can use the same old stuff."
N's problem is that the SAME audience has seen his stuff a zillions times!
So; you are mindreading the AM's reasoning?
Sorry; but your fellow travelers keep INSISTING that the words spoken by Jesus are LITERAL and keep repeating what He said.
I'll mock your churches teaching about them as often as I am allowed to.
Will I end up in an orange jumpsuit, in a YouTube video someday; without a head?
Possibly; should I live that long.
Revelation 20:4
I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God.
Jesus can turn water into wine. And wine into blood.
It's a REALLY good argument about the effectiveness of Catholic teaching!!!
I wonder about the LOSERS in the vote for pope that got these sinners elected as head of your chosen religion.
Were there any MITTbots of their day, complaining that if ONLY they'd voted for the OTHER guy; we'd not have the Obama-pope that got elected!
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