Are you a convert?

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Christain-Church of God-Nothing at all in particular-Wiccan/Christain-Wiccan-Pagan-New Age- Christain/Catholic
 
Brought up Pentecostal>Baptist>Methodist>just evangelical> Catholic !!!

Praise God I found His True Church At over 70 years of age. I am now 81.

I have 6 children and am praying that each of them will find their way home also.
👍 🙂
 
Raised with no particular religion.

Converted to Christian at age 12 in a Baptist Sunday School.

Drifted away during my teens, checked out lots of religions, spiritual paths and secular philosophies. Liked some of them, wasn’t convinced by any of them. Almost became an atheist, but wasn’t convinced by that either.

Came back into the Christian fold at 21. Joined an Open Bible house church and was baptized. Have remained Christian ever since, but not very active in it until a few years ago.

I’m Episcopalian now… but that’s not so much a conversion, more of a reversion. Ever since I’ve been a Christian (again), I’ve always considered myself an Anglican at heart. C.S. Lewis deserves most of the credit (or blame) for that. But the impetus for the change was alienation from the politics and culture of American evangelicalism, and the 2012 Santorum campaign was the last straw.
 
Evangelical - Presby - Catholic 🙂
Best and longest road I’ve ever been on but glad I’m finally home
 
Ok, mine is a strange situation. I was born and baptized ALC Lutheran. My mother and father were both converts to the Lutheran Church. I have a half brother (father’s side) much older, who had been raised Catholic. I have a half sister (mother’s side) who converted to Catholicism from Baptist when she was 18. She influenced my situation greatly. I went to Catholic schools from PreK to 12th and thus went through all sacramental catechesis, courtesy of the Dominican and Notre Dame sisters. Simultaneously, I went through Lutheran catechesis for Communion and confirmation. I celebrated family religious events for both myself and my sister’s kids (they’re my age/generation). In 5th grade, because my parents both worked, I stayed after school at the Covent till my Mom picked me up. I got first hand experience with satellite convent life (Liturgy of the Hours, etc) and I loved it. One month prior to my 18th birthday, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I went to the church where our high school graduation had been held, and talked to the pastor. After listening to my history and asking many faith questions, he said there was no need to go thru RCIA; but I needed to make it official and stop straddling the fence (I’d been attending Mass and confession most of my life; in fact, I was allowed to make my first confession at age 7 with everyone else, and I went regularly with everyone at school. No Communion, of course.)
So, I made my Profession of Faith at that parish the following Sunday, with a very close friend as my sponsor. The only stipulation that the priest had was that I go through confirmation training in the same way a cradle Catholic would, since that’s the way I’d been living. I promised, and I did. While I was at college, I took one-on-one confirmation prep with the parish priest there, with an arrangement through our diocese back home to be confirmed with my youngest niece’s class. After a while, it got to be a rap session, because he said I obviously knew the catechism inside out; so we did more in-depth studies on religious topics. After graduation, I wound up at our cathedral to be in the choir, and lo and behold! The priest who’d heard my profession of faith was now the rector there! That’s where I met my husband, that priest married us and baptized our first child.
Sorry such a long post 🙂
 
Although I was baptized a Catholic as an infant I wasn’t really anything until college. Not sure if I would be considered a convert or revert but, as the OP clarified, I had a major change in my faith that brought me to RCIA and first communion in college so I voted yes. Prior to this I would have described myself as a marginally spiritual person with some Christian beliefs that claimed to be Catholic even though I had no idea what the Church taught in most areas. Really I was agnostic.

God bless
 
I am currently considering it:

Raised Catholic but nobody bothered to get me baptised as a child (which is bizarre) → Anglo-Catholic → …?
 
