Posted on 11/18/2002 8:34:02 AM PST by pseudo-justin
Church Is Still Attracting Converts
By PAUL LIKOUDIS
A personal note: The phone rang the other day and the gentleman on the other end identified himself as Jim Anderson from the Coming Home Network. He said he had a message from an old high school friend. Who might that be, I asked, and he gave the name: Dion Berlowitz.
Anderson told me the Coming Home Network, with which I was not familiar, helped Protestants come into the Church, and that Dion was on his way in.
I hadn’t heard from Dion in more than a decade, even though we were best friends at Williamsville South High School, outside Buffalo, sharing several interests, including cartooning and comic books. Raised Jewish, Dion became a born-again Christian in his junior year of high school as his parents’ marriage broke up, and spent hours, days, weeks, and months trying to convert me into a Bible-believing Christian.
In 1971, Dion went on to the University of Buffalo to study literature and I went on to Eisenhower College to study history, and our paths never crossed again until a call out of the blue came from him around 1990, when he told me he was a Presbyterian. We have had no further contact since, though I suspect and hope that will change.
In this initial conversation, Anderson told me that so far, this year, the Coming Home Network has helped 94 Protestant ministers of various denominations, along with many other Protestants, come into the Church. Some, like Dion, are on their way in. This is the largest annual crop since the CHNetwork was founded nine years ago.
Here, in a year in which the Catholic Church in the United States and around the world has been wracked by scandals, we do have good news indeed.
+ + +
What would prompt a Protestant, especially a minister with a wife and family, to leave his tradition and often his livelihood to come into the Catholic Church, especially when there are so many broken-hearted Catholics embarrassed by the past ten months of sordid revelations involving clerical sexual abuse, bishops’ resignations, episcopal cover-ups and pay-outs? Not to mention the ongoing abuse of authority by bishops to hammer the lay faithful who object to dissidents and heretics speaking in parishes and education conferences.
"For Protestants," says Jim Anderson, "the scandals are a non-issue. Among the hundreds of people I have talked to who are thinking of coming into the Church, the scandals just aren’t an issue. Of all the people who have contacted me, only three or four have mentioned them, and that was only at my prompting.
"To a man, these men are intellectually convinced that the Church is a divine institution established by Christ, and bishops are only human — and, besides, they say, ‘These things are going on in our own denominations — only in our denomination they are not being addressed.’
"They see this as the Holy Spirit cleaning house. The judgment of the Lord begins with the family of God. They view the present scandals as a terrible tragedy; they want justice like everybody else. But as far as the truth of the Catholic faith is concerned, it is a non-issue. It’s sin; it needs to be addressed. And that’s it.
"These men," he continued, "are educated people. Most have master of divinity degrees and doctorates. They are aware of the problems, but once their hearts are converted and they see the Church as Jesus Christ’s, they know Christ will keep His promise. They have experienced troubles in their own denominations, but they know that when they are in the Church, God will prevail."
On average — based on the first ten months of this year — Anderson hears from a Protestant minister every three days who has made the decision to become Catholic.
Most, he says, are drawn to the Church for two reasons. Either they have come to understand the dead end to which the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura leads, and they want to settle, in their own minds, the issue of authority in the Church; or they have been led to the Church by its doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and they want to receive Jesus.
What many Protestants are coming to understand, even at a time when many Catholics and non-Catholics lament the apparent breakdown of authority in the Church, Anderson explained, is that the Church’s authority "is set by God."
"Those who take their faith and Scripture and God seriously," he said, "see the Catholic Church as being the answer to the chaos of the Protestant condition: Sola scriptura is a dead end, is unhistorical and unworkable. They understand this and so they have a crisis of faith and they enter the Catholic Church. And this is occurring across the Protestant spectrum. A lot of people contacting the Coming Home Network are ‘higher church’ Episcopalians or Lutherans, but we do get calls also from ‘low-end’ Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Assembly of God ministers.
"To speak, as some Catholics do, about a ‘crisis of authority’ in the Church doesn’t make a lot of sense," Anderson said. "There is a ‘crisis of obedience to authority,’ but that has always been the case, just as there has always been a ‘crisis of obedience to the authority of God’ on the part of many men and women. The authority is there, and it is working; it is just not obeyed."
