The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Why I Left the Catholic Church

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

What was it that made Jeff Cavins leave the Catholic Church as a young adult? Today, Jeff Cavins shares about the events and circumstances that led up to his leaving the Catholic Church. He also shares about his journey to falling in love with Scripture. Next week, be sure to tune in and hear about why Jeff returned to the Catholic Church over twenty years ago. Snippet from the Show "I was intrigued by their sense of community. They did everything together and I desired to have the kind of friendships I saw." Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is show 326, why I left the Catholic Church. Well, I finally got around to answering the question. I get more email and requests from people asking. why did you leave the Catholic Church? What were the points? Why did you leave it? And so I thought, well, you know what? I'm going to do a couple of shows.

I'm going to do a show on why I left the Catholic Church. And I didn't leave it now. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about why I left the Catholic Church back in, wow, back in the 1980s. I grew up Catholic, and then I left. And there were reasons why I left. Now, I thought it would be just a good thing to explain to you how it has. And how it happened, you know, and what were the major points that really caught my attention that resulted in ultimately leaving the Catholic Church and then going into a kind of a non-denominational environment where I went to school and then I was ordained a Protestant pastor. And there I was for 12 years as a Protestant pastor. So I want to go through it with you a little bit. And maybe just maybe it's your story as well or it's one of your kids. I get a lot of people who say, boy, you're

Your story reminds me of our son. He's going through that right now. So as I share with you, the various steps that I went through here, maybe it will be fitting to pause for a moment and say, well, you know, that's something to watch out for. Because if it happened to me, it can happen to your kids, it can happen to your uncle, it can happen to your neighbor, your boss, whoever. So why I left the Catholic Church. By the way, everything I'm sharing with you is pretty much taken from my book, my autobiography that came out in, when did that come out? That came out in the 90s called My Life on the Rock. I used to have a television show with EWT and I started the show in 1996, I believe it was, called Life on the Rock. And when I wrote my story, I thought, you know what? I'm just going to say my life on the rock, because it is. It's my life on the rock, the church, Peter. So you can get the that book at ascensionpress.com. I'll put the connection in the show notes for you. And I have one lady, get this before I get into it. I have one lady who got my book, my life on the rock. She read it

and then came back to the Catholic Church. She left the Catholic Church. And her siblings all left the Catholic Church. So when she was done reading it, she came into the church, she gave it to her sibling. They read it, came into the church, they gave it to a sibling. And I believe I'm right when I say five. If my memory serves me well, five siblings in the same family and the same book. And they all came back to the Catholic Church because they said, man, that was basically my story in the 70s, in the 80s, 1900s, that is, 1970, 1980s. And it just resonated with them. So, and if you get the book, you get to see some really cool pictures of life back then my wife, myself, longer hair, and my confirmation night to the Bible that kind of caught my

attention. So let's start from the very beginning here, and that is I was raised Catholic. I was raised Catholic in Minnesota, and I would say that I was actually a very average American boy, American Catholic boy, in the United States. My story was not uncommon, but it wasn't that interesting, actually, because by the time I was in high school, I was an average Catholic boy, meaning that we went to church every week for sure. And we said grace before meals, for sure. And we said our father in Hail Mary before we went to bed at night. I was baptized, obviously, and I was confirmed. I remember that very clearly. I remember my first communion at St. Richards in Richfield, Minnesota. And all those memories are very clear to me of my experience,

the various priests that were in our church of Father Dudley and Father Weber, Father Powers, and on and on. My first real memory was back at Iowa State when my parents were getting, my dad was getting his PhD in electrical engineering. I was probably three. And I still remember that, actually. Not real clear, but I definitely remember it. So as I was, growing up, by the time I was a junior going into my senior year, I was really asking a lot of questions about life and what's life about. And that led me to dig. And I didn't dig in the right places because I remember during that time going to St. Hubert's Catholic Church in Chanhassen, Minnesota, same little dinky tiny town outside of the Twin Cities that Prince, his

