Evangelicals Becoming Catholic, why?

CatholicConvert.com ^ | May 10, 2011 | Steve Ray

[Salvation]

Evangelicals Becoming Catholic, why?

by Steve Ray on May 10, 2011

 

Below is an interesting YouTube video (really audio) of an Evangelical Radio show in which two Evangelicals discuss why so many Evangelical Protestants are leaving to join the Catholic Church.

The host and guest are trying to be honest in the show entitled  “Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome.” Although towards the end of the video they are making some statements that are historically inaccurate (about Luther and the Popes); nevertheless, their questioning tries to be honest. It is interesting that they are taking note of a large exodus. I am one of those who Crossed the Tiber to Rome.

Furthermore, this was coming from a Protestant network that is decidedly anti-Catholic.  They are willing to discuss openly what has been happening for years now (the exodus of Evangelical ordained ministers to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches).  They also mention briefly EWTN, the program Journey Home and the moderator Marcus Grodi, a convert from Evangelical Christianity. It is obvious this is all new to them since they didn’t even know how to pronounce Marcus Grodi’s name.

The moderator Ingrid Slater asked Pastor Bob DeWay; “Let’s talk about the problem; what do you think is the seed bed (this is sort of a rhetorical question; everybody knows what a mess Evangelicalism is as a whole today doctrinally speaking).  What is setting people up for this disenchantment and the willingness to look to Roman Catholicism?”

Here are some of the Problems that Bob Deway lists, though they really have no explanation since they are blind to the real problems within Protestantism, which are things that cannot be fixed. If they were fixed they would be Catholics.
(1) The Seeker Movement took the Bible out of churches.
(2) People are not steeped in solid Bible teaching (yeah, but according to whose interpretation?).
(3) Big churches that don’t preach the Bible (who decides what should be taught??).
(4) The influx of mystical practices, contemplative prayer, the labyrinths.
(5) Seminaries that are training therapeutic practitioners rather than theologians.
(6) The idea that we have to have to justify our practices and beliefs from Scripture – according to what Luther and the other reformers – which has now been overlooked.

The moderator then mentioned a book saying, “Coming Home by Fr Peter [Eastern Rite] (I am not even going to use the term father). . . He used to head up Campus Crusade here in the Midwest” Evidently he is now heading up an organization helping Evangelical ministers come into the Eastern rite Churches.  If you want to know why he made his move from Evangelical Protestantism you can listen to the video.

For years you’d hear Evangelicals boast of the fact that their churches were filled [with] ex-Catholics.  But in too many cases the Evangelical churches are just the exit ramp that eventually leaves them disillusioned and abandoning the faith altogether. Now the tide is changing.  Some Evangelicals seem to be oblivious to the fact of this large exodus of Evangelical ministers and lay people.

A year ago, Karl Keating of Catholic Answers Live said he believed there were now more Evangelicals or Fundamentalists leaving Protestantism to become Catholic than the other way around. Even Evangelicals admit that there are notable Protestants becoming Catholics but no notable Catholics becoming Protestants.

I could take exception to several of Pastor Bob’s statements and argue decisively against them, but that is not the point of my posting this video.

[Natural Law]

"Self identified Protestants, whether baptized or not tend to vote conservative."

Had all Catholic voters stayed home Obama would still have won.

[metmom]

murron:True, Christ is always present in our lives if we choose to accept Him into our lives, but spending an hour in Church attending Mass is hardly a waste of time as it was so inelegantly worded.

iscool: Now there's a Catholic doctrine I've never heard of before now...And if that's true, why the need for the Eucharist???

Ummm.... well, you see....er, ah,

Heretic!!!!!

[metmom]

If that’s all you’re seeing, then you are clearly missing the whole point.

[metmom]

What a terrific answer.

So why the need for the euchrist if Christ is already living in you when you’ve accepted Him?

[metmom]

Didn’t get an answer yet, did you?

I hope you weren’t really expecting one.

[ansel12]

LOL, I could go to DU to hear this kind of defense of liberal voters.

If only Protestants had voted, Obama would have suffered a brutal loss.

Why would a conservative be so invested in concealing the vote of a liberal voting block.

[Natural Law]

" But which Ignatius wrote that???"

There are 13 letters of which 7 are undisputed. Those are:

- Ephesus
- Magensia
- Tralles
- Rome
- Philadelphia
- Smyrna
- Personal letter to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna

The quote I provided is from his letter to Smyrna, one of the uncontested letters.

