Converts

Tournier ( Escape from Loneliness. , pp. 25-6) talks about the instability that results from religious conversions: “One woman, a soul eminently sensitive and deep, born a Catholic, was converted to Protestantism under influences which naturally I would not criticize. For her it was from an inner maturity and a sincere will to obey the leading of the Spirit, all of which bore spiritual fruit. Nevertheless, this change from one religion to another is a trial, for one no longer belongs completely to either, especially if he is more or less left to fend for himself in his new church. I must say that for this woman, the trial never ended in complete victory, shown by certain anxiety doubts, a continuing self-degrading attitude, and an obsessive return to the question of her salvation.”

He sees it going the other direction too:

“The same is true of a certain Protestant who became Catholic in order to find the liturgical and authoritarian support of which he felt the need, but in whom I see the same type of inner disturbance. The stamp of condemnatory criticisms of Catholicism received in childhood has made it impossible for him to be wholeheartedly absorbed therein, despite his religious zeal in the attempt.”

In the modern world many “never succeed in becoming rooted, who float, so to speak, between two churches or between atheism and faith, or who go successively from one group to another, always with zeal but never able to commit themselves for good” (Zygmunt Bauman avant la lettre !) He believes that it is “for the most part” a matter of “noble souls sincerely desiring to obey God and loyally seeking through these detours the deep spiritual experience for which they long.” In general, he says, “their spiritual life bears little fruit, always stumbling against certain realities which they cannot sincerely accept in any church. Their very spirituality ends up in isolating them rather than in bringing them together with others. There are certain blessings found only in fellowship and in total surrender to one’s church.”