his place was there. In fact, my, my parents' house to this day is on the same road as Paisley Park. And so I would go to that church. I'd sit up in the balcony all alone. My best friend, girlfriend, nobody knew that I was doing it. But I would sit up in the balcony and I'd look at this gold tabernacle, which, to be honest with you, I thought was a place where the priest just stored his tools for mass. That's how, that's how dumb I was. I mean, I didn't know anything about our faith, really. Well, I sat up there all alone. I rode my motorcycle up there, had hair halfway down my back, and I said, God, whoever you are, I need you. I need you to show yourself to me, whoever you are. And it never dawned on me that I was actually sitting in front of a gold mine

with the Eucharist inside the tabernacle. So life really changed for me in my first year of college when I met this beautiful girl, Emily, she's my wife now, I met her in a cultural anthropology class, and she caught my attention big time. And I finally got the nerve to ask her, you know, or didn't ask her. I guess I just got the nerve to say hi as she came into the class, and she said hi. And, you know, I thought, you know, I got her right there. And she didn't care at all. I followed her to the student lounge and struck up a conversation with her and got to know her name was Emily Tobler, her dad's from Switzerland. And so when we were done talking for a couple of hours, actually,

I was editor of the paper and telling her about that, and she was telling me about her life. And we ended up going our separate ways. And that night, I called her about 5 o'clock in the evening. Back in those days, you had to call 4-1-1, and you spoke to an operator. And the operator said, can I help you? I said, yeah, I need the number of a tobler on Xerxes.

street. And she said, just a minute. And she gave me the seven-digit number that we didn't have area codes that we used formally. So I called her up and I asked her if she wanted to go out and she said, no. And I said, uh, no and why? And she said she had to babysit some neighbors kids that night. I pushed it and I said, well, we can go out later, maybe go bowling or something. And finally, after about three excuses, she said yes. And we ended up going out that night and, boy, I'll never forget it. I'll never forget that night because I went into her house and I didn't know that her mother was a Bible teacher. And I'm just your average American Catholic boy. She's a pretty popular Bible teacher in the Twin Cities. And so I thought I would impress her. And about two weeks

before this moment, I interviewed Kiss at a concert because I was the editor of the paper. I could get into these things free. And I had pictures of myself with Gene Simmons, with blood all over and her tongues out and just something that you'd just really want to show a girlfriend's mother. So I showed her those pictures and she was not going to let her go out with me. She was 17. I was 18. She started to go upstairs because I said, here's what I do. And I showed her the pictures and she gave me that look like, you know, the end was coming. And she went up the stairs to tell Emily, you can't go out with him. And the Lord stopped her and said, in her heart, let him go. He's going to proclaim the gospel.

That's the way it happened. And so we went out that night and we got in the car, and before I could even turn the car on, Emily looks over at me and says, are you a Christian? And I'm like, what? Where did that come from? I've never had a date, asked me that.

She said, do you know Jesus Christ as your personal savior? I didn't want to disappoint her. So I said, yeah, I'm Catholic. and she said, do you speak in tongues? She came from a charismatic family. I had never heard that word before, ever. I never heard that word before. I never heard it.

And I said, I didn't want to disappoint her again. So I said, well, as a matter of fact, I do. And we talked a little bit more, and all this is before I even turned the car on. And I wanted to sound like I knew what I was talking about. So I asked her, I was going to ask her about the tongues, but I couldn't remember the word. I knew it had something to do with the mouth. It either was tongues or lips or gums.

It was one of the three. And I, so I looked at her with confidence, and I said, so, tell me, do you speak in lips? And she started laughing, and that was the beginning of our night. And make a long story short, that whole night she witnessed to me and told me about Jesus and how much she loved Jesus and how much she loved to read the Bible. And I was like, wow, this girl's. got it together. That was the first thing that caught my attention. And my first step out of the church was that this young girl, beautiful girl, knew who she was, set boundaries, told me that she loved

Jesus. Now, the next day, after I dropped her off that night, the next day I went over to her house after school, and her mother invited me in. And that was the next step. Her mother invited me in and opened up at the kitchen table, gave me some lemonade or something, and opened up an old blue leather Schofield Bible. I have it right here on my desk. And she opened it up and started talking to me about how Jesus had a plan for my life. I had never heard this before. I, here I am.

