(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.

[restornu]

The origin of the doctrine of Purgatory was established in 593 AD by Gregory the Great. It was proclaimed dogma by The Council of Florence in 1439.

It's a lie.

****

I think you are mistaten to take this attitude for it is recognized in the Bible as Spirit Prison even Jesus preach to those in Spirit Prison!

[Vicomte13]

You wrote: "There are nearly as many beliefs about Jesus Christ as there are people. So either everyone is right, which is illogical, or the Holy Spirit is very confused."

There's another option: that everyone is right enough about the things the Holy Spirit cares about, and that the things that the 70,000 Christian denominations bicker about, which separate them from each other, are simply not interesting to God and God doesn't CARE what we think about them. It may be that God cares about a few ESSENTIAL TRUTHS, and that everybody who adheres to those is blessed by Him. And that the rest of these things we bicker about and which we think are important and which divide us are just poppycock and the valiant strivings of dust with other piles of dust.

In other words, the Holy Spirit isn't confused at all. We are. We are conceited enough to believe that God cares about the silly things we bicker about.

[restornu]

Well I like it an I am not dead...

[restornu]

Sorry even those what some of you say in you many post here I did not find humor here!

really this fell like a dud!

[mike182d]

There's another option: that everyone is right enough about the things the Holy Spirit cares about

So, no one disagrees on the Trinity? No one disagree on whether baptism is necessary? No one disagrees on whether faith alone is sufficient? No one disagrees on whether Jesus Christ was God? What, then, is necessary?

I think you may be over-generalizing. Even the most fundamental beliefs about Christ are disputed amongst Christians "inspired by the Holy Spirit."

[restornu]

This would confirm to anyone who questions that there is life after death!

For some reason this being among others were able to go beyond the vail!

I don't why so many here get up set to berate this experience it would contribute to one belief, but it would not convert one unless the Holy Spirit was to witness to the things of Jesus Christ!

To have opions as heresy etc is rediculess because of the experience!

OTOH I too question the individual who making claim in this article for if he under stood scripture life after death is not the conversion tool it the Holy Spirit!

[mike182d]

really this fell like a dud!

Sorry. I'll try harder. :-)

[RoadTest]

"2. The church assembles the bible, using as the primary criteria for what constitutes the bible that which corresponds to its traditions."

The Church assembled the Bible all right, but it wasn't the Catholic Church, for there was no such thing for three hundred years.

The church in the wilderness, the body of Christ believers, agreed by the Holy Spirit what books were valid, and that church assembled the Bible which has been preserved by God, as he promised in Psalm 12, verse 7, unto the final English version of 1611, as well as vernacualr versions in many other languages.

God is true and all men liars.

[RoadTest]

Martin Luther is a small matter in the overall picture of the Christian, not the Catholic, church. The real church has been active on the earth ever since the apostles.

The Body of Christ has been a church organized by The Holy Spirit and revived and enlivened down through the centuries. The Catholic church, when it rose up, proceeded to kill every Christian it could find, first naming then "heretics" because they believed God instead of the lies of the Vatican, and burned every true scripture it could lay its filthy hands on, because it loves the darkeness rather than the light, because its deeds are evil.

[RoadTest]

These pictures express this scripture beautifullY: "But all their works they do for to be seen of men: Mt. 6.1 they make broad their phylacteries, Deut. 6.8 and enlarge the borders Num. 15.38 of their garments,
6 and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
7 and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

[mike182d]

The Church assembled the Bible all right, but it wasn't the Catholic Church, for there was no such thing for three hundred years.

Who, in particular, established the Catholic Church and can you provide a date, please?

[RoadTest]

"As far as God being impressed with anything, I will not say what He is or is not impressed with, but I imagine He knew what He was doing when He founded His Church"

Yup. But it's not the Catholic Church. It's the body of Christ, all true believers who come directly to the Father by Him, not by a priest or Pope. Jesus NEVER taught those things! There were no priests or popes in the apostolic churches.

[RoadTest]

"Who, in particular, established the Catholic Church and can you provide a date, please?"

Sorry. That was before my time.

[RoadTest]

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

O.K. I won't argue, then. :-)

[mike182d]

8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. 9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Ouch. Evidently, the great Christians in the New Testament show complete disregard from Christ in the Bible:

Acts 7:2

"And he replied, 1 "My brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia, 2 before he had settled in Haran,"

Romans 9:10

"And not only that, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one husband, our father Isaac -- "

That's right from the mouths of St. Stephen and St. Paul in the Holy Word of God.

Either Jesus didn't mean what you're trying to propogate, or the New Testament contradicts Christ.

[mike182d]

Sorry. That was before my time.

So, that leaves us with two conclusion:

1) Since you weren't there you have no proof

2) You have absolutely no historical evidence to back up your claim.

It is ignorance to throw charges against someone without any evidence, whatsoever, of what you're trying to claim. If I remember correctly, that's what the Pharisees did to have Jesus condemned to death in the first place.

[mike182d]

Jesus NEVER taught those things!

You mean like how Jesus taught Sola-Scriptura?

There were no priests or popes in the apostolic churches.

Once again, read all of Scripture and study the history of the Christian Church

The word "priest" is simply the English form of the Greek word "presbyteros" or "presbyter." Are you seriously telling me that "presbyters" are no where in the Apostolic Churches?

Second, the "Pope" is the Bishop of Rome. I already struck down with historical and Biblical evidence your contention that there was no Apostolic succession and I demonstrated, Biblically, that Peter wrote an Epistle from Rome.

Where on earth are you getting your information? Jack Chick?

[silverleaf]

Matthew 19

3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’
5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
10 His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

[mike182d]

Here's a pretty good article:

"He may be saying that divorcing an adulterous wife is not what makes her adulterous because she is so already. Another possibility is that Jesus is referring to marriages that are not possible to begin with due to an insurmountable defect like incest. In Matthew 19:9, Jesus uses the word "Porneia," which has a broader range of meaning than "Moicheia," which means adultery. In other words, he says, "Whoever divorces his wife, except for porneia, commits moicheia." If He was giving an exception for adultery, He could have used the more specific "moicheia" instead of porneia. It is argued by some that porneia here refers to incest and is used by St. Matthew to inform those who may be converting to Judaism/Christianity that they are obligated to discontinue marriage arrangements contrary to Jewish law in Levitians 17-18. This argument seems to be supported by the fact that porneia is used to refer to incest in 1 Corinthians 15:11."

http://www.catscans.com/catholicsite/divorce3.htm

[SoothingDave]

The church in the wilderness, the body of Christ believers, agreed by the Holy Spirit what books were valid, and that church assembled the Bible which has been preserved by God, as he promised in Psalm 12, verse 7, unto the final English version of 1611, as well as vernacualr versions in many other languages.

God is true and all men liars.

So we should believe you that God's eternal plan was to wait 1,611 years to finally be able to perfect His Bible?

LOL

SD