Sweet Surrender: My Conversion Story
My father was a pastor. Growing up life revolved around church. We went to a Christian school with mostly families from the church. Our friends and extended family were all going to the same church. It was a Calvinist church made up of mostly Dutch immigrants. Both my parents were born in Holland so there was an ethnic as well as a religious identity to the church.
I got a very good upbringing. I was one of five children for most of my childhood. Later my parents adopted two children and also brought in boarders, foster children, sponsored students, etc. It was a busy house and my parents were always looking for ways to minister to people.
I learned a lot about the bible growing up. I was always a bright kid and picked things up quickly. I enjoyed studying theology. We did it a lot. There was a lot taught at home during after dinner devotions. The church had some pretty good catechism classes and the school always had a very solid bible class on the curriculum. I basically believed it was all true. It was quite abstract for me. I didn’t apply my faith to my life at all. It was just out there.
There were some moral issues as well. The church focused mainly on premarital sex and drinking. I was a good kid when it came to those two things. I struggled with many other moral issues. I fought with my mother a lot. I lied a lot. I indulged in pornography. I was lazy and not getting my school work done. Still these were issues the church didn’t focus on so I didn’t really connect them to my faith.
Around the age of 25 I had a major spiritual awakening. I got involved in a few fellowships that were charismatic and I really got excited about my faith. It was the beginning of that sweet surrender God was calling me to. I became very hungry and was willing to join anything that would let me get closer to God. I was invited to a charismatic Catholic retreat and had a great experience. In fact, I continued to go to those retreats about 4 times a year for many years. I saw myself as still strongly grounded doctrinally in the reformed church but that allowed me to go to many ecumenical and even Catholic fellowships and not get confused by anything they might try to teach me.
At this Catholic retreat I eventually met my wife and we were married in 1994. We decided to go to both churches. I thought that after a while she would see the superior biblical thinking in the reformed church and want to convert. After all, she was a bright woman so I didn’t expect it to take very long. She went to the new members class at my church and I went to the RCIA class at the Catholic church.
The RCIA process was pretty much a disaster. The priest went through what the church taught but never explained why. There was no biblical evidence given and no appeals made to the church fathers. It was just decreed. They did clear up a few misunderstandings but I didn’t get any sense of a rational basis for the doctrines. They eventually declared they didn’t want me to join the church anyway. That was probably good because at that point I was totally unimpressed with the church.
One thing that did happen as we were preparing for marriage was we decided not to use artificial contraceptives. That was one area where I did feel the teaching of the Catholic church made sense. I also didn’t want to offend my wife’s conscience so we made that choice.
We kept going to both churches for quite a few years. We found a very charismatic priest. I got involved in the Life Teen program. I got to know quite a few Catholics. None of them made any attempt to explain or defend Catholic teachings with me. I think I would have been open to that but my bible knowledge probably intimidated most of them. I was the one-eyed man in a world of blindness as far as scripture knowledge went.
Eventually my wife gave me a book called “Rome Sweet Home” by Scott and Kimberley Hahn. I read it and was interested in their story. I found it strange that after all these years I didn’t know the basic theological arguments between Protestants and Catholics. I didn’t have any doubt the Protestant positions were much more solid but in reading the Hahn’s book I didn’t have ready answers for the ideas they put forward. So I went to the internet and dug into the issues.
Once I got into it I just became very interested in understanding the theology. To know what the church was teaching, how it developed over time, and what was the biblical basis for it. I read a lot of Protestant critiques of it as well. One thing I noticed right away was many of them were unfair. They were either misrepresenting Catholic teaching or just dismissing the Catholic view of scripture.
The story gets quite complicated from there. I did a lot of reading and a lot of thinking. There were many different threads. It was quite exciting and quite surprising. I still kept thinking I was missing something. The Protestant position could not be this weak. There must be some serious arguments I had not considered yet. How could so many people be so far wrong? How could I be so far wrong? How could I admit it to myself?
