Hail Mom!
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.
Besides, Augustine accepted the perpetual Virginity of Mary. Was he contradicting himself by holding both Sola Scriptura and that Mary was ever Virgin?
Hail Mom!
I asked you for proof that your position is true. You've asked me for lots of info about what I believe.
Highlight some facts that are incontrovertible.
My heart is always gladdened when I witness a fellow Catholic witnessing so well...<>
Words, words, words. Without meaning, but words nevertheless. Do you get paid by the word?
Just because you do not understand, does not mean there is no meaning there. If I thought it would do any good, I would entertain your questions on this difficult passage I just wrote. But since you show no desire to learn, what is the point?
SD
But it is not so. It is a mistranslation, done because of a deliberate worldview that needs to deny what the Church says.
You can not escape the fact that you do not know Greek, so you can not know what is meant, except for leaning on fallible men to tell you.
What if they are wrong?
And Sola Scriptura disappears in a puff of smoke.
SD
I see hanging out with the Calvinists has really helped you to grow in love.
SD
You can not escape the fact that you do not know Greek, so you can not know what is meant, except for leaning on fallible men to tell you ...... 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:
... with the aid of the Holy Spirit.
Wow! So when you got born again, all of a sudden you knew how to speak Greek?
That's literally incredible.
I have just one question. When another professed "Christian" disagrees with you, is it cause he isn't really being led by the Holy Spirit to truth? Or is it cause one or both of you are displaying your fallibility?
SD
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"...since it is unanimous consent of the Fathers that matters,..." What a joke. Do you have a particularly "Catholic" definition of "Unanimous"?
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Besides, Augustine accepted the perpetual Virginity of Mary. Was he contradicting himself by holding both Sola Scriptura and that Mary was ever Virgin?
Besides, besides, besides. This is not an argument.
You feel you can pick and choose from the writings of the Church Fathers because of a self defined "authority" of the RCC. Be my guest. When all else fails resort to the "authority" ploy.
There is one simple question I asked on Post #341 which you seem to have overlooked however. Even my simple mind would be able to comprehend, I believe- that is - maybe - possibly. Well, in any event, let's try one more time.
#341
(SD) Yes, of course. Except that Stephen got this grace through Baptism and the coming of the Holy Spirit, after being born in the normal state. This was all after the Crucifixion, of course.
(OR) Please show me Scripture where Stephen received his "grace" through Baptism.
Wow! So when you got born again, all of a sudden you knew how to speak Greek?No, ... but the Spirit does, ... and, even better than that, the Spirit knows the EXACT meaning of the passage, and can communicate that meaning to us without using ANY earthly language.
Romans 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
I have just one question. When another professed "Christian" disagrees with you, is it cause he isn't really being led by the Holy Spirit to truth? Or is it cause one or both of you are displaying your fallibility?
It is often because one (or both) of us is not listening closely enough or purely enough (i.e. without other egocentric agendas distorting the Holy Spirit's message).
Or, perhaps, one (or both) of those disagreeing needs additional spiritual maturity before they would be able to comprehend the truth provided by the Spirit. I believe that the Spirit teaches us only what we are ready to be taught. Perhaps we're not ready to receive the information we desire.
But, you know us. Many time we truly do not know what we think we know. Unfortunately, too often, that doesn't keep us from declaring that which we know not.
I believe that it is much more profitable for us to humbly acknowledge our fallibility, ... to know that what we do know is by the grace of God, ... and to earnestly seek what further the Lord has for us as we grow in His grace.
No, thank you. Even if I were to show Stephen being baptized, you would argue that it doesn't impart any grace. So let's not bother.
SD
And then:
It is often because one (or both) of us is not listening closely enough or purely enough (i.e. without other egocentric agendas distorting the Holy Spirit's message).
So the Spirit can communicate the meaning, but we may not be able to listen well enough?
SD
The basic difficulty with Sola Scriptura is that it takes a certain real truth -- that Christ through the Holy Spirit personally teaches us in dramatic ways the meaning of Scripture for me and my life--and then turns that truth concerning my subjective relationship to the Lord into an ECCLESIOLOGICAL principle about the source of the NORMATIVITY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. From the fact that in a subjective encounter with the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit guides me to understand X, it does not at all follow that X is normative doctrine for all other Christians.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.
The Holy Spirit simultaneously guides the the Church Universal, the individual christian, and individual groups of christians. The degrees to which individual christians, christian groups, or the church reflect the teaching of the Holy Spirit derives from the degree that any of these is receptive and obedient to the teaching of the Holy Spirit.
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.
The Holy Spirit's guidance is infallible. Our receptance and obedience to the guidance of the Holy Spirit is fallible because we are fallible. It is only to the extent that we earnestly seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit (i.e. clear our reception of all interfering agendas) that we clearly receive what the Holy Spirit communicates to us.
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.
If two persons, A and B, both claim to be guided by tje Holy Spirit, yet A says "Scripture says X" and B says "Scripture does not say X", there are (2) possibilities. Either one of the two, A or B is mistaken about what the Holy Spirit is saying OR both are mistaken. Any deception or contradiction is on the part of the receiver(s) of what the Spirit is saying.
It is often because one (or both) is not listening closely enough or purely enough (i.e. without other egocentric agendas distorting the Holy Spirit's message).
Or, perhaps, one (or both) of those disagreeing needs additional spiritual maturity before they would be able to comprehend the truth provided by the Spirit. I believe that the Spirit teaches us only what we are ready to be taught. Perhaps we're not ready to receive the information we desire.
But, you know us. Many times, we truly do not know what we think we know. Unfortunately, too often, that doesn't keep us from declaring that which we know not.
I believe that it is much more profitable for us to humbly acknowledge our fallibility, ... to know that what we do know is by the grace of God, ... and to earnestly seek (from God Himself) what further He has for us as we grow in His grace.
James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
(SD) No, thank you. Even if I were to show Stephen being baptized, you would argue that it doesn't impart any grace. So let's not bother.
Your refusal to respond to your dogmatic statement is simply an admission you made it up!
When you make absoloute statements you should be prepared to back them up. You cannot simply assume you won't be called on it.
Are you going to answer the question or are you prepared to admit your statement was made up of whole cloth?
So the Spirit can communicate the meaning, but we may not be able to listen well enough?We may not be able to listen (or understand) well enough (due to spiritual immaturity) OR we may be distorting the Spirit's message in our reception of it, so that it might feed (or protect) our egos, rather than provide us with truth.
James 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.Our call is to grow in His grace, ... to know that what we do know is by His grace, ... and to earnestly seek (from Him) what further He has for us as we grow in His grace.
James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
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