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This teaching seemed wrong to me after I prayed one night to the
Lord and asked Him to reveal to me what He wanted me to know.
I opened my Bible and read the entire Book of Romans from cover
to cover. The following Scripture sums up what God said to me
that night:

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into
fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we
cry, "
Abba
, Father!" The Spirit itself bears witness with our
spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with
Him so that we may also be glorified with Him." (Rom 8:14 - 17
NAB)

In short, God told me that He wanted
me
to be His son. He wanted
to adopt
me
.

As a Jehovah's Witness, I had been taught that I could never be
a son of God and that I could never, even with lots of hard work,
be a full member of God's family. I would never be able to see
God. He would always be this holy other person from whom I would
always be separated, even if I got to live for all eternity.

Years passed before I was finally able to act on this truth. Once
I finished college, Kathy and I moved to Arkansas so that I could
go to graduate school. I devoted all of my time to my graduate
studies and left God behind, or so I thought. We lived for a couple
of years in, as Kathy describes it, "spiritual limbo," where I
even questioned God's love for me. Like the Israelites, I had
a short memory of all the blessings God had given to me, one of
His children who did not know Him very well.

However, God allowed me to get in touch with numerous Christians -- mostly Protestant -- on the Internet during this time, and
our discussions were very helpful. At some point, Kathy and I
both expressed our belief in God and our desire to worship with
other believers. Around this time, I began doing doctrinal research
and discovered that the mainline churches represented the historic
Christian faith much better than the Jehovah's Witnesses did.
(The Jehovah's Witnesses deny Jesus' divinity and reject the majority
of the key doctrines, such as the Trinity, immortality of the
soul, and the existence of hell, that most people consider Christian.)

Kathy and I wanted to find a church to attend, and I had been
speaking with my Lutheran relatives, so we decided we should attend
a Lutheran church. Eventually, we started attending a church in
Arkansas that belonged to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
We joined that church about a year before I finished graduate
school.

In January 1999 I started teaching at Concordia University in
Seward, Nebraska. After we arrived in Nebraska, Kathy and I -- in spite of being shunned by many of our Jehovah's Witnesses friends
and relatives -- thought we were finally home. God, however, wanted
to give us so much more.

When we first moved to Seward, the Mormons had just started building
a church in town. They had been visiting many of the Lutheran
parishioners. So the local Lutheran church decided to teach a
Sunday school class on the teachings of the Mormons.

One of the comments the pastor leading the discussion made was
that the Church that Jesus founded would always exist and never
be destroyed. He made this point because the Mormons teach (as
do the Jehovah's Witnesses) that the early Church went apostate
sometime in its history, and that God chose Joseph Smith (the
Jehovah's Witnesses would say Charles Russell) to restore His
true Church on earth. He quoted this passage: "And I tell you,
you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the
gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:18).

I was sitting next to Kathy, and I took out a piece of paper and
asked the question: "If this is true, then what was Luther doing
when he broke away from the Catholic Church?" In other words,
what is the difference between what Luther did and what Joseph
Smith did and what Charles Russell did?

It was also roughly during this time that I started to try to
share my newfound Christian faith with some friends of mine who
had just recently left the Jehovah's Witnesses. I would try to
demonstrate to them that certain teachings such as the Trinity,
immortality of the soul, and so on, were the true doctrines of
the Christian faith. I would use the Bible to try to "prove" it
to them.

Their response challenged me. "How do you know your interpretation
is correct?" they asked. "When we were JWs, we would interpret
those verses 180 degrees in the opposite direction."

I said to myself, "I bet there were other writings from Christians
who were around during the time of the Apostles. They could shed
light on what the early Church really believed."

So I started reading the early Church Fathers. Justin Martyr soon
became one of my favorites. I especially liked the way he described
how early Christians worshipped. I thought, "Wow! Christians have
been worshipping like the Lutherans worship for centuries."

Eventually, I started reading books on the development of the
New Testament and why the Catholics have those "extra" books in
their Old Testament Bibles. I also wanted to know whether the
early Church
really
believed Jesus to be God. I was shocked at
the answers I was getting to these questions.

First, I read some letters that were written around a.d. 107 by
a Christian bishop, Ignatius of Antioch, who likely had received
the faith from the Apostles themselves. In his letters, he talked
about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and referred
to Jesus as God. However, he also described the early Church as
"Catholic." He said, "The true Church is the Church where the
bishop is" (
Letter to the Smyrnaeans,
8:2).

I thought to myself,
O my God, the early Church had a hierarchy!
I also read a book written by a fourth-century bishop named Eusebius
on the history of the Christian Church. Eusebius described the
early Church in such a way that I could see that it looked a lot
like the Catholic Church, the main difference being that the Catholic
Church of today is much larger.

I even read a Church history book whose Protestant author admitted
that the Church used apostolic succession -- he did not call it
that, but he described how apostolic succession operates -- to
fight heresies in the second century.

I also discovered that if it were not for the Catholic Church,
I would have no idea which books belong in the New Testament,
because the Church decided that issue for me at the end of the
fourth century after Christ!

Now, you would think that with all this data I would have become
Catholic right then. But I didn't. About this time, however, I
happened to become reacquainted with a friend from high school
named Jim. Today, he is Father Jim and a Catholic priest. Father
Jim is also a convert to the Catholic Church. He was raised Presbyterian.

Father Jim and I would have deep conversations on religious history
and agree pretty much all the time. Father Jim would say that
I was more Catholic than some of his own parishioners, and I would
always respond, "But I'm not ready to swim the Tiber yet."

