A City Of Refuge

 From David Cloud:

“Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame”  (1 Corinthians 15:33). ________ Many have been led astray into Roman Catholicism through the evil communications of studying the “church fathers,” attending mass, practicing contemplative prayer, and associating with Roman Catholics in ecumenical ventures such as Right to Life campaigns.  Scott and Kimberly Hahn, Presbyterians who joined the Roman Catholic Church, were influenced by the church fathers. Kimberly told how that Scott studied the “church fathers” when he was still a Presbyterian minister. “Scott gained many insights from the early Church Fathers, some of which he shared in his sermons. This was rather unexpected for both of us, because we had hardly ever read the early Church Fathers when we were in seminary. In fact, in our senior year we had complained loudly to friends about possible creeping Romanism when a course was offered by an Anglican priest on the early Church Fathers. Yet here was Scott quoting them in sermons! One night Scott came out of his study and said, ‘Kimberly, I have to be honest. I don’t know how long we are going to be Presbyterians’” (Rome Sweet Rome, p. 56).  Thomas Howard is another famous Protestant convert to Rome. Howard is from a family of prominent evangelicals. He was a professor at Gordon College. His father, Philip, was editor of the Sunday School Times; his brother David Howard was head of the World Evangelical Fellowship; and his sister Elizabeth married the famous missionary Jim Elliot, who was martyred by the Auca Indians in Ecuador. In his 1984 book Evangelical Is Not Enough, Howard called upon evangelicals to study the church fathers. The next year he converted to the Roman Catholic Church.  The church fathers were also instrumental in the conversion of Peter Kreeft to Rome from the Dutch Reformed denomination. Kreeft, a very influential Catholic apologist, studied the church fathers as a student at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He writes: “My adventurous half rejoiced when I discovered in the early Church such Catholic elements as the centrality of the Eucharist, the Real Presence, prayers to saints, devotion to Mary, an insistence on visible unity, and apostolic succession. Furthermore, THE CHURCH FATHERS JUST ‘SMELLED’ MORE CATHOLIC THAN PROTESTANT, especially St. Augustine, my personal favorite and a hero to most Protestants too.  READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: