Non religous reasons I went from evangelical to catholic

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Adamski

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So often we talk about the theolical reasons why we are catholic I wanted to talk about the other reasons I returned home to the catholic church

I get anxiety with loud places such as loud music and people moving around during church

Once I went to confession for the first time in 30 years my wife and I never needed couples Counciling again those problems stopped being problems

I used to have an anger problem and it mostly went away with the rosary

As an evangelical I couldn’t have a concrete reason of right and wrong for me or my children

We where unhappy with our pastor and my wife wanted to “church shop” it was impossible to find a new church. Now with the sacraments and a catholic church in every town that stress is gone.

Non denominational churches are self governing and I watched theology develop and change even over a short period of time and thought what am I leaving my children

I felt pressured to give money at evangelical churches and I don’t at the catholic church

Number one reason
Arguing at bible studies in the evangelical world with 12 people there are 12 different controdicting opinions and it was to much after a hard day of work to deal with arguing

There are tons of theology reasons but these where some of the non theolical reasons did anyone else have similar experices
 
Adamski said:
So often we talk about the theolical reasons why we are catholic I wanted to talk about the other reasons I returned home to the catholic church

I get anxiety with loud places such as loud music and people moving around during church

Once I went to confession for the first time in 30 years my wife and I never needed couples Counciling again those problems stopped being problems

I used to have an anger problem and it mostly went away with the rosary

As an evangelical I couldn’t have a concrete reason of right and wrong for me or my children

We where unhappy with our pastor and my wife wanted to “church shop” it was impossible to find a new church. Now with the sacraments and a catholic church in every town that stress is gone.

Non denominational churches are self governing and I watched theology develop and change even over a short period of time and thought what am I leaving my children

I felt pressured to give money at evangelical churches and I don’t at the catholic church

Number one reason
Arguing at bible studies in the evangelical world with 12 people there are 12 different controdicting opinions and it was to much after a hard day of work to deal with arguing

There are tons of theology reasons but these where some of the non theolical reasons did anyone else have similar experices
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I give thanks that your needs were met in this way. May you be blessed in word and sacrament. 👍

Jon
 
Catholicism is Christianity at its fullest expression.

Catholicism is pre denominational we are the originals.

The Christian identity is a belonging to the Catholic Church because to find Jesus outside of
the Church is not possible. Pope Francis.
 
Adamski said:
Number one reason
Arguing at bible studies in the evangelical world with 12 people there are 12 different controdicting opinions and it was to much after a hard day of work to deal with arguing

There are tons of theology reasons but these where some of the non theolical reasons did anyone else have similar experices
Click to expand...
Well I’m not a convert or revert but quite a few of the men’s Bible group I am in are protestant converts to the Catholic Church. They alluded to what you mentioned above. Basically finding Truth and the Eucharist were the main reasons for converting.

btw…welcome home!
 
Actually, I’m going to be a smart alec and say that you could trace all of those reasons back to a theological dilemma (most of them, or maybe even all of them = No guiding authority by the Holy Spirit). Your list is the symptoms.
 
Great thread idea Adamski! 👍
I’ll add some of my own.
  1. Being able to walk into a church without hearing the chatter and loud laughs from the next pew about Leroy’s huntin’ trip or such. I’m not saying the CC is without that, but it is usually met (or should be met) with stern looks. Being in silent prayer in the before God is refreshing.
  2. No 45 minute sermons. People usually start to loose attention after about 15 minutes.
  3. No “business meetings” where one has to sit for an hour and listen to the head deacon go through the checklist of where and how each and every penny of the offering was spent.
  4. No “building campaigns” (OMG, yes).
  5. No “pastoral candidate interviews”. "Preacha’ what’s your stand on (Calvinism, standards, Bible versions, pants on wimmin’, contemporary christian music, ect, ect, ect).
  6. An “invitation” just as long as the sermon, with all 72 verses of “Just as I am”.
  7. No mid-week prayer service that doubles as a mid-week gossip session.
I could go on and on…but those are first things off the top of my head…
 
JustaServant said:
Great thread idea Adamski! 👍
I’ll add some of my own.
  1. An “invitation” just as long as the sermon, with all 72 verses of “Just as I am”.
I could go on and on…but those are first things off the top of my head…
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Whadday you referring to here…brotha?..😃
 
Thank you, Adamski, for sharing with us.

