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A thought or two...

One of my friends used to be a very intense and good preacher. While at Lee, he not only served as the chaplain of some fraternity or another, sang in the Lee choir, and was just an all-around popular guy. Today, he is a Catholic priest. There were at least a couple of reasons that I think drove him to this decision.1) His background was Catholic. He had experienced some hard times with his family for becoming Church of God. And even though most of those issues had been alleviated, he still might have felt a come back home feeling regarding the Catholic church.2) I recall him speaking about apostolic succession. I imagine there can be, at some point, a drive to be part of a church that has the strongest link back to the apostolic age--and the Catholic Church has that down in spades.3) Another reason is that, for whatever reason, he never married. I don't know if this was due to some girl breaking his heart or, as might be the case, sexual orientation (although he NEVER displayed any such propensity, etc.). But just as some men become hermits because of a broken heart, it might be that he became a priest because he saw no romantic future, etc.But the denial of the Holy Spirit? Darrell, is it possible that you might be conflating a resistance to the doctrine of tongues with resistance to the supernatural. While they might look alike, I know you know they aren't.

There are a lot of reasons people go to the Catholic church. I'll list a few, not that I agree with them (I do in part agree with some, but not enough to convert by any means).1. The Catholic church has a direct tie to the early church2. The Catholic church claims to be the true church3. The Catholic church is the only church that can truthfully claim to hold to traditional values on family including divorce, remarriage, abortion, birth-control, homosexual sin, etc.. (not that they practice it, but they have been historically consistent on this for 2000 years)4. There is a lot more room for various practices than most admit to (for instance, you reference the baptism of the Holy Ghost and speaking in tongues, that is allowed for and even practiced within the RC Church)5. We stress literal interpretation of the Bible within the Evangelical church, but not when it comes to things we disagree with, like This IS my body for instance. Or Confess your sins to one another, or If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. We tend to ignore these.6. The fact that as the centuries roll on, some of the Protestant churches seem to be far more apostate than the Catholic church (as far as gay pastors, gay marriage, divorce, etc..)7. There seems to be a lot less blown by every wind of doctrine, in the Catholic church than among us Evangelicals.There are more, but like I said, they aren't enough for me, but I do understand some of it. I don't agree, but its not completely shocking. I think my attraction would be more from the historical and moral standpoint, though I believe that the RC church has been on a long and slow slide away from orthodoxy since its beginning, and for that reason (among a lot of others), I could never seriously do it.

This comment reminded me of a really interesting tweet thread I saw yesterday. The tweeter was sitting in an airport and relaying an awkward exchange he observed between a guy who was coming back (or going to, not sure) the Gospel Coalition conference (reformed/reformedish believers) and a guy who was coming from/going to Catalyst. The TGC guy said, Can I recommend some books? and the other guy said, Oh, I'm reading Irresistable by Andy Stanley right now! Another awkward pause.

This comment reminded me of a really interesting tweet thread I saw yesterday. The tweeter was sitting in an airport and relaying an awkward exchange he observed between a guy who was coming back (or going to, not sure) the Gospel Coalition conference (reformed/reformedish believers) and a guy who was coming from/going to Catalyst. The TGC guy said, Can I recommend some books? and the other guy said, Oh, I'm reading Irresistable by Andy Stanley right now! Another awkward pause. He said they eventually enjoyed some decent conversation, but what really got my attention was a guy in the replies who said this would have never happened between two Christians in the UK. Believers in the UK would just be very happy to see each other, regardless of how tense second- and third-order doctrinal differences might be. He suggested this was a necessary function of existing in a post-Christian society. 2nd and 3rd order doctrinal differences just aren't that important anymore.

Wasn't it the Catholics who carried out the Crusades against Muslims.Governments had become too weak - only a military church turned back the Muslims that had conquered 2/3 of the world at that point.Perhaps we are heading that way again

true, the history of the Catholic church is a mixed bag. A lot of bad, but a lot of good too. Its certainly needed reformed many times over the years. I believe the big reformation was sorely needed at the time, but it didn't have to end the way it did, another pope might have been smart enough to reconcile what Luther was saying with God's word and made the reforms that indeed came later (at least several of them) at the Council of Trent. But yeah, we protestants like to watch movies about King Arthur, or read about Augustine or St. Patrick and pretend or ignore somehow that they were catholic. I think we have to look at things more honestly (and so should they).

It is very hard to get inside someone's brain. their reasoning has been short circuited by actions outside ours. I met a guy once in a kids theme park with his kids. I recognized him as a trumpet player in the NC Orphanage band. I had admired him for years. We had a long conversation, but long and short, his experiences had driven him completely away from the COG.I still cannot filter thru what I heard....One of my best friends left the Baptist Church and is now an active lay worker in the Catholic church in Pennsylvania.We humans are driven by our experiences unless we are close enough to God and our convictions to take them with a grain of salt Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/