Has Anyone Ever Tried To Convert You?

[eagle_eye222001]

Has anyone ever tried to convert you? This is not limited to door-to-door people, this could have happened at work, with friends, relatives....pretty much any situation where someone tried to convert you? Also, what happened or transpired? Personal thoughts on the matter are welcome.

The question came to me as I realized that I don't think anyone has ever tried to convert me. Which is actually kinda disappointing. Feel like a soldier dressed up with no war to go to.

[zunshynn]

Some of my mormon friends tried very subtly to convert me. But that's pretty much it... Then the door to door people.

[CatherineM]

Just white supremacists. They weren't successful.

[TeresaBenedicta]

Yup. My best friend. I was about to become Mormon and she was Catholic. We had hour and hours long conversation, debating, etc.

In some ways you could say she succeeded. Although, the work was done by God. Her arguments never got me. God did, though.

Since being Catholic... Yes, I can think of one time. A few friends and I went to the county fair. One of the booths had one of those "Are You Saved?" preachers. We sat down to talk with him, but there wasn't much talking going on on our part. He had his typical schpeal and didn't care for us interrupting and asking questions that disrupted his method. He couldn't answer our questions and just got frustrated with us. But we were kind of doing it for the sport of it.

[zunshynn]

Oh yeah... and when I was in the monastery there was this guy that used to send me anti-Catholic literature and would write me letters to persuade me that the Church was wrong.

I sent him a tape of Jeff Cavins conversion story and wrote him a letter explaining why I had no desire to leave the Church. He was thrilled that I wrote him back.

The funny thing was I was the only sister he wrote to individually, although he did send other things to the monastery in general. No idea why he picked me to be his lucky project. He was probably thrilled when he found out I left. Probably thinks he finally got through to me.

Edited January 16, 2010 by zunshynn

[Nihil Obstat]

Does it count when people try to convert you to liberal Catholicism?

[tinytherese]

Jehovah's witnesses have come to bring literature to my door. I remember my first year of college where there was this bbq for new students where the local churches in town set up booths to talk with students. I was looking for the Catholic one and this one Lutheran minister insisted on talking to me and told me about their parish. I think he did that to everybody. You'd think that he would have taken the hint that I wasn't interested when I started to walk away when I saw the name of his booth, but he chased after me and didn't even ask what faith I belonged to. I was polite and accepted the candy and little gift bag that he gave me.

[laetitia crucis]

Before I entered the convent, two Mormon "elders" asked to come to my apartment and "talk to me".

So, before they arrived a few days later, I set up some of my Catholic books on the coffee table (Catholic Bible, the CCC, and Dave Armstrong's "A Biblical Defense of Catholicism" -- one of my favorites) and tried to do a little Mormon research as preparation. I was pretty excited. I had seen them riding their bikes around the neighborhood for a few days and was pretty happy when they stopped me while I was walking to Mass.

Once they came over, they were very polite and gave their spiel about the history of Mormonism and their own testimonies. I listened attentively and then politely asked them about some of their doctrines, and for Biblical "evidence" in their "approved" King James Version Bibles. (I wanted to cross-reference with the Catholic Bible.)

Anyhoo. We mostly talked about the Trinity and the Incarnation... or should I say non-Trinity and reverse-Incarnation?

That conversation didn't last as long as I wanted it to. One of the "elders" finally stopped the conversation and asked me to read a certain chapter from the Book of Mormon and pray to the Holy Spirit to open my heart to Mormonism if it was revealed to me to be the True Church. He gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon.



So, I gave me a copy of the CCC and Armstrong's "Biblical Defense to Catholicism" and told them an abridged version of my research-oriented conversation story. Ending it, I said I'd read the Book of Mormon if he'd read my books.

I don't know if he ever read them, but he did take them. Maybe some graces from the Truth in those books seeped through via osmosis.... [sub]one can hope, right?[/sub]

I only hope he didn't burn them...

I've always wanted a Jehovah's Witness to stop by. Maybe it'll happen now that I'm back from the convent...

I mean, in all honesty, I really do like learning what these people believe. Even if I will never believe it. Makes for a good learning experience.

[cmotherofpirl]

I had the mormons and 7th dayers at my door regularly until I put a statue of St Francis in the yard. My baptist aunt also tried to convert my mum and I since we were doomed to hell for being catholics.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='CatherineM' date='15 January 2010 - 11:05 PM' timestamp='1263614705' post='2038122']
Just white supremacists. They weren't successful.
[/quote]
+1 because you're just bad-a.




But no one for me, except my mom and the Baptists who come to the door (except they don't have the...ahem, courage to come themselves, so they send their 10 year old little girls while they stand and watch from across the street. Jerks...).

[HisChildForever]

Twice, at two separate malls, I had girls approach me about "Mother God" from this local and bizarre Protestant church. This was a few years ago. The first time I engaged them in conversation and told them all the verses they used were taken out of context. The second time I blew them off.

