Calling all converts

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famdigy

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Hello,

Are there any converts from one faith to another, or from one denomination to another? What turned you away from your previous faith? and what is it that made you chose your current faith?
 
I’m a repeat convert.
To tell my story would take longer than it took to live my life, but the part about why I became Catholic can be summarized in a few categories of reasons:
Awareness of the lies I had heard about the Catholic Church and what the Bible says about lies and false witness;
Anti-intellectualism in the Protestant world (not all, but enough to be hard to avoid);
Unexplained Bible passages (“For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” – Our Lord let a majority of His followers walk out over that. If it were just a figure of speech, would He lose people He had come to save over that? And others);
Splintering of the denominations, including the ones that formed to bring existing denominations back together – no unity among Protestants;
Lives of the Saints;
A tremendous spiritual experience while visiting Mass;
Writings from the early Church showing the continuity of Catholic beliefs and practices.
 
I was born and raised baptist. My brother and I were treated very cruelly because my parents were divorced. My second grade teacher told me my Mother was going to hell because my Father left her. It didn’t matter that she was a good woman that lived for the Lord. This was in northern Ca. we moved to southern Ca. and it was better. But they seem to hate everyone that isn’t from their church, not just other religions, to them, at every baptist church I’ve been to, everyone is going to hell except them. I always felt the Catholic Church was calling me, even though I was told numerous lies about them. I grew very weary of all the hatred. So when I grew up I came home. I have had nothing but peace and joy and happiness ever since.
 
From Protestant to Catholic.

A faith in Sacraments and a gradual realization that Anglican Sacraments weren’t valid.

Felt a real movement of the Holy Spirit. Rather than being something that comes and goes as I experienced in the Protestant Church’s I found a Spirit that anointed me and stays with me, draws me ever towards God and never abandons me.

The Church portrays Jesus as loving, whereas the Protestant Church’s I went to forgot that and went straight for judgment and hellfire.

I find that Statues, Icons and beautiful buildings draw my mind to God and help me focus on my prayers.

The lives of the Saints inspire me and I reasoned that of Jesus really conquered death then these great men and women are not dead and if they are not dead I can ask them to pray for me and with me exactly as I ask you guys to pray for me.

Finally the love of our Lady and her understanding of human suffering through the Crucifixion of Jesus. I’ve listened to sermons that have told me that Mary is in Hell and it never rang true. In the Catholic Church I found the truth about our Lady that my soul had been crying out for me to realize. Our Heavenly Mother has, since the day I found her, carried me through trials, protected me and brought me back to God when he’s presence was lost to me. There’s nothing quite like a mothers tears.

I’m sure there are many more reasons that I could find and I could spell out my story from converting to Protestant Fundamentalist from Atheist and then my journey through seven Protestant denominations until I found the Faith but for the moment I’ll leave you with the above. However feel free to message me if you want to talk about my conversion experience in detail.
 
I am a convert from agnosticism if you can call that another faith per se so much as a philosophical lifestyle. There were a great number of things that led me to the Catholic church, but what really clinched it was Syrian Stigmatist Myrna Nazzour - the Marian apparitions and miracles surrounding her visions of Christ. Ockham’s razor led me to choose between:

a) Proclaiming many of the people of Damascus mad/liars, and many pilgrims from England, Ireland, the United States, and Germany who visit her every Easter mad/liars as well. Or;
b) Admit that there is more to this world than the purely explained occurences we encounter every day, that there is a God who cares for each of us and draws all people to himself. A God who is hurt by our factions and our feuding in his name, who wants to see a resolution between our great body of believers and is willing to throw His hat into the ring to make it happen.

Hope that helps,
 
I went from Catholic, to Wiccan, to Quaker, to kind of a random Christian, to random new age belief, to where I am now which is generally skeptical.

Why did I switch? I just didn’t belong. Except for being a Quaker. I left that because I split up with my girlfriend at the time. In the division of all the stuff, she got the church.
 
strngrnrth said:
I’m a repeat convert.
To tell my story would take longer than it took to live my life, but the part about why I became Catholic can be summarized in a few categories of reasons:
Awareness of the lies I had heard about the Catholic Church and what the Bible says about lies and false witness;
Anti-intellectualism in the Protestant world (not all, but enough to be hard to avoid);
Unexplained Bible passages (“For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” – Our Lord let a majority of His followers walk out over that. If it were just a figure of speech, would He lose people He had come to save over that? And others);
Splintering of the denominations, including the ones that formed to bring existing denominations back together – no unity among Protestants;
Lives of the Saints;
A tremendous spiritual experience while visiting Mass;
Writings from the early Church showing the continuity of Catholic beliefs and practices.
Click to expand...
DITTO

We could be brothers or the same person.
 
strngrnrth said:
I’m a repeat convert.
Unexplained Bible passages (“For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink”
Click to expand...
Hi strngrnrth,

do you have an explanation for that passage?
are there any other unexplained bible passages?
 