Now that we are on the subject of forgeries can you tell me who wrote St. Paul's Letters to the Colossians, the Ephesians, the Hebrews, the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and the Pastoral Epistles. Does it really matter if they write the truth whose ultimate author is the Holy Spirit??

(If you do your own homework you will benefit from it)

Peace be with you.

[aruanan]

Now that we are on the subject of forgeries can you tell me who wrote St. Paul's Letters to the Colossians, the Ephesians, the Hebrews, the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and the Pastoral Epistles. Does it really matter if they write the truth whose ultimate author is the Holy Spirit??

Note that in Hebrews there is no attribution of authorship. And the reason some offer for a non-Pauline authorship of a letter like Colossians is that it presents a Christology believed too advanced in its development to have been produced by Paul at that particular time in the evolution of Christian theology. Of course, at one time form critics thought they had made the definitive case for Pentateuch authorship.

[Natural Law]

"Why would a conservative be so invested in concealing the vote of a liberal voting block."

I'm only addressing the "our legs good, two legs bad" group think and blanket characterizations. I am specifically talking about the legitimacy of your groupings, the integrity of the data and the soundness of the analysis which by every objective standard is pretty bad. Make your point, but don't make it so badly that your argument diminishes it.

Peace be with you.

[ansel12]

Look, it is just ordinary, routine voting data as gathered and reported, we have the numbers going back for 100 years, more if someone wants to dig hard enough.

Trying to pretend that Catholics don't vote liberal is a losing game, and I don't know why someone on a conservative political site would try to conceal it, or convince people that it doesn't exist.

The Catholic vote will be moving even farther left as time goes by, look at what happened to California.

California has been becoming more Catholic, and it shows.

[Natural Law]

"Note that in Hebrews there is no attribution of authorship."

Prior to the establishment of Canon authorship was a serious problem. There were many, many forgeries, many attributed to the Apostles themselves and many versions of the legitimate works recompiled from memory and using the literary practices common to the first century. That is one of the driving reasons to actually produce a Bible.

The Church Councils determined the Canon, not based upon attributed authorship, but upon the fidelity of the content when compared with the Apostolic Traditions of the Church in which the ultimate authorship of the Holy Spirit and the synergistic contribution to the whole of Scripture were the key factors.

Peace be with you.

[Iscool]

No, it's not your job. You've attributed more importance to yourself than you deserve. If you were a true Christian, you would already know the answer. Why don't you pull out your Bible and look it up? You learn more by doing it yourself. Start with Matthew. Also the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. You'd be surprised at the wealth of information you can learn from reading it.

I know what the bible says about the issue...I also know that your religion teaches that you must eat the wafer to have eternal life...And I know that your religion teaches that you must eat the wafer to be in the presense of Jesus Christ...

Perhaps you are a former Protestant who never learned to let go of some biblical truths...

[Iscool]

You cannot count nonpracticing Catholics who vote Democrat as Catholics when you don't count nonpracticing Catholics who vote conservative as non-Catholics.

Your religion counts them when they want to show the world how large the Catholic population is...

Besides, once they were baptized, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and became members of the Body of Christ, according to your religion...Seems they are just as Catholic as any of you...

[Iscool]

Are you saying they have all conspired in the lie?

All the way down to your current pope...Including the next one as well...

[Natural Law]

"Besides..."

I recognize that it is somewhat pointless speaking to some about duplicitous use of data and intellectual honesty, but don't you think it just a little bit hypocritical to do the same thing you besmirch Catholics over just because in this one case you think it might somehow prove your spiritual superiority?

On a related issue; are you first a citizen of Heaven or a citizen if the United States?

[daniel1212]

"Despite your misapprehension on what my argument was...

I understand your argument probably better than you do.

Then that renders you more accountable for your vain attempts to escape my well-substantiated conclusions, that Catholics are more liberal than evangelicals, and among other things, voted more for Obama than Mcain.

I've seen it attempted to be made by far better scholars; four legs good, two legs bad. Fallacious conclusions based upon poorly acquired polling information collected by agenda driven organizations and subsequently argued by an individual with a long record of anti-Catholic activities is cause for apprehension and distrust.

This is a classic Catholic recourse when faced with overwhelming evidence, that of rejecting the overall reliability of survey results which all show Catholics as more liberal than evangelicals, based upon the premise that they must have it in for Catholicism, while favoring evangelicals! Must be the fault of those media darlings George Bush or Sarah Palin, or those Good Christian Belles.