[eagle_eye222001]

[quote name='zunshynn' date='15 January 2010 - 11:05 PM' timestamp='1263614703' post='2038121']
Some of my mormon friends tried very subtly to convert me. But that's pretty much it... Then the door to door people.
[/quote]

How?

[quote name='zunshynn' date='15 January 2010 - 11:08 PM' timestamp='1263614891' post='2038124']
Oh yeah... and when I was in the monastery there was this guy that used to send me anti-Catholic literature and would write me letters to persuade me that the Church was wrong. ..[/quote]

Guy have nothing to do?

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='15 January 2010 - 11:12 PM' timestamp='1263615122' post='2038126']
Does it count when people try to convert you to liberal Catholicism?
[/quote]

Yes.

[quote name='tinytherese' date='15 January 2010 - 11:14 PM' timestamp='1263615268' post='2038128']
Jehovah's witnesses have come to bring literature to my door. I remember my first year of college where there was this bbq for new students where the local churches in town set up booths to talk with students. I was looking for the Catholic one and this one Lutheran minister insisted on talking to me and told me about their parish. I think he did that to everybody. You'd think that he would have taken the hint that I wasn't interested when I started to walk away when I saw the name of his booth, but he chased after me and didn't even ask what faith I belonged to. I was polite and accepted the candy and little gift bag that he gave me.
[/quote]

Get to say anything exciting?

[quote name='laetitia crucis' date='15 January 2010 - 11:27 PM' timestamp='1263616048' post='2038134']
Before I entered the convent, two Mormon "elders" asked to come to my apartment and "talk to me".

...

Anyhoo. We mostly talked about the Trinity and the Incarnation... or should I say non-Trinity and reverse-Incarnation? [/quote]

Yes they have some weird beliefs if you talk to them for more than five minutes.

[quote]That conversation didn't last as long as I wanted it to. One of the "elders" finally stopped the conversation and asked me to read a certain chapter from the Book of Mormon and pray to the Holy Spirit to open my heart to Mormonism if it was revealed to me to be the True Church. He gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon.
[/quote]

That's how Mormons really convert people. They hand you their book and ask you to pray to get "good feelings" about it and then without debating their doctrine, they win you on "feelings" since their beliefs are so out there and unsupported in the face of cross referencing.

[Marie-Therese]

Well, no one ever really tried to convert me, but when I told my mom that I was entering the Church, she said, "Well, can't you just believe that and still go to the Baptist church?" I laughed.

To her credit, she still invites me to functions and events at her church, but she hasn't tried to convert me per se. After I spent three hours in theological defense of Catholicism the night I told her I was converting, I think she got that I had done my homework, and she knows me well enough to know that I would not make such a decision unless I was certain. She disagrees with a lot of doctrine but has been generally supportive.

[Happy_Catholic]

I had a very protestant friend who ended up in some kind of dodgy Christian cult, and I haven't heard from her since. But she once asked me "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your saviour?" knowing gosh darn well that I was Catholic.

I started a prayer group at the student hostel I was in for uni and it turned into a "We must save "Happy Catholic" from the wh0re of Babylon - the Catholic Church". They were nagging me every week to go to their little Protestant services.

THEN when I went to a Christian non-denom uni students camp for a week when people found out I was Catholic there was like this "intervention" to get me out of it. They even tried to give me sliced bread from the kitchen and red juice and get me into their "communion".

There were also some Mormons who kept nagging me to join up, like following me around the street (they lived across the road) and knocking on my door when I got home from work at midnight and even sitting outside the house when I got up in the morning. So one day, tired and bored of their antics I just... well... kinda rained on their "we love Joe" parade by bibically thrashing their little reasonings. Oh, and I sort of mentioned how the Mormons didn't accept Black or people of colour into their priest hood until the 70s, and how they thought they were BLack because God turned them that colour because of their souls - the people trying to convert me were dark skinned.

I've actually had less nusiance from the Muslim friend I asked a lot of questions too about her faith.

Edited January 16, 2010 by Happy_Catholic

[tinytherese]

[quote name='eagle_eye222001' date='15 January 2010 - 11:44 PM' timestamp='1263617092' post='2038157']

Get to say anything exciting?

[/quote]

Hmm, well the minister just told me when their service was and said that if I needed a ride to just put my name and contact information on a list they had and someone would pick me up. From what I can remember, the giftbag had a Protestant version of the Lord's Prayer on a card or something, some other prayer card perhaps, candy I think, and a pencil. Nothing exciting. The door to door Jehovah's witnesses once left some literature in front of my house about the end of the world and some other whacky stuff. No one was home, so they just left it there. Ironically, at the time I had stayed after school to have this required apologetics assignment for my Why am I Catholic class with one of my former teachers. He had to "interrogate me" regarding Holy Orders and had to grade me on how I did. Not that I'm bragging, but I got a 95. I also remember having Jehovah's Witnesses coming to my door and offering me this magazine about the end of the world and how it related to Noah's Arc somehow. This was years ago and I ignorantly just took it, but after talking with my mom I realized that it was just crud and I threw it away.