He would then ask: "What does the Holy Spirit have to do -- whack
you over the head with a two-by-four?"

Finally, Father Jim challenged me to read the
Catechism of the
Catholic Church
and said that if I found anything wrong with it
to let him know. But if I didn't, then I would know what I had
to do.

So during the summer of 2002, I finished reading the
Catechism
of the Catholic Church,
along with some other books written by
converts to the Catholic Church. God finally found his two-by-four.

In Matthew 19:29, Jesus says: "And every one who has left houses
or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands,
for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal
life." Well, this is what God hit me with over the head.

Here I thought I was already an adopted son of God as a Lutheran
Protestant Christian -- and I was. But I was still not a full
member of the family. There was, as God revealed to me, something
missing.

For example: "When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom
He loved standing near, He said to His mother, 'Woman, behold
your son!' Then He said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!'
And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" (Jn
19:26 - 27).

You see, Jesus wanted to give me a new mother, His mother. Our
first mother, Eve, had said yes to Satan and no to God. Mary had
said yes to God.

In addition, my biological mother, Susan, has never forgiven me
for leaving the JWs, and my relationship with her has been strained.
(The Jehovah's Witnesses shun people who leave the faith.) Here
Jesus says that He wants to give us His mother, because in reality,
we all are "the disciple that Jesus loves."

In the passage from Romans 8 noted earlier, Paul says that Jesus
wants me to share in His inheritance. Because of this inheritance,
I can call God "Daddy," which is what "
Abba
" actually means.

In Matthew 25:31 - 46, I also found that Jesus tells me He is
my brother. Jesus identifies Himself as a brother to suffering
humanity.

There were fifteen hundred years of Christian brothers and sisters
whom I had never been introduced to who were just waiting to meet
me. For example, in Hebrews, chapters 11 and 12, the writer reminds
us that from Enoch (an Old Testament prophet) to the present day,
there is a great cloud of witnesses (saints), older brothers and
sisters, cheering us on and praying for us so that we will make
it one day into God's house in heaven.

God's two-by-four was to introduce me to His entire family and
say, "I want you to be a part of all this."

After finding a new job and watching the amazing way in which
God converted my wife, I had the privilege to be sealed through
the Sacrament of Confirmation into God's universal family, the
Church, during Mass at the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit,
known as Pentecost. As I confessed the faith of the Church that
Christ founded through the words of the Nicene Creed during that
Mass, I could hear with my ears those same words coming from the
people in the pews in the cathedral.

I knew through faith that the angels and saints in heaven were
also confessing those words with me. For me, whenever I go to
Mass, it is a huge family reunion that is beyond the limits of
space and time and unites heaven and earth together as we all
worship our wonderful Father in heaven.

Jeffrey Schwehm holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University
of Arkansas. He is assistant professor of biochemistry at Lakeland
College in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife, Kathy.
Together they lead the Fellowship of Catholic Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses
(
www.Catholicxjw.com
).

former Evangelical Protestant

PRAYING THE HATE OUT OF MY HEART

"WHY DID YOU BECOME CATHOLIC?"

A BORN-AGAIN CONSERVATIVE IN REVOLUTIONARY TIMES

LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT ANSWERS

ENCOUNTER WITH A "PEACE CHURCH"

THE CRUCIBLE OF DOUBT

CONFRONTING CHRISTIANITY'S CLAIMS

DID JESUS REALLY RISE?

THE CHURCH'S TEACHINGS ALL RING TRUE

SENSING THE REAL PRESENCE

THE CHURCH IS A TRUTH-TEACHING THING

ANSWERING THE CALL

From my Navy days fighting terrorism in the Middle East through
my years debating politics at Oxford, Christ called me ever closer
to His Church and finally into His priesthood.

June 14, 1985, began as a routine day at sea for the crew of the
USS Kidd. Having just completed some joint naval exercises, we
were in the Aegean Sea, en route to a port visit in Haifa, Israel.
I was standing watch as the duty officer.

Suddenly, the calm of the day was interrupted by reports that
an American passenger plane, TWA Flight 847 out of Athens to Rome,
had been hijacked to Beirut by two members of the radical terrorist
group Islamic Jihad. On board were more than 150 passengers, mostly
Americans -- including five Navy divers. Petty Officer 2nd Class
Robert Stethem would soon be tortured and shot in the head.

President Ronald Reagan planned to take decisive action. In less
than forty-eight hours, we were off the coast of Beirut. Before
long, other ships and Special Forces, including the then-secret
Delta Force, began to join our growing flotilla.

My role was initially to serve as landing officer for the helicopters
using our flight deck. But two hours before we were to launch,
the captain summoned me into his cabin.

He told me that a team of Navy SEALS was going to create a diversion
ashore, drawing the enemy's fire before swimming out to sea. I
was to command a small boat to pluck them from the water at high
speed. The captain told me we would probably come under heavy
fire and that the chance of casualties was greater than fifty/fifty.

I chose the best unmarried men I could find for my three-man crew;
then I prepared. I had been briefed on events in Beirut. I knew
what the terrorists had done to Petty Officers; a great anger
began to take hold of me.

My anger gave way to hatred -- hatred toward the cowardly thugs
who had killed my shipmate. I was glad I had been chosen for this
mission, even though it put my life in danger. I wanted to kill
the terrorists who had killed Stethem.

We launched our operation at midnight, but almost immediately
everything was put on hold. I found out later that President Reagan
was waiting for further intelligence on the location of the hostages.
He didn't want to leave any American behind. For the next two
hours, we sat in the water, circling at our launch positions,
waiting for the "go" command.