[soc.religion.christian] heretical books on catholicism and the holy mother church?

tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu ("Timothy J. Horton") (01/15/90)

Can anyone suggest a good book that gives "the other" side of the story on
the Catholic church, through history?  The ideal item would try to convey a
general history, but uncolored by any love for the church, if not a bit of
(well deserved, from what I can tell) contempt.  An affirmed ex-Catholic,
repeatedly under siege for his ex-ness, finally wants the goods on the church
and infallibility and corrupt popes and wars and inquisitions and so forth.

Obviously, I've a large axe to grind, but I don't care for an exercise in
pure invective -- I'd really like a good book (about the evil bastards :-).

Sorry if this has been discussed before.  Thanks for any help.  If there is
interest, I'll post a summary.  Then again, if there has been a summary,
I've posted my interest :-)

[You might want to think carefully about the purpose for studying
church history.  I'm a Presbyterian, so I have some sympathy with a
person trying to free himself from the clutches of Rome ;-), but I'd
rather you did it for the right reasons...  It's easy enough to find
horror stories about the Catholic church.  But it's also easy enough
to find them about Protestantism, Communism, and American patriotism.
It is easy to see the history of the Catholic church up to the 16th
Cent as a slow accretion of power in the papacy, and a replacement of
religious concerns with political ones.  But it is also frightening to
see how quickly Martin Luther changed as he began to get political
power.  In the end the corruption of the Catholic church in the 16th
Cent. is probably a better argument for separation of Church and State
than against Catholicism. 

The point I'm trying to make is that corrupt popes, wars, and
inquisitions are not necessarily the right thing to base a decision
on.  That's not to say that there is no difference between Protestant
and Catholic, but if you're going to reject any movement that has even
been corrupted, you're going to end up ... well, I'm not sure how
you're going to end up.  (hmm...  Does anyone know of any corruption
among the Friends?) I'd rather see decisions based on the true issues,
which are based on theology, liturgical practice, and church
organization.

As for things to read, a have a couple of recommendations.  One is to
read a good general Church history.  The Eerdmann's Handbook of
Christian history seems to be a good book for someone without much
background who wants a fairly complete overview of the Church.  I
assume that the contributors are mostly (if not exclusively)
Protestant, but it's certainly not a polemical work, and gives
positive accounts of much of the history of the Catholic church.  But
to focus on the issues between Catholic and Protestant, I recommend
something that concentrates on the Reformation.  A good source for
that is Bainton's book "Here I Stand", a biography of Martin Luther. 

However I'd like to caution you that the theological contrasts you'll
see in that book may not properly represent the 20th Cent. situation.
Both Catholic and Protestant doctrine has changed since then.  Luther
identified free will as the central theological issue of the
Reformation.  Catholics and Protestants are far closer together on
this than they were in the 16th Cent.  Catholics have either removed
or deemphasized practices (such as indulgences) that were (as least as
practiced in the early 16th Cent.) at odds with even Catholic theory
at the time.  Protestants have generally abandoned the concept of
Predestination, which lay behind the theology of Luther and Calvin.
Thus I believe there is little difference between Catholic and
Protestant views on this subject now.  (I should note that I do not
necessarily agree with the convergence.  I am much closer to the
Reformers than the average Protestant is.)

In my view, the remaining issues are not the sort that are subject to
clear and dramatic proof or disproof.  There are a number of classic
areas in theology and practice where competing concerns must be
balanced.  In many of these areas, Catholic and Protestant tend to
emphasize the opposite ends.  However the fact is that when properly
understood, both traditions must take account of both issues.  So in
many cases the difference is more the path than the destination.
Let's look at a few:

1) salvation by faith or by works.  "Salvation by faith alone" is the
rallying cry of the Reformation, surely one of the most divisive
mottos in the history of Christianity.  Yet the fact is that both
Protestants and Catholics know that (a) salvation comes from God
alone, and nothing we do can earn it but (b) God calls us to total
obedience.  Protestantism tends to start from (a) and Catholicism from
(b).  The strength of Catholicism is that it is based on a life-long
discipline that encourages day to day reflection on how one is
carrying out Christian living.  Its weakness is that it can become
legalistic.  It also leads the Church into trying to deal with areas
where it might be wiser to allow "Christian freedom" to prevail.
Protestantism tends to encourage a spontaneous relationship with God.
However Protestantism has its own dangers: It is easy enough for "free
grace" to degenerate into what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace", where
salvation does not involve the radical rebirth that Christ demands.
Protestants and Catholics alike must find a way to take account of
both aspects.  However I suspect that no matter how well they do this,
there are still going to be differences in practice, with Catholics
tending more towards "Church discipline" and Protestants more towards
individualism.

2) the role of symbols.  There have been a variety of conflicts that
come down to a question of how to deal with symbols.  In fact no one
really worships statues, and even Protestants use a variety of symbols
-- including of course the central ones involved in baptism and
Communion.  However Catholics have always been more comfortable with
visible signs than Protestants.  This is an area in which there are
still considerable differences.  I believe that since the 16th Cent.
Catholics have become more careful about making sure that people avoid
superstitious attitudes towards images.  It is probably only in the
20th Cent. that Protestants have begun to overcome the almost
pathological fear of anything that might seem "Romish", and have begun
to use things like Advent wreaths.  (In my parents' church, such
things were never heard of.  Indeed in many churches simply having a
candle in church indicated a secret sympathy with Rome.) But again,
although we may both now be trying to regain balance, we are still
coming at things from opposite sides.  While Communion theology is
certainly beginning to converge, Catholics continue to show a
veneration for the elements that make Protestants very uncomfortable,
while Protestants liturgy still must seem shockingly insufficient to
most Catholics.

3) authority in the Church.  This is probably the biggest underlying
issue left.  Roughly speaking, Catholics believe that Christ left the
Church as an authoritative organization, whereas Protestants tend to
believe that there is no such thing as guaranteed authority -- any
authority the Church may have it gets only by following Scripture.
Again, we must guard against extremes of both kinds.  We need to be
careful about overplaying the issue of papal infallibility.  In fact
the Pope is simply the embodiment of what Catholic tradition has seen
as the authority of the Church as a whole.  He does not go around
making infallible statements on a whim.  He does so as a
representative of the Church, which Christ said would never be
overcome.  Protestantism can all too easily degenerate into complete
disregard for the considered judgement of others, a sublime confidence
that ones own half-baked interpretation of the Bible is The Answer.
In fact the Catholic Church has had a renaissance of Biblical
scholarship, and many Catholics are "Bible-believing Christians" in a
near-Protestant sense.  Similarly, many Protestants understand the
importance of being guided by the traditions of the Church and
submitting ones own understandings to the test of confronting others.
However there remains the stumbling-block of the authoritative
organization.  However my Catholic friends may value the role of
Protestants, they are not ready to accept the Catholic church as one
denomination among many.  To Protestants this appears to be at best
unrealistic and at worst a serious violation of Christian charity. 

Conclusion:

I have gone into these details in order to be in a position to give
some advice.  It is important to see beyond the absurdities of the
various positions and be sure that you come to a decision that really
makes sense for you.  You should not reject the Catholic church
because you think it teaches salvation by works, or promotes worship
of idols, or requires everyone to give up all personal responsibility
and simply kow-tow to the Pope.  You are going to find such
perversions among Protestants or atheists or any other group you might
move to instead.  Instead you need to understand that both Catholics
and Protestants are doing their best to maintain a balance between
things that are hard to balance, that they both will undoubtedly fail.
So it's important to concentrate, not on the Inquisition, the Borgia
Popes, etc., but on the characteristics of the best representatives of
each position. 

--clh]