Guidelines for "becoming" a believer, according to the Catholic Church
Upvote:2
St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa contra Gentiles ("Summary treatise against [the errors of] the pagans") was written precisely to convert those who do not accept the authority of the Christian Holy Scriptures. From bk. 1 ch. 2 ("The Author's Intention in the Present Work") [3]:
…the Mohammedans and the pagans, do not agree with us in accepting the authority of any Scripture, by which they may be convinced of their error. Thus, against the Jews we are able to argue by means of the Old Testament, while against heretics we are able to argue by means of the New Testament. But the Muslims and the pagans accept neither the one nor the other. We must, therefore, have recourse to the natural reason, to which all men are forced to give their assent. However, it is true, in divine matters the natural reason has its failings.
cf. this bibliography for the English translations of the Summa contra Gentiles
Upvote:2
Pope Benedict XVI's Encyclical God is Love is a good start, it offers the once guiding principle that Christianity is an Encounter with a Person, Jesus Christ.
Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction
The Gospels are the best way to get to know about Jesus and the shortest Gospel, Mark is the best one. A priest told a Cathechism class I taught that the thing that took him from business to the priesthood was reading Mark's Gospel on a trip one night, start-to-finish.
So it's gotta be a personal encounter and the Church helps. But the manual for conversion is the Bible and prayer (or spouses). That's one reason the Catholics don't go door to door proselytizing. The examples of authentically practiced Christianity should be enough for anyone to want to join up. Just shine, as the Newsboys' would say. Given the right circumstances, we'd be canonizing St. Mahatma Gandhi who said:
I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Which is the ultimate cop-out. If a person can't find enough good examples, there's always the Lives of the Saints, which is like, the best Christmas present for athiests.
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