The Coming Home Support Network
The Coming Home Network was founded in 1993 out of the experiences of several Protestant clergy and their spouses. Upon leaving their pastorates to enter the Catholic Church, these clergy and their families discovered they were not alone. To help others come into the Church — and to deal with some of the tremendous personal and professional obstacles they faced — they began the organization as a support network.
Catholics, Anderson suggested, should understand some of the challenges these ministers face once they have made the intellectual decision to "cross over" to Rome.
"They go through tremendous struggles. They think, ‘I’m losing my friends, my family, my community, my church, and people think I’m crazy and I’m apostatizing from Christianity.’ Often the most serious conflict is with spouses, who not only have to deal with the change of religion, but have practical problems as well, such as, ‘What about me and the children?’ ‘How are we going to survive?’ ‘What will our friends think?’ ‘Have I been following the wrong religion all my life?’
"Most of these people have M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees, and so they are not employable in the world. It’s a difficult decision for these men to give up their work, their careers, and their livelihoods. Nevertheless, 94 this year have entered, or are on their way into, the Church."
One former minister, Anderson recalled, gave up his role as a prominent, prestigious minister for his community to work as a greeter at WalMart. For him, the blessing of being able to receive the Eucharist more than compensated for what he had to give up.
Anderson is well-prepared for his work helping Protestants come into the Church. Reared as a Methodist, the 47-year-old Anderson became a Lutheran at 19. As a history major specializing in medieval Europe at Ohio University in Athens, he knew he was on his way into the Church.
Three years after graduating, he entered evangelical Ashland Seminary in 1980, interested in pursuing studies in ecumenical dialog. In his freshman year, he made the decision to join the Catholic Church, and on July 25, 1981, the Feast of St. James, he was confirmed. His wife, Lynn, who entered the Church in 1983, now teaches in a Catholic school.
Contrary to popular stereotypes, he said, the biggest roadblocks would-be converts confront are not such "hot-button" issues as contraception, papal infallibility, or women’s rights, but the Church’s doctrines concerning Mary.
But another obstacle, he said, is "liturgical craziness."
Many Protestants, he said, "are scandalized by the liturgical craziness. They try to get around it by seeking out a Byzantine rite, or seeking out orthodox parishes. And usually, if they come into the Church, having been good Protestants, they have church-hopped enough to have found a parish where they don’t have to deal with abuses."
But, he added, many look beyond the abuses, because "they are attracted to Christ in the liturgy. For a lot of the converts, there are many who have intellectually convinced themselves already that they must join the Church before they ever attended Mass. And when they finally start going to Mass, often there is a culture shock, especially if they come from a small, intimate, loving Baptist church, and go into a parish of 2,000 people who aren’t particularly friendly. So there is this bit of culture shock — and that doesn’t include the shock of liturgy."
Asked to name the leading intellectual sources Protestants are reading to find their way into the Church, Anderson named familiar names.
"The intellectual sources are, certainly, Cardinal Newman, G.K. Chesterton, Bishop Fulton Sheen, Scott Hahn, and Catholic Answers.
"But most often, it is the fathers of the Church. When Protestant ministers encounter the fathers, they realize they were lied to and betrayed, because they were taught the Protestant Reformation cleansed Christianity of the barnacles on the Barque of Peter and the Reformers recovered ancient Christianity. Then they go back and read the apostolic fathers, especially Ignatius of Antioch who is preaching the Real Presence, the authority of bishops, and all these many Catholic things, and the conclusion is the words of Jesus, who says: ‘I will be with you always.’
"Either Jesus kept His promise, or the Church went to Hell in a hand basket after the death of St. John.
"When they start studying the early Church fathers, they are blown out of the water."
Solid Apologetics
The Coming Home Network’s executive director is former Presbyterian minister Marcus Grodi, who, captured the feeling and beliefs of many fellow Protestants who came into the Church in his book, Journeys Home (Queenship Publishing 1997).
"[T]he biggest thing that opened my heart to the truth of the Catholic faith was not all the apologetic arguments that convinced me of the trustworthiness of Catholic truth, but the realization that the Catholic Church, with all of her saints and sinners, was exactly what Christ had promised.
"The majority of complaints against the Catholic Church over the centuries have been aimed at the decisions and actions of bad Popes, or immoral clergy, or ignorant laity, or corrupt Catholic nobility, and the correct answer to this is, ‘But, of course! The Church is made up of wheat and tares, from the bottom to the top, sinners in need of grace! This is no reason to leave and form a new church, for any church made up of human beings is made up of sinners.’
