T
TimothyH
Guest
A quick story which I hope will encourage people in their evangelization efforts…
A man recently moved into my neighborhood and we have chatted a few times, end of the driveway “Hi, how are you” kind of stuff. Most recently our conversation turned to faith. He shared that he came to Christ mostly through the writings of CS Lewis and I asked if he had ever considered Catholicism and if he had ever been to a Catholic Mass. His response was an immediate dismissal of the idea, stating that he could never believe in any of the Catholic dogmas.
I pushed a little… “I would love to discuss the biblical basis for some of the Catholic beliefs at some point, maybe over a cup of coffee or something. Is there a specific Dogma that you don’t agree with?” His response was interesting. I could sense his annoyance as he said, “Oh no, I’m not going to get into that right now.”
I backed down and gave him some room, apologized for being too forward and again offered to speak to him about it at some time in the future, but only if he wanted to. Now that he had a little breathing room, he volunteered that he felt he could never confess to a priest.
I replied that there was a sound biblical basis for oral confession and his response was odd… That he could not confess orally to a priest because of the way the Church handled the sex abuse crisis. We chatted about that for a moment, agreed that Bennedict XVI was on the right track and the conversation moved on to cars and computers and such.
Later on, praying about it, I came to a realization. This man has a doctorate in computer science and is senior professor at a local university. This guy is no dummy. He was not opposed to oral confession to a priest because of the sex abuse crisis - he just offered that up because he didn’t know what else to say. This guy didn’t have a clue about the biblical basis of any Catholic dogma or doctrine and as a Phd and professor, he just didn’t want to come across as uneducated about the subject!
The more I engage, the more I come to the realization that 99% of the people out there who think they have a problem with Catholic beliefs don’t have a clue what Catholic actually believe. The hard part is not convincing them of the biblical basis for Catholic beliefs but getting them to talk in the first place.
Mormons, Jehovah’s, Methodists, Evangelicals. It doesn’t matter. Most of them don’t know the first thing about Catholicism and what they do know is completely wrong.
So I say, give it a shot. You have absolutely nothing to loose!
-Tim-
A man recently moved into my neighborhood and we have chatted a few times, end of the driveway “Hi, how are you” kind of stuff. Most recently our conversation turned to faith. He shared that he came to Christ mostly through the writings of CS Lewis and I asked if he had ever considered Catholicism and if he had ever been to a Catholic Mass. His response was an immediate dismissal of the idea, stating that he could never believe in any of the Catholic dogmas.
I pushed a little… “I would love to discuss the biblical basis for some of the Catholic beliefs at some point, maybe over a cup of coffee or something. Is there a specific Dogma that you don’t agree with?” His response was interesting. I could sense his annoyance as he said, “Oh no, I’m not going to get into that right now.”
I backed down and gave him some room, apologized for being too forward and again offered to speak to him about it at some time in the future, but only if he wanted to. Now that he had a little breathing room, he volunteered that he felt he could never confess to a priest.
I replied that there was a sound biblical basis for oral confession and his response was odd… That he could not confess orally to a priest because of the way the Church handled the sex abuse crisis. We chatted about that for a moment, agreed that Bennedict XVI was on the right track and the conversation moved on to cars and computers and such.
Later on, praying about it, I came to a realization. This man has a doctorate in computer science and is senior professor at a local university. This guy is no dummy. He was not opposed to oral confession to a priest because of the sex abuse crisis - he just offered that up because he didn’t know what else to say. This guy didn’t have a clue about the biblical basis of any Catholic dogma or doctrine and as a Phd and professor, he just didn’t want to come across as uneducated about the subject!
The more I engage, the more I come to the realization that 99% of the people out there who think they have a problem with Catholic beliefs don’t have a clue what Catholic actually believe. The hard part is not convincing them of the biblical basis for Catholic beliefs but getting them to talk in the first place.
Mormons, Jehovah’s, Methodists, Evangelicals. It doesn’t matter. Most of them don’t know the first thing about Catholicism and what they do know is completely wrong.
So I say, give it a shot. You have absolutely nothing to loose!
-Tim-