Meeting with Protestant Pastor

[RonRule]

m134e5:

They do not want you to turn to a book for your answers. They want YOU to know them. When you simply read to them from a book, you aren’t thinking for yourself. One thing I have learned in my dialogues with evangelicals is that they don’t like you to give them somebody else’s words (unless it’s scripture, of course).

As an evangelical all my life, you are right and it’s a good reminder to all of us on this board. Read all the books yourself. Over and over if you need to. But you gotta be able to put it into your own words.

On the other hand, if you answer every objection with a Catechism quote, that sends quite a message as well! (that you submit to authoritay). It’s just likely that the conversation will be much shorter.

 

[RonRule]

Alison:

LOL Hey RonRule! Recognize me?? Quo Vadis Youth hint hint. Funny seeing you here! I get on Catholic.com quite a lot. Anyway, just like Eliza and many others have said, just pray beforehand. I will pray for you too! I hope that your meeting goes well. God love you.

-Alison

Hey Alison! Hopefully I’ll get in the QV chatroom this week and let everyone know how it goes.

For those of you that don’t know The Coming Home Network has a network for youth, called Quo Vadis. I’m a little old for it, but I’m very much a PK, so I think I fit in ok.

Check it out!

 

[kage_ar]

RonRule:

I am meeting with him Thursday morning.

Thanks for the recommendations and prayers. I really want to get Salvation Controversy by Jimmy. And I need to get “When Only One Converts” for myself.

So - how did it go???

 

[RonRule]

kage_ar:

So - how did it go???

He forgot the meeting!!! D’oh!

So now I’m meeting with him tomorrow morning. Ya’ll have a 2nd chance to pray for me!

 

[RonRule]

Ok,

It went a lot better than I thought it would. I described my journey and how I’ve come to this place. He sympathized with a lot of my concerns and agreed with many of them.

The only bad thing about the conversation is that I didn’t really get to saying “I’m probably becoming catholic”. We had too much to talk about before we even got there! He wanted to read Thomas Howard, since I recommended it so highly and we also talked about NT Wright, whom he has a lot of respect for. He asked that I send him info on Howard’s books and I also recommend Development of Christian Doctrine by Newman, though I haven’t read that yet.

So thanks for your prayers everybody! I wish I could’ve been more forthright with him about my desire to convert, but that isn’t how the conversation progressed naturally, and we basically ran out of time! I really only got to the anglican part of my story.

Grew up non-denom evangelical > Anglican (1 yr) > Catholicism (sometime soon).

I did get to discuss a couple misconceptions of his. Like talking about the nominalism of many catholics (which I compared to protestantism as a whole), whether revelation is ongoing (which I said how the magisterium defines more clearly the deposit of faith, not saying anything “new”), and a couple other small things.

Thanks again for your help, everybody. let me know what ya think!

 

[Della]

As happens 90+ % of the time your worst fears never materialized, thanks be! The pastor sounds like a reasonable person not given to hysterics, which is also a very good thing. I do find it bothersome that a clergyman has never read Newman. I understand how Newman might not be on his radar, but truly, his DOCD is a fundamental work in theology. I hope he will read it, as well as Howard’s book. They will get him to think outside his box, if nothing else. And, hopefully give him an appreciation for the depth of Catholic thought.