It wasn’t quite that simple. I had been getting a push towards the Catholic Church for a while, and I’d been resisting it. The argument was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I hadn’t been doing a lot research - I’ve read more since. I mean most converts join first, and then examine later, if we’re honest. There are exceptions, but I don’t know of too many atheists with an abiding interest in theology. If they become Christians,** then **they may start reading theology.
I don’t have a great deal of formal training in church teachings, other than what I"ve read. I still tend to put a lot of stock in what my “old protestant pastor” said if I’m going to be truthful, even if he had his own doubts from time to time. Sometimes I think we complicate things too much. As far as I’m concerned, the core elements are faith in Christ, trying not to sin (er, well, not too much anyway), confession (which I don’t do enough of), the eucharist (which is what was mainly missing in my Protestant experience), prayer, the sacraments (esp. Baptism) and general obedience.
However when men get into the act, they can soon make things complicated.
I accept the Pope is head of the Church, and heir of Peter, with power to bind and loose as Christ said, although that’s usually in concert with the magisterium, who I believe are the spiritual descendants of the apostles. I don’t believe in Papal Infallibility, and the Bible seems to be at some pains to make it pretty clear the first “Pope”, Peter, was not exactly “infallible”, yet despite his own fallibility, had the authority to make “rulings” (eg. change his own mind and make a ruling on circumcision and other Jewish laws, and pass an immediate death sentence on Ananias and Sapphira, which couldn’t be changed once it was carried out).
I think Peter’s fallibility is there as an eternal object lesson to future popes and Ultramontanists, as far as I"m concerned. But his authority is also made loud and clear.
There were other Protestant theologians around besides Calvin, but he had possibly the greatest influence. I was never very pre-destination minded myself, and my old pastor was Methodist by training, and they used Arminian Theology, not Calvinistic. So I missed out on the hardline Presbyterian boys.
I do believe in Purgatory, and I think I always had a bit of a suspicion something like it existed. However I had the experience of my father turning up in my room the night he died, and as part of the process exclaiming “I always was doomed! I didn’t have any choice!” I argued about that, but he also admitted, “I was WILLING!”. So I have a suspicion predestination does have some influence, but it is not without our own wills being involved. It’s so subtle that I don’t understand it.
I also read and still have a short autobiography of John Newton, the writer of the song *Amazing Grace. * But he was also a slave trader for years, brutal, foul mouthed, and utterly removed from religion. When I read how just many close escapes he had from dying or being killed, I found it very difficult not to believe that he wasn’t “predestined”, precisely, I would think, as an example of God’s Amazing Grace.
Now I heard from one priest in a homily, that he heard another priest say, in his homily, “I hate that song! (Amazing Grace) I’m not a wretch! You’re not wretches!”
Well, he might be right. But John Newton, who wrote it, was for a large part of his life, a “wretch”. And that’s why he called it, “Amazing Grace”. And he had a very strong sense of personal predestination, because of his background.
I’ll have a look at it sometime. I haven’t heard of her to be honest.
All our stories are different.