I'm interviewing rock groups. My hair's halfway down my back. And here's this middle-aged lady with a Bible talking to me. And it's hitting my heart. And I listened to her. and so that was another thing that was starting to draw me and then when i went back over to college that we were going to it's uh similar to harvard but it's in minnesota it's normandale junior college it's it's similar in that there was a front door and it had a roof but and inside

of normandale there was this place called the pit and that's where all the christians gathered and they had their bibles and they talked to each other and i'm like wow These people are alive. And they've got these Bibles that look like they've kind of lived in them, you know, and they're sitting down in the pit and talking to each other about Jesus and happy. And man, that caught my attention. I was 18 years old. I was 18 years old and that caught my attention.

And then I started to get invited to concerts. And I started to get invited to Bible studies and social gatherings. and I didn't know this culture existed out there. I didn't know there were people that were my age that loved the Bible and loved reading the Bible. And so I just kept going down to the pit and meeting people and going to meetings and so forth. And then it got to the point where my heart, after about two months, was so drawn, God was so drawing me that one night on the way home from Emily's house to my parents' house, I had come to a place where I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be born again.

I wanted to be saved. Those were the words that Mrs. Tobler used. I didn't know any better. I didn't know any other words. That's the language. So on the way home that one evening, I pulled over on the side of the road in front of Flying Cloud Airport in Eden, Prairie, Minnesota,

and I put my head down on the steering wheel, and I just started to cry. I just started to cry. And I said, Jesus, I want to be born again. Jesus, I want to be saved. And I got to tell you, that night, and I can't explain why or how,

but I'll tell you this, that night, that night in February of 1977, I knew that for the rest of my life, I would be in scripture in some way. I just knew it. I went home that night. My mom saw me. It looked like I had been crying, apparently.

she said, what's, what? Is there something wrong, Jeff? And I said, mom, and I thought she was going to be so excited. I said, mom, mom, and I smiled. I said, I've been born again. I said, I got saved tonight. And she looked at me and she said, you what? And that began the split between myself and my family, my siblings. This wasn't a normal thing in Catholic circles, but I didn't know any other way to say it other than mom, I've been saved, I've been born again. And she said something to me that night and I know now what she's talking about but she said Jeff she said don't say that she said you were a Christian when you were baptized and I said I don't know what happened when I was baptized but I know I gave my life to the Lord tonight well I ended up in Bible college in Dallas Texas

Emily and I were engaged at that point we went through the Bible college down there and then we came back up to the Twin Cities and I went to broadcasting school radio and television got a first class license meaning you can run any TV or radio station in the country And I worked at WCCO radio in Minneapolis and met all kinds of very cool people, very cool people. I stayed one whole day, Sophia Loren and me. I'm not kidding you. My boss said, can you take Sophia Loren around for all of her appointments when she's in town? I thought, yes, I believe so.

And we did, pictures to prove it. And I met a lot of other people, too, and I was sharing Christ with people. And I was still Catholic. I didn't think about leaving. It wasn't until we moved to North Dakota, Valley City, North Dakota. That's when I left the church. And I left the church there, partly because I was being loved out of the church by some people from the Assembly of God Church, who smiled, had Bibles, and were excited.

And they started to invite me to their Bible study on Wednesdays. And I loved it, absolutely loved it. Then I went to Mass on Sunday morning because I'm Catholic, you know, Jeffrey, Scott, Joseph Kavens. So I continued to do the double dipping thing there with Assembly of God and the Sunday Mass. But then the bishop, Driscoll from Fargo, came over to Valley City at St. Catharines, and he was just going to field questions and talked to us over, you know, in Valley City. So he came over and I decided to go with Emily. I had no idea that would be the night that I left the church. I had no idea when I went there.