carmichael2359 said:
Ok, mine is a strange situation. I was born and baptized ALC Lutheran. My mother and father were both converts to the Lutheran Church. I have a half brother (father’s side) much older, who had been raised Catholic. I have a half sister (mother’s side) who converted to Catholicism from Baptist when she was 18. She influenced my situation greatly. I went to Catholic schools from PreK to 12th and thus went through all sacramental catechesis, courtesy of the Dominican and Notre Dame sisters. Simultaneously, I went through Lutheran catechesis for Communion and confirmation. I celebrated family religious events for both myself and my sister’s kids (they’re my age/generation). In 5th grade, because my parents both worked, I stayed after school at the Covent till my Mom picked me up. I got first hand experience with satellite convent life (Liturgy of the Hours, etc) and I loved it. One month prior to my 18th birthday, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I went to the church where our high school graduation had been held, and talked to the pastor. After listening to my history and asking many faith questions, he said there was no need to go thru RCIA; but I needed to make it official and stop straddling the fence (I’d been attending Mass and confession most of my life; in fact, I was allowed to make my first confession at age 7 with everyone else, and I went regularly with everyone at school. No Communion, of course.)
So, I made my Profession of Faith at that parish the following Sunday, with a very close friend as my sponsor. The only stipulation that the priest had was that I go through confirmation training in the same way a cradle Catholic would, since that’s the way I’d been living. I promised, and I did. While I was at college, I took one-on-one confirmation prep with the parish priest there, with an arrangement through our diocese back home to be confirmed with my youngest niece’s class. After a while, it got to be a rap session, because he said I obviously knew the catechism inside out; so we did more in-depth studies on religious topics. After graduation, I wound up at our cathedral to be in the choir, and lo and behold! The priest who’d heard my profession of faith was now the rector there! That’s where I met my husband, that priest married us and baptized our first child.
Sorry such a long post 🙂
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Amazing! What religion were your parents before they converted to the Lutheran Church?
 
My mother was Baptist; my father was Methodist. My mother ended up being kinda like me. She had a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother, went on several pilgrimages, one to the Holy Land, one to Italy, one to Lourdes. Growing up on the ALC I can tell you the service was almost identical to the Catholic Mass, most laypeople didn’t know the difference between transubstantiation and consubstantiation. Our bulletin simply read that all who believed the Eucharist was truly the Body and Blood of Christ was welcome at Communion.
 
Catholicism to Unitarian Universalism.

The day I abandoned Christianity is one of my top 5 days of my life. :D:cool:
 
cheese_sdc said:
Catholicism to Unitarian Universalism.

The day I abandoned Christianity is one of my top 5 days of my life. :D:cool:
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I don’t understand the degree of animus you have towards Christianity, cheese.

While this is a personal question, and you of course, have no need to answer…is there some personal reason you left Christianity, or is it more of a theoretical, doctrinal disagreement you have?

Are you divorced and re-married perhaps?
 
PRmerger said:
I don’t understand the degree of animus you have towards Christianity, cheese.

While this is a personal question, and you of course, have no need to answer…is there some personal reason you left Christianity, or is it more of a theoretical, doctrinal disagreement you have?

Are you divorced and re-married perhaps?
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I am quite angry, about a lot of things, but I’m working on it. 😃

Just curious, though - one person posted :
Heathen> Pentecostal>Roman Catholic
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Free at last, Lord almighty I’m free at last!
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And you haven’t asked them if they are angry. 😉

And in this posting I just posted that my de-conversion was one of the best days of my life. 🙂

My story is pretty typical: raised in a Catholic Charismatic household where Divinity was used to enforce the will of one of my parents. We were forced to pray in tongues, attend prayer meetings and join a “Youth Retreat Team”. I witnessed incredible spiritual abuse in that small community - to the point my wife said “You were mind raped”. For example, if the adult leadership failed in insert task here, the kids were blamed b/c “Y’all obviously didn’t pray hard enough for us to succeed.” Or when the adult leadership had a family crisis, we were blamed b/c “Yall don’t care about us because none of y’all helped”. After each such incident, I wrapped myself in the mask a little bit tighter and I learned to wear the mask of Christianity so well that I went to minor seminary and graduated Summa Cum Laude.

Decided to not go to major seminary and found a job in Baton Rouge. Was very active in my church parish - taught CCD, played guitar in the choir, met my wife in the choir. All the while, I was wearing the mask. I tried for years to separate the threads of poisonous Christianity from what I thought was “good” Christianity. The more I thought and studied and worked, the more I realized that it was impossible. I kept at it though.

Eventually though, as I lived “The examined life” (as opposed to the “unexamined life”) I became to understand that I was wearing the mask of Christianity. That my experiences of the Divine did not match up with what Christianity said I was supposed to experience. So, I learned to trust myself, my own experiences and my own (semi-rational) thoughts. 🙂 (But don’t mistake my self-deprecating sense of humor with a lack of resolve…)

Many people have told me (in one form or another) - “You didn’t “do” Catholicism correctly”. I would disagree. I did everything a “good Catholic” does, and I believed it. Wholeheartedly. Went to daily mass. Confession monthly (sometimes weekly). Rosary. I spent hours in front of the tabernacle, and in front of the exposed Eucharist. I studied Church documents (even after leaving seminary). I taught, studied, lived, breathed, and worshiped in Catholicism. Even after I left Catholicism, I would still remind my wife when a Holy Day of Obligation was coming up. 😛

I do also have theological objections, of course. But those can be discussed some other day.