LaMar said:
Born a Mormon, practicing Atheist.

Emmmm…

Whoa! LOL!

What’s a Luciferian Satanist? Dare I ask?
Click to expand...
It is the spooky side of Satanism, not the Humanistic LaVeyan stuff—the demonic entity worshipping stuff (Lucifer). You know like Rosemary’s Baby? I think it was a 60’s thing. It borrowed from Crowley and Kabbala and Medieval nightmares. The kind of thing that most Evangelical Christian sects are afraid is happening in basements and abandonned warehouses, but honestly in the years I spent in the pagan and goth scene since 1990 I have never seen anything come close to what I experienced as a child. If you Google ‘Luciferian’ you get a bunch of wannabe ‘vampyre’ cults with members of the median age of 15. JW during the day and Luciferian at night, the only thing they had in common was an extreme hatred of the Catholic Church, which in the end is what led me to it. I wanted to figure out why they hated it so badly. So I rebelled and became Catholic. :eek: 😃
 
My spiritual life was at an all time low. I had stopped going to church, was living my life without God in it at all. I was miserable and was about to move back to Alabama. I made a promise to God that when I moved, I would straighten out my life and would make Him the center of my life. I moved and was looking for another Baptist Church to attend when I thought of how interested I had always been of the Catholic Church, which is what led me to the RCIA classes. My spiritual life took off from there. Mass is so important to me and I was thrilled when I finally had kids so I could raise them in the Church, teach and share with them our faith and our wonderful Lord and Savior!
 
I was raised Episcopalian. When I was 15, my father died of a heart attack. I had been investigating the Catholic Church through history and theology for a while before, but it was his going back to God that made me fully realize the truth of the Catholic Church.

But it was a long road. I took dips through Episcopalianism, Fundemantalism, Agonisticism, and even looked into Mormonism (Joseph Smith’s book is complete nonsence). I finally came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church has been around since the apostles, compiled the Bible, has had an unbroken line of popes, and other signs of truth. I have felt the Lord Jesus Christ at the Holy Mass and in His Church.

Although I respect the Episcopal Church (and any other Trinitarian church), after my father’s funeral, a protestant church just didn’t feel the way it used to. There are some VERY faithful people there (my father was one of them), and I know the Lord is with them, but I have found the true Church.

I accecpted Jesus Christ into my heart, and (seeing as I had already been baptized) I am looking into Euchraist, Confirmation, and Confession.
 
This could be a long post so I’ll keep it as succinct as possible
Born and raised devout Catholic.
Asked god for help during a terrible period of my life, and things after that got significantly worse.
Felt abandoned, so I delved into Catholicism: mass, adoration, retreats, rosaries, to get closer to my faith and heal.

Took a class on Asian Mythology. Was surprised at the complexity of it, and how there were unique, creative stories ‘explaining’ many parts of life. Was fascinated by the psychology of religion, and how and why religion spread, which I never really thought about till then. And these creation myths and the religion was believed! I realized that if I was critically looking at other faiths, I needed to critically look at my own; that to be a strong Catholic, I needed to be absolutely sure of what I was placing my trust in, and that if someone asked me, I needed to have a good answer to this conundrum. Besides, the likelihood of being born into the “correct” religion was not large, so to be a good Catholic, I needed to get rid of these concerns. Continued with research, Bible readings, and talking with others.

Realized I had significant qualms about major tenants of the faith, most glaring was that I strongly disagreed that faith should play such a large factor for gaining salvation. It made no sense to me. It repulsed me that good people could be sent to Hell simply because of lack of faculty for belief for something as similar as choosing a wrong answer on a vague test question.

