Posted on 04/29/2013 2:18:59 PM PDT by NYer
Mon. Apr. 29 at 8:00 PM ET
Tue. Apr. 30 at 1:00 AM ET
Fri. May. 3 at 1:00 PM ET
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LEO BROWN
Leo Brown discusses with Marcus what convinced him that Catholicism is the True Church.
HIS STORY
Once he was known on Lexington pop stations as “Freak Daddy.” Now he’s shed that moniker for something slightly tamer — his real name, Leo Brown — and his voice may be what you hear if on weekday afternoons you tune to 1380 AM, Lexington’s only Catholic radio station.
“Diocese Live, your Catholic show on your Catholic station, ReaLife Radio 1380, and the new 94.9 FM,” Brown told listeners, coming back from a three-minute break one day recently. “I’m Leo Brown, happy to be with you.” He gave a weather update — still balmy temperatures at that point, before the first snowfall of this winter — before returning to his guest, Dr. Michelle Fiorella, a Catholic psychologist from Louisville.
Their topic: how to make judgment calls involving friends or family members who seem on the edge of faith. Fiorella and he spent an hour discussing Biblical accounts which they said applied.
Previously, Brown might have introduced pop music, and from a devoted studio building. But though the equipment is no less professional, for many years Brown has been working out of a smaller location — a center room at Benedictus Books and Gifts, on Moore Drive in Lexington.
Though the station and store now operate separately, Brown said, that store’s founder, Jim Cloud, started the station about a year before Brown joined. Now, under Brown’s management, the AM station moved into the metropolitan area, doubled its broadcasting power and added its FM equivalent. Staffers estimate that about 20,000 listeners tune in, about 40 percent of the local Catholic market. Yet staff are sure many non-Catholics are also listening, Brown said.
Not that long ago, Brown said, he himself would have been among that group.
Radio and religion
A Kentucky native, Brown grew up in Shelby County, and attended Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond during the 1990s. There he began voice work, commercials and on-air performing — all enjoyments that started in his childhood. “As a kid, I was really fascinated by the magic of radio, hearing these voices and hearing this music,” he said.
Both music and personalities kept inspiring him, among them Louisville host Terry Meiners and his “The Show With No Name.”
But in the meantime, Brown wasn’t sure what to believe about weightier matters.
He had been raised a Baptist and had been sincere, but as he entered high school, he began drifting from that denomination. Instead, he explored religions such as Buddhism and Taoism, before deciding against those. After reading the Bible, he tried to resume being Protestant.
But his introduction to Catholicism, through the woman who later became his wife, brought him to what he soon accepted were the answers and peace he’d sought.
Meanwhile, Brown had worked at WKQQ in Lexington, what is now Z-Rock 103, hosting its morning show for five years. “That was an interesting time, to try to be a secular morning-show host, then go through this religious conversion,” he explained with a laugh. “There was so much of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle; it was kind of hard to kind of keep the two sincere, I suppose. I certainly tried, as best I could. I didn’t want to come across as if I was trying to be preachy.”
When Z-103 was sold, Brown returned to WKQQ. But he also began working as a volunteer at the newly founded 1380 AM, ReaLife Radio. “The technology they had was just archaic,” he said. They asked for Brown’s help, but he was skeptical. Then in 2003, the station offered to hire him.
It made no sense to change. Brown had been moving into management at Clear Channel Communications. But Brown believed he was supposed to join ReaLife Radio.
Now as general manager, Brown said he finds it easier to follow his faith while earning a living. Because the station is nonprofit and tax-exempt, that has also brought many new challenges. His days consist of meetings with donors and seeking ways to underwrite advertising and market the station. “Our goal is for no one to ever have a reason to tune us out,” he said.
Brown is also on the air every weekday, from 3 to 5 p.m. But during some weeks, activities occur all seven days, requiring long hours and late-night projects at home.
Though the station carriers some national feeds, it emphasizes local programming, such as Lexington Catholic High School football games. Five staffers work full-time, supplemented by volunteers and part-time staff. Some host weekend programming and others help screen calls.
Among the part-timers is Jennifer Longworth, a full-time mother who adds an hour of call-screening every weekday from 5 to 6 p.m., for Mike Allen’s live program. Though she grew up in a firmly Methodist family, Longworth and her husband, Bill — a “lapsed Catholic,” she said — gained interest in Catholicism after the election of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. They would listen to the Catholic station, and three years later, the Longworths joined a Catholic church.
