What are reasons people convert?

  • Thread starter Thread starter MarcoPolo
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

MarcoPolo

Guest
If you are Catholic, what are reasons you think people convert to a Protestant denomination?

If you are Protestant, what are reasons you think people convert to Catholicism?
 
MarcoPolo said:
If you are Catholic, what are reasons you think people convert to a Protestant denomination?

If you are Protestant, what are reasons you think people convert to Catholicism?
Click to expand...
My brother-in-law born a Mormon converted to Catholicism because my sister-in-law is Catholic. And because he doesn’t believe men become gods and such in the afterlife.

I have also heard some convert because they like the pomp and ritual of Catholicism, while some convert out because they don’t like that.
 
Ready for a blanket statement, but one that is correct FOR EVERYONE? People convert for only one reason: they are looking for something and think that they have found it. Maybe they want peace at home with a spouse. Maybe they do not understand or like a doctrine and want a different understanding. maybe they want a certain life and their current faith does not allow it. Maybe they are certain that they are in the wrong place and want to find the right one. Sometimes, they are correct and have found it. Sometimes, they are not. Either way, we are all seekers. We must either continue to seek or give up and die.
 
People only convert when they are not happy with their old religion. Or if you point a gun at their head. 😃
 
AgnosTheist said:
People only convert when they are not happy with their old religion. Or if you point a gun at their head. 😃
Click to expand...
But why are they not happy? In this case, they are seeking a religion they can be happy in. And you know some don;t care about the gun, and sometimes the gunman converts…
 
ralphinal said:
But why are they not happy?
Click to expand...
thats a question that deserves a million different answers. each of us knows some of the answers. it ranges from having a bad experience in catholic school to a theological dispute in a forum like this. 😃
ralphinal said:
And you know some don;t care about the gun, and sometimes the gunman converts…
Click to expand...
most of the time people do care about the gun. like the jews who were forcefully converted to catholicism? and the catholics who were forced to convert to islam.
 
Way back when in the Middle Ages, Jews were considered infidels who killed Christ.

If I was to convert, it would be because after searching for the Truth I believed I had found it somewhere besides my current religion.
 
MarcoPolo said:
An ugly sounding scene. Who did the forcin’ ?
Click to expand...
The Spanish Royal family ordered it. The local bishops were not too keen with the idea, but went along. A shameful time in Church history. Right up there with pedophile-priest scandal of recent years if you ask me.
 
ralphinal said:
Ready for a blanket statement, but one that is correct FOR EVERYONE? People convert for only one reason: they are looking for something and think that they have found it. Maybe they want peace at home with a spouse. Maybe they do not understand or like a doctrine and want a different understanding. maybe they want a certain life and their current faith does not allow it. Maybe they are certain that they are in the wrong place and want to find the right one. Sometimes, they are correct and have found it. Sometimes, they are not. Either way, we are all seekers. We must either continue to seek or give up and die.
Click to expand...
AgnosTheist said:
People only convert when they are not happy with their old religion. Or if you point a gun at their head. 😃
Click to expand...
I have some bad news for you both. I converted from atheism as a result of a series of supernatural and miraculous events. In a very real sense, I was forced to convert by the very power of God himself. I was not searching, I was not seeking. The events that lead to my conversion came completely from the outside and all the people involved, including the young lady who was killed, were complete strangers to me.

As for the gun being pointed to the head, I believe that was the method Muslims used on two Fox News photo-journalists who converted to Islam after being kidnapped and held hostage in the West Bank in 2006. See this article.
 
I think Catholics who leave for another church are ones who don’t yet have a personal relationship with Jesus and/or don’t understand church teaching. I know some friends who left because they didn’t agree with the teaching on contraception and didn’t care enough about the church or Christ to look into it.