But my anger was boiling. My hurt was steaming, wounded, didn't seem to be accepted in my own family for this new relationship with the Lord. And the more I looked at Catholics and the more I looked at my own family and the more I looked at the people around me in church on Sunday, my conclusion, albeit wrong, was that these people don't know God. There's no life here. That was what I was thinking. I'm not telling you that's the truth. I'm just telling you the facts of the matter in case you run into your son like this. Now, the truth is, I didn't leave the Catholic Church because of theology.

I left the Catholic Church because I was loved out. I was. There was such a lack of enthusiasm with the people I was around. Catholics didn't have an answer for the hope that was in them. And I was invited to these Bible studies and prayer meetings, and they knew I was Catholic and never told me not to go to the Catholic Church. they just loved on me. That's what they did. I'm going to take a break when I come back. I'll tell you a little bit more here of some of the major points, seven points that were key in my leaving the church.

Because it was that night that I stood up in front of the bishop, raised my hand, he called on me, and I yelled at the top of my voice, from this day forward, I am not Catholic. And I walked out. I'll tell you what I did right after this break. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ chose corrupt, broken, imperfect, sinful men to be the foundation of his church. And because these broken and perfect men chose to remain in relationship with Jesus, they became saints.

And they were used by Jesus to transform hearts and minds 2,000 years. later, I invite you to check out my book, Broken and Blessed, where you'll find practical tools to overcome habitual sin, to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and to walk with an imperfect church toward a perfect God who is calling all of us to perfection over time. To order the paperback book or audiobook, Broken and Blessed, visit ascensionpress.com or Amazon. Okay, I'm in the middle of the story. I'm in Valley City, North Dakota. I stood up to a bishop and told him that I'd had it, and I was no longer Catholic. I turned around and started walking out of that church. Emily following me, hands up in the air, looking at our friends like, I don't know what's gone on here. I don't know what he did that. Now, I assure you, first-time listeners, I am sane, I'm fairly normal. But I was so frustrated with everything that I saw, Catholic. And I was loved out of the church. I left that night. And the next, I didn't sleep very well that night because I thought, you know, you don't yell at a bishop and just trot into

heaven. St. Peter's going to look at me trotting into heaven. He's going to say, hey, Valley City mean anything to you? Grab me by the ear and send me to hell. So that next morning, I didn't know that the nuns out at the convent outside of Valley City, they spoke to the bishop that night. And they knew that I came every morning to the convent to pray and read my Bible or my motorcycle out there. They were just as confused as Emily and the rest, and they told the bishop, don't go back to Fargo, stay in the priest quarters here, talk to him in the morning, he'll probably show up. So the next morning I drove my little Yamaha chapie out there and I got off and I knocked on the door and guess who opened it.

It was the bishop. I felt the blood leave my head. He signaled for me to come on in. he said come on with me he brought me into a little room which i later figured out was a confessional and he looked at me and he said he said tell me your story so i told him my story and and uh and he looked at me and he said i'm going to tell you three things number one the journey you're on is of god i looked at him and i thought wow it's nice to hear from a catholic but he said it's of god number two he He said, I'm going to call you Little Newman.

I said, Little Newman. The only Newman I knew was Al Newman from Mad Magazine. I thought he was saying you're a joker, you know, that type of thing. I think word had gotten around that I did stand up before that, but I didn't know any Newman. And so I said, huh? And he said, Cardinal Newman, you remind me of Cardinal Newman, your love for scripture. And then he looked at me and he pointed that big index finger right in my face. And he said, you listen to my words.

there's going to be a day when you come back. You're going to come back in the church. And when you do, you're going to teach your people. You're going to teach Catholics. And I stood up, said, and I didn't know what to call him, whether it was, sir, or your highness. And I said, sir, I don't think so. And I got up, I shook his hand, and I left, and that's how I left the church. That's how I left the church.

