Why Evangelicals are returning

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BTW, my husband said that the main reason why evangelical Protestants are more willing to convert to Orthodoxy rather than Catholicism is that the Orthodox do not have one pope. This means that the former evangelical Protestant can continue to be his/her own pope rather than submitting to one man.
Well, they’d still be under their bishop, so I don’t think this is true.
 
BTW, my husband said that the main reason why evangelical Protestants are more willing to convert to Orthodoxy rather than Catholicism is that the Orthodox do not have one pope. This means that the former evangelical Protestant can continue to be his/her own pope rather than submitting to one man.
Not only is he incorrect, but that is quite insulting. The only way he could come to that conclusion is by superimposing the modern Roman Catholic view of authority on those who are not modern Roman Catholics. We submit to the authorities that are rightfully above us.
 
I read recently that about 50% of fundamentalists were once Catholic.
It could be that the Holy Spirit is awakening them to there Catholic
baptism and first holy communion where it stated.

Just a thought.
 
to Rome… Below is an interesting YouTube video (really audio) of an Evangelical Radio show in which two Evangelicals discuss why so many Evangelical Protestants are leaving to join the Catholic Church. The host and guest are trying to be honest in the show entitled “Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome.” Although towards the end of the video they are making some statements that are historically inaccurate (about Luther and the Popes); nevertheless, their questioning tries to be honest. It is interesting that they are taking note of a large exodus. I am one of those who Crossed the Tiber to Rome. Furthermore, this was coming from a Protestant network that is decidedly anti-Catholic. They are willing to discuss openly what has been happening for years now (the exodus of Evangelical ordained ministers to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches). They also mention briefly EWTN, the program Journey Home and the moderator Marcus Grodi, a convert from Evangelical Christianity. It is obvious this is all new to them since they didn’t even know how to pronounce Marcus Grodi’s name. catholic-convert.com/2011/05/10/evangelicals-becoming-catholic-why/ Sola Scriptura is dead… Welcome Home Evangelicals…we are not selling Indulgences…that has been reformed…🙂
To God be the Glory, many of us in the “Evangelical” faiths have returned to our Home, the Catholic Faith and joyfully come and join. I am so very excited to become Catholic!! I know He called me here and am ready to serve Him in whatever He calls me to!

Blessings to al also on this journey as Christ is truely “calling” many 'Home. Being Catholic is the “FULLFILLNESS” of my Christian faith!!!

Prayers for all, we are in a battle to the end, realize your call and defend His Church!
Blessings in HIM,
mlz
 
I read recently that about 50% of fundamentalists were once Catholic.
It could be that the Holy Spirit is awakening them to there Catholic
baptism and first holy communion where it stated.

Just a thought.
Fred,

50% of fundamentalists were once Catholic…and 100% of all Christian thought came from the OHCAC…therefore the fundamentalists have more Catholicity in their midst then those that accepted it de novo…good mix.🙂
 
To God be the Glory, many of us in the “Evangelical” faiths have returned to our Home, the Catholic Faith and joyfully come and join. I am so very excited to become Catholic!! I know He called me here and am ready to serve Him in whatever He calls me to!

Blessings to al also on this journey as Christ is truely “calling” many 'Home. Being Catholic is the “FULLFILLNESS” of my Christian faith!!!

Prayers for all, we are in a battle to the end, realize your call and defend His Church!
Blessings in HIM,
mlz
My sadness is that it takes so much time for those that journey to find their way home…
 
How many Evangelicals convert to Catholicism compared to Catholics who convert to Protestantism? I think there’s about 15 million converts to my side in America. How’s that compare? Also, how many of your converts stick around long term? Has that ever been addressed on EWTN?
 
How many Evangelicals convert to Catholicism compared to Catholics who convert to Protestantism? I think there’s about 15 million converts to my side in America. How’s that compare? Also, how many of your converts stick around long term? Has that ever been addressed on EWTN?
How many Catholics in the World?

How many Evangelicals in the World?

How many chucks could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?
 
How many Catholics in the World?