"All true conversions to the Catholic faith from any other starting point carry with them complications, primarily because this conversion must be rooted in and thereby an extension of one’s conversion and surrender to Christ. If becoming a Catholic does not involve this, I don’t believe it is a true conversion. It might be a change of convenience or even possibly for some sort of personal gain or aggrandizement.
"But only when one recognizes or painfully discovers that to be fully a follower of Jesus Christ, and thereby have the full potential of growing in union with Him, one must also be in union with the Church He established in and through His Apostles, can one be truly converted.
"These conversions by definition must involve some extent of leaving behind and rejecting part of what a person once held very dear. Some things can be joyfully brought along, others can be cautiously tolerated, but yet there are ideas, practices, and sometimes even relationships which must be severed.
"It of course never means that we cease to love those we may need to leave behind, or who choose to turn their backs on us. In fact, we are called all the more to shower our now confused or indignant friends and family with the all-forgiving, all-accepting love of Christ. However, we must not let the emotional trajectories of our loving glances turn our attention off of the fullness of truth found only in union with the Catholic Church."
For more information about the Coming Home Network, go to its web site, www.chnetwork.org, or call 740-450-1175.
You are free to believe whatever you want. I agree to disagree.
Old Reggie pulls out the old verse, answered a million times over:
Romans 3: [23] since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Obviously, the all does not apply to Jesus Christ. Therefore, even you, Old Reggie, admit an exception to the subject term 'all' here. Are there any other exceptions? Yes, Mary. Why do we think so? Because her proper name is "full of grace", as the angel names her in LK 1:28. (Catholics please note that the Scriptural expression is not Hail Mary... but simply "Hail, full of grace". DO not confuse the prayer's form with the Scripture's) Can you tell me anyone else whose proper name is kecharitomene? You know how significant proper names are in Scripture don't you? Proper names, more than any sort of description, reveals a person's identity and character. That is why name changes are so important, and even the name "jeshua" is a perfect summary of Christ's life, person, and mission. Do you know that the grammar of the Greek term kecharitomene implies both intensity and complete duration? A different term is used when speaking of Stephen (Acts 6:8), and it is not used as a proper name but adjectivally. Mary is the women whose very name is full of grace. Why did the Greek speaking Christians begin to honor Mary as sinless but not Stephen? Because they knew there was a differnce in the meaning of the Greek between these two passages. If the Greeks did not get confused over it, why raise confusion where there is none?
I have provided Scripture which states clearly all have sinned. I urge you not to insist that ALL means ALL otherwise Christ has sinned too. Let us agree instead that the supposition of "all" here is exceptive -- we often use the term “all” when we mutually understand that there are exceptions and what they are. Nobody gets confused, that is the way language works.
Now, I have a question for you. Notice, please, that in the Old Testament, whenever an angel encounters a human, the human salutes the angel saying "Hail", the human always defers respectfully the the angelic. But in the encounter between Mary and the angel, the angel salutes the human saying "Hail". Why the reversal in who gives honor to who? Why, instead of the human saluting the angel, do we suddenly have an angel saluting a human? This is NOT meant to be any sort of proof, it is just meant to show that the Catholic doctrines afford greater explanatory power of the innumerable details of Scripture than does Protestant downsizing...
<> Have you folks excommunicated this fella?<>
Catholic prayer NOT a direct greek scriptural rendering
Youngs literal translation
And the messenger having come in unto her, said, `Hail, favoured one, the Lord [is] with thee; blessed [art] thou among women;'
No peg because Scripture interprets scripture
There is no scripture indicating Mary was sinless.. Hbr 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as [we are, yet] without sin.
Hbr 9:28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
Then what are we doing here? -:)
Please see pseudo-justin’s post #322.
So this "Young" guy is like your pope then? Whatever he says, you believe?
SD
Now, I have a question for you. Notice, please, that in the Old Testament, whenever an angel encounters a human, the human salutes the angel saying "Hail", the human always defers respectfully the the angelic.
Old Testament citations please. Of course, in the New Testament Jesus says "hail" to the women. Do you suppose he was deferring respectfully to the women? Matthew 28:9. Of course not. He was merely greeting them.
