Converting

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cheddarsox

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Curious about the process of converting from one faith to another.

If you have converted once, or more in your life, please participate in poll and share any of your experience that you like.

cheddar
 
What started as a “thing to do” ended in a true, full-fledged belief. The more I learned, the more I knew I was Catholic - and had been all the time (I just didn’t know it!).
 
I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I chose #4 as the most closely related option to my own experience.

In my continual conversion to Christ, and seeking to draw ever closer to Him, but due to my own stubborness and error, I have been led by Him through several churches and religions, at each one learing to abandon some certain/specific error and learn a certain new truth necessary for me to come to His path.

This journey began as a protestant, which led to occultism, from there to mormonism, and then currently/finally ‘full circle’ to Catholicism.
 
I too chose #4 as the closest to my experience. I don’t count my leaving the Episcopal church for the Assemblies of God because it was not my decision since I was a minor at the time. But, my returning the ECUSA and later reconciliation with the Catholic Church was my choice and made for the sake of having the “fullness of truth” in my faith life.
 
#4 is the closest but still problematic because it states it was a conversion due to feelings. More accurately to say I moved from one faith into a faith which after serious reflection, study and prayer determined to have more truth.

Scott
 
Can everyone say where they converted from. i converted from agnosticism of sorts, cradle catholic, back to the catholic church. But an thinking about leaving again
 
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cheddarsox:
Curious about the process of converting from one faith to another.
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When I became a Christian, at age 16, I became a Protestant. I was coming out of uncomfortable circumstances (which I am not going to discuss), and so I jumped hard. Hearing that the Bible was God’s Word, I decided to learn it. I became a fundamentalist: I believed that every word was literally true.

When I went to university, I studied was seduced by Laozi. I fell yet farther when I studied literature and learnt too much about reading.

I cannot be Protestant because I cannot accept Scripture as the ultimate source of authority when I know that every reader determines the message of the text for him-/herself. I cannot be Orthodox because I cannot accept that doctrine should never develop. I cannot be Catholic because I cannot accept the doctrine of ecclesiastical infallibility.

I de-converted, but with nowhere to go. I am, therefore, a devout heretic.
 
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cheddarsox:
Curious about the process of converting from one faith to another.

If you have converted once, or more in your life, please participate in poll and share any of your experience that you like.

cheddar
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I recently stopped calling myself Catholic due to the fact that I could not reconcile my personal experiences with many of the Church’s teachings. I don’t have the will, nor the space here, to put those differences into words, but I do share some things privately with close friends who I know have shared similar, if not identical, experiences, and understand what I’m going through. (Yes, that includes you, cheddar!)

So, I too, consider myself a “devout heretic.”

Mike
 
I left the Church in my youth and enjoyed what I thought was freedom from overweening restraints. But after arriving at middle age I realized what a mess liberalism had made (and is still making) of the modern world.

Protestantism was for me really a halfway house to atheism, where I landed with a resounding thud before regaining my senses. Now I work very closely with those who have engaged atheism to the point where it has gotten them into prison.

God bless them all … but especially those few atheists in prison who were wrongly indicted and convicted and have given up on God.
 
Hello! 🙂

Ok, here is what I want to add to this thread… I have never left my faith because to do this would be to deny God. My faith is in Him not a religion. To go from one denomination to another is not to leave a faith it is to add to the one you already have. My faith is in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and all they do within me. So the wording of the pole has left me with no choices.
 
Gilbert Keith:
I left the Church in my youth and enjoyed what I thought was freedom from overweening restraints. But after arriving at middle age I realized what a mess liberalism had made (and is still making) of the modern world.
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Can you please be a little more specific on what you consider “liberalism?” Because if you’re defining it the way I think you do, I actually hold the opposite view. Thanks!

Mike
 
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Mystophilus:
You bring the steak and I’ll bring the marshmallows.
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OK, I’ll spring for the steaks. Heck, I’ll even buy the beverages! 🙂

Mike
 
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Mystophilus:
I cannot be Protestant because I cannot accept Scripture as the ultimate source of authority when I know that every reader determines the message of the text for him-/herself. I cannot be Orthodox because I cannot accept that doctrine should never develop. I cannot be Catholic because I cannot accept the doctrine of ecclesiastical infallibility.

I de-converted, but with nowhere to go. I am, therefore, a devout heretic.
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Are you sure that you are clear on what ecclesiastical infallibility means?