The central issue for me was authority. Was the church’s claim to speak for Christ true? If it was then God’s will for me was to be Catholic. I would have to surrender to that. The idea that I was confused, uncomfortable, nervous, or whatever should not matter. I needed to trust God and take a step of faith.
Very quickly I was convinced that Sola Scriptora was problematic. Still, it was hard to accept the absolute authority of the church. It was hard to change my thinking so much on so many issues. The biblical evidence seemed like it could be so much stronger. Why did God leave so much wiggle room? Could I be reading things wrong?
There were few arguments I found very convincing. First, there was clearly something taught in the bible about Peter. I didn’t see proof that it looked like the modern office of pope but I could not accept the idea that it meant nothing at all. It just seemed to make nonsense out of so many passages. I had seen many people try and argue that Matthew 16:18-19 was not saying ANYTHING about Peter. It was totally untenable.
Same with the apostles. Why did Jesus pour His life into these 12 men for so long? Did that mean nothing? And the blessings he gives them, do they mean nothing as well? Blessings like Luke 22:29-20, “And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” That had to mean SOMETHING.
So if there is a petrine office and there is an apostolic office, then what could they look like today? What are the choices? Well, I could not see anything out there except the Catholic office of pope and bishop. So having already dismissed the idea that it might mean nothing I was really left with one logical choice.
The second logical thread was around the many differing protestant traditions. I had spent significant time in Catholic, Pentecostal, and Reformed fellowships. I knew they were all lovers of Jesus. They were all prayerful. They were all intelligent and scriptural. There just wasn’t one thing that you could pick out to make you think this group is going to arrive at the truth more consistently that the others. If Jesus really is God, and I believed that, then He would need us to understand the gospel. As God He would accomplish that. So why were all these wonderful christians, who truly wanted to know the gospel, having such a mess of contradictory ideas about it. The more I looked at it the more I thought there had to be something that God left us other than scripture alone. Was it the Holy Spirit? That didn’t make sense either. If that was true would not the most spirit-filled Christians at least be in general agreement? That wasn’t the case. As much as I wanted to dismiss the disagreements as minor it wasn’t possible.
Related to that I saw being involved with several different Protestant churches was that their tradition influenced them much more than they were willing to admit. For example, if I asked a Pentecostal why he believed in adult baptism he would say it was based on scripture. If I asked a Reformed christian why he believed in infant baptism he would say it was based on scripture. Yet ALL the Christian Reformed people came to believe in infant baptism and ALL the Pentecostals came believe in adult baptism. They had the same scripture. The difference really came from their tradition although they would be totally offended if you suggested that to them. So what does this mean? Well, we are influenced subconsciously by our traditions way more than we imagine. Almost to the point where the biblical evidence is irrelevant. That was scary. So what do we need? Not to be free from tradition because we cannot hope to do it. What we need is a tradition we can trust. Almost like a Sacred Tradition …
Thirdly, I really came to admire the saints. There were so many of them. There were such brilliant spirit-filled Christians. They studied the bible ALL the time. They lived out what they believed with such great courage. The question kept being asked, “Why didn’t the saints see in scripture the Protestant distinctives that are supposed to be so clearly set forth in the bible?” None of the answers I got made sense after thinking about who the saints were. It made even less sense when I thought that the Holy Spirit was supposed to be leading the church into all truth. It’s almost like He was supernaturally leading people away from Sola Scriptora.
In parallel with this I was digging into all the other areas of disagreement between Protestants and Catholics. I was especially interested in Mary and justification. My thinking on the authority question changed the way I approached these subjects. I began by asking myself what I was most comfortable with or what made the most sense to me. In other words I was looking for my own private interpretation. The question changed to, “Is the Catholic position reasonable?”. If the answer was “no” then it would be the showstopper to the church’s claim to authority. If the church was teaching false doctrine on justification, like Luther claimed, or on Mary, like many Protestants claim, then it could not be the fullness of truth. But the standard for asking if the doctrine is false needed to be quite generous. I needed to be open to the possibility that a doctrine could be quite distasteful to me and still not be false. As I continued to dig into these various areas the Catholic position surprised me again and again by how strong it was. It was like God was making this easy for me.