How many Evangelicals in the World?

How many chucks could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?
A little over a billion, six hundred something million, and a wood chuck would chuck just as much wood as he could chuck. If he could chuck wood.
I don’t understand your response, but those are the answers, give or take. Maybe I just need practice with picking up on tone via forum.
 
A little over a billion, six hundred something million, and a wood chuck would chuck just as much wood as he could chuck. If he could chuck wood.
I don’t understand your response, but those are the answers, give or take. Maybe I just need practice with picking up on tone via forum.
He’s doing the same thing I did earlier in this thread, attacking your fallacy with a similar fallacy to show how absurd it is.

Or at least that is what I assume is going on.

Argumentum ad populum doesn’t have anything to do with the question of why Evangelicals “return” to the Catholic Church.
 
How many Evangelicals convert to Catholicism compared to Catholics who convert to Protestantism? I think there’s about 15 million converts to my side in America. How’s that compare?
Quality, not quantity. From what I can tell, most Catholics who become Protestant never really understood their faith to begin with. I know two girls my age–around twenty–who both fall into this category.
Also, how many of your converts stick around long term? Has that ever been addressed on EWTN?
I’ll let others field these good questions until I investigate the issue.
 
A little over a billion, six hundred something million, and a wood chuck would chuck just as much wood as he could chuck. If he could chuck wood.
I don’t understand your response, but those are the answers, give or take. Maybe I just need practice with picking up on tone via forum.
Six,

I believe in imagination. I believe in telling the truth. I believe that sometimes what I believe is imagined and sometimes it is true. I believe in providing statistics that support what I imagine to be true rather than what I imagine. www.adherents.com is a website that provides unbiased statistics as far as I know. If Christianity is 33% of the world population or 2.1 billion and the Catholic Church is by far the largest with over a billion then the Evangelicals are coming into the Catholic Church in greater number than I imagined…Provide your data support…

Christianity is 2.1 billion

adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

Religious Body Number of Adherents
Catholic Church** 1,100,000,000
Sunni Islam* 1,000,000,000
Eastern Orthodox Church 225,000,000
Jinja Honcho
83,000,000
Anglican Communion* 77,000,000

adherents.com/adh_rb.html
 
He’s doing the same thing I did earlier in this thread, attacking your fallacy with a similar fallacy to show how absurd it is.

Or at least that is what I assume is going on.

Argumentum ad populum doesn’t have anything to do with the question of why Evangelicals “return” to the Catholic Church.
Nine,

You give me more credit than I deserve. I just have a sense of humor. I am just one of those old Catholic guys that sits in the pews and listens to the stuff that goes on and learned all this stuff over time. I haven’t spent much time arguin and stuff but gollllleeee you sure make me sound good.
 
To anyone outside the Catholic Church an annulment is essentially the same thing. Do you deny that one is permitted an unlimited number? Additionally unlike in the Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church counts death as an end to marriage, and permits remarriage after. Do you disagree with this?

Because that is how loosely and dishonestly one has to use the terms to get the idea that the Orthodox Church “permits” two divorces and three marriages.
I will post this again.

orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/athenagoras_remarriage.htm

QUOTE: Orthodox canon law can permit a second and even a third marriage “in economia”, but strictly forbids a fourth . . . A second or third marriage will always be a deviation from the “ideal and unique marriage”, but often a fresh opportunity to correct a mistake”.END QUOTE (emphasis mine)

Matthew 5:31-32 NAB “… whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Mark 10:11 - “So he [Jesus] said to them, 'Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.” 12 “And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” Orthodox Study Bible.

Luke 16:18 RSV - “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.”

1 Cor 7:39 RSV - “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whomever she wishes, only in the Lord.”

Some marriages are “not in the Lord.” In such cases, the Catholic Church, following a thorough investigation, can grant a declaration of nullity, which means that a valid, sacramental marriage never existed.

