Book Review - Devin Rose's "The Protestant's Dilemma"

Finally, a "Dilemma" that you will want to have!  Fresh off the presses from Catholic Answers, Devin Rose's The Protestant's Dilemma is a worthy successor to his best-selling If Protestantism is True.  This new book retains all of the penetrating insights of the original but with an even tighter apologetic focus and a newly revised format that makes referencing specific content a snap.

In my 27 years of studying the Faith, Devin Rose's method of explaining his intellectual journey from Protestantism to Catholicism stands out as truly unique: For each element of Christian Faith under consideration, he asks the reader to assume that Protestantism is true and then to follow that belief to its logical conclusion.  (Sounds simple, right?  But when employed by someone with the knowledge base and logical, conversational writing style of Rose; its effects are akin to an earthquake's.) Time and time again, for 34 separate issues, Rose demonstrates how the position of the Protestant Reformers ends in a denial of Scripture, history, and/or reason. I'll give a brief example:

Rose asks readers to consider what it means if the Reformers were correct in their removal of seven books (Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch, Judith,  1 & 2 Maccabees, Tobit,) from the Old Testament. First Rose calls attention to the historical fact that the seven books in question were part of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT used by the apostles and quoted throughout the New Testament.  He goes on to discuss how the Jewish canon (list of books recognized as inspired), appealed to as authoritative by the Reformers, was not settled upon until the end of the first century, if not later. The Christian Church, however, had always used a Bible containing the works rejected by the Reformers, reading them at the Sunday liturgy and quoting from them in her teaching.  Rose then asks readers to come to grips with what the Reformers' rejection of these books means:

"If Protestantism is true, then for 1500 years all of Christianity used an Old Testament that contained seven fully disposable, possibly deceptive books that God did not inspire.  He did, however, allow the early Church to designate these books as Sacred Scripture and derive false teachings such as purgatory from their contents.  Eventually, God's chosen Reformer, Martin Luther, was able to straighten out this tragic error, even though his similar abridgement of the New Testament [his attempt to remove James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation] was a mistake." (p.74)

Put in those terms, one can understand the title of this book. Unbeknownst to them, sincere Christians, born into communities stemming from the Reformers, have either (a) been wrongly deprived of seven books of Holy Scripture; or (b) the Holy Spirit allowed the apostles and the entire Church to use a defective Bible and be deceived. It was Rose's realization that (b) was unthinkable for an orthodox Christian, and (a) matched the details of history, that moved him to the Catholic acceptance of these seven books.  And that acceptance enriched his experience of Christ!

In the course of just over 200 pages Rose repeats this thought exercise for 33 other points of contention between the Protestant Reformers and the Catholic Church - the papacy, ecumenical councils, the Scripture and Tradition, infant baptism, baptismal regeneration, marriage as a sacrament, the Eucharist, etc., etc.  He continually and successfully shows readers the way out of the dilemma - the Catholic Faith, a seamless garment of Scripture and reason, consonant with the facts of history.  And while doing this he maintains a sincere charity toward the Protestant Christian of today; his tone is never one of condescension or triumphalism. Rather, his purpose is to unite brothers and sisters in the visible unity for which Jesus prayed at the Last Supper. My hat is off to Mr. Rose!

ABC's "Resurrection" and "THE Resurrection"

The fist episode of ABC's Resurrection wrapped up about 20 minutes ago, and I am already eagerly awaiting the next. Anyone who truly knows me will tell you that I love my Sci-Fi (not "putting on costumes and attending conventions" love it; but "I've seen every episode, and every movie, of everything worth seeing, and thought about it more than I will ever admit" love it). This new fictional series imagines what would happen if the deceased residents of a small town (Arcadia, MO) started returning, bodily returning, to their loved ones.  The mystery of course is how they are returning. The first episode focused on an eight year old boy, Jacob Langston.  Jacob, who had drowned 32 years before, woke up in rice paddy field in China, with no understanding of how he got there; and made his way home to the parents who had gradually learned to live with his death.  Fascinating premise, well-written, well-acted; it's my kind of Sci-Fi.  And even better, it's an easy segue to talking about the Faith.

What this series terms "resurrection," is actually either resuscitation  or reincarnation. Resuscitation is when medical personnel revive someone who has died; while reincarnation is the belief that the soul, or consciousness, can be transferred from one body to another. (From ABC's previews, it looks like the consciousness of the dead has been transferred into bodies that are flawless reproductions of their original bodies.)  

Of course, this is nothing like what we Christians mean when, every Sunday, we say in the Nicene Creed, "I look forward to the resurrection of the dead."  Our Faith is that we will be resurrected in the same manner as Jesus. Jesus was not simply resuscitated; and the body in which He showed Himself to the Apostles was the same one in which He had been crucified.  It was the same body, but "glorified," transformed, raised to a higher state of life.  It does not belong to this fallen world, but is a first glimpse of the new world, the impassible world, to be inaugurated at Christ's return.  That is what we Christians are talking about when we say, "I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come"!  (For those who would like to go deepr, here is a good reflection on the nature of the resurrected body by Monsignor Charles Pope.)

"Uhm, Shane...you have something on your forehead"

I heard it quite a few times today, from very well-intentioned colleagues and students.  (And with the perennial paper jams and copier breakdowns at my school, I appreciate them checking.)  So what is the deal with Catholics wearing ashes on their foreheads?  

It is an action that goes all the way back to the Old Testament.  When someone felt true contrition for their sins, they put on sackcloth (rough, coarse garments) and either poured ashes over their heads or sat in them (see Dan.9:3; Jonah 3:5-6).  Jesus  made reference to the practice in  Mt.11:21.  

Throughout the early Church, when someone returned to the practice of the Faith after a grave sin (adultery or apostasy, for example), ashes were sprinkled upon their heads.  By the 11th century, it became