(Protestant) Minister Who Had Near-Death Episode Believes In Purgatory

Spirit Daily ^ | 2005 | Michael Brown

[churchillbuff]

Howard Storm, a former atheist whose brush with death turned him into a Protestant minister, says that he now believes in purgatory.

"It only makes sense," he says, "but I have trouble discussing this with my fellow ministers."

Featured here a couple months ago and also on MSNBC during Easter Week -- where he told his incredible story to a national audience -- Reverend Storm, considered by experts as one of the most convincing near-death cases, recounted his "dying" in Paris in 1985 from a perforated duodenum and after leaving his body finding himself with a group of hideous beings who attacked him as they led him to a foggy zone that descended toward "hell."

Storm says he was saved by Jesus after desperately pleading to God. After an extensive hospitalization he recovered -- and learned that a nun who had once been a student of his had been praying for him for years.

Storm credits that with saving him; after the episode he left his job as an professor at Northern Kentucky University and entered a seminary, becoming a minister.

He is now with the Zion United Church of Christ in Norwood, Ohio (near Cincinnati), and while some churches in that denomination can be ultra-liberal, he openly preaches against abortion and the New Age.

Still, we try to be careful with these cases, and we always issue the disclaimer that we can't endorse every view of such experiencers -- some of whom tend at times to put their own (and sometimes a nearly New Age) spin on what occurred. Like any form of mysticism, it is to be carefully discerned.

This is true in the case of Reverend Storm -- who himself acknowledges that some of his views have shifted since he became an active Christian ( including a few expressed in a book which was written before his faith was fully formed). These episodes are told through the filter of a person's framework.

But he is a man who exudes love (the single most important element of Christianity); many believe his experience was real; and he says he now believes not only in heaven and hell but also a state in-between where souls are "purged."

After his horrifying brush with death the concept of purgation was explained to him by a priest, says Reverend Storm, and "just rang so clear to me in my experience."

He says that when he "died" he was taken through a "foggy" region strikingly similar to what has been described in mystical literature [see An Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory] -- and also similar to descriptions by modern visionaries who have told of a great "gray" area between hell and heaven.

Although a devout Protestant, Storm says that he considers Catholicism "the Mother Church" and is even interested in the Catholic apparition site of Medjugorje. He says God doesn't want division and that the main reason why he was on the road to hell was lack of love, pride, and disbelief.

[RoadTest]

"Show me the quote from the passage you claim to have read in the Catholic Encyclopedia that makes this claim..."

You read it. It's your religion, not mine.

[mike182d]

Peter was a rock but Jesus also describes himself as the rock in many passages.

True, but we are left with two issues:

1) Jesus does not change anyone's name in the Bible except Peter and He does so in regards to speaking about the foundation of His Church and
2) Jesus gives Peter the "keys to the kingdom of heaven."

So, the questions are: what is the kingdom of heaven and why does Peter have the keys to it?

[RoadTest]

"And you would do well to not presume to tell Catholics what they do and do not know."

That's not presumption. It's knowledge born of experience.

If you knew the truth you'd be set free from that web of superstition.

[mike182d]

You read it. It's your religion, not mine.

You first made the claim and when someone challenges you on the truth of a claim you make it is insufficient to say "go find out for yourself."

That normally leads one to believe that the claim made is false or void of any substantial backing.

[RoadTest]

"First, Apostolic Succession is right in the book of Acts. After Judas commits suicide, do they decide to stay with 11 Apostles? No. They appoint a successor."

And we never hear from the man-appointed successor again. God appoints the twelfth apostle whom we all know as Paul from tarsus. That was aa good reference!

[SoothingDave]

That's not presumption. It's knowledge born of experience.

One who claims superior knowledge and understanding shouldn't shrink from providing citations to the material he supposedly has mastered.

SD

[RoadTest]

"Also, you contradict Christian history, once again. Could you provide documented evidence of the first ten Popes killing each other?"

I never said that.

Also, there's no documented evidence that anybody but Catholics and those whom they've convinced believe that Peter went to Rome. In all the epistles Paul wrote from Rome, he mentions endless (as it were) lists of people there, but no Peter.