As a cradle Catholic, I love hearing why a person joined the Church or came back.

Congratulations, on your return.
 
I don’t know about elsewhere, but here non-Catholic religious education for young people (teens in particular) tends to be less about learning, thinking about what you have learned and then applying it to daily life and a lot more about hanging out, sneaking around and seeing what you could get away with while the adults gossiped about you and then with you about others. The “what can you get away with” list includes smoking, passing around spiked juice/soda bottles, and (for more teens than I care to think about) seeing how far you can get “making out” while hiding out in another part of the building.

I love that the RCIA classes I am attending and take my kids to actually involves learning, thinking, asking and answering. They never leave adult sight and any signs of improper behavior is met with stern looks and a stern talking to if needed.

I also appreciate the structure and relevance of Mass and that social time is had afterward in the social area while those so inclined can continue to reflect and pray uninterrupted.
 
TomFromMD said:
Lucky you. 🙂 We’re building a church. Eventually, I’m guessing we’ll be building a hall too.
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For an evangelical church it always needs to be bigger or better or they need to “church plant”. So it always seems like a money emergency
 
Some stuff I love about Catholic Churches:

Art:

You can see the beauty and the devotion to faith depicted everywhere in the form of paintings and statues. Human creativity, workmanship, and artwork are put on a pedestal as an expression of worship. The exterior of the churches can sometimes be just as inspiring. When I was living in Leominster, Massachusetts, a couple of years ago, I lived just down the street from St. Cecilia’s, and I would almost always gawk at it on my way home, and even sneaked inside on one occasion (I assumed the doors would have been locked but they weren’t). I ooh’d and aah’d at how pretty everything was before slipping out in case somebody was there and wanted to talk to me.

Mysticism:

The immersion in the faith is so much more colorful and rich. Everything from praying to the saints, to the rosary, to being able to eventually pick a Christian name (so cool!) feels so much more real. I previously had the assumption that evangelicals had a closer relationship to God because they always just went straight to God and never had any veneration or intercession. Catholicism is so much more communal, which makes me feel closer to God than before. This is something I had to learn though practice. Veneration of the saints didn’t necessarily seem heretical to me, but it did seem odd and unnecessary. Like any other relationship, once I immersed myself in it, my opinion changed over time.

Unity:

This is the really big one and it’s hard to express how much of a relief it is to go through the apologetics and questions and come to the convinced conclusion that apostolic succession is indeed true and that we are not merely reflecting back on the authority of prophets and Jesus from 2,000 or more years ago, but that the authority of God is continuing to operate to the present day. This doesn’t just solve the issue of maintaining orthodoxy, but it builds more immersion for me in the faith. If I want to read about the authoritative work of the Holy Spirit, I don’t just have to consult the scripture. I can turn on the news! That is so extremely neat and new to me. In a way, I feel like I’m living in “Biblical times” right now. I feel so much more alive.
 
Good idea for a thread!

Hmmm… non religious reasons why I converted. That is a tough one. I would not say any of these reasons are the reason I converted, but more like reasons I started to question Protestantism.
  1. Too many denominations. Which interpreted The Bible most correctly? And why?
  2. The prosperity gospel. The older I got, the more wrong it seemed.
  3. Televangelists. I use to watch them as a protestant sometimes. But the older I got, the more annoying they seemed to me. And the majority of them seemed to promote the prosperity gospel “send me a check and I promise God will bless you”
  4. The Trinity broadcasting network. TBN. (See #'s 3 & 4 on this list)
  5. The arrogance I started to see in thinking that The Catholics had sooo many things wrong for sooo long but my local church, which might only be a couple decades old or less finally got it all correct.
  6. Church history goes back further than the 16th Century. I wanted to learn about it. I was shocked when I learned that the early Church seemed Catholic 😃
  7. I started to notice a mentality in Protestantism of “What can we give or offer, to get people to come to our church” Almost like promoting a business.I know not all are like that though. I did not get this sense from The Catholic Church.
Those are the reasons I can think of off the top of my head. May our Lord bless all of us Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox. We will all be united one day!
 
