A Steve Ray sighting Down Under!

From The Record, a Catholic newspaper in western Australia:

Evangelical Protestants are taught to recruit Catholics by exploiting their lack of Bible knowledge, but use Scripture out of context to make Catholic beliefs look flawed.

This is the claim of Catholic apologist Steve Ray, in Perth from the United States of America earlier this month as part of a national tour. Mr Ray used to take on this role.

“We were trained to evangelise Catholics – we believed you are not saved, that you are going to hell as you follow the Pope instead of Jesus, you pray to Mary instead of God, you have tradition instead of Scripture, you thought you got saved by doing good works instead of by faith in Jesus,” he told
about 60 people on Thursday, 8 July, at Trinity College, East Perth.

“It was our job to get you saved and become real Bible Christians. This is what Evangelicals think – most of them, even in Australia.”

He said that he was taught the right questions to ask and memorised up to 15 verses that “were good to use with Catholics”.

Mr Ray, married to Janet for 33 years with four children, said he and his wife went from being “anti-Catholic Baptists” to “crossing an uncrossable chasm and becoming Catholics”.

The Rays were not alone. They opened their home for two years to people seeking to discuss their differences with Catholics and explained why they converted, “even if people hated Catholics”.

In that time, Mr Ray said over 200 people joined the Catholic Church.

Addressing several key issues that cause the at-times vicious divide, especially in the United States, between Protestants and Catholics, Mr Ray said he achieved “great success” by asking carefully selected questions and backing them up with isolated Scripture quotes.

Read the entire piece.

Here's a bit from Steve's first book, Crossing the Tiber, which details his journey from the Baptist tradition into the Catholic Church:

Our Conversion | Stephen K. Ray | From Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historic Church

Janet and I, along with our four children, have converted to the Roman Catholic Church, which claims to be the fullness of the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church". How could we have done such a thing? This book is an attempt to give a brief and reasoned defense--an explanation of our decision. It is brief and inadequate, but it is better than silence, and better than the short snips of discussion that arise in casual conversation.

Scientists tell us that no two snowflakes are alike, which is a peculiar thing to say, since no one can examine each and every one. Stars number in the billions, each different and unique. Conversions are just as dissimilar, being reached from many roads and paths, for many reasons and impulses. They are just as dissimilar as snowflakes, but they can be more closely analyzed. The word conversion comes from two Latin words: vertere, meaning to turn, and con, a prefix of emphasis; therefore, an emphatic or strong turning.

Our conversion was a turning from one thing to something different--though not so different as some would think. As the story develops, we will explain a few of the reasons why we left our Protestant heritage. A strong turning was required, and though such a turning would have seemed impossible only a short time before, our research and study of the primitive Church were compelling, and, as Chesterton said of the Catholic faith,

"He has come too near to the truth, and has forgotten that truth is a magnet, with the powers of attraction and repulsion .... The moment men cease to pull against it [the Catholic Church] they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair .... When he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside."

We had opposed this Catholic Church, in no uncertain terms. So our conversion was no insignificant event. The "something" we had once militantly resisted, the Catholic Church, was found to be glorious, beautiful, and splendid--like a massive creature, too grand and colossal to comprehend fully, yet modest and personal enough to put affectionately in your pocket. It was a fullness. Why the term fullness? Because the Catholic Church encompasses so much more than we had ever known in our Protestant past--the fullness of the faith carefully preserved and nurtured through endless centuries. We are not going from Christian to Catholic, as though we're leaving the "Christian" part behind. We are developing and experiencing the Christian faith more fully by becoming Catholic Christians. Catholicism is ancient, yet forever young; it is constant and firm, yet forever lively and robust; it is old, yet always new and vital. It is simple enough for a mouse to wade in, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim in.

• More about Crossing the Tiber
• Read "Filming God's Footprints", an Interview with Steve Ray.
• Steve Ray's author page on Ignatius Insight

Comments

[LJ]

I love Steve Ray's Footprints of God series. They are a surprisingly good tool for evangelization, particularly for older children and young people.

You have to love Steve's passion for God, for the Church, for his family. If you need cheering up, he's the guy to listen to. His great love for the Lord comes through his personality so that it is infectious.

Mr Ray found it especially ironic that, while his Protestant family believed Christians are saved by faith alone and not by works, “they questioned my salvation once I told them I was becoming Catholic”.

I love that point. Really, why wouldn't he still be saved if he was (on their terms) before becoming Catholic?

[joe]

The way Ray describes his Protestant life, he viewed evangelism as saving clueless people. Now he sounds like he portrays Evangelicals themselves as rather clueless. Hopefully it is how the reporter framed him, but he sounds more smart alecky than gracious. I wonder if he thinks anyone *was* 'saved' under his work, or was his former life all Protestant hackery?

[joe]

Frank Sheed on Protestants: "Since for all sorts of reasons, good and bad, there are millions who are suspicious of the Catholic Church and will not accept anything from her, even Christ, it is a splendid thing he is being brought to them by churches they *will* listen to." On that note:

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/There-and-Back-Again-The-Roman-Catholic-Church-in-Americas-Next-Decade?offset=1&max=1

[Sharon]

I have listened to Steve Ray many times on Catholic Answers and I haven't heard him bagging any of the ecclesial communities from which he came. He speaks of viewing the bible with Baptist or Evangelical or Catholic glasses to explain differing points of view while strongly arguing for the Truth of the Catholic Church.