Translating Protestant to Catholic

[EvelynEVF]

In defense of the team—our local crisis pregnancy center asked this question on the form for people applying to be on the board of directors. Which is a bit funny, considering how the whole movement is very Catholic Anyway, a good friend was going to apply, and she asked me how to interpret this. The reason they asked, is that they wanted to make sure that everybody in leadership was a committed Christian, so that nobody would be caught off guard by the presence of underlying assumptions that were Christian. It hadn’t occurred to them that they were not really being non-denominational This was the only way they knew how to ask if someone was a Christian. My friend explained her faith, and was invited to join the board. It was really and truly no big deal, and she was able to help the others on the board expand their horizons a bit.

The performing group may have no sneaky intentions at all. If that is the case, then they may also not realize when they are being explicitly evangelical, and your kids may bump into some stuff that they need clarified for them. Like VBS programs sometimes have, or like when our Catholic school used an out-of-the-box Christmas program and the mother knelt to pray with her daughter to receive Christ. Oops!

 

[Whitacre_Girl]

This was the only way they knew how to ask if someone was a Christian.

This is very true. As a former evangelical I can tell you that 99.99999% of the time, anytime this question is asked it’s because they have no better way of asking if someone is a christian. It’s almost NEVER used maliciously to weed out traditional christians or catholics. For the longest time it was the only way I knew of to ask someone if they were a christian.

 

[aspirant]

This is very true. As a former evangelical I can tell you that 99.99999% of the time, anytime this question is asked it’s because they have no better way of asking if someone is a christian. It’s almost NEVER used maliciously to weed out traditional christians or catholics. For the longest time it was the only way I knew of to ask someone if they were a christian.

Yes.

 

[OraLabora]

On top of that, they are asking a non-denominational question and requiring an fundamentalist-evangelical answer !

That seals the deal for me. It isn’t non-denominational. It is non-denominational evangelical.

Even though it’s just a dance troupe, I’d be wary. If he joins he’d better brush up on his faith and Catholic apologetics just to be on the safe side.

I had an evangelical colleague at work once and it wasn’t a picnic, nor pleasant, to continually hear how my Church was in “error”. But it did help me strengthen the knowledge of my faith so it had its good side!

 

[EvelynEVF]

There are at least two meanings for the term non-denominational. One indicates inclusivity of all historically Christian groups. The other is exclusive, and means that they reject the distinctives of every denomination they know of, because they are aiming to be New Testament Christians and they believe everyone else has added to the essentials and drifted from the true church.

It’s pretty important to know which kind of non-denom that you’re dealing with.

 

[Katrina5]

I was always puzzled by this question and even as a child would try to answer in some way that indicated that it is an ongoing process.
I have known some “saved” people who seem to enjoy talking about what life was like before that date of their “personal salvation”.
Later, I would say, “In receiving the body and blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist, You can’t get more PERSONAL than that!”
The phrase, “I accept Jesus Christ as my Personal Lord and Savior” is NOT in the Bible.

I also think they are obsessed by this “before and after” moment because many times it is very emotional and memorable, like “I was blind and now I see”, which happens to me quite often as I progress through my spiritual journey. And that has a miraculous element to it.

I am going to ask this question in another way on a new thread, posed as a problem situation.

 

[Katrina5]

That seals the deal for me. It isn’t non-denominational. It is non-denominational evangelical.

Even though it’s just a dance troupe, I’d be wary. If he joins he’d better brush up on his faith and Catholic apologetics just to be on the safe side.

I had an evangelical colleague at work once and it wasn’t a picnic, nor pleasant, to continually hear how my Church was in “error”. But it did help me strengthen the knowledge of my faith so it had its good side!

The work situation you describe was one I experienced, also. And, Like you, I had to study and learn more and more about my faith. There were many times when I felt the Holy Spirit using me to explain things, and I am very grateful that people challenged my beliefs in this way so that I could fulfill my confirmation mandate to defend my faith.

As for the dance troupe, this teenager is too vulnerable to be a position like this.

 

[atassina]

My son is auditioning for a non-denominational (but predominately protestant) performing arts troupe.

One of the questions on the application is: When did you accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior?

I’m trying to translate that into Catholic. I could make a convincing case for the date of his First Holy Communion, or the date of his Confirmation.

Whaddyathink?

Just tell them “awhile back”

 

[awantz]

My son is auditioning for a non-denominational (but predominately protestant) performing arts troupe.

