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Muslim to Anglican to Catholic

I had been taught the predominant Muslim view that the Bible was a direct revelation from God that became corrupt over time. Searching the Quran, I found no evidence for this view; instead, I found multiple passages encouraging Jews and Christians to believe its message on account of its similarity to that of the Bible… While I found some elements in the Quran troubling, I also recognized a great deal of truth in its teachings about God and the moral life, and those teachings made it difficult to justify rejecting the text outright. The tension I felt was compounded by a sense that I had “maxed out” in my understanding of the Quran. My spiritual and moral life began to suffer as I became increasingly resentful. I stopped identifying as a Muslim, but still smarted from a feeling of not belonging anywhere.

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Journey Home episode

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A Deeper Look at Our Conversion Stories

Marcus and Marilyn Grodi |
Conversion Stories, Lutheran, Presbyterian & Reformed | 19 Comments

Becoming Catholic was never my dream or intent. It is still an all too vivid memory to me, sitting alone at age 40 in a half-lit basement, having resigned from the pastorate. I ached for having abandoned the weekly privilege of a pulpit from which to proclaim God’s truth. Would I ever have this privilege again? Will I ever again have a pulpit? Now they estimate that each week from the “pulpit” of The Journey Home television program I speak to a potential audience of over a billion viewers and listeners. In one night I speak to more people than I ever could have in my entire career as a Protestant minister. This is the humor of our merciful God. Before I converted I had no idea whatsoever how I would support my family let alone how I would continue in ministry. But this is getting way ahead of myself.

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Full Communion

Fr. Donald Flumerfelt |
Anglican & Episcopalian, Conversion Stories | 4 Comments

In my youth, my whole family was actively involved in many aspects of the United Church of Canada in Calgary, Alberta and in Montreal, Quebec. They were good and creative years. My call to ministry came while serving as a counselor for a church camp outside Montreal. One beautiful summer morning, the sun was dancing off the water and a gentle breeze was blowing.

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The Words of Eternal Life

Louise Winant |
Conversion Stories, Evangelical, Reverts to the Catholic Faith | One Comment

After leaving the Catholic Church and attending evangelical denominations, Louise Winant sought the truth of Christ and decided to reconcile with the church of her youth. Even after returning, there was one teaching of the Catholic Church — the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist — that Louise could not get over, until Jesus touched her heart.

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More Than Enough

Kathy McDonald |
Conversion Stories, Lutheran | 24 Comments

Our third son was 10 days old on “Reformation Sunday” 1998. The preacher that Sunday at the local Lutheran church we attended was a retired Lutheran school principal, a man in his 70s with a great shock of white hair. He ascended the pulpit and held up a book, a book he proclaimed “the work of the devil!” The book was by a Catholic author on justification. The preacher offered this book as evidence that “the Reformation must go on!” To me, he came across as so angry and fearful, so unreasonably opposed to the Catholic author, that I leaned over and whispered to my husband, Joe, and said “Sounds like a book we ought to read.”

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Towards Unity

Fr. Jurgen Liias |
Anglican & Episcopalian, Anglican Church of North America, Charismatic Episcopal, Conversion Stories | 14 Comments

After 40 years as an Episcopal priest, Jurgen Liias became a Catholic in August 2012. In April 2013 he was ordained a Catholic priest through the Anglican Ordinariate. A community of about 25 other former Anglicans have joined him in forming the parish of St. Gregory the Great of the US Anglican Ordinariate in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.

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How Being a Baptist Prepared Me to be a Good Catholic

Paul McCusker |
Baptist, Conversion Stories | 27 Comments

by Paul McCusker. Frankly, I doubt I would be much of a Catholic now without the benefit of all I’d been taught by Protestants as I travelled this way. I know that had I followed my father’s lead as a Catholic I wouldn’t be Catholic at all. (For him, it was a cultural identity, something handed down to him like an old coat he didn’t really want – if even that.) Any spark of faith in my life was fanned by my very-Protestant mother, faithful relatives and, in my formative years, the good people at Grace Baptist Church in my hometown.

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I Did It Afraid!

Cheryl Ann Masaitis-Spychaj |
Conversion Stories, Evangelical, Non-Denominational, Reverts to the Catholic Faith | 6 Comments

Cheryl Ann, who dreamed of being a missionary and mother of many children, has felt the hand of God throughout her whole life. Facing the crisis of scandal in the Catholic Church, she left to become an Evangelical Christian. An unexpected turn of events awakened a longing desire for Jesus in the Eucharist, which brought her home to the Church of her youth.

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From Calvin to Catholicism

Brian Besong |
Calvinist, Conversion Stories, Presbyterian & Reformed, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Intellectually, I had a strong “faith” in the tenets of Protestantism, particularly as they were expressed in the Calvinist tradition. Yet Calvinism excused my sin as something God Himself did not see, since, so I believed, the righteousness of Christ had been imputed to me because of my genuine faith, covering over my sins so that He was blind to them, at least insofar as my salvation was concerned.

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The Tiber: Neither Too Wide, Nor Too Deep

James L. Papandrea, M.Div., Ph.D. |
Conversion Stories, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Uncategorized, United Methodist | 7 Comments

It was my study of the Church Fathers that ignited within me the dormant flame of Catholicism. As many others who have gone before me found, one cannot study the history of the early Church without realizing that many Protestant doctrines — sola Scriptura, for example — were an invention of the Protestant reformation and do not actually reflect the understanding of the Church Fathers, let alone the Apostles. I also realized that the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist is consistent with the way the sacrament has been understood from the beginning.

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