BWA HAHAHAHAHA - trumpeting the conversion of The Donut Man - BWA HAHAHAHAHA!
Posted on 02/03/2008 8:00:08 PM PST by Pyro7480
Through an acquaintance, I learned today that Allen Hunt, an Atlanta area Methodist minister has recently been received into the Catholic Church. Hunt has been serving as pastor at an Atlanta Methodist church, and has also been steadily growing his Allen Hunt Show radio ministry, which currently is syndicated on 13 stations with eyes on growing to 75 stations by the end of the year. The show airs on mainstream stations, out of a desire to be, well, mainstream and therefore reach a larger audience.
I emailed Hunt to find out if what I had heard was indeed true, and he responded in the affirmative. So, to Allen Hunt, we say, “Welcome Home!” I asked him for a summary of his reasons for coming into the Church, and he gave me permission to publish the following:
[T]his transition reflects my personal journey over the past 15 years. When on vacation, I have usually worshipped at Catholic churches because I felt most at home there. Since stepping aside from my role at Mount Pisgah, I have had the freedom to consider why I felt most at home in the Catholic Church.To make a long story short, I do believe in the real presence of Christ in communion. That doctrine is very important to me as is the notion that Christ birthed one Church. I have struggled with both of these issues internally for a number of years. The fact that there are 30,000 branches of Christianity in America alone grieves my heart. I believe that continuing division and debate over essentials provides a poor witness to the lost about our Christian unity in the one Lord. My ministry in radio has only served to reinforce that conviction. Finally, I have always struggled with the idea I call “doctrine by democracy.” I simply have not been able to get my arms around the concept that we vote on certain things to decide what is true.
Catholic ping!
Today apparently is Real Presence Day on the Free Republic Religion Forum.
Someone sent me the news via Facebook. It literally made my day, after the Patriots lost. ;-) God provides!
Facebook is a great thing. I love when I discover that friends got married on Facebook, always a bit of a surprise.
The Pats lost due to the MN connection of Moss and Maroney...both great talents, but they have the curse of MN sports on them it seems...yes, I”m from MN, and bleed the purple and gold...
LOL! Did you mean to write that on the other thread? ;-)
Rev. Hunt, Welcome home to the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church!
More and moroe converts, aren’t there?
His Open Arms Welcomed Me [ Paul Thigpen}
Why I'm Catholic (Sola Scriptura leads atheist to Catholic Church)
From Calvinist to Catholic (another powerful conversion story) Rodney Beason
Good-bye To All That (Another Episcopalian gets ready to swim the Tiber)
Bp. Steenson's Letter to his clergy on his conversion to the Catholic Church
Bishop Steenson’s Statement to the House [of Bishops: Episcopal (TEC) to Catholic]
Bp. Steenson's Letter to his clergy on his conversion to the Catholic Church
Bishop Steenson Will Become a Roman Catholic
Married man considers turn as Catholic priest
Pavarotti returns to the Catholic faith before dying
Searching For Authority (A Methodist minister finds himself surprised by Truth!)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part VI: The Biblical Reality (Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part V: The Catholics and the Pope(Al Kresta)
The Hail Mary of a Protestant (A true story)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part IV: Crucifix and Altar(Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part III: Tradition and Church (Al Kresta)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part II: Doubts (Al Kresta)
Conversion Story - Rusty Tisdale (former Pentecostal)
Why I Returned to the Catholic Church. Part I: Darkness(Al Kresta)
Conversion Story - Matt Enloe (former Baptist) [prepare to be amazed!]