One of the questions on the application is: When did you accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior?

I’m trying to translate that into Catholic. I could make a convincing case for the date of his First Holy Communion, or the date of his Confirmation.

Whaddyathink?

They want to know when your son chose to accept God’s gift of salvation. When did he decide that he wanted to be Catholic?

 

[JustaServant]

I have known some “saved” people who seem to enjoy talking about what life was like before that date of their “personal salvation”.

I remember a pastor, whose ministry was in the most drug-infestested section of New York, relating something a young boy said to him. The boy said, ‘when I grow up I want to be a junkie, then when I become a christian, I can have a good testimony.’

 

[EvelynEVF]

That boy made a good point! I was baptized Protestant as an infant and never did fall into anything particularly colorful. My “testimony” was never exciting, a before-and-after Jesus miracle. Somebody pointed out once in an anecdote that it’s also encouraging to know that God can pre-emptively save us from every having to go through all the messy stuff.

Sounds vaguely Marian these days. . .

 

[JustaServant]

That boy made a good point! I was baptized Protestant as an infant and never did fall into anything particularly colorful. My “testimony” was never exciting, a before-and-after Jesus miracle. Somebody pointed out once in an anecdote that it’s also encouraging to know that God can pre-emptively save us from every having to go through all the messy stuff.

Sounds vaguely Marian these days. . .

Well you see that’s the point. I had a guy tell me once “I wasn’t that really bad a guy before I was ‘born again’”. Because so many are locked into ‘event’ salvation, they become convinced that thier life before the ‘event’ was not under God’s guidence.
Many start embellishing their ‘past life’ to make the ‘event’ more miraculous.

 

[Cathhsmom]

I have been reading through thease posts and I can understand the question that was asked this young man about being saved. Thease people that are asking your son this question are not meaning any harm but are only trying to be sure that your son really knows the Lord and is not just following some religous practice by attending church and not ever really comming to know the Lord.

 Now dont take it personal and get all mad at what I am saying but try to listen to what I have to say. In the protestant church or shall I say in alot of them. It is believed that a person can attend church, and live a good life, can be baptised, can be confirmed, confess his sins to a pastor,be a member of a church, help the poor, can even be very devout, and love God, study the scriptures, and know all about God, even be a preacher or a priest and still go to hell !!!   In the eyes of the protestant this includes catholics and  those in the protestant church.

Isn't that shocking!!!

The question are you saved dosent mean I prayed the sinners prayer or walked down the isle of a church and they prayed with me. It isnt because I had some emotional feeling during the church service, It is defenitely not something that you grow into.

I guess the best way to explain what salvation or being born again is, is to describe what happens when a person recieves Jesus Christ as their savior. I am not talking about the partaking of the body and blood of Jesus in the euchrist as catholics do at mass.

  When a person recieves Jesus as their Lord and savior there are things that happen that only the Lord can do. Before this happens there is usally a time of seeing oneself. A person realizes that they are going to hell because they have sinned. Many times they may have to come to the end of themselves in this process. This is where the Holy Spirit is drawing them. They realise that they have broken God's laws and are helpless to save themselves.

A person begins seeking after God and when they call on Him He hears and saves them. A person may call on God for some time before this happens. This depends on God’s timeing and the persons heart which the Holy Spirit is preparing to recieve Christ Jesus.

What happens when a person is saved. They become a new creature in Christ ,old things are passed away and all things become as new. God places His nature in the person that is saved or born again. His Spirit comes to dwell with them. They will not want to live as they once did. They will have a new love for God and will call Him Father. They will enjoy the things that God has instead of the pleasures of sin. A persons desires change, they find themselves set free from their sins. They experiance a peace that cannot be understood. They realise that all is alright between God and them and He has taken their sins away. It is a change that takes place that only God can do. Most can point to the day that this happened to them. This is not an end but only the beginning. This is where it starts. It dosent mean a person will never sin but sin has no more dominion over him. It also means this is where the true relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son begins.

I could describe the time when God did this for me if it would help you understand what is ment by being saved or born again. I will never forget it and I have never been the same since.

                                                     hope

Hope,
Thanks for your take on this. I am not mad. Yes, there are people of all faiths that just seem to go through the motions. Thankfully, they are left to the mercy of God who can read their souls and know where they truely are.