Now, there's seven things that I would just bring out here that are kind of mile markers, that you might see them in your own kids. number one i was loved out of the church and no one missed me okay i left and nobody missed me the bishop was back in fargo but nobody in valley city missed me i thought i can just leave here and no one's going to miss me but if i don't go back to that assembly of god church they're going to give me a call and i mean pronto which is north dakota language for quick number two i was intrigued by their sense of community. It drew me. They did everything together, and they were friends. They shared meals together. They went into Fargo together. They played on a softball team together. They had Bible

study on Wednesday together. They went to the state hospital and invited me to join them in their ministry. I'd never, never been like in a situation like that in a Catholic church. Not to say that there isn't, but I'm just telling you my story. Number three, they were so focused on God speaking to them in the Bible. And I wanted God to speak to me. I wanted God to speak to me. And I was with people who were saying that God was leading them and directing them. That drew me. Number four, the joy they had. Man, it was infectious. It was infectious. And it was an atmosphere of anything is possible with God. Oh, that was great. That was great. In fact, you know, when I ended up leaving the church and going back to school and it became a Protestant pastor.

When I eventually came back to the Catholic Church, I got to say this one thing I missed was I missed the great joy and infectious, you know, enthusiasm for the word of God and sharing Christ. And I found it since, but I'm just saying at that point, I didn't see it. Number five, my family didn't accept my new steps with the Lord. That was a big thing. All I would have needed was maybe for my mom or dad to say, you know, Jeff, talk to father, you know, which I did, by the way. And he also kind of gave me the cold shoulder. Oh, we don't really do that born again thing over here, Jeff. And I thought, oh, man. So my parents,

my parish priest, nobody was even admitting that something had happened to me and helped me put it into perspective. That's what I needed. That's what I needed at that time. I didn't need rejection. Number six, I wanted my life to mean something. And I was asking, ultimate questions at 19 years old. And I felt that God was speaking to me in the Bible. And I needed that at that point in my life. I craved that. I would have given up five concerts to go to a Bible study at that point. And number seven, I saw people, this is very important here. I saw people doing what I read Jesus doing. I read about Jesus doing. I read that Jesus did things and these people were doing those things.

That's pretty impressive when you're 19 years old and people are praying for healing and deliverance and to be healed of alcoholism and drugs and acid trips and all of that. And man, to see a changed life had a big impact on me. It had a huge impact on me. And so as I left the church in Valley City, North Dakota, I left Alive. Valley City took a job in Christian radio in Pella, Iowa, KTAV radio. Home of the Dutch, he ain't Dutch, he ain't much. Big bumper sticker there. And I continued to move on and I ended up becoming an associate in the Open Bible as an associate with the church in Pella. And then

left and came up to the Twin Cities and pioneered after I was ordained not with open Bible standard, but with another organization out of Rockwall, Texas. And I ended up going back up into the Twin Cities and pastored a pioneer church for seven years, and then five years in Dayton, Ohio. And it was there that I ended up coming back to the Catholic Church. We'll talk about that. Next time we're together, why I returned to the Catholic Church. My friend, if you have family members who have left or are thinking about it, you might really consider getting the book My Life on the Rock from Ascension Press because I go into great detail there of the theology, which I'm going to do in the next show, and just kind of following me a month to month,

year to year through my journey. And again, it was Scott Hahn that told me to write the book. I didn't even think it was a story, you know, and I told him my story. And I remember him saying, you need to write, you need to write a book. Because then as I looked back at my life, I realized, man, there is a book there. There is a story there. And there is with you too. And maybe your children, maybe your godson or goddaughter, they're going through it right now. Let's just pray, shall we?

In the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up my friend's family and friends, neighbors, Lord Jesus. We lift them up to you and we ask you, Lord, to just draw them to yourself. draw them to a conversion, draw them to the Eucharist and the sacraments, the Blessed Mother, the saints, the entire family, Lord Jesus, we put a hedge of protection around them and ask you to do a miracle in their lives. We thank you for this. We trust you in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you.