Protestants converting America?

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franko2

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Mostly ministers and pastors is it just me or is their a tsunami of conversions from our brothers in Christ to the true church… Through the early church fathersbetc.

Could you share your thoughts and experiences of this?
 
I am a former Protestant who started attending Mass at the Catholic Newman Center at my daughter’s university. When I entered RCIA, I immersed myself in the history of the Church, including many writings of the Fathers of the Church. I was fully committed to the precepts and dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church by the end of my RCIA experience. The writings of the Fathers had a large influence on me. It became clear to me that the original Church is the Roman Catholic Church. I have been Catholic now for 9 years. I started visiting conversion sites on the web, and it is true that the Catholic Church is in the midst of many converts coming home. Also, there is a movement among the younger people who are fully embracing their Catholic faith, and are striving to share the Truth. I hope this helps with your question. 👍
 
I’m a former Protestant who converted to Catholicism, and an American. Although, I was so young when I made my decision (16, though the process had started when I was 15 and I wouldn’t be received into the Church until I was 18; that was in 2004 like the poster above, so we are converts of the same year, perhaps the same day if both were on the Easter Vigil!) that, combined with some usually Catholic doctrines that I had always believed in like Purgatory, baptismal regeneration, and the Real Presence, I sometimes consider myself somewhere in between a cradle Catholic and a typical convert.

Unfortunately we American converts are vastly outnumbered by American Catholics who leave the Church. The numbers are disguised by Hispanic immigration, but looking at the Hispanics themselves, but in this country and in Latin America, again we have a net exodus from the Catholic Church.

I don’t mean to be a downer about this. It’s just the reality that the New Evangelization is taking place within a wider context of apostasy. Both the positive and the negative sides if this are planned by God (ordainingly or permissively). We can have peace in that knowledge, all the while not underestimating the seriousness of the situation.
 
I don’t think people are converting to Protestantism as much as they are leaving Catholicism, but filling a spiritual void in other churches. Say what you want about Protestantism, it does satisfy a very real need in people to feel emotionally connected to God through Christ.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
I’m a former Protestant who converted to Catholicism, and an American. Although, I was so young when I made my decision (16, though the process had started when I was 15 and I wouldn’t be received into the Church until I was 18; that was in 2004 like the poster above, so we are converts of the same year, perhaps the same day if both were on the Easter Vigil!) that, combined with some usually Catholic doctrines that I had always believed in like Purgatory, baptismal regeneration, and the Real Presence, I sometimes consider myself somewhere in between a cradle Catholic and a typical convert.

Unfortunately we American converts are vastly outnumbered by American Catholics who leave the Church. **The numbers are disguised by Hispanic immigration, but looking at the Hispanics themselves, but in this country and in Latin America, again we have a net exodus from the Catholic Church. **

I don’t mean to be a downer about this. It’s just the reality that the New Evangelization is taking place within a wider context of apostasy. Both the positive and the negative sides if this are planned by God (ordainingly or permissively). We can have peace in that knowledge, all the while not underestimating the seriousness of the situation.
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Time magazine recently had an article about Hispanics leaving the CC to join an evangelical church. However, what the article stated is the many who leave are illegal immigrants and actually leave the CC to join evangelical churches for socio-economic reasons, not so much on based on theological disagreements. Many of the evangelical churches theologically are not sound as the article stated and I believe it.
 
LaSainte said:
I don’t think people are converting to Protestantism as much as they are leaving Catholicism, but filling a spiritual void in other churches. Say what you want about Protestantism, it does satisfy a very real need in people to feel emotionally connected to God through Christ.
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Yes and no.
 