God love you,
Paul
 
Mike,

Can you please be a little more specific on what you consider “liberalism?”

The various “freedoms” demanded by liberals:

No censorship of pornography.

The right to engage in “victimless crimes.”

Protection of free speech (all the foulest type) but not words of prayer in schools.

Right to kill unborn children.

Right to marry someone of the same sex.

Right to kill the aged and infirm (euthanasia).

ETC. ETC.

Would you call these liberal causes or conservative ones?

And they (to mention just these few) have all made a moral mess of this country. The declining respect for authority and lack of civility, as illustrated in the crudest spokemen for the Left, says it all.

These liberal causes were never promoted by the Catholic Church, and most of those who promote them are the worst critics of the Catholic Church. Liberal Catholics have even gone over to their side. Do I have to name names for you?
 
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PaulDupre:
Are you sure that you are clear on what ecclesiastical infallibility means?
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Considering my epsitemological position, I cannot be utterly sure of anything, but I can make a reasonably well-informed guess at what ecclesiastical infallibility means to the Catholic Church because I have been looking at this problem for a while.

“Infallibility:
In general, exemption or immunity from liability to error or failure; in particular in theological usage, the supernatural prerogative by which the Church of Christ is, by a special Divine assistance, preserved from liability to error in her definitive dogmatic teaching regarding matters of faith and morals.”

"890 The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium’s task to preserve God’s people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church’s shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The exercise of this charism takes several forms:

891 The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful - who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals. . . . The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter’s successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," above all in an Ecumenical Council. When the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine “for belief as being divinely revealed,” and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions “must be adhered to with the obedience of faith.” This infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself."

While I believe that mortals are occasionally capable of being right, I do not believe that mortals are capable of infallibility, nor that we were ever meant to be capable of it.
 
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Singinbeauty:
Hello! 🙂

Ok, here is what I want to add to this thread… I have never left my faith because to do this would be to deny God. My faith is in Him not a religion. To go from one denomination to another is not to leave a faith it is to add to the one you already have. My faith is in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and all they do within me. So the wording of the pole has left me with no choices.
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I feel very much like this myself. I don’t feel that I have ever left MY faith, it has grown, deepened, matured, become stronger and more precious to me. That experience has led me into fellowship with different people, a variety of worship styles and practices etc. But my faith has not experienced a big change or turn around. Nor have I been lured or “converted” by other people’s words, writings or teachings. It has always been between me and the divine. I didn’t see a “better deal” in another belief system and chase it, I kept hold of the hand of the divine and this is where I am today. My relationship with the divine is ongoing, but I have not gone from believing in one god and switching to another, I have come to know the divine in a deeper way.

cheddar
 
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Singinbeauty:
Hello! 🙂

Ok, here is what I want to add to this thread… I have never left my faith because to do this would be to deny God. My faith is in Him not a religion. To go from one denomination to another is not to leave a faith it is to add to the one you already have. My faith is in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and all they do within me. So the wording of the pole has left me with no choices.
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Singinbeauty, I have no problem if that’s what you believe, but I hope you realize that it’s not constant between religions.

Many people say that they have God, they don’t need religion. Well, God sent His Son, and His Son founded a Church, and gave the Church the Holy Spirit. So if you want to be right with God, and follow Him, and obey Him, do what he wanted! Submit your individualism to the Church.

The assumption of your post is that God has little to do with religion. Maybe you’d like it that way, but is that really God’s will? I don’t gather that from Scripture at all.
 
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Mystophilus:
When I became a Christian, at age 16, I became a Protestant. I was coming out of uncomfortable circumstances (which I am not going to discuss), and so I jumped hard. Hearing that the Bible was God’s Word, I decided to learn it. I became a fundamentalist: I believed that every word was literally true.

When I went to university, I studied was seduced by Laozi. I fell yet farther when I studied literature and learnt too much about reading.

I cannot be Protestant because I cannot accept Scripture as the ultimate source of authority when I know that every reader determines the message of the text for him-/herself. I cannot be Orthodox because I cannot accept that doctrine should never develop. I cannot be Catholic because I cannot accept the doctrine of ecclesiastical infallibility.

I de-converted, but with nowhere to go. I am, therefore, a devout heretic.
Click to expand...
Ahhh man! not another denomination! what will you call it?
 
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