What does this mean? Does it mean you told them you weren’t going to convert because you didn’t want your wife to divorce you? As I said earlier, if you think that the RCC has the fullness of truth, stop playing at being a Protestant. If you think your wife is going to divorce you for your conversion, visit a lawyer and get your ducks in a row before doing RCIA or whatever. (Note that even if she thinks that Catholics are not Christians, this would NOT be Biblical grounds for divorcing you–see 1 Corinthians 7:13.)
Also, it is weird that someone is pestering you about not taking Communion. I’ve never been to a church where someone’s decision to forego Communion was a matter for public discussion. Anyway, why are you worried about what these people think? You are never, never, never going to please people who believe that your becoming Catholic is tantamount to apostasy.
Slightly OT: My dear (Protestant) friend’s brother married a Catholic girl, and his mother told him that they really should try to stick to one practice and faith for the sake of family unity. My friend’s brother took her advice–and converted to Catholicism. His mother wasn’t best pleased, but she got over it and has pictures of her grandchildren at their baptism, First Communion, and so on. Heh, heh.
Back in April, Samantha and her husband----two pastors are my church, but not the head pastor and his wife—came over to hear why I wanted to convert to the Catholic Church and try to dissuade me. My wife actually was hoping they’d succeed in dissuading me from pursuing the Catholic Church, but much to her anger and disappointment, I didn’t. I continued to pray catholic prayers, read my catholic bibles, read catholic material, and so on. I did these things discreetly, but she knew. And it caused her stress and anxiety and fear. It’s more complicated than that and not a simple “do as I say or I’ll divorce you.” I truly love my wife very much with an everlasting love, and this problem was the climax of some other things that happened in our lives which I do not wish to mention. It had to do with life changing decisions about our wedding, where we bought our home, and now I was leaving the very church I introduced her to and the community I helped her get established with in Canada. She felt I hadn’t listened to her before several times so she was putting the foot down and wanted me to listen to her as an act of love. And by rejecting her feelings, she felt I was rejecting her and not loving her. It came to a point where she insisted I give up reading from my catholic bibles, praying my catholic prayers, and learning about catholic stuff—in other words, stop this catholic faith now until I had the opportunity to go to RCIA in the Fall. Well, Fall rolls around and she heads off to visit her family in her native country and I’m left all alone. I find out RCIA isn’t happening in my town. So I start picking up where I last left off. I’m not so sure if she’ll divorce me or not. She told me my conversion to the Catholic Church would be too much for her to accept and that would be the breaking point.
If you read some of my earliest posts, I posted in much fear, stress, anxiety, and sorrow. I had no one to talk to and felt no support and came here for support.
The step I took to abstain from Protestant communion is one part of something that is much, much bigger. It’s going to really set things in motion and already has. I’m currently in a discussion with Samantha and just recently sent an e-mail telling her how the Protestant Reformers of then and Protestant preachers(such as John McArthur) are completely divided on the essentials. 40,000+ denominations say they preach Bible alone but can’t agree on what the Bible teaches and the essentials. And I lined up what they said with what the Reformers said and asked them how can I make sense of it all. I called them out for saying infant baptism is not in scripture while telling me they accept all of what John Wesley and Calvin believed and taught—which included infant baptism. It just proves my point that Protestantism is just…confusing, divided, and why I’m moving away from it. Because it comes down to authority, and I feel these people don’t have authority to interpret scripture. Their opinions are fallible. And their divisions and 40,000+ denominations are proof of that.
They disagree with one another because they have no central infallible authority because they claim the Bible is their central infallible authority, yet they can’t agree on what the Bible is talking about.
So, I threw out the question of the Canon of Scripture, and just as Devin recommends in his book, Navigating The Tiber, I gave them action items to check out. I’ll share them with you guys:
st-takla.org/Contact-us.html
ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/DEUTEROS.HTM
And then I’m intending to give them Rome Sweet Home next time I meet them.
Question Of The Canon; Sola Scriptura; Sola Fide. When I leave my church, I want to make it very clear those are three big reasons why I’d be leaving. I don’t belong in the Protestant Church; I belong in Christ’s Church----the Catholic Church.
Thank you everyone. Thank you so much for all the love and support. God bless.
PHEW. That was a lot of writing I did!* :compcoff:
but hey, you know what, I think a good story to point out to them would be how John Wesley put God above his wife and it caused him marital troubles. Also, there is the book “When Only one Converts” that has success stories. And then there is the Catholic teaching on the matter, but, I’m trying to use logic here using their own sources to prove my point that this is God’s will for me