“I’m a stay-at-home-schooling mom, so it’s the one hour a day where I get out and do something outside the house!” she said. “I feel like I’m part of the show, because instead of just answering the phone in the back, sometimes [Allen] reads my goofy comments.”
As a screener, she sometimes deals with frequent callers who only want to criticize the church. One man likes to slam the pope; one woman often calls all Catholic priests sex-abusers. “I know who those people are now, and I have screened them out from time to time,” Longworth said. Other callers are more enjoyable. They sometimes have long discussions off the air, she added.
As a listener herself, Longworth also benefits from the content. “The teaching is always there to help you learn your faith better, and learn to respond to questions that people might have.”
That matches the station’s approach to avoid condemnations of others’ beliefs, Brown said. “It’s not about, ‘How can I show you that you’re wrong?’ but more about, ‘How can I propose to you an opportunity to consider something you’ve never considered before?’” he explained.
Yet ReaLife Radio, while following the area’s Catholic churches and charities, also provides updates about and promotion for non-Catholic organizations, such as the Hope Center, the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity. “We do look more specifically at [organizations] that would be congruent with what we believe,” Brown said.
Building relationships with those groups, along with parishes, has been vital to the station’s success. Other stations would not give as much attention to those organizations, he added.
Further work to seek donations and advertising, especially in a rough economy, will continue to be essential, Brown said. Leaders hope to find new ways to grow the station’s influence and find more listeners.
“I want to see continued growth,” he said. “An even greater connection into the community.”
That will start with central Kentucky’s Catholic residents, some of whom don’t know about the station and what it does. “We’re going to be the station that is going to partner with you, that’s going to connect you with what’s going on,” Brown went on. For non-Catholics, also, Brown finds it vital to present and explore the church’s true beliefs. Some recent press has been negative — such as the priest-abuse scandals, he said — and he hopes eventually to discuss more about those issues on-air.
“When it comes to radio, it’s such an intimate medium and it’s such a versatile medium,” he said. Even new technology has not changed that. No one can read internet-delivered news on a smartphone while driving; only radio works in those moments, he said. “There’s such an opportunity to still reach more and more individuals, with a message, and I think it’s life-changing.” Moreover, live, local programs at 1380 may alone be unique among other stations’ talk-radio offerings, Brown said. “It’s refreshing; it’s uplifting. It’s an opportunity for people to hear thing that they’ve never heard before.” |
Ping!
Lemme guess ... he read what the church fathers thought the Bible meant?
No let me guess he read the bible only for real without the influences of the reformer writings. If we read it only like people say they do it would be different but most read what a “said” reformer tells you what a verse means above the whole text of scripture. Even if you did not read it your going by someone else’s opinion. I never met anyone not influence by others in reading scripture no matter whom. IMHO.......
No let me guess he read the bible only for real without the influences of the reformer writings. If we read it only like people say they do it would be different but most read what a “said” reformer tells you what a verse means above the whole text of scripture. Even if you did not read it your going by someone else’s opinion. I never met anyone not influence by others in reading scripture no matter whom. IMHO.......
Of couse that’s in my humble opinion. Lol
Sorry for the double.
It was worth repeating.
Regards
Lol! Yes! That is how I came back to my faith. I read it alone then took my mom to mass to honor the mother and father clause in our Ten Commandments . I saw how biblical is the mass. I have taken my separated Christian friends to the mass. They are floored how biblical it really is as spoken. Then when I went to mass as almost clearly as God speaking to me. The good Lord told me he was raising men up to explain the fullness of the church. I think that was the year catholic answers was founded.
A Biblical Walk Through the Mass by Edward Sri (Book Review) [Ecumenical]
There are many, many "former-Protestant-turns-Catholic" conversion stories posted on FR that bear these same marks - converts with a poor command of their former faith, who swam the Tiber in their early to mid twenties, often being swayed by "every wind of doctrine" before they converted. Most of these conversion stories fall into a common theme - "fringe member (or non-member) starts out illiterate and ignorant of his/her own confession, then gains publicity and fame on EWTN by making a loud, trumpeted conversion to Catholicism."
Take, for example, the story of James Akin. A convert in his mid-twenties, he was actually a whole lot of things before he became Catholic, but one Catholic FReeper hawked James as being a "former Presbyterian".
