I was raised in a small-town, Southern Baptist church in Virginia where I, along with my sister, my two brothers, and our parents, attended Sunday School and church nearly every Sunday that I can remember. In my early teen years, I responded to a preacher’s invitation to accept Christ as my Lord and Savior and was baptized. The experience of the waters of baptism seemed to be one of re-birth. I felt as though my sins were washed away and there was a new beginning and opportunity for me ahead. However, I did not experience much growth in grace during my later high school years and I went away to college in 1970 very disappointed with my hometown and the Christians that I knew.
Ron Moffat, a former Scots Calvinist recalls his journey into the Catholic Church. “Peter said simply, ‘Lord to whom shall we go?’ I knew in my heart, there was nowhere else I could go if I wanted a faith that wasn’t subject to change depending on the latest intellectual fads. I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing, but if I wasn’t, I knew there was no better alternative.”
Over the next few years of talking to [my friend] about what he was studying, I slowly began to understand the TULIP doctrines and I realized that I didn’t actually agree with any of them. As a good Protestant, I knew that I could question every tenet of the faith that I had been brought up in and still be a good Christian, so as I gradually began to doubt Calvinism, I never questioned my relationship with God, nor His love for me.
Maria Romine explains that she was “entrenched” in the Presbyterian church of her childhood; active as a youth elder, deacon, choir member and liturgist. Her real passion, discovered in the
On November 6, 2011, on the book of the Gospels, I signed the Nicene Creed and a statement in which I professed to “believe in and hold firm all that the Holy Catholic church believes in, teaches and professes as handed down by the Fathers of the Church and Ancient Tradition.” By doing so, I effectively hung up my pulpit gown and stole: items I had received on the occasion of my ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church in America.
Brian Besong’s father came from a Catholic family but left the faith when he married Brian’s mother. They settled into life in the Disciples of Christ in Houston, Texas, which
Jason Stewart was raised in a “generically” covenant evangelical Christian home where all the basic tenets of the tradition were taught and lived out. At the age of 15, Jason’s
Deacon Patrick Wilson was born in Newark, OH into a protestant family which began as Methodists and then switched to a local Presbyterian church after a period of inactivity. His
Growing up in Canada, Kevin Lowry lived as the son of a Presbyterian minister and his wife who lived out their faith. At age 16, Kevin headed off to college
Fr. Shawn Gould grew up in Western Michigan in the small town of Grant Haven. It was an area with many Dutch immigrants. Fr. Shawn and his family were active
I grew up in a small town near Toronto, Canada, the son of a Presbyterian minister. My parents are wonderful people – and in my opinion, they’re living saints. While studying theology at a Baptist seminary in the 1960’s, my dad heard so much anti-Catholic rhetoric that he decided to take a Knights of Columbus correspondence course to hear the other side of the story. Partly as a result of that course, he ended up leaving the Baptists to enroll in a Presbyterian seminary. This was one of his first steps toward an appreciation of Catholicism.
When stating their objections to the Catholic Church, most Protestant Christians have two impressions. First, the Catholic Church is thought to be somewhere on a scale from hating the Bible to