{"id":4656,"date":"2012-09-07T09:55:02","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T13:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=4656"},"modified":"2012-09-07T09:55:02","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T13:55:02","slug":"the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/09\/the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies.html","title":{"rendered":"The Epistemological Weight of Warm Fuzzies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

I was reading an On the Square post from a Mormon to Catholic convert<\/a> and was struck by the way he described his enounter with grace:<\/p>\n

Early in the evening of May 28, 2010, I am attending Mass in the majestic Basilica di Sant\u2019Apollinare next to the Pontificia Universit\u00e0 della Santa Croce in Rome. From Utah I have come as a scholar to deliver a paper at an international conference on the work of the great Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, and I have come as a tourist to see the Eternal City for the first time. Mass is being celebrated in the basilica for those attending the conference.<\/p>\n

I am not Catholic\u2014in fact, I was raised a Mormon, though I have had serious doubts about the Latter-day Saint faith for decades. Yet my journey of the heart\u2014which ultimately ended in the Catholic Church\u2014came long after I had intellectually departed\u2014so I cannot receive Holy Communion. But when Archbishop Raymond Burke places his hand on my head in a blessing, the extraordinary presence of Jesus Christ moves my soul to tears. I now know, in my head and in my heart, that I have come to Rome as a pilgrim. I have finally heard his voice, and I will not turn away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This part of his conversion journey sounded deeply Mormon-tinged. I\u2019ve heard the pitch for Mormonism<\/a> boiled down to \u201cRead the Book of Mormon, and then ask God if it\u2019s true. You\u2019ll find the answer!\u201d and it sounds like this essayist asked God (consciously or not) about Catholicism and got an answer that satisfied him.<\/p>\n

I still don\u2019t find this kind of evidence very convincing<\/a>. A lot of different religions have had converts who were \u2018convicted\u2019 a similar way, so either it\u2019s easy to be mistaken about this sort of thing (uh-oh) or God is extremely ecumenical. \u00a0I\u2019ve got reasons to be skeptical, but I also know I\u2019m a little badly calibrated on how to use emotions as evidence<\/a>, so I wanted to thrash this out with someone else.<\/p>\n

I pinged Michael, the Mormon friend of the blog who handled questions about Romney\u2019s Mormon priesthood<\/a> to get his thoughts. So I\u2019ll be running a guest post by him and then a couple of rambly (on my part, not his!) follow up questions about conversion and evangelization.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading an On the Square post from a Mormon to Catholic convert and was struck by the way he described his enounter with grace: Early in the evening of May 28, 2010, I am attending Mass in the majestic Basilica di Sant\u2019Apollinare next to the Pontificia Universit\u00e0 della Santa Croce in Rome. From […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[90,115],"class_list":["post-4656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epistemologyphilosophy","tag-mormons","tag-standards-of-evidence"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Epistemological Weight of Warm Fuzzies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was reading an On the Square post from a Mormon to Catholic convert and was struck by the way he described his enounter with grace: Early in the evening\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/09\/the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Epistemological Weight of Warm Fuzzies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was reading an On the Square post from a Mormon to Catholic convert and was struck by the way he described his enounter with grace: Early in the evening\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/09\/the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unequally Yoked\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-09-07T13:55:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www-static.weddingbee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/03\/warmfuz.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/09\/the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/09\/the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies.html\",\"name\":\"The Epistemological Weight of Warm Fuzzies\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-09-07T13:55:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-09-07T13:55:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\"},\"description\":\"I was reading an On the Square post from a Mormon to Catholic convert and was struck by the way he described his enounter with grace: Early in the evening\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/09\/the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/09\/the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/09\/the-epistemological-weight-of-warm-fuzzies.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Epistemological Weight of Warm Fuzzies\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/\",\"name\":\"Unequally Yoked\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\",\"name\":\"Leah Libresco\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Leah Libresco\"},\"description\":\"Leah is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. 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