Another favorite is the story of Rodney Beason, supposedly a former Calvinist, and re-solicited as "a powerful conversion story". A first year college student, he claimed to have "a library full of Calvin, Luther, Warfield, Hodge, Murray, Owen, Machen, etc" and to have "helped plant a local Orthodox Presbyterian Church". A little digging on Google, however, and his conversion story was called into question. In the end, Rodney Beason himself signed up to FR just to provide all with the rest of his "powerful conversion story". Having abandoned the Catholic Church within two years of his 2002 conversion, he wishes Catholics would stop (re)publishing his story.
And then there's the tale of Rob Evans. I know what you're thinking - "who is Rob Evans?" Evans' previous claim to fame was a direct-to-VHS children's series titled The Donut Repair Club, marketed to children in Evangelical households in the early 1990s. When he wasn't entertaining children, Rob was a Presbyterian Pentecostal Baptist multiple-church-splitting spiritual wanderer, who was kicked out of at least one congregation before his conversion to Catholicism. His conversion nicely coincided with EWTN acquiring the broadcasting rights to his out-of-production Donut Repair Club.
Finally, there's Fr. Erik J. Richtsteig, billed as a "former Mormon" The problem is, Fr. Richtsteig stopped being Mormon by the time he was just eight years old, meaning he had never held office, never been on a mission, never been through a Temple ceremony. His "Mormon" experience was limited to Sunday attendance (without his mother) "sporadically".
I wonder how many of these Catholic converts actually attended churches that proclaimed the whole council of God? A question I would ask is how many Catholic converts previously went to churches with strong systematic confessions of faith, like the Westminster Confession, and how often were they taught the confession, like in a Sunday School class, and how well did their minister cover all the doctrines in the confession of faith? I would expect some rather weak answers.
-- from the thread Systematic Theology and Catholic Converts
Nice to see you are keeping track. Ready to be added to the ping list?
Thank you! I have it on e-book kindle. Wonderful.
I'm sure most of us can attest in our own lives to also having passed through many different twists and turns and unusual detours before finding the Truth by the Grace of God.
I think what matters most for all of us (like the Biblical Saul/Paul), is where we end up, not where we started, or the errors we embraced and stubbornly clung to in the wrong paths we were on for a while.
(Have a very pleasant evening -- I have to get up early tomorrow.)
We do agree on some things
THey don't convert *ON* EWTN, silly. Marcus invites them on his program after they've been Catholic, usually for several years. Hinting that people convert to get on EWTN is just silly. I know plenty of converts who have never been on TV. Nor were they all on the "periphery" of their Proddy churches, unless you want to argue that a PK (actually he's a second-generation PK) can somehow grow up on the periphery of the church.
(What kind of "publicity and fame" do you think someone gets by being a guest on a one hour TV show on EWTN, of all places?? I was friends with one of the *founders* of the network; my sons used to serve benediction for him. Am I "famous" too? Woo hoo!!)
On the one hand, we're told that all conservative Protestant churches are basically united, because they agree on "the essentials" (which nobody can enumerate); on the other, Alex wants to know if anyone has ever converted from a church exactly like his, because only those churches "proclaim the whole council [sic] of God".
Can't have it both ways, Alex. If only your denomination and churches like it preaches the whole truth, your Proddy "unity" is a fiction.
Incidentally, I personally know a couple of ex PCA members who are now serious Catholics. Did they have enough of that "council" to count, in your view?
Oh...wait...it's kinda like propoganda....shhhhhh
One thing that strikes me as being pretty common in most of these Catholic conversion stories...Most of them fail to mention Jesus Christ...I guess that’s because they become Catholic christians after they join the Catholic religion...
You do not have your own interpretation ... for you constantly argue that the church alone (and not individuals) can give the correct interpretation of scripture. When we all discuss the interpretation of scripture, its really a one way conversation we are having. In essence, there is no interpretive effort required on your part ... the church has decreed what a particular passage means and this causes you to never really interact with what the text is saying. The sort of thought terminating cliche that ends the analysis.
For example, at least once a week a Catholic uses 2 Thes. 5:15 to argue there are written and oral traditions that the church must follow.
15 So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.
The church tells you that this verse teaches the doctrine you espouse (tradition). You never ask any questions about the text, the context, the historical background, the Greek grammar, the comparison of this passage with others ... you never have to do the work of a careful exegete. It is patently easy for you ... the church tells you what to think about this passage.
We see scripture as sufficient ... if it can make wise the simple (Psalm 19) the simpleton must be able to read and understand it. I.e., most of it does not need an interpreter ... it requires careful reading.
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