Nope.
I could name dozens (and this leads me to believe that the number is in the thousands worldwide) of people who set out to prove the Catholic Church wrong once and for all…Dr. Scott Hahn, Steve Ray and Fr. Dwight Longenecker just to name to who are more public than most (you can find their books on Amazon).
With respect, I think you’ve kind of missed my point:
You can’t argue people into your church. To echo Peter J’s earlier post, if they’re looking into it themselves, that’s something else and fine to encourage, but what I meant was that it has scarcely if ever happened that a person in the kinds of discussions we are having here has “switched over” by force of their interlocutor’s arguments.
Just today I was watching a DVD on the Coptic Orthodox Church that quoted a 18th century Jesuit missionary who had gone to Egypt with the twin objectives of cataloging its churches and monasteries, and converting the Coptic population so far as he traveled within it to Roman Catholicism. In the words of the narrator, the missionary only accomplished half of his goals – he sent back to Europe probably the first accurate maps and descriptions of Coptic churches and monasteries, but did not convert any of the Copts to Rome. Western Christians have had this sort of approach to their Eastern and Oriental cousins for an awfully long time, and it is failing now more than ever. In the context of this conversation, the fact that you know of some Protestants who converted and wrote books about it (bleh…could there ever be a worse genre of Christian literature than the convert’s story? I find them about as exciting as watching paint dry) means essentially nothing. It is extremely likely that Rome was their only serious “competitor”, and as much as they do know about Orthodoxy (generally only Chalcedonian churches), there are a great many who likewise convert to Eastern Orthodoxy such as Fr. Lev Gillet, Fr. Peter Gillquist, historian Jaroslav Pelikan, Met. Tikhon of the OCA, etc. I’m pretty sure these all have books, too, and it is interesting to note that Jaroslav Pelikan was an actual historian of early Church history for many years before converting to Eastern Orthodoxy.
Even the Oriental Orthodox Church, neglected and maligned though we are and have been for centuries, also receives converts among learned people of other backgrounds. Most recently, the Syriac Orthodox Church received German (Protestant) scholar of the New Testament
Andreas Juckel into the Church’s fold. We, like the EO, have priests who are converts (ex. Fr. Bishoy Brownfield), and more and more converts everyday among the laity. Just in my short time in the OO communion, I have met entire families who converted, as well as individuals from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Jewish backgrounds.
What does all this add up to? Not much. That’s kind of my point: Every Church can say this, and back it up. So, once again, you cannot argue anyone into your church this way. You can encourage and exhort and all that, but all this “What about MY reading of this verse/father/blatantly polemical article? Isn’t it obviously true?” garbage is just a waste of time and bandwith.
So, we just keep laying out the data and letting the facts and the Holy Spirit speak for themselves.
The facts and the data, huh? Sounds like you’re trying to sell them an insurance policy.
Catholicism has NOTHING to fear from history or from Scripture, and eventually, that sinks in.
So you see it. I know where I’m posting, so I’ll just close by saying everyone has their own perspective, informed by their own ecclesiology and theology, and mine does not agree with yours at all.
No, I don’t agree but I don’t think it’s a crazy idea either. The distinction I would like to stress is that, if someone is *already *Orthodox, I would not encourage him/her to leave Orthodoxy for Catholicism. But if someone wants to join Orthodoxy or Catholicism, but isn’t entirely decided which, then I’d happily present him/her with the arguments for why he/she should become Catholic rather than Orthodox.