An annulment is not a “divorce” – not in civil law nor in ecclesiastical law. In the case of a civil annulment, the State finds that the requirements for a marriage under State law were not met and therefore no marriage existed; in the case of an ecclesiastical annulment, the Church finds that the requirements for a “marriage in the Lord” were not met, therefore there was no marriage in the ‘eyes’ of God and a dissolution can be granted. .A valid, sacramental marriage – within the Catholic Church or without – cannot be dissolved. “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” Matthew 19:6 Orthodox Study Bible.

But, nevertheless, the Orthodox Churches permits two divorces and three marriages. But not a fourth! And, again in opposition to Scripture, the Orthodox hold that death does not end marriage.
 
How many Evangelicals convert to Catholicism compared to Catholics who convert to Protestantism? I think there’s about 15 million converts to my side in America. How’s that compare? Also, how many of your converts stick around long term? Has that ever been addressed on EWTN?
Were all 15 million former Catholics? 😛 Which of the many thousands of Protestant denominations did they join – the ones with the gospel truth? :nope:

How many Evangelical pastors have become Catholic since the Coming Home Network was started by a former Presbyterian minister to assist other Protestant clergy to make the same journey he made? Around a thousand. chnetwork.org.

And there are many intellectuals who find their questions answered in Catholicism – for example, Dr. Francis Beckwith of Baylor University, former President of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dr. Robert Koons of the University of Texas Austin, a member of ETS, and Dr. J Budziszewski, also of UT Austin. Dr. Beckwith wrote a book: Return to Rome, Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic. Some (actually many) who leave the Catholic Church eventually return.

There were 12 catechumens (never before baptized) and 70 candidates (former Protestants) received into the Church at Easter at my parish. There are 400 more Protestants (no kidding, no exaggeration) who will enter at Pentecost. This is just my parish alone.

Why do Evangelicals (and other Protestants) convert to Catholicism? Because it’s true.

Jim Dandy
Ex-Southern Baptist, ex-agnostic, ex-atheist, ecstatic to be Catholic!
 
I will post this again.

orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/athenagoras_remarriage.htm

QUOTE: Orthodox canon law can permit a second and even a third marriage “in economia”, but strictly forbids a fourth . . . A second or third marriage will always be a deviation from the “ideal and unique marriage”, but often a fresh opportunity to correct a mistake”.END QUOTE (emphasis mine)

Matthew 5:31-32 NAB “… whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Mark 10:11 - “So he [Jesus] said to them, 'Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.” 12 “And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” Orthodox Study Bible.

Luke 16:18 RSV - “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.”

1 Cor 7:39 RSV - “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whomever she wishes, only in the Lord.”

Some marriages are “not in the Lord.” In such cases, the Catholic Church, following a thorough investigation, can grant a declaration of nullity, which means that a valid, sacramental marriage never existed.

An annulment is not a “divorce” – not in civil law nor in ecclesiastical law. In the case of a civil annulment, the State finds that the requirements for a marriage under State law were not met and therefore no marriage existed; in the case of an ecclesiastical annulment, the Church finds that the requirements for a “marriage in the Lord” were not met, therefore there was no marriage in the ‘eyes’ of God and a dissolution can be granted. .A valid, sacramental marriage – within the Catholic Church or without – cannot be dissolved. “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” Matthew 19:6 Orthodox Study Bible.

But, nevertheless, the Orthodox Churches permits two divorces and three marriages. But not a fourth! And, again in opposition to Scripture, the Orthodox hold that death does not end marriage.
Except that the Orthodox do hold that death ends marriage as it exists now. That is because sacraments are a foretaste of what is to come. Marriage is the foretaste of the relationship of the body of Christ to Christ, and so it will not be abolished but fulfilled in the age to come. What is meant when you see the idea that marriage is eternal is simply the idea that the love of a married couple does not end after death, but will continue on (indeed, this is believed to be true of all of our loving relationships). It does not entail the continued existence of an exclusive emotional and sexual relationship (for we shall be as the angels, we are told). For the sake of charity, clarity, and honesty, perhaps it would be better if you stuck to expounding upon the teachings of your church instead of trying to explain and attack the teachings of a church you show little familiarity with.
 
