I am just curious about the basic premise of the article: are evangelicals crossing the Tiber when they become more educated about church history?
My question for evangelicals is this: Were these people listed in the article legitimate evangelical scholars? Or were they squishy people who you are better rid of in the first place?
My question for Catholics is this: have you observed in your parishes a trend of evangelicals coming in through RCIA? Of course, we all know the high profile types that we see on EWTN and read about, but are you seeing this first hand?
Please note that this is an [ECUMENICAL] thread so let's keep it clean and above-board. I won't hesitate to ask the management to lock the thread if it goes down into the gutter...
‘His answer, like that of Hahn, Grodi and Talbot, and now of Croslow, Dunn, and White, is that the “one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church”—the historical, traditional Church—can only be the Roman Catholic Church.’
May we agree to characterize this entity as the ‘Roman Catholic Church,’ on this thread, in light of the usage by the author?
Just because someone was baptized, made a faith profession, walked an isle or attends church every Sunday and Wed. does not mean they are saved. It means in many cases the Catholic church .
Personally I would rather see them go and take their false doctrine (in the case of preachers) than to have them stay and poison the flock.
Were they legitimate scholars ??? Well scripture says the natural man can not understand scripture.. so if they are unsaved they may know a lot of scripture, but be unable to rightly divide it. So they may have a kind of self made scholarship ...but not genuine scholarship .
Just because i sleep in the garage, go beep beep and have an auto manual does not make me a car.. :)
I would like to see who is publishing the numbers supporting this claim of an increased “trend of evangelicals” converting to Catholicism...is there a religious “Nielsons” rating service?
Any TRUE CHURCH OF PETER would be evangelical in nature, based on Peter’s own dream(sent by God) that the gospel should be preached to all nations, gentiles included. Christ’s great Comission was a call to world evangelism. So I think a clarification as to what a true evangelical is versus how they are often defined in loose vernacular tomes is also in order. Is the term “evangelical” a loose term for protestants said to be “returning to or acknowledging Roman Cathocism as their true “church”(but avoiding the term “protestant”, for fear of backlash)?
I found your contribution very interesting. I cannot speculate whether or not the the people in the article are “legitimate evangelical scholars”. Certainly, in North Park University, Wheaton College and to some degree, Baylor, you have a good representation of evangelical institutions.
I have a good friend with whom I have lunch frequently, motivated by business, friendship and a common interest in spiritual things. When we first came to know each other it was in an evangelical setting, but more and more he has identified with the Reform “movement”, and has since joined a Reformed church.
At our last lunch it seemed to me that he was becoming what I called “Catholic lite” on a previous thread. He cited his study of the early church fathers and the liturgy, in particular.
Cannot blame you. I am getting tired of the flame wars in the religion section of FR.
1)My Brother-in-law (Fatheroffive) began to confront me on various anti-Catholic statements I was making on a regular basis. He would not accept satements that began with; "Well the Catholic Church does ....." With out supporting evidence.
I was forced to do historical research
2) Dr. Dennis Castillo at Christ the King Seminary. He taught all the Church History Classes and prsented the truth warts and all and we were forced to confront what people actually said in their own words.
3) My wifes constant petitions to St. Monica the Mother of St. Augustine.
In the area I live (Cantral Virginia) we are seeing a steady stream of Converts to the Catholic faith and our RCIA program is very rigorous.
I have attended several of the other churches here with friends and you hear the occasional anti-Catholic comments, but most of the people are very pleasent to have faith discussions with.
I can well understand the term "Crossing the Rubicon" as denoting taking an irrevocable step, as Caesar did when he came home to seize power.
I can understand "Crossing the Delaware" as a significant and symbolic step in reversing the fortunes of war, as Washington did in the unpleasantness between the Crown and its American colonies.
And "Crossing the Rhine" was what happened in the Volkerwanderung of the German tribes into the Roman provinces and was a significant step in the Allied conquest of Germany in WWII.
We can come up with lots of allusions to crossing rivers.