THE ORTHODOX REVIVAL IN RUSSIA
Conversion Story - David Finkelstein (former Jew)
Conversion Story - John Weidner (former Evangelical)
12 Reasons I Joined the Catholic Church
Conversion Story - Tom Hunt
The Tide Is Turning Toward Catholicism: The Converts
John Calvin Made Me Catholic
Journey Home - May 21 - Neil Babcox (former Presbyterian) - A minister encounters Mary
Going Catholic - Six journeys to Rome
My (Imminent) Reception into the Roman Catholic Church
A Convert's Pilgrimage [Christopher Cuddy]
From Pastor to Parishioner: My Love for Christ Led Me Home (to the Catholic Church) [Drake McCalister]
Lutheran professor of philosophy prepares to enter Catholic Church
Patty Bonds (former Baptist and sister of Dr. James White) to appear on The Journey Home - May 7
Pastor and Flock Become Catholics
Why Converts Choose Catholicism
From Calvinist to Catholic
The journey back - Dr. Beckwith explains his reasons for returning to the Catholic Church
Famous Homosexual Italian Author Returned to the Church Before Dying of AIDS
Dr. Francis Beckwith Returns To Full Communion With The Church
Catholic Converts - Stephen K. Ray (former Evangelical)
Catholic Converts - Malcolm Muggeridge
Catholic Converts - Richard John Neuhaus
Catholic Converts - Avery Cardinal Dulles
Catholic Converts - Israel (Eugenio) Zolli - Chief Rabbi of Rome
Catholic Converts - Robert H. Bork , American Jurist (Catholic Caucus)
Catholic Converts - Marcus Grodi
He Was an Evangelical Christian Until He Read Aquinas [Rob Evans]
The Scott Hahn Conversion Story
FORMER PENTECOSTAL RELATES MIRACLE THAT OCCURRED WITH THE PRECIOUS BLOOD
Interview with Roy Schoeman - A Jewish Convert
BWA HAHAHAHAHA - trumpeting the conversion of The Donut Man - BWA HAHAHAHAHA!
no, this one, I saw you noted the Pats lost and I thought that meant you were bummed...if it’s the opposite then congrats...either way, most of the good former MN athletes bring the MN stink eye with them to their new teams (sans Big Papi and Mientkiwicz with the Sox...
Some day MN will have a title of some sort again!!!!!!!!!
No, sorry for the confusion. I meant the two things made my day - the Patriots losing, and then the word I received over Facebook. Both were positive.
Truth is not subject to a majority vote. - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Saved that quote! Good one.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
You’re really stuck on the Donut man.
Sweee-e-e-e-eet.
I am a fully ordained Methodist pastor.
I appreciate that Hunt has been public rather than using his pulpit as a platform for subterfuge against our denomination.
His comment about 30000 Christian denominations in America is ignorant. (I challenge anyone to give me a list of them.)
I understand sometimes the desire to depart the United Methodist Church, but anyone really in touch with the weaknesses of our church would not choose Catholic — they have exactly the same weaknesses....and in spades!
A truly in touch Methodist would go to some kind of evangelical Orthodox or some kind of evangelical liturgical church. I don’t know if there is such a thing, but I’m sure the orthodox voice on FR will let me know.
“A truly in touch Methodist would go to some kind of evangelical Orthodox or some kind of evangelical liturgical church. I don’t know if there is such a thing, but I’m sure the orthodox voice on FR will let me know.”
The “Orthodox Voice” will have to give his own opinion later, Padre. As for my two cents worth, the whole idea of an “evangelical Orthodox Church” in the way I suspect you mean it is an American phenomenon. A large group of evangelicals founded just such a thing but they soon we were received into the Antiochian Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Philip where they have continued their evangelical ways to a more muted extent than before. The unofficial head guy of that group is a fellow named Gilquist who is now an Orthodox priest. Their outlook, to no great surprise, is very Western, very atonement theory of salvation oriented which I suppose would appeal to Western Protestants but depending on how it is preached, could also be considered heretical.
I wouldn’t know about 30,000 “branches” of Protestantism; I don’t think the “branch theory” of The Church has any more validity than +JPII’s unfortunate “two lungs” analogy.
You’re too modest, Kolo. When a calm orthodox voice is called for, yours is the voice that normally carries the day.
Wesley was an evangelical Anglican. The Anglicans are in such disarray right now, that it makes no more sense for Mr. Hunt to go there than it does for him to go Roman Catholic. Signing up under an African Patriarch is really doing nothing more than moving chairs on the Titanic.
The history of the Anglican Church lies in Orthodoxy rather than in Rome. I’m convinced that’s an historical fact.
Therefore, we’re looking for some kind of evangelical Orthodoxy. We’d prefer the non-heretical variety, of course. :>)
Suppose he was trending in that direction and I picked up on it! As another convert, I guess I can spot 'em.
I would never assume to be such a noble thing, Kolo. I believe our chaplain meant you.
xzins: “A truly in touch Methodist would go to some kind of evangelical Orthodox or some kind of evangelical liturgical church
The Orthodox in America make up barely 1% of the population. Most Americans never heard of such a "thing" the way most Russians would have no idea what a Methodist is.
Kolo is also correct that some American "Orthodox" are actually Protestants in Orthodox vestments and can subsist only in the Antiochan Church.
I agree with you that a truly "in-touch" methodist would look for a liturgical church; as for the evangelical kind, that depends what you consider "evangelical."
