G
GSUEagle
Guest
I need a little bit of advice, but before that, I will give a bit of back story:
When I was a child, my family and I attended a protestant church of the Baptist denomination. As a young child, I was baptized of my own free will in the Baptist tradition. I attended Sunday school and became somewhat familiar with the scripture. As time went on, I fell away from the church and began to have more doubt, as I didn’t like the way that things were done in the Church. I started seeing people who came to service on Sunday who would say a few amens, chat a bit, partake in what they considered to be worship of God and then leave to their normal lives for the rest of the week. I don’t want to generalize and say that this was the case with all of them, but it did feel as if there was no basis in the church, no real devotion or anything. It all seemed a bit too easy, as if reading the Bible and attending service on Sunday while maintaining your faith would somehow reap you substantial reward in the afterlife. Anyway, I stopped attending and really turned away from Christianity all together at about the age of 16, so I haven’t really even been to a service in about 7 years. During that time, I considered myself to be an ardent atheist, it all seemed to me as if this whole ordeal of organized religion was contrived solely for people to feel stronger in their lives and for them to justify the things they do with ‘God will forgive me’ or ‘I went to church on Sunday.’
I’ve come to respect how much more traditional and steadfast the Church seems and I am able to view the beliefs and the Christian faith in general without being clouded by the years of disdain I felt as a protestant.
I relayed all of this to a priest at a parish located in the same town that my university is in and I will be meeting with him when I return from thanksgiving break and we scheduled a meeting through which we will begin to talk about my potential conversion. I am a little nervous and would like to ask what it might entail? Are priests used to dealing with former protestants turned atheists turned potential converts?
When I was a child, my family and I attended a protestant church of the Baptist denomination. As a young child, I was baptized of my own free will in the Baptist tradition. I attended Sunday school and became somewhat familiar with the scripture. As time went on, I fell away from the church and began to have more doubt, as I didn’t like the way that things were done in the Church. I started seeing people who came to service on Sunday who would say a few amens, chat a bit, partake in what they considered to be worship of God and then leave to their normal lives for the rest of the week. I don’t want to generalize and say that this was the case with all of them, but it did feel as if there was no basis in the church, no real devotion or anything. It all seemed a bit too easy, as if reading the Bible and attending service on Sunday while maintaining your faith would somehow reap you substantial reward in the afterlife. Anyway, I stopped attending and really turned away from Christianity all together at about the age of 16, so I haven’t really even been to a service in about 7 years. During that time, I considered myself to be an ardent atheist, it all seemed to me as if this whole ordeal of organized religion was contrived solely for people to feel stronger in their lives and for them to justify the things they do with ‘God will forgive me’ or ‘I went to church on Sunday.’
I’ve come to respect how much more traditional and steadfast the Church seems and I am able to view the beliefs and the Christian faith in general without being clouded by the years of disdain I felt as a protestant.
I relayed all of this to a priest at a parish located in the same town that my university is in and I will be meeting with him when I return from thanksgiving break and we scheduled a meeting through which we will begin to talk about my potential conversion. I am a little nervous and would like to ask what it might entail? Are priests used to dealing with former protestants turned atheists turned potential converts?
)