But the only context I had for the Tiber was that it was a bridge on that river that Horatius defended in his famous stand against the Etruscan invasion of Rome, celebrated in the epic poem "Horatius at the Bridge" by Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Perhaps it is simply that the Tiber is no longer a river on the approaches to Rome but instead flows through Rome and divides the Vatican from Rome's "city centre". So "crossing the Tiber" is simply a symbolic description of the process of returning to Holy Mother Church.
But I don't think that one "crosses the Tiber" by becoming more educated about the Church. Religious conversion, in any direction, is not an intellectual exercise; albeit the intellectual exercise may, for many, have been a condition precedent for a true conversion.
Evangelicals like me who become Catholic tend to regard it as an advanced form of their previous Christian practice. Most conversion stories address this in some form - so now, I am Evangelical PLUS.
This is so consistent that there is now a whole internet body of literature by Evangelical converts saying, "OK, now I'm in the REAL Church - can we talk more about Jesus?"
I'm coming to the Catholic tradition late in life, from a basically Calvinist - Evangelical background.
I cannot imagine how a cradle Catholic with no religious education outside of CCD and the Mass can possibly have a proper Christian formation. I have 5 daughters, 4 of whom are in various levels of CCD, and the level of ignorance among their classmates on the most basic Christian doctrines is astonishing.
Catholicism makes sense to many Evangelicals, exactly as described in the article, as an "add-on" or upgrade to their already well-established faith.
But if my children didn't go to a Christian school and didn't get Bible study at home, despite receiving the sacraments, they wouldn't be Christians at all.
Hopefully this will get some discussion here.
Our parish in Tulsa had some high-profile converts, including Protestant ministers and professors. I think this was largely due to our deacon’s owning the Catholic bookstore in the city! In my current parish, the people I see going to RCIA tend to be married to Catholics already in the parish.
As an evangelical who swam the Tiber 16 years ago, perhaps I shouldn't answer this, but I'm going to anyway. 4 of the 5 named either influenced my decision to plunge into the Tiber waters , or helped acquaint me with the new territory when I emerged on the Roman shore. To the list of 5 I would add one more, Father Richard John Neuhaus. John Michael Talbot's music introduced me to the strong scriptural base of Catholic thought while I was still a Lutheran. Father Neuhaus, a Lutheran scholar I admired for his "First Things" journal, challenged my locked in thought patterns when he went to Rome. Catholic friends loaned me Scott Hahn's conversion story on tape when I began to question my own path. Thomas Howard was there to offer clarification with his book "On Being Catholic" which I read shortly after my confirmation. Marcus Gordi's "Journey Home" has become the one "must watch" program on our weekly television schedule. None are "squishy" in my view.
I love the Protestant’s use of the phrase “crossing the Tiber.” Martin Luther lied about ever having gone to Rome, and all his slanders about the papacy were just that: slanders. The phrase “crossing the Tiber” echoes Martin’s misconception that the Vatican was in Rome, and therefore “crossing the Tiber” meant entering “the whore of Babylon.”
The truth is that the Vatican exists in perpetual exile from the city of Rome, across the Tiber. To cross the Tiber to enter into the Catholic Church, then, means to depart from Babylon and join Saint Peter in exile.
I wouldn’t be good enough for any of the religions in existence today. I’d end up screwing up one or more of their “must do” lists. I can’t imagine trusting some human to “absolve” me when I could well find out later he was after the boys. I’d forget to do something or another or being human slip up on one of the rules. I’m just going to believe what Jesus said. He paid the price and all I have to do is trust him. He said when I go to the Father I should go in his name. Nothing more, nothing less.
legitimate evangelical scholars? Or were they squishy people who you are better rid of in the first place?
Being a "legitimate scholar" does not exclude an individual from being a "squishy person" whose departure does not surprise. Witness Richard Neuhaus.
What is an "evangelical"? Who isn't one?
His moral theology was not liberal, and I am not implying that.
One big problem the Catholic church has is that while there are volumes on what it officially believes, in practice there is very little you are actually called to believe. I could walk into a typical Roman Catholic parish and be considered a very conservative Catholic, with out changing what I believe in. So could a great many non Catholic Freepers.
The Catholics we see here on FR are very unique, in that for the most part they know what they believe, and why. That is not very common.