From the article, it is clear that he had no particular evangelical reason to be in the Catholic Church other than it made him feel "at home." His theological reason centers on the Eucharist being the true Body and Blood of Christ and not on evangelical issues.
If anything, the Catholic Church is more regimented or "methodical" than the Orthodox Church, and that should appeal to any Methodist.
Besides, he didn't have to change his theology that much or not at all when it comes to such issues as original sin, or atonement, as Kolo observes, in the Catholic Church.
So, even a theological transition would be easier to the Catholic then to the Orthodox side.
I suppose I just don’t know enough about the Methodist Church to comment with any confidence on whether a Methodist minister would be theologically more in tune with the Latin Church or Orthodoxy. I have remarked fairly regularly here that it is my experience that those who “get” the Orthodox mindset the quickest, and perhaps the easiest, are the Anglicans. That might well spill over to their close cousins the Methodists. As I think of it, though, and this is a new thought for me, it may well be that the reason the Anglicans “get it” is rooted not so much in theology as ecclesiology. Of course, just as ecclesiology is shaped by theology, so, on a practical level, ecclesiology as praxis may well influence theology. If the Methodist ecclesiology is similar to that of the Anglicans, maybe the same thing would happen.
As Kosta points out, though, the theology, as theology, of Rome is certainly more similar to what most Protestants believe than the theology of Orthodoxy in some very basic areas, like “original sin” and at least the popular theology behind the atonement theory. I know that some converts to Orthodoxy, one from Anglicanism I can specifically recall, have had trouble with those and, somewhat to my surprise, with our devotion to Panagia...but she got over it eventually.
Anyway, I should think that leaving Methodism for either Rome or Orthodoxy would involve some fundamental changes.
I agree that Rome or Orthodoxy would be a big change for a Methodist. I think you’re on the money about ecclesiology, too.
There’d be issues regarding Mary. Methodists clearly come out of the iconclast school, but both of those would chaffe with Rome or Orthodoxy.
These are reasons I would look for some kind of “evangelical” Orthodoxy....Orthodoxy with a heavy emphasis on outreach based on “salvation by grace through faith.”
I am interested in how you can make the claim that Methodist would find it easier to enter into full communion with the Orthodox Church vs. Catholic. You stated it is an historical fact that there is a link. I am pretty well read in Church history, have read many Catholic and some Protestant works (Henry Chadwick, Anglican J. Pelikan’s series, when he was Lutheran) that deal with Church history and I find no scholarly opinion that supports your statement. Can you elaborate?
There were Christians in the British Isles prior to Augustine. They looked toward Iona, and Iona did not look toward Rome. The speculation was that they looked more toward the Christianity of the East:
The following shows that the British Christians did NOT consider themselves beholden to the Pope:
Augustine was however unsuccessful in extending his authority to the Christians in Wales and Dumnonia. Gregory had decreed that these Christians should submit to Augustine and that their bishops should obey Augustine.[17] The Britons in those areas were suspicious of the newly arrived Augustine, and he seems to have been insufficiently conciliatory for them to agree to recognize him as the local archbishop.[18] Æthelbert summoned the British bishops to meet with Augustine in 603, and Augustine met with them twice, the first time the bishops asked to be allowed to return to their people and confer before returning. At the second meeting, Augustine was said to have not risen from his seat when the bishops arrived, and this, along with other issues, led the bishops to refuse to recognize Augustine as archbishop.[19] However, it was more probably the deep differences between the two churches that kept Augustine from reaching an agreement with the Celtic bishops. Besides the issues of Easter observance and the tonsure were more practical and deep rooted differences in approach to asceticism, missionary endeavours, and how the church itself was organized.[18] Augustine appears to have had no real understanding of the history and traditions of the Celtic church, which did not help relations with the Celtic bishops.[20]
Just as I thought. There are not 33,000 addresses and phone numbers of the headquarters of 33,000 denominations.
They’re just playing fast and loose with the definition of “denomination.”
If sister sally gets a warm, fuzzy feeling tonight and hangs out a shingle calling herself the “First Apostolic Fuzzy Feeling Church” tomorrow, then they’ll call her a denomination by tomorrow night.
That’s not exactly a denomination.
(PS: I really liked the cartoon at the link, though. I’ll probably steal it. LOL.)
“You stated it is an historical fact that there is a link. I am pretty well read in Church history, have read many Catholic and some Protestant works (Henry Chadwick, Anglican J. Pelikan’s series, when he was Lutheran) that deal with Church history and I find no scholarly opinion that supports your statement. Can you elaborate?”