Adamski said:
I felt pressured to give money at evangelical churches and I don’t at the catholic church
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I can attest to this. I don’t feel weird about not giving money because I already give my time to the choir. (Time, talent, and treasure: Ingrained in my memory from stewardship classes in RE)
JustaServant said:
  1. No “building campaigns” (OMG, yes).
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I don’t mind them if they’re justified. Like replacing the current Newman Center and its labyrinthine 60s architecture with a nice Gothic-looking building.

Now for my :twocents: in this. I’ll adapt the question to “Why wouldn’t you leave the RCC if you’re a Cradle Catholic?”
  1. Historical authenticity. As my priest put it, whereas some religions promise a way, a truth, or a life, ours was founded by the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
  2. Liturgy. It’s nice to know that no matter where I go, the Mass will always be the same.
  3. Sacred Tradition. Yeah… A lot of the beliefs and terminology of Christianity are nowhere to be found in the Bible. Including but not limited to sola scriptura, Biblical canon, and the term “Trinity”
 
Adamski said:
For an evangelical church it always needs to be bigger or better or they need to “church plant”. So it always seems like a money emergency
Click to expand...
You could always guarentee at least a month’s worth of sermons from Nehemiah, somehow making it connect to the new ediface they were building.
That reminds me, I forgot one:
  1. Sermons on tithing.
 
pablope said:
Whadday you referring to here…brotha?..😃
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Of course “Just as I am” doesn’t have 72 verses, but it sure seemed like it. :eek:
If no one came forward to “get saved”, it was come forward to “get right with God”.
What the preacha’ didn’t know was, more than a few of us went forward to “shut up the preacha’” so we could go home and eat lunch.
😃
 
  1. Illustrations designed to depress, scare, or otherwise prove whatever the preacher’s point is, usually taken to be gospel truth. Example, the “screams from Hell” story. These are very common in fundamentalist churches.
Here’s a good thread on Fundie Urban Legends.
stufffundieslike.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=347
  1. We get all the cool books in the Bible they don’t get to read.
  2. We don’t have to “know everything”.
  3. We get to drink alcohol. 😃
The last two might be connected…
😉
 
=Laughi
ngBoy1503;10999991]Good idea for a thread!
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Hmmm… non religious reasons why I converted. That is a tough one. I would not say any of these reasons are the reason I converted, but more like reasons I started to question Protestantism.
Click to expand...
Actually, it was a good idea… The OP was exclusively about evangelical, but since its now been expanded to the very broad category protestant, just a bit of a response.
  1. Too many denominations. Which interpreted The Bible most correctly? And why?
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Agreed, too many, but why would the existence of numerous other faith communions persuade me to not be Lutheran? The exact same argument applies to Catholicism, Orthodoxy, etc.
  1. The prosperity gospel. The older I got, the more wrong it seemed.
  2. Televangelists. I use to watch them as a protestant sometimes. But the older I got, the more annoying they seemed to me. And the majority of them seemed to promote the prosperity gospel “send me a check and I promise God will bless you”
  3. The Trinity broadcasting network. TBN. (See #'s 3 & 4 on this list)
Click to expand...
These apply to such a narrow group. I can’t imagine what difference they make. As I said before, the existence of TBN, which I’ve never watch, has no influence on whether or not I’m a Lutheran.
  1. The arrogance I started to see in thinking that The Catholics had sooo many things wrong for sooo long but my local church, which might only be a couple decades old or less finally got it all correct.
  2. Church history goes back further than the 16th Century. I wanted to learn about it. I was shocked when I learned that the early Church seemed Catholic 😃
Click to expand...
While not a non-religious reason, 6 certainly makes sense.
  1. I started to notice a mentality in Protestantism of “What can we give or offer, to get people to come to our church” Almost like promoting a business.I know not all are like that though. I did not get this sense from The Catholic Church.
Click to expand...
A rather broad brush, wouldn’t you say?
Those are the reasons I can think of off the top of my head. May our Lord bless all of us Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox. We will all be united one day!
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I join my prayer to yours that the day His Church is united comes soon.

Jon
 
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