The other thing that emerged from my contemplations was the beauty of the church. The family image that Scott Hahn used. The historical connection with the first century church that I had never felt before. The ability to embrace the saints. The deeply incarnational nature of the church and the sacraments. The similarities between the old testament covenants and the church. It was all so amazing. It was like a whole new dimension of my walk with Christ had been opened up. The arguments didn’t just make sense to me but they spurred me on to a deeper love and humility.
Though the whole process I hadn’t really talked to anyone. I was afraid to talk with Protestants about it because I was asking some pretty offensive questions. Like was the reformation a mistake? If I didn’t convert I didn’t really want people knowing I had wrestled with such silly ideas. On the other hand I didn’t want any Catholics to know I was thinking of converting. If I decided against it that would effect my relationship with them. What really made it hard was not being sure. I didn’t even comment on the internet sites. I needed to settle on what I thought first. Settling was something I put off for a long time but it just became time. I was confirmed as a Catholic at Easter 2003.
I actually thought the day would be anticlimactic. Most people talk about receiving the Eucharist for the first time as being the high point. I had been receiving it for years by that point. You see my priest believed in bending rules. So I thought it would not hit me so much. I was wrong. It blew me away. It was an amazing day and even after God kept bringing me from glory to glory. I learned to embrace the church more and more. I started praying the rosary, going to daily mass, reading the Pope’s homilies. Once I trusted the church there was just so much it could give me. It truly was a sweet surrender to God’s will for my life.
God bless you. Thanks for sharing the journey. Once you accept the authority, the rest is easy!
June 12th, 2007 at 4:38 pmI enjoy reading conversion stories, they are proves of God’s grace at work! God bless!
July 4th, 2007 at 3:54 pmMy conversion story is so similar in many respects.
Did you consider the Eastern Orthodox positions on apostolic authority, their doctrinal distinctions, the filioque controversy, and their divergent traditions at all? If you were wrong about the Protestant/Catholic divide, for example, did you wonder, “are the Eastern church people in the right, or is Rome?”. In other words, what if the Papacy exists, Petrine privelege exists, but that Rome overdid it? I did, and ended up Catholic, but I’m curious if you ever felt a pull towards the East?
Warren
July 10th, 2007 at 4:00 pmThe Protestant position could not be this weak. There must be some serious arguments I had not considered yet. How could so many people be so far wrong? How could I be so far wrong? How could I admit it to myself?
BOY does that sound familiar!!!
Welcome home.
(I jumped over here from ReformedCatholicism.)
Sarah
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:46 pmRandy,
Your story is very moving. I have found that a lot of folks have been heavily influenced by the Hahn’s journey. That prompted me to buy the book, read it and review it. You may read the review here, if you like. Despite some reservations of style, I enjoyed the book and could relate to much of it, believe it or not!
All God’s Best,
Pilgrimsarbour
August 10th, 2007 at 9:21 pmIt’s so sad to hear that you converted to the Roman Catholic church
August 26th, 2007 at 7:58 ambecause of your inability to defend Sola Scriptura. You mentioned,
“The historical connection with the first century church that I had
never felt before.” This is kind of surprising since the church
you are referring to knew nothing about dogmas like Papal
Infallibility and the Assumption. It did not have any idea of
bowing down or venerating graven images. The 1st century Christians did not
talk about confessing one’s sins to priests and indulgences.
Where then is the “historical connection”? Which “first century church”
are you referring to?
Randy, you and I established(on Dave Armstrong’s blog) that we are both from Calgary, now I am wondering if you are the Randy that I used to see at the Live-In retreats and at the Alive in the Spirit Prayer Group back in the early 90’s.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:02 pmThis looks very very familiar to my eyes:
My father was a pastor. Growing up life revolved around church. We went to a Christian school with mostly families from the church.
Same here.
I learned a lot about the bible growing up. I was always a bright kid and picked things up quickly. I enjoyed studying theology. We did it a lot.