There is actually quite a wealth of information concerning connections between the Celtic Church, especially in Scotland and Wales and both the Desert Monasteries in Egypt and with Constantinople. Remember that by the time Christianity became “legal” the seat of the Empire was in Constantinople, not Rome though we all talk about “Roman Britain” as existing well into the 5th century. By the late 300s the connection was, quite naturally, with Constantinople. It should come as no surprise that the very theologically sophisticated Celtic monks and hierarchs would have been connected to the throne at the seat of the Empire. Beyond that, there was regular correspondence with the abbots of the Desert who were by no means at all Romans. There’s a marvelous book, “From the Holy Mountain” which has a whole section on this. I remember that there are even pictures of a carving in Scotland which is identical to a peculiar and quite distinctive icon from the Desert. I’ll look at my copy tonight if the book is home and not at the cottage and post more info about that carving.
BTW, the old Celtic ways persisted in Ireland until after the Conquest. Priests and even abbots were getting married and having kids well into the 11th century and bishops tended to be “elected”.
And, answering your question, Celtic Christianity was “evangelical” Orthodoxy.
I believe that Jaroslav Pelikan went directly from Lutheran to Russian Orthodox and was never an Anglican. Do you have a reference suggesting otherwise?
When Protestants abandoned the Reformation, i.e. Calvinist theology, they had returned to Rome in much of their belief already and had no legitimate reason to NOT be Catholic. IOW, they were illegitimate Protestants and had no right to refuse Mary veneration, belief in eating Jesus, etc.
As you said, since he refused Biblical theology, wecome back, Mr. Hunt, from the place you had no legitimate right to be gone from.
So, in your opinion, the “Reformation” is defined by Calvin, not Luther or the others?
The Reformation was fought over the issue of justification. And, in the Church of Jesus Christ today, there are only two views:
And, there is Sola Fide, by faith alone that a man is justified. This is the view of Luther and the Reformers. Justification is forensic. We are declared righteous through the imputation of the "alien" righteousness of Christ to us.
When a Protestant abondones the view of Forensic Justification that is by faith alone, he has abandoned the Reformation completely and has no legitimate right outside of Rome. He needs to either wise up or run back to Momma Rome. Personally, I think he should wise up. After all, Rome is wrong. She needs to repent of her attempts at self righteousness and blapshemies against Christ. She needs to abandon her filthy rags and embrace the Soteriology of the Reformation. Let her take up a Biblical outreach: God sees men righteous solely because of the blood of Christ. It is the message of hope; it is the message of Salvation. And, it is the message of the Reformers....
Simul Iustus et Peccator
LOL! The Church has no need to repent of those imaginary sins, and has no need of empty shell of the Reformation.
“LOL!”
Yup. I think it’s called pontifications.
pon·tif·i·cate [ pon tíffi kàyt ]
intransitive verb (past and past participle pon·tif·i·cat·ed, present participle pon·tif·i·cat·ing, 3rd person present singular pon·tif·i·cates)
Definition:
1. speak pompously: to speak about something in a knowing and self-important way, especially when not qualified to do so
2. serve as bishop: to officiate as a bishop, especially in celebrating Mass
I think I scored on this pun. It also qualifies as YOPIOS.
Should all Catholics abandon Christ’s own Church and instead turn to the teachings of a tyrannical Frenchman stalking the streets of Geneva peering into the private lives/acts/windows of his subjects?
What kind of "God" sees things that aren't really there?
When the God of the Bible forensically declares something, his declaration is so powerful that it instantly enacts reality. It is reality. "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."
When that God says "Let this sinner be my adopted son, let him 'put on Christ', let him be clothed, infused, permeated with righteousness," that is precisely what happens, at that very instant.
The God of Calvin ... doesn't seem to work that way.
The Scotts and Irish followed more the Easter practice.
Still working his way to heaven.
“When Protestants abandoned the Reformation, i.e. Calvinist theology, they had returned to Rome in much of their belief already and had no legitimate reason to NOT be Catholic. IOW, they were illegitimate Protestants and had no right to refuse Mary veneration, belief in eating Jesus, etc.”
You know, I’ve said that very thing to Lutherans and Anglicans, though as I commented earlier, I think the Orthodox ecclesiology and its interface with praxis might make Orthodoxy a better fit for them even if there are elements of their theology, as there are of yours, which are distinctly Latin.
There is little doubt in my mind that the average disgruntled Calvinist looking to convert, however, would be far happier as a Latin than an Orthodox.
Deo gratias!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.