Peter was the apostle to the circumcision. Paul was the apostle to the gentiles.

[Search4Truth]

"But the Word is a two-edged sword."

Book, Chapter and Verse, please.

Arguments glorify men. Soul winning for the Lord glorifies God.

[RoadTest]

"you're doing the typical Protestant argument and refusing to finish an argument on one topic and instead move from doctrine to doctrine attacking whatever you can until something sticks."

I do that because the whole Roman construct is a web of lies, starting with Peter being called a "Pope", which office never existed for hundreds of years, to the hocus-pocus of transubstantiation, which is no miracle, because the bread never becomes anything but bread. The truth shall make ye free.

[mike182d]

And we never hear from the man-appointed successor again. God appoints the twelfth apostle whom we all know as Paul from tarsus. That was aa good reference!

And you don't think that could have been because the Apostles were still alive in all the books written in the New Testament? Its awfully difficult to tell of the successor to someone who hasn't even died yet.

I cannot stress this enough: read the history of Christianity.

Manuscripts as early as the second century have passages of prominent Christians detailing succession.

Irenaeus (189 A.D.)

"The blessed apostles [Peter and Paul], having founded and built up the church [of Rome] . . . handed over the office of the episcopate to Linus" (Against Heresies 3:3:3).

Tertullian (200 A.D.)

"[T]his is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the church of the Smyrneans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John, like the church of the Romans, where Clement was ordained by Peter" (Demurrer Against the Heretics 32:2).

The Little Labyrinth (211 A.D.):

"Victor . . . was the thirteenth bishop of Rome from Peter" (The Little Labyrinth, in Eusebius, Church History 5:28:3).

Cyprian of Carthage (253 A.D.):

"With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal church [at Rome], in which sacerdotal unity has its source" (Letters, 59:14).

And it goes on and on like this for centuries until Martin Luther in the 16th Century. Would you like more quotes from the first Christians?

[mike182d]

I do that because the whole Roman construct is a web of lies

And yet, when someone exposes the fallacy of your alleged "lies," you are unable to back it up, retreat, and retaliate by attacking something else entirley. Unless you are content with an answer given, stay on topic.

[RoadTest]

"Purgatory, as has been explained many, many, many times on this thread is supported by Scripture (which was codified by the CATHOLIC Church even though Christ told no one to write anything down) but if you choose to ignore the evidence, that is up to you. I will pray for you regardless."

What scripture? What evidence? Nobody has brought up a shred of either! God isn't impressed with "Codices", dogma, bulls or any other man-made concoction.

The Roman church left the narrow path over a thousand years ago.

[magisterium]

Me: "Show me the quote from the passage you claim to have read in the Catholic Encyclopedia that makes this claim..."

You: You read it. It's your religion, not mine.

No, I did not read it. You haven't provided a reference yet. It's your allegation, not mine. Please show me *where* in the Catholic Encyclopedia it states that Catholics believe that Christ is "slaughtered" anew at Mass. You made the statement that such a teaching is in the Catholic Enclyclopedia. You back it up with a citation in context.

[mike182d]

Also, there's no documented evidence that anybody but Catholics and those whom they've convinced believe that Peter went to Rome. In all the epistles Paul wrote from Rome, he mentions endless (as it were) lists of people there, but no Peter.

Read the Bible.

1 Peter 5:13

"The chosen one at Babylon sends you greeting, as does Mark, my son."

Now, what is "Babylon" in Christian writing? Wherever it is, Peter's there.

[rwfromkansas]

What an idiot.

[rwfromkansas]

Apparently he didn't go to hell because he rejected Christ. He went to hell because he did not believe.

Also, his idea he went to hell after purgatory does not mesh with Catholic ideas.

He is just a fake Christian.

[rwfromkansas]

Danger, you are right.

The doctrine of purgatory effectively means Jesus isn't good enough.

That is not Biblical, and this man is not a Protestant. He is a heretic.

[mike182d]

The doctrine of purgatory effectively means Jesus isn't good enough.

What?

What on earth do you think purifies a soul in purgatory? Jesus Christ.