I found that with my understanding of science, I could not read stories of the OT such as Noah, or Adam/Eve, and believe it actually happened. Other parts of the OT did not make sense to me, when considering God as omnimax, such as that God got angry – why would God get angry, or change his mind, when he knew what was going to happen? Why did god have to intervene so much, when God should have been able to make a perfectly self sustaining population? Why would a perfect God resort to stooping to such primitive, violent measures to get things done, which invoked massive suffering (I don’t accept the retort that that was the only way the people would understand)? I realized I had to look at a major part of the Bible as being allegory/cultural/linguistic/etc in order for it to make any sense. Then wondered that if I was taking a majority of the Bible as allegory, what was stopping the whole thing from being just a story? Other issues started to crop up such as the issue of omnipotence/free will. Visited a couple of boards of other religions, and the people of those faiths each had their reasons about why they were the correct religion – these were very devout people. Comparative religion is pretty interesting stuff. Started to see Catholicism as just as valid as Asian Mythology.

Got scared with that thought and tried to force myself back to full belief. Did more retreats, praying, adoration, reading, having others pray for me, etc. Would lie awake at night crying to God, hearing nothing.

Started reading both “sides” of debates, instead of just the Catholic side, to see if I could enhance my faith by seeing non-rational counters to Catholicism. Found that the atheist/agnostic side actually made a lot more sense to me.

Finally came to the understanding that faith is not an option, that I can not force myself into it. Also resigned myself to the fact that I could not continue to call myself Catholic, as that would be a lie.

A friend said it so simply to me, that I had problems with religion, not with god. This clarified things for me a great deal, and now, after over a decade of a crisis of faith, I consider myself agnostic. I do all I can to be a good and loving person… I grow further away from Catholicism with each passing day.
 
I started off as a cradle Catholic, but abandoned God and religion when I was about 14. I was an agnostic/atheist for a long time until I had what I can only describe as a mystical experience (actually mind-blowing-life changing-Amazing Grace experience is more accurate). I returned to the Catholic Church, but after a few years of trying to make it all work in my head and heart, I gave up. Now I’m a member of a Congregationalist church here in the town where I live. Sometimes I miss Catholicism. I may go back, someday. We’ll see.
 
I was a Lutheran in the ELCA for the first 19 years of my life. It was during high school, after being confirmed, that I began thoroughly researching theology. At one point in time, I knew for certain that I would become a Lutheran minister. However, all throughout my committment and involvment in my church I could not ignore the contradictions I had with Luther’s theology. The ideas of cosubstantiation, ignoring of Christ’s call to his Apostles to forgive the sins of his people, the ignoring of holy orders, and finally his denial of Peter’s call to be the rock of Christ’s Church, helped me to decide to become Catholic. So, in my freshman year at college, I was recieved into the Catholic Church. Overall, my research into Lutheran theology, Catholic theology, comparing the two with Scripture and tradition, especially with the help of the early church fathers, led to my conversion. Since that time, I find the sacrament of confession to be an amazing gift, always wondering how I never realized its significance as a Lutheran. The greatest gift is recieving the true Eucharist and being able to share this gift with all at mass.
Currently, I am deeply interested in Carmelite spirituality, Fraciscan spirituality, the Tridentine Mass, and the history of the Church.
 
mine’s a long story too:
  • raised protestant
  • considered myself agnostic in high school
  • went to catholic high school
  • in twenties read “tarot with christian, qabbala, numerology, judaism influences” !
  • also runes, i ching, etc.
  • in late twenties began to develop relationship with Jesus
  • shopped around for a church (jehovahs witness, baptist, episcopalian , catholic, etc.)
  • went to episcopalian church for five years
  • felt a marian call
  • read “Looking for Mary” by Beverly Donofrio
  • Read “the Mission” and “The Message” by Wayne Weible
  • converted as a result of learning about Medjugorje.
  • I recommend anything by Scott Hahn, esp. “Rome Sweet Home”
 
Mine is a long story as well.
I will just hit the high-points:
I was born and raised Baptist in a predominantly Protestant area.

All through childhood a lot of situations arise which brought me to ask my parents about catholicism to which they admitted they had limited knowledge and could not answer fully or at all.

Changed Baptist churches about 3 different times and so by the time I was in high school and through my first semester in college I considered myself agnostic.

During my second semester of college I took a sociology course and as a project our instructor gave us several examples of projects we could do one of which was, “If you are Baptist you could try attending a Catholic Church” I thought “I was raised Baptist and I have always had an interest in Catholicism I can kill two birds with one stone.”

I went and started attending off-and-on.

A few years went by and the Holy Spirit moved me and I realized that the Catholic Church is where I belonged.

:signofcross:
 
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