Aging & Wisdom Quote by Bill McCartney

McCartney frames his conversion like a performance review: he was "fed properly" only after switching institutions. It’s a disarmingly domestic metaphor for spiritual life, but it also carries a sharp implied verdict. If you weren’t being fed, someone wasn’t cooking. Then he pivots into public-relations damage control: "I don't say that as a reflection on Catholicism". The denial signals the very tension he’s trying to manage. In America, leaving Catholicism for evangelicalism isn’t just a private shift in doctrine; it’s a cultural boundary crossing, one that can read as rejection of family tradition, ethnic identity, and a sacramental, hierarchical model of faith.

The phrase "born-again experience" does the real work. It’s less theological argument than credentialing, a way of saying: my faith is now authenticated by a vivid, personal rupture. At 33, the age subtly echoes Jesus, which lends the narrative a mythic timetable without spelling it out. The conversion becomes a second birth, a clean narrative arc that plays well in testimonial culture: before, after, mission.

"I got an evangelical spirit" is both confession and branding. For a celebrity figure (and in McCartney’s case, a public-facing leader), evangelicalism isn’t merely belief; it’s stance: outward, recruiting, energized. The subtext is permission to go public, to speak with urgency, to treat faith as something that must travel. The quote isn’t trying to win a debate. It’s trying to legitimize a new identity while keeping the old community from feeling publicly indicted.