As for my credibility, once again, i am the one who references things for all to see, from multiple sources, and also provides details on polling criteria, and (again) am not the reactionary Roman who charged others with posting a “falsified version” and guilty of “sloppy or dishonest scholarship” only to be proven wrong and impenitent, while i am still waiting for the source for your interesting 54% Obama, 45% Mcain, and 33% “none of the above” Catholic vote.

The facts are clear that Obama got only two million more "Catholic" votes than McCain, with most of those coming from Catholics who do not attend Mass regularly or are otherwise in Communion with the Church.

This is a polemic which has already been exposed in 209, as the problem is that Rome counts and treats such as members in life and in their funeral, as long as they die identifying as Catholics, like as they do in response to polls.

While you may exclude them based upon your interpretation, until Rome publicly excommunicates men like Ted Kennedy or otherwise treats known offenders as as such, and effectually requires repentance (so they become the small minority which TCs are, instead of being the majority), rather than counting and treating them as members in life (and in stats) and in death, then we must also count them as members, and as representing the faith that Rome most effectually conveys, and what mostly constitutes her OTC.

Indeed, as these make up the vast majority of Catholics, then the (so-called) one true Church© of Rome is mostly full of damned souls, few of which see any real discipline. (Ted had Masses said at his own house!)

When you use the numbers for Catholics who regularly attend Mass you find the numbers tell a completely different story.

Irrelevant as per above, while (contrary to what you would expect from such a “biased” person) i also provide stats that make that distinction (search “weekly” and “traditional”). But such are a small minority of Catholics, and even these overall are not more conservative than their Traditional Evangelical counterparts.

So, if you are so adamant about counting lapsed and failed Catholics among the vote totals, why don't you count the votes of all of those former Catholics who have become Protestant and Evangelical in the totals as well, or would that diminish from the hateful message you are pushing.

We do count the votes of converts, as part of the denomination or faith which they identify with, but you want us to count them (Catholics who are nonpracticing because they converted) as part of the Catholic vote, which is patently as absurd as counting evangelical converts to Rome as part of the evangelical vote! Talk about contrivances.

Besides this is your tactical liberal recourse to calling those who expose your exaltation of Roman Catholicism, “hateful,” with self-promoting Rome being the victim. Right out of Hunter and Madsens playbook.

While you are at it why don't you disclose your specific denomination for us so that we can verify among other things the comparative conservative voting records and the history of child abuse.

Irrelevant as unlike Catholics, i am not preaching one particular supreme church to whom all must submit, but a faith that holds Scripture as supreme and defend it from there, but as for what denomination i theologically identify most with, then that would be Southern Baptists, and believe the gifts are for today (which they allow) - apparently unlike the SSPX schism - and that saving faith is one that bears fruit (which reformers preached) and endures. (Heb. 10:39)

"A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another." - John 13: 34-35

I agree with that, except love for God (which determines how to love according to the 2^nd command, can can result in division), but come short in both.

[Iscool]

There are 13 letters of which 7 are undisputed. Those are: -

Ephesus - Magensia - Tralles - Rome - Philadelphia - Smyrna - Personal letter to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna

Not so accurate... Many scholars dispute ALL of the writings attributed to Ignatius...

The quote I provided is from his letter to Smyrna, one of the uncontested letters.

Again, not so accurate...The known forgeries are pretty much copies of the original seven with lots of Catholic language added...

Now that we are on the subject of forgeries can you tell me who wrote St. Paul's Letters to the Colossians, the Ephesians, the Hebrews, the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and the Pastoral Epistles.

Does it really matter if they write the truth whose ultimate author is the Holy Spirit?? (If you do your own homework you will benefit from it)

I hope you are not suggesting that the Holy Spirit inspired Ignatius and his Catholic forger to write what they wrote, AND for your religion to promulgate the lie even up to now...

[Natural Law]

"Then that renders you more accountable...

Please, I no longer have the will to suspend disbelief and sift through another one of your tomes. Your post will remain unread by me. Exercises in flawed logic and anti-Catholic conjecture only prove that bias is alive and well and that as is most often the case the quality and quantity of an argument are inversely proportional. Besides, I have absolutely no interest is contributing to the traffic at your website in attempt to prove what is already known to be flawed.

Peace be with you.

[Natural Law]

"Not so accurate... Many scholars dispute ALL of the writings attributed to Ignatius..."

Then you will have no problem naming and citing your "experts" and corroborating your assertions.

Peace be with you.

[Salvation]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2885062/posts?page=258#258

Ditto to your remarks. I judge a definite bias in the postings — and sensed it even before I knew of a website.