As for what you are describing about what happened to you, congratulations! I am so happy that God made such a difference in your life. He made the same difference in my life but more over time, and at some times, in huge leaps, and others in small baby steps. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that there was a God and about Jesus. I felt His presence personally when I was about 10, but I already had Him in my life before then. I just felt Him lifting all of the worries off of my shoulders when I would walk into a church at the age of 10. It was more confirmation of my knowledge and love of God.

Now, my take as a Catholic Convert and mom of some Cradle Catholics, is that even though I probably fall more into your category of coming to God, my kids have been blessed in that they have had the gift of God’s presence since their baptisms. They have been filled with the Holy Spirit at baptism and have been a part of God’s family for so long that it is second nature to them. They don’t think of it except in the “well, duh, of course I believe in God. He’s God.” My son at the age of 6 was asking to go to Daily Mass and would ask to stay longer to say extra prayers because God had asked him to. He has such a desire for God. He is trying to figure out if God is calling him to be a priest, and he is 11 years old. He has wanted to be one from age 7. If you asked him when he accepted Jesus, I don’t know if he could give you an answer, but let me tell you that he does! It is just not how kids brought up in the Catholic church think of it. They are surrounded by God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. We bring our kids to Mass with us from birth. They hear what we hear. They say the Our Father, the Creed, the Holy, Holy, Holy, and all of the other prayers, psalms, etc with us as soon as they can say them. It is just a part of them from so early that this question is not important to us. What is important is “are you living out your faith?”, “do you, right now, have a relationship with God?”. Those would be better questions.

God Bless!

 

[Tracy_Spenst]

Now, my take as a Catholic Convert and mom of some Cradle Catholics, is that even though I probably fall more into your category of coming to God, my kids have been blessed in that they have had the gift of God’s presence since their baptisms. They have been filled with the Holy Spirit at baptism and have been a part of God’s family for so long that it is second nature to them. They don’t think of it except in the “well, duh, of course I believe in God. He’s God.” My son at the age of 6 was asking to go to Daily Mass and would ask to stay longer to say extra prayers because God had asked him to. He has such a desire for God. He is trying to figure out if God is calling him to be a priest, and he is 11 years old. He has wanted to be one from age 7. If you asked him when he accepted Jesus, I don’t know if he could give you an answer, but let me tell you that he does! It is just not how kids brought up in the Catholic church think of it. They are surrounded by God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. We bring our kids to Mass with us from birth. They hear what we hear. They say the Our Father, the Creed, the Holy, Holy, Holy, and all of the other prayers, psalms, etc with us as soon as they can say them. It is just a part of them from so early that this question is not important to us. What is important is “are you living out your faith?”, “do you, right now, have a relationship with God?”. Those would be better questions.

God Bless!

This is a great way to explain it! Thanks for writing this!

Tracy

 

[PJM]

=DavidFilmer;6151327]My son is auditioning for a non-denominational (but predominately protestant) performing arts troupe.

One of the questions on the application is: When did you accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior?

I’m trying to translate that into Catholic. I could make a convincing case for the date of his First Holy Communion, or the date of his Confirmation.

Whaddyathink?

When I was Baptized, and again when I affirmed and was Confirmed in my Faith beleifs.

 

[jmcrae]

I remember a pastor, whose ministry was in the most drug-infestested section of New York, relating something a young boy said to him. The boy said, ‘when I grow up I want to be a junkie, then when I become a christian, I can have a good testimony.’

This is precisely why I hate “exciting” testimonials - they always make it seem as if you aren’t “really” a Christian, if you didn’t “get saved” from something really horrible.

The best conversion testimony I ever heard in my whole life was from a Dominican Sister; what happened was this:

She was raised in a good Catholic home, and her mother helped her memorize her prayers right from the very cradle - every night for her whole life, her mother would pray with her and for her.

When she reached the age of seven, it came the time for her First Holy Communion, and for the first time in her life, her mother asked her to say her prayers by herself, the night before she was to receive her First Holy Communion.

As she listened to herself praying the prayers that her mother had taught her, she began to ponder the meaning of the words she was saying. Throughout the night, she thought about the meaning of those words, and by morning, she had fallen deeply and joyfully and madly in love with Jesus Christ, her Saviour and Lord. From that moment on, she knew she would become His Bride.

To my way of thinking, that is a absolutely perfect Conversion story, and it is far more exciting than anything involving drugs, sexual impurity, criminal behaviour, or terrifying near-death experiences.

