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.
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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.
Mary got the grace before the Crucifixion (in time, anyway). She was full of grace before Jesus was even born, when the Annunciation of His Birth was made.
Same effect - sinlessness; different instrument - Baptism versus IC; same source - Crucifixion.
Words, words, words. Without meaning, but words nevertheless. Do you get paid by the word?
Well when FR was on its break I used a new product to repair a problem with my sprayed ceiling..other than that we is hanging out :>)
I sleep on it and leave my questions with the Lord, not any man.
Do you have a problem with a word for word literal translation?
Here are some standard translations New American Standard.
.Luk 1:28 And coming in, he said to her, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.
Websters Translation
Luk 1:28 And the angel came to her, and said, Hail, [thou that art] highly favored, the Lord [is] with thee: blessed [art] thou among women.
Revised Standard
Luk 1:28 And he came to her and said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!
King James
Luk 1:28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, [thou that art] highly favoured, the Lord [is] with thee: blessed [art] thou among women.
5487 charitoo {khar-ee-to'-o}
from 5485; TDNT - 9:372,1298; v
AV - be highly favoured 1, make accepted 1; 2
1) to make graceful
1a) charming, lovely, agreeable
2) to peruse with grace, compass with favour
3) to honour with blessings
So I agree that the Holy Spirit can and does guide individual readers to grasp things from the Scriptures, but I deny that such subjective encounters issue in doctrines that are NORMATIVE for other Christians. What is it that confers normativity for others upon what the Holy Spirit leads you to see? There needs to be an ECCLESIAL guidance as well. The Holy Spirit must guide the Church as a whole in the same way it guides this or that joe.
Besides, how do you deal with the following. Either you are infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit or you are fallibly guided. If you say that you are infallibly guided, then you attribute to yourself the very attribute you deny to the Catholic Church. Why should we think that you are infallible? If you are fallibly guided by the Holy Spirit, then certainly what you discover is not normative for others, and we are back to the questions I raised to xzins in the first place.
Lastly, two people, A and B, both claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, A says "Scripture says X" and B says "Scripture does not say X" Somebody is getting deceived unless the Holy Spirit is speaking contradictions. Now what should I do? Please don't tell me to pray and study, or we are back to where we started in teh first place.
Hail
5463 chairo {khah'-ee-ro} a primary verb; TDNT - 9:359,1298; v
AV - rejoice 42, be glad 14, joy 5, hail 5, greeting 3, God speed 2, all hail 1, joyfully 1, farewell 1; 74
1) to rejoice, be glad
2) to rejoice exceedingly
3) to be well, thrive
4) in salutations, hail!
5) at the beginning of letters: to give one greeting, salute
I do not see anything there about having to be sinless to have Hail said to you..Hey, Hail Reggie
I do not understand what you mean?
Hail Mom!
Funny I thought Catholics believed that Jesus was God..but I guess you are willing to trade that off unless we make Mary a godess for ya
really? LOL
He is certainly not paid by the scripture or his family would starve
The Mormons also believe in the burning breast means of authority..and they have added to scripture too...and they have a heavenly Mother..you guys may have more in common than ya think
I see you guys are whipping out your dictionaries for kecharitomene, as if the dictionary could settle the question. Do any of you realize that dictionaries give the meanings of a word but are not suffficient to express the essence of the reality signified by the word? Dictionaries can tell me what the word "water" means, but do not tell me what the very nature of water really is. For the latter, I need to pass beyond the meaning of the word to the grasp what is not in the word but in the thing signified by the word -- nature of the thing. Now, the dictionaries can tell us no more than what the word kecharitomene means, but it does not tell us what kecharitomene IS precisely when applied to Mary.
Why MUST we say that the reality signified by kecharitimone is nothing but the meaning of the word? If that standard were applied to any other passage of Scripture, the words God has given us in Sccripture would be emptied of their power to convey anything more than what dictionaries can inform us of Scriptures' sayings -- and that would be impoverished indeed.
I do not understand what you mean?
I'm sorry. It was an article posted by CatholicGuy.
"The argument was not, technically, that Mary's name was changed; just that she was called this name by an angel (in the sense of a title, or additional identifier), and that that act could not possibly be without significance, in the Hebraic (and biblical) worldview. Consider this analogy: "If Jesus' name was 'Prince of Peace' [Isaiah 9:6] why is He called 'Jesus' in most places He is mentioned in the NT?"
If I recall, you say her name is changed to "Full of Grace". The author indicates it was a one time thing.
If I have misinterpreted your belief just forget the whole thing and write it off to a rambling from a silly old fool. If you believe her name is changed we can pursue the subject further. OK?
In any event, I will accept a few words of wisdom from Augustine.
ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO* (354-430)
"In those things which are clearly laid down in Scripture, all those things are found which pertain to faith and morals." (De Doct. Chr. 2:9)
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"Whatever you hear from them [the Scriptures], let that be well received by you. Whatever is without them refuse, lest you wander in a cloud." (De Pastore, 11)
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"All those things which in times past our ancestors have mentioned to be done toward mankind and have delivered unto us: all those things also which we see and deliver to our posterity, so far as they pertain to the seeking and maintaining true religion, the Holy Scripture has not passed over in silence." (Ep. 42)
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"Whatever our Saviour would have us read of his actions and sayings he commanded his apostles and disciples, as his hands, to write." (De Consensu Evang. 1:ult)
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Let them [the Donatists] demonstrate their church if they can, not by the talk and rumor of the Africans; not by the councils of their own bishops; not by the books of their disputers; not by deceitful miracles, against which we are cautioned by the word of God, but in the prescript of the law, in the predictions of the prophets, in the verses of the Psalms, in the voice of the Shepherd himself, in the preaching and works of the evangelists; that is, in all canonical authorities of the sacred Scriptures. (De Unit. Eccl. 16)
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"This Mediator [Jesus Christ], having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical, which has paramount authority, and to which we yield assent in all matters of which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves."
St. Augustine, quoted from his City of God, book XI, Chapter 3.
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