A brother gradually left the church because he stopped going to mass regularly because he couldn’t receive communion because he mistakenly thought his divorce was a mortal sin. Nobody every asked him why he didn’t receive communion so we didn’t know he thought this. He didn’t understand the church’s teaching on what makes a sacramental marriage so he thought applying for an annulment would mean he and his ex wife had married in bad faith or that his child would be considered illegitimate. This was such a sore point, he wouldn’t even discuss it. Many years later, he remarried out of the church. His wife was raised with no formal religion and they don’t attend any church. My mother’s pastor baptized their child a few years ago although he knew she would not be raised in the faith.

One woman I know left the church when the pastor would not baptize her baby. She had not been attending mass and would not promise to bring her children to mass and religion classes. Her husband was nominally Methodist and the baby was baptized there and when they went to church, that’s where they went. I don’t think she really thought there was any difference between the two churches.

I don’t personally know anyone who left the Catholic church in order to join another church because they thought Jesus was calling them to do so.
 
MarcoPolo said:
If you are Catholic, what are reasons you think people convert to a Protestant denomination?

If you are Protestant, what are reasons you think people convert to Catholicism?
Click to expand...
People convert to Catholicism IMO because they want a structured belief system. People convert because the Catholic church makes authorative claims for itself and that give many people comfort. The claims of tradition and longevity and authority it makes for itself is attractive to many people.
 
rpp said:
I have some bad news for you both. I converted from atheism as a result of a series of supernatural and miraculous events. In a very real sense, I was forced to convert by the very power of God himself. I was not searching, I was not seeking. The events that lead to my conversion came completely from the outside and all the people involved, including the young lady who was killed, were complete strangers to me.

As for the gun being pointed to the head, I believe that was the method Muslims used on two Fox News photo-journalists who converted to Islam after being kidnapped and held hostage in the West Bank in 2006. See this article.
Click to expand...
I would love to hear your story. Is it on the forums here somewhere? 🙂
 
MarcoPolo said:
If you are Catholic, what are reasons you think people convert to a Protestant denomination?
If you are Protestant, what are reasons you think people convert to Catholicism?
Click to expand...
Hi

An interesting thread.

One of my friends mentioned of a book on the science of conversion; the exact title I don’t remember. Any friend who knows of such book, please.

Thanks
 
AgnosTheist said:
People only convert when they are not happy with their old religion.
Click to expand...
From my blog:
I did not leave my Protestant Evangelical roots because I was unhappy there. In fact, I left my Evangelical roots loudly protesting to the Lord that I was very happy where I was thank you very much and did He really think this was necessary.
 
Like Pixie Dust, I was very happy as an evangelical. I wasn’t looking to convert when I started looking at the Catholic Church. I was moving to a new city and had been praying God would show me the church to which He wanted me to belong. After a couple months of praying and researching the Protestant churches in my new town, a friend invited me to a noon Mass and I starting studying Catholicism to know how to “witness” to her. The more I learned about the teachings of the Catholic Church, the more God began to reveal to me that the Catholic Church contains the fullness of the Truth. It has not been an easy journey - all of my family and close friends are Protestants (of various denominations) and the response I get ranges from “don’t ask, don’t tell” to outright hostility. However, I wouldn’t go back for anything.

On the other hand,I have a friend who was raised Catholic and left the Church was she was a teenager; she is now a Baptist. When I was first starting to look at the Catholic Church, we talked about why she left. Her issue was confession - she became “enlightened by the Holy Spirit” while waiting in line with her family that it wasn’t necessary and refused to go in. I can’t help but wonder what her life circumstances were to lead her to this conclusion (of course, it’s not my place to judge or be overly speculative, I just pray for her and that God would use me in her life).
 
MarcoPolo said:
If you are Catholic, what are reasons you think people convert to a Protestant denomination?

If you are Protestant, what are reasons you think people convert to Catholicism?
Click to expand...
The people I know who convert from the Catholic Church have done so because of some “inconvenient” moral teaching of the Church.

After that, they come up with all kinds of theological reasons not to be Catholic.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top