Except that the Orthodox do hold that death ends marriage as it exists now. That is because sacraments are a foretaste of what is to come. Marriage is the foretaste of the relationship of the body of Christ to Christ, and so it will not be abolished but fulfilled in the age to come. What is meant when you see the idea that marriage is eternal is simply the idea that the love of a married couple does not end after death, but will continue on (indeed, this is believed to be true of all of our loving relationships), it does not entail the continued existence of an exclusive sexual relationship (for we shall be as the angels, we are told). For the sake of honesty, perhaps it would be better if you stuck to expounding upon the teachings of your church instead of trying to smear and misrepresent the teachings of Orthodoxy.
Cavaradossi, as I noted earlier about the Orthodox site that Coptic linked to earlier, what it described as “divorce” really sounds to me like what Catholics understand as “annulment”- Namely that the Church recognizes that for one reason or another, there was no grace, or that the couples did not, for one reason or another, receive the grace. Could it possibly be the case that what you guys call "divorce" is not really what Catholics understand by the word "divorce"?
 
Cavaradossi, as I noted earlier about the Orthodox site that Coptic linked to earlier, what it described as “divorce” really sounds to me like what Catholics understand as “annulment”- Namely that the Church recognizes that there was no grace, or the couples did not, for one reason or another, receive the grace. Could it possibly be the case that what you guys call “divorce” is not what Catholics understand by the word “divorce”?
I’m really not sure, as I haven’t studied the sacramental view of divorce in Orthodoxy much (an unpleasant subject). I think the original understanding really was that a marriage could only be dissolved for adultery, in line with the words of Christ (St. Basil the Great even writes that custom dictates that only a man can initiate a divorce, even though Christ’s words apply equally to both genders; this custom has changed, as one might imagine, so women too can initiate divorce for adultery). Over time, the allowable reasons have been expanded by economy to include other grave matters like attempted murder of a spouse, imprisonment, etc… The understanding still is that these other grave matters are only allowed by economy, and so they can vary from bishop to bishop, as is the prerogative of a bishop. This understanding (the dissolution of marital bonds), of course is exactly how a Catholic would understand “divorce”, not annulment.

That quote that you are asking about is the first time I’ve read something like that from an Orthodox source, so it might be a relatively novel understanding. I’m not sure.
 
Cavaradossi, as I noted earlier about the Orthodox site that Coptic linked to earlier, what it described as “divorce” really sounds to me like what Catholics understand as “annulment”- Namely that the Church recognizes that for one reason or another, there was no grace, or that the couples did not, for one reason or another, receive the grace. Could it possibly be the case that what you guys call "divorce" is not really what Catholics understand by the word "divorce"?
It is not divorce but remarriage when a previous valid, sacramental marriage still exists that is problematic. What God has joined together . . .
 
Except that the Orthodox do hold that death ends marriage as it exists now. That is because sacraments are a foretaste of what is to come. Marriage is the foretaste of the relationship of the body of Christ to Christ, and so it will not be abolished but fulfilled in the age to come. What is meant when you see the idea that marriage is eternal is simply the idea that the love of a married couple does not end after death, but will continue on (indeed, this is believed to be true of all of our loving relationships). It does not entail the continued existence of an exclusive emotional and sexual relationship (for we shall be as the angels, we are told). For the sake of charity, clarity, and honesty, perhaps it would be better if you stuck to expounding upon the teachings of your church instead of trying to explain and attack the teachings of a church you show little familiarity with.
I regret my error. Sorry. I made an incorrect assumption by taking the words at face value. But I have to ask: which marriage? Or will the love of all three Orthodox marriages (if they occur) endure in the afterlife?

I regret also that you feel I am attacking Orthodoxy. I’m merely stating the reasons why I (born and raised Protestant) made the choice to became Catholic and not Orthodox, and some Protestants (Evangelicals) have made the choice to become Orthodox and not Catholic – because of the possibility of remarriage and permission to contracept with the blessing of the Orthodox Churches.

Peace be with you.
 
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