Also, you say I check myself my comparing my interpretations with (a) other scripture, (b) other interpretations. If my interpretation is seriously different, then I need some clear and compelling reason for disagreeing. It sounds simple enough of a method, but it is in fact seriously deficient for the following reasons:
1.) You are fallible.
2.) You are limited in your intellectual capacities.
3.) You are sinful, as am I, with a tendency to rationalize.
4.) You need to have your mind continuously renewed by grace
5.) You need to constantly develop your own thinking
6.) You are confronted with a text that has the following properties
a. Written in a foreign language
b. In a foreign culture,
c. with foreign presuppositions
d. with foreign narrative habits
e. with foreign interpretative habits
f. having prima facie internal inconsistencies
g. Susceptible to multiple, conflicting interpretations
h. Having disputed canons, translations, and original wording
i. Proposing mysteries that surpass perfect comprehension
j. About the things most difficult of all to understand clearly
k. That has been thought about continuously by millions of people
l. Each of whom has had personally nuanced readings
7.) You have limited time for study and prayer over the texts.
8.) It is impossible for you to read every argument, counterargument, objection and reply that has ever been offered in interpretative conflicts.
9.) It is impossible for you to read MOST of what has been written about the Scriptures. You could hardly read all of Augustine, nonetheless Chrysostom, Leo, Gregory, etc. We have not even begun to talk about modern commentaries.
10.) It is impossible for you to master all the relevant theology and philosophy.
Given facts 1 – 10, how much confidence should anyone have in the method by way of which you arrive at your understanding of what Scripture means? And how in the world do you ever expect to secure unity of doctrine among Christians with such a method?
Furthermore,how would you answer a fellow Protestant minister who aregued this way: Either your understanding of Scripture is normative for other Christians or it is not normative for other Christians. If it is, then you are setting yourself up as an authority over the text. You are attributing to yourself the same authority that the Catholic Church attributes to herself. But if your understanding of Scripture is not normative for other Christians, then why should I consider myself beholden to your judgment that I am putting forward a non-Scriptural or anti-Scriptural teaching. It is not as if your understanding of Scripture, or anyone else's is NORMATIVE FOR ME. So why shouldn't I go on proposing my interpretation of Scripture as the true one, despite the fact that you think it is heretical?
In all seriousness, did you read this word for word? If so, were you impressed?
It seems you do not want to contemplate grace, yet you somehow manage to understand being full of it.
SD
1. all have sinned
2. Jesus did not sin
I believe that both 1 and 2 are true. I take it that you also believe that both 1 and 2 are true. Now, unless we can come up with an interpretation of 1 such that 1 does not imply
3. Jesus sinned
then both you and I are committed to believing a contradiction. My solution is to say that 1 is true provided that the term "all" be taken with at least one exception. For suppose we mean "all without exception". If all without exception have sinned, then Jesus Christ has sinned. But we agree that Jesus Christ has not sinned. Therefore, it is not the case that all without exception have sinned. Rather, all, with at least one exception, have sinned. Get it?
Let us do it a different way. What do you say to an atheist who charges that the Bible contains the following contradiction about Jesus Christ:
a.Rom 3:23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Therefore, all humans have sinned.
b.Hbr 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as [we are, yet] without sin.Therefore, some human has not sinned.
Therefore, all humans have sinned and some human has not sinned.
Therefore, this Bible of yours is a load of crap.
I actually did. More or less. I tailed off a bit near the end.
The article tends to lay out the idea well enough. That the IC is consistent with Scripture, or at least is not inconsistent with it. And that someone who accepts only doctrine that is explicit in Scripture will never be satisfied with this.
Actually, I was expecting someone to come in with an "A HA! So you admit that the doctrine is not found in scripture!"
It is hinted at, but even accepting that "full of grace" means without sin, there is nothing in Scripture which says this was from Mary's conception, only that at that point when she was addressed she was full of grace.
It always, always, as always, comes down to a question of authority. Which infallible man do you trust, the old Polish guy in Rome, or yourself?
SD
BTW, that was a deliberate softball pitched your way. I thought you might have some fun with it. :-)
SD
Perhaps with the aid of the Holy Spirit ?John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;17 [Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
John 14:25 These things have I spoken unto you, being [yet] present with you.
26 But the Comforter, [which is] the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, [even] the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
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