Ditto.
The church had some pretty good catechism classes and the school always had a very solid bible class on the curriculum. I basically believed it was all true. It was quite abstract for me. I didn’t apply my faith to my life at all. It was just out there.
I remember that like it was yesterday.
I got involved in a few fellowships that were charismatic and I really got excited about my faith. It was the beginning of that sweet surrender God was calling me to. I became very hungry and was willing to join anything that would let me get closer to God.
So did I, and some of them were so energetic and so sure of themselves, and so was I.
Once I got into it I just became very interested in understanding the theology. To know what the church was teaching, how it developed over time, and what was the biblical basis for it. I read a lot of Protestant critiques of it as well. One thing I noticed right away was many of them were unfair. They were either misrepresenting Catholic teaching or just dismissing the Catholic view of scripture.
It’s amazing how so many of them are like that, one thing that helped me was on this point “Where is that in the Bible” by Patrick Madrid, which really started the digging process.
The story gets quite complicated from there. I did a lot of reading and a lot of thinking. There were many different threads. It was quite exciting and quite surprising. I still kept thinking I was missing something. The Protestant position could not be this weak. There must be some serious arguments I had not considered yet. How could so many people be so far wrong? How could I be so far wrong? How could I admit it to myself?
An amazing experience, I call it the “how can this be?” syndrome; because how can it be possible that millions of people for almost 500 years have been dead wrong living in a theological lie? It’s a hard fact.
Very quickly I was convinced that Sola Scriptora was problematic. Still, it was hard to accept the absolute authority of the church.
Yeah, that one took a while.
It was hard to change my thinking so much on so many issues.
A process that takes a while, especially when you’re raised in Protestantism, Catholicism is like something from an alien planet; it takes some major adjustments in so many areas of life.
The second logical thread was around the many differing protestant traditions. I had spent significant time in Catholic, Pentecostal, and Reformed fellowships. I knew they were all lovers of Jesus. They were all prayerful. They were all intelligent and scriptural. There just wasn’t one thing that you could pick out to make you think this group is going to arrive at the truth more consistently that the others. If Jesus really is God, and I believed that, then He would need us to understand the gospel. As God He would accomplish that. So why were all these wonderful christians, who truly wanted to know the gospel, having such a mess of contradictory ideas about it.
I definitely remember that one, after having been Protestant and attended so many different denominations it begins to make one wonder, and to question the things believed.
The more I looked at it the more I thought there had to be something that God left us other than scripture alone. Was it the Holy Spirit? That didn’t make sense either. If that was true would not the most spirit-filled Christians at least be in general agreement? That wasn’t the case. As much as I wanted to dismiss the disagreements as minor it wasn’t possible.
That’s the way it goes, there are somethings that just cannot be overlooked, it’s like the nose on your face and no matter how hard you try it’s always gonna be there staring you right in the face.
Related to that I saw being involved with several different Protestant churches was that their tradition influenced them much more than they were willing to admit.
And in a lot of ways it was tradition that was the very reason for the existence of certain demoninations and churches, because with some the only reason they are not of one sect is because of one practice while another one might be the same way, of course they would say it’s scriptural, but at the same time it was more of a “traditional” thing than it was scriptural.
In parallel with this I was digging into all the other areas of disagreement between Protestants and Catholics. I was especially interested in Mary and justification.
It was these two that I got stuck up on the most, and in some respects am still kinda working on.
I needed to be open to the possibility that a doctrine could be quite distasteful to me and still not be false.
That is one of the truths that makes it all go down just a little easier, but then it’s why they call it “The cold hard truth”.
The deeply incarnational nature of the church and the sacraments. The similarities between the old testament covenants and the church. It was all so amazing. It was like a whole new dimension of my walk with Christ had been opened up. The arguments didn’t just make sense to me but they spurred me on to a deeper love and humility.