 

[Bonnie]

I have known some “saved” people who seem to enjoy talking about what life was like before that date of their “personal salvation”.

That sounds like the Pentecostal church I attended when I was a teen. So many testimonies dwelt on the bad stuff before “being saved” & the congregation would often chuckle over it. It had me so confused! I came to think that without a good testimony I couldn’t be a good Christian, but I couldn’t get the testimony unless I sinned big time.

What no one said in those testimonies was how bad those things make you feel later.

 

[Barry_Gabriel]

My son is auditioning for a non-denominational (but predominately protestant) performing arts troupe.

One of the questions on the application is: When did you accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior?

I’m trying to translate that into Catholic. I could make a convincing case for the date of his First Holy Communion, or the date of his Confirmation.

Whaddyathink?

I think it’s illegal or at worst inappropriate to ask such a question. If they are non-denominational, then why ask?

 

[JustaServant]

This is precisely why I hate “exciting” testimonials - they always make it seem as if you aren’t “really” a Christian, if you didn’t “get saved” from something really horrible.

The best conversion testimony I ever heard in my whole life was from a Dominican Sister; what happened was this:

She was raised in a good Catholic home, and her mother helped her memorize her prayers right from the very cradle - every night for her whole life, her mother would pray with her and for her.

When she reached the age of seven, it came the time for her First Holy Communion, and for the first time in her life, her mother asked her to say her prayers by herself, the night before she was to receive her First Holy Communion.

As she listened to herself praying the prayers that her mother had taught her, she began to ponder the meaning of the words she was saying. Throughout the night, she thought about the meaning of those words, and by morning, she had fallen deeply and joyfully and madly in love with Jesus Christ, her Saviour and Lord. From that moment on, she knew she would become His Bride.

To my way of thinking, that is a absolutely perfect Conversion story, and it is far more exciting than anything involving drugs, sexual impurity, criminal behaviour, or terrifying near-death experiences.

Aw c’mon dude!
Wh…wh…where’s the drugs? The alcohol? The women?
What? No prison sentence? No escape from a chain gang?
No heading up a gang of international criminals until you were hit with an anvil and met Jesus in person, who told you to go to the nearest revival meeting?

No evangelicals were harmed in the typing of this post.


No, that was really a wonderful post, thank you for it.

 

[Monte1945]

This question being asked of the young man might not be that “intense” as it
can be thought of… In many protestant churches, more in the pentecoastal
and some charismatic services there is a “time” of the services where people
are asked to stand up and give the others their testimony… which means
for someone to give the others their personal journey from when they
were not members of a church… to the time they were.

In some protestand churches… Baptist and Pentecostal services
there is a particular time in their services there is a time allotted
for one to come forward and or tell the other people there they have
accepted the Grace of God for the forgiveness of their sins…

This in those churches means… that they were lost in their sins
when they came to church that day and became saved during
that time allotted for them to make that decision…

In the Baptist churches of my youth that was done at the end
of a service and a particular type of hymn was sung…
It is called a invitation song… and they consists of lines where
Jesus is calling one to make that decision… of admitting their
sinful state and they now believe with Faith that he came to
die for their sins and by walking down that isle… and taking
the preachers hand, they now have put their sins under the
shed blood of Jesus and by their faith their sins are fogiven.
And that is the moment they accepted the lord and savior into
their lives…

The pentecostal churches of my youth… had a long padded
bench across the front of the church… and during times of
the service… people would knee around that padded bench
and pray… and during those prayers one would go through
the same realization of their personal sins and that Jesus
had died for them… and by faith they could have this death
covering their sins… and at the end of the service… they would
stand and say… that during the bench praying time they prayed
through and asked god for his forgiveness… and from that
moment is the moment they had accepted Jesus as their
savior…

and I think this is what these church memebers are asking
the young man… when he had “that” moment…

Many of these fundemental churches only understand if
someone is a christian or not, from the fact of them
having experience that moment in their lives.

Each one who has experienced it, would remember
that he did and when etc…

All of them can stand up in church and tell the other people
there of what they went through in their minds and hearts
from being not saved, to being saved…

and I think that is what these people are asking the
boy…
but of course the catholic church does not have a time
in their service where they offer someone the chance
to make that kind of committment to God… and so
they would not really understand what the question
was meaning…

I can only say what I have experienced in my past.
I am sure there are other ways from other denominations
of how one becomes a chrisitian. Which I do not know.