Nicea325 said:
Time magazine recently had an article about Hispanics leaving the CC to join an evangelical church. However, what the article stated is the many who leave are illegal immigrants and actually leave the CC to join evangelical churches for socio-economic reasons, not so much on based on theological disagreements. Many of the evangelical churches theologically are not sound as the article stated and I believe it.
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This reminds me of a funny scene from the show “King of the Hill”. Kahn (from Laos) says to his Asian boss, “I haven’t seen you at the Buddhist temple lately.” Boss replies, “Oh, we’re Episcopalians now, Kahn. It just makes good business sense.”

Sorry…I hope some see the humor!
 
coachkfan1 said:
This reminds me of a funny scene from the show “King of the Hill”. Kahn (from Laos) says to his Asian boss, “I haven’t seen you at the Buddhist temple lately.” Boss replies, “Oh, we’re Episcopalians now, Kahn. It just makes good business sense.”

Sorry…I hope some see the humor!
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LOL! How funny! But you know what,some of those evangelical churches are in it for the $$$. It is a business first and God second.
 
LaSainte said:
I don’t think people are converting to Protestantism as much as they are leaving Catholicism, but filling a spiritual void in other churches. Say what you want about Protestantism, it does satisfy a very real need in people to feel emotionally connected to God through Christ.
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How much more connected can we be to Christ than in the Eucharist? The Real Presence of Christ has to be stressed more in the pulpits.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
…I wouldn’t be received into the Church until I was 18; that was in 2004 like the poster above, so we are converts of the same year, perhaps the same day if both were on the Easter Vigil!)…
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Indeed! April 10, 2004! 👍
 
There is a point to the notion that Protestants are actively making inroads among some Roman Catholics for all the reasons stated by others. But the phenomena goes beyond Catholics. I have worshiped in a few Lutheran parishes that unless I saw the word ‘Lutheran’ on the church sign I would have never thought it was a Lutheran service. The attempt to look like Protestants has been an historic issue for Lutherans in America. Going back a century or more, Lutheran immigrants were viewed as “secret Catholics” or “Catholic Lite” by many Protestants. The desire to fit in influenced some clergy to make sure we looked like Presbyterian or Methodist. Today, the ‘Church Growth Movement’ tries again to make the Mass look like some sort of revival rally with rock music, testimonials etc.

Aren’t the Assemblies of God one of the fastest growing Christian denominations in America?
 
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EvangelCatholic:
Aren’t the Assemblies of God one of the fastest growing Christian denominations in America?
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A couple of years ago USA Today said it was the Seventh Day Adventist. Most of the time you will see numbers of the greater pentecostal movement not a specific organization. In America Church Of God In Christ is the largest, AoG is larger worldwide.

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First and foremost, America is a protestant nation. It always will be… at least until the Hispanics become the racial majority.

However, what concerns me more than conversion to/from protestantism is the number of people moving into agnosticism. Agnosticism is sort of a halfway house for conversion to atheism. Agnosticism is a rejection of the mandate that all beings with a soul have… the mandate to seek out God in some way. It’s a sort of spiritual laziness… a refusal to contemplate. The rejection of the necessity to seek God eventually becomes a rejection of God altogether.

Protestants believe in Christ. They might differ from us on points of theology, but they are believers. Atheists, otoh, reject God. That seems to be far worse (spiritually) than disagreements about when to baptize.
 
coachkfan1 said:
This reminds me of a funny scene from the show “King of the Hill”. Kahn (from Laos) says to his Asian boss, “I haven’t seen you at the Buddhist temple lately.” Boss replies, “Oh, we’re Episcopalians now, Kahn. It just makes good business sense.”

Sorry…I hope some see the humor!
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I do:D

Anyways back to the discussion. With the Hispanics, I think a lot of it is just that evangelicals have better outreach and ministry towards them. Plus it doesn’t hurt them that most of those who convert probably weren’t very well catechized in Latin America and so they are an easy target. I know in the town where I student taught, a lot of those who were Hispanic and Evangelical really didn’t so much reject catholicism as they joined the church because it had good outreach or things like that. Granted in this same town they had a great Catholic youth group made up of all races which was wonderful to see.
 
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