In a sense that is what I’ve been working on most recently, and still trying to learn to be more Catholic, to be as close to this truth as possible, and these very things you speak of from Hahn are the very things that I came to know and love from what I learned from the apologetics of Gerry Matatics when I picked up his work on Mary and the old Testament, which is a wonder for aiding conversions and furthering a deeper understanding of the role of Mary in the lives of Christians.
Though the whole process I hadn’t really talked to anyone. I was afraid to talk with Protestants about it because I was asking some pretty offensive questions.
I was asking the questions and getting the pastors angry when they did not like what they were leading to, and with the lack of answers came more questions.
I actually thought the day would be anticlimactic. Most people talk about receiving the Eucharist for the first time as being the high point. I had been receiving it for years by that point. You see my priest believed in bending rules. So I thought it would not hit me so much. I was wrong. It blew me away. It was an amazing day and even after God kept bringing me from glory to glory. I learned to embrace the church more and more. I started praying the rosary, going to daily mass
This is my same experience, which is still very fresh to me since I was only just confirmed, and my priest was one who liked to be flexible with the precepts and the understandings, I think he was somewhat liberal in many ways, and very laid back so it kinda had that whole air to it, it took a new experience to change all that, and that’s when it all escalated like an avalanche. What an amazing story you have, and so strikingly similar to my own, thank you for sharing it,
Leo
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:28 amThanks for reading it Leo. I am glad it blessed you. I love reading conversion stories too. Really anybody’s spiritual journey is interesting to me.
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:08 pmIt’s amazing- the same questions hit me, but in the opposite way-
When I started wondering where the baptist got their authority to teach me, and they answered- the bible,
November 8th, 2007 at 4:11 ambut the bible did not mention them anywhere, and they could not back up their claims (besides- there were so many different interpretations. So much open heresy)- I started feeling uncomfortable.
Especially, when I heard about Apostolic succession. Of course- I wish I’d had the scriptural proof. Instead- God told me that he was the Lamb of God- the rest lead me completely home and into confirmation.
P.S. if you have albert’s email address- maybe turn him to www.scripturecatholic.com or to John 21 verse 23 (I think). I wonder if he didn’t even read what you wrote.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:15 amGod was right to bring you home.
He always tends to bring those like you back- once they seek the truth-
God bless. I enjoyed the story.
sorry, I was right to err- John 20 verse 23.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:34 amGlad t have yo online
I had lost Albert’s comment. I usually respond but I didn’t that time. I responded to Peter and eventually figured out who he was. I can try and respond to him but I think the moment is lost.
Albert’s argument is common for anti-Catholics. It misunderstands the concept of development of doctrine. I think often deliberately so. A man obviously feels connected to the boy he was when he was 10. The fact that he has a beard and grey hair and, as a10 year old, he did not is just not relevant. They are the same person. Same thing with the church. It is the same body.
November 8th, 2007 at 7:38 amPurify,
February 16th, 2008 at 8:24 amI very much enjoyed reading your conversion story. God bless you and your family. AlvinaL
Well like many times on my journeys on the net, I have no idea how I got here, or what I was suppost to be searching for, but I found your story interesting. I use to frequent Renewing your mind discussion forum back in the 90’s and had numerous discussions with the reform on what exactly the Catholic church believed. It amazed me how much individuals would insist on telling me what I believed rather then as a live long Catholic what I and the church taught and held to be true.
I agree with you on the inherent traditions that protestants have, but are unaware of. Having a baptist wife and baptist in-laws I always noticed that they start their “spur of the moment” prayer for grace with “Dear Heavenly Father” and end with “in Jesus’ name we pray”. Nothing wrong with that, just that they had developed a structured pray but thought it unstructured, because after all if it was structured it would be vain repetition -and we can’t have that!
RCIA hit home as well, but given that it was the early to mid 90’s I’m not suprised about the lack of justification in the study. That’s a product of the “spirit of Vat II” IMO. It’s still not where it needs to be, but I think there’s some improvement.
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:50 amHappy Easter Purify!
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:31 amSomehow I ended up on your webpage this morning.
I really enjoyed your story. God bless.
Jean