So anger? Yeah. I’ve got a little. I am working on it though. The Christian God didn’t do anything to me, rather it was those who claim to follow It.

Doesn’t mean I’m planning on going back anytime soon, though. 😛 I won’t say “never” though. I used to say that “I’d never leave Catholicism” and we know how that turned out… 😃
 
cheese_sdc said:
I am quite angry, about a lot of things, but I’m working on it. 😃

Just curious, though - one person posted :

And you haven’t asked them if they are angry. 😉
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Well, I only read page 5.

And I don’t really have any past history/discourse with that poster.

And why would I question why they have come home to the treasure of His Body? Rather, I question why people leave a million bucks to go forage for scraps offered by any yahoo. 🤷
 
cheese_sdc said:
My story is pretty typical: raised in a Catholic Charismatic household where Divinity was used to enforce the will of one of my parents. We were forced to pray in tongues, attend prayer meetings and join a “Youth Retreat Team”. I witnessed incredible spiritual abuse in that small community - to the point my wife said “You were mind raped”. For example, if the adult leadership failed in insert task here, the kids were blamed b/c “Y’all obviously didn’t pray hard enough for us to succeed.” Or when the adult leadership had a family crisis, we were blamed b/c “Yall don’t care about us because none of y’all helped”. After each such incident, I wrapped myself in the mask a little bit tighter and I learned to wear the mask of Christianity so well that I went to minor seminary and graduated Summa Cum Laude.
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Then I suppose you are familiar with the phrase: *abusus non tollit usum.
*
That my experiences of the Divine did not match up with what Christianity said I was supposed to experience.
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What experiences did Christianity say you were supposed to experience?
Many people have told me (in one form or another) - “You didn’t “do” Catholicism correctly”. I would disagree. I did everything a “good Catholic” does, and I believed it. Wholeheartedly. Went to daily mass. Confession monthly (sometimes weekly). Rosary. I spent hours in front of the tabernacle, and in front of the exposed Eucharist. I studied Church documents (even after leaving seminary). I taught, studied, lived, breathed, and worshiped in Catholicism. Even after I left Catholicism, I would still remind my wife when a Holy Day of Obligation was coming up. 😛
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Yes, we’ve had this discussion before and I think you were not able to articulate Catholic teaching correctly. So what you are opposing is a pornographized version of Catholicism, I think.
So anger? Yeah. I’ve got a little. I am working on it though.
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I am humbled to be in dialogue with someone who demonstrates humility on the CAFs.

I will respectfully say that it’s quite weird to me what will set you off sometimes. We’ll be in a nice dialogue and then suddenly you’re like, “How dare you! I’m out of here!”

My response:

The Christian God didn’t do anything to me, rather it was those who claim to follow It.
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Exactly what I thought.

What if people left Christ because they saw how Judas betrayed him? They’d be missing the treasure, wouldn’t they? :sad_yes:
 
cheese_sdc said:
Doesn’t mean I’m planning on going back anytime soon, though. 😛 I won’t say “never” though. I used to say that “I’d never leave Catholicism” and we know how that turned out… 😃
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I wish you God’s efficacious grace on your faith journey and just want to proffer some food for thought: as you discern the Truth of God’s revelation, I want to caution you against creating a god in your own image, rather than conforming your will to God’s.

If there is a God, then logic dictates that there’s going to be some belief/command/morality/tenet that He has revealed that is contrary to your own–is this not reasonable?

And if you’re in a church/religion that has God declaring everything that cheese happens to believe personally as well (how convenient is that??) then I submit that you’ve created a god in your own image.

I know from Reason that God’s not going to have the exact identical view of the world and morality as I do…so if there’s some idea that I personally have that is in contrast with God’s Revelation (which I know only through the Church–not sure how it is you believe God reveals His Truth), then I understand that the problem is mine and that I need to change.

I don’t go looking for a church or a god that conforms to my views.
 
Baptized Lutheran, been a Protestant my entire life I’m in RCIA converting to Catholicism this Easter 😉
 
PRmerger said:
Well, I only read page 5.

And I don’t really have any past history/discourse with that poster.

And why would I question why they have come home to the treasure of His Body? Rather, I question why people leave a million bucks to go forage for scraps offered by any yahoo. 🤷
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That person is me, not that anybody ASKED me, but the “free at last, lord almighty, I’m
free at last” was because I’m free of the curse of unbelieve. I’m not angry, I just call it as I see it. Perhaps Cheese was PROJECTING his feelings on to me. :rolleyes:
 
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