Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians"

In all honesty this book is closer to a 4 than 5 stars, but it still has valuable information. The author is the founder of Catholic Answers which I’ve been a fan of for a long while. I believe this book was published in the last 80’s. A third of the book just covers various fundamentalists who are either dead or retired and irrelevant. The rest of the book, aside from one chapter, covers a defense of key Catholic positions that anti-Catholics often attack. Some positions are discussed throughly and some not as throughly as I wish. All in all it’s a little dated, but useful as a quick reference book. 4.2 out of 5 stars.

While I don't hold the same affection for this book as I did two years ago, I still view it as a good work overall. No, its not in any way thorough (its largely a collection of tracts, and each point he discusses have been addressed elsewhere in books going into the hundreds, even thousands of pages), but its an excellent starting point. My biggest problem seems to be with his approach and writing style.First of all, the writing style does come off as a bit harsh at first. While it can be said that he is going on the offensive against people who are are far less charitable in their accusations (Chick, Swaggert, Brewer, etc), the issues he discusses are not unique to anti-Catholic fundamentalists. Therefore, I think it would have been better to leave his polemics at the beginning of the book, instead of extending them to the later chapters where doctrinal differences are discussed, since I could envision many very nice, charitable Protestants interpreting his somewhat negative attitude as applying to them, too. I don't think that this was his intent, but it doesn't rub off well. However, most Protestant friends who I've loaned this book to don't mind, generally saying "Well I don't mind, it just shows how passionate he is about it." Still, it remains a concern to me since I value charity so highly.Secondly, I found some parts to be dissapointing. The weaknesses were not weaknesses in Catholicism, but rather weaknesses in his research or just laziness. For example, while he's refuting "Roman Catholicism" by Lorraine Boetter, he rightfully shows how poorly that work was footnoted, and how some charges went completely without documentation. The problem is, Keating does the same thing. While discussing the Stossmeyer speech, he rightfully deems it a forgery, but gives no source to back it up. All he had to do was cite Newman Eberhardt's "A Summary of Catholic History", but strangely, he fails to do this (it is cited in the Catholic Answers Tract entitled "The Anti-Catholic Bible"). In another part, answering accusations that Catholics believe things with no Biblical support, he retorts that Protestants do the same thing, but offers not examples. The least he could have done was cite the Canon of Scripture, symbolic eucharist, altar call, The Sinners Prayer, etc., but he did not.Once you get into the "meat" of this book, it gets much, much better. He does an excellent job of refuting arguments brought forth by fundamentalists who try to re-write church history, or place distinctive Catholic doctrines embarassingly late. Also, he does a fine job supporting the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, and virtually all disputed Catholic doctrines from scritpure and history. No, his arguments are not thorough, and in a couple isolated occasions he offers scripture passages that don't really prove his point. This is a slight weakness in the book, not with the Catholic position.I still recommend that people start here, because it really does a great job of giving an overview of the controversy, and outlines briefly the Catholic defense. But by all means, don't stop here.Recommended readings:For better treatments of Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura, read "Not by Faith Alone" and "Not by Scripture Alone" by Robert Sungenis. For a great book about the mass, try The Lamb's Supper by Scott Hahn. For marian doctrines, read "The World's First Love" by Fulton J. Sheen. For a classic work on the development of doctrine, read John Henry Newman's "An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine." For a most excellent work on the Papacy, read "Upon This Rock" by Stephen Ray.

I have read most of the Catholic apologetics works by Hahn, Horn, Akin, and Broussard. I have great respect for those authors, and have learned an immense amount from them. I have found this work however to speak to me and my journey more personally. Rather than a Jiu Jitsu-esque counter for your run of the mill Protestant position, it has a detailed exploration of some of the beliefs and causes behind those positions. For example, in the first chapter when discussing the origin of all the controversy within Protestantism:"As Warfield put it, 'The supreme proof to every Christian of the deity of his Lord is in his own inner experience of the transforming power of his Lord upon the heart and life.' One consequence of this has become painfully clear to many fundamentalists. When one falls into sin, or when the ardor that was present at conversion fades, the transforming power of Christ seems to go, and so might one's belief in his deity. It is one thing to say that belief should manifest itself in Christians that people will say, 'See how they love one another.' It is something else to posit the truth of Christ's divinity on the constancy of human holiness and spiritual consolations. This accounts for many defections from fundamentalism. The dark night of the soul, which visits many, results in jettisoning the fundamentalist position, and often what is embraced is not another brand of Christianity, but a vague agnosticism."I have known people to leave Christianity for this very reason. The gospel you win people with, is the gospel you win them to. And if all you evangelize with, and preach with, is an emotional experience, a worship experience, a Sunday Ted Talk, you throw seeds on shallow gravel. Their faith never roots down deep. Others stay with their faith dutifully, but often lament at the dryness of their faith. Others have their faith more as a lifestyle than a lens through which you see your existence. Anyway. Great Catholic apologetic work.

Karl Keating draws on his own experience as a Church of God minister, to explain how in depth study of the early Christians helped him to discover, that the Catholic Church had compiled the Bible, in 395AD at the Council of Rome, but that early Christians, taught by Christ, his Apostles (all of whom had witnessed his miracles)and the people they ordained to succeed them had a very different attitude to modern day Protestants and had gone to the lions in the amphitheatre, proclaiming the Eucharist as the Real Presence of Christ , venerating the Mother of Christ (in the second person of the Trinity-the human face of God) and being taught by Bishops, trained in schools, in the original teachings of the fledgeling Church as given to the Apostles.Constantine simply made Christianity legal and the Faith of the Roman Empire, in fact this was a design of God too, as Christianity spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire, because it had such good communications.Karl Keating uses Thesselonians 2:15So then bretheren, stand firm and hold to the TRADITIONS which you were taught by us, either by word of Mouth or by epistle'to refute the belief that the early church was without the Bible and tuaght by the Church,whose role is to guide believers in the interpretation of Scripture so splits do not occur according to whatever individuals may decide they believe.The Church's teaching authority prevents disparity of belief, or the same 'Holy Spirit' would be telling different individuals different things. This is an excellent book, a mine of information about the true beliefs of the Catholic Church, not anti-Catholic urban legends and old wives tales put about it like Chinese whispers all through the ages.It is A book in which Karl Keating refers constantly to 'Bible verses Protestants never see' and dispels the worst stories and myths about a church which was founded by Christ on Peter.Deep scholarship, clearly written and inoffensive to Protestants, it simply points out the errors believed by many about the Catholic Church, which have no foundation in fact, and form part of Reformation 'spin' which has survived to our day.

Hard to stay a Protestant after all your arguments have been dissected, analysed, answered and found lacking in substance and failing the test of intellectual rigour and logic. No doubt, that won't stop the lads and lasses of Lewis in southern England burning and effigy of the Pope each year, but then this book is unlikely to rank anywhere on their reading list!Karl Keating has done every thinking Catholic a favour by providing such a concise and logical expose of the many Protestant arguments and beliefs which are expressly anti-Catholic and explaining why they are wrong and contrary to reason.Catholics are called to reach out to people and this book enables one to do that to our fellow Christians of other denominations by having honest answers and explanations to their many doctrinal errors which keep these Christians separated from the Church of Rome. Essential reading.

Three stars because it's OK but not great. The writer's thought is not always clear, and I think he would have done better to keep his focus on the erroneous ideas about the Catholic church held by some fundamentalists and to write less about particular individuals who express and promote those ideas. I don't think I'm falling into the error of wishing he'd written the book I wanted him to write rather than the book he wished to write. The title is not Catholic and Some Hostile Fundamentalists, though parts of the book are about just that.

I was very happy to receive the book which wasquickly and efficiently delivered.

This is a remarkable book. Keating is thorough, and exquisitely precise as he demolishes arguments and every pretension that set itself up against the knowledge of God, and he takes captive every thought and makes it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor 10.5)I have been an evangelical Christian for 20 years. Thanks to this book, (and others by Scott Hahn and Alban McCoy), I am on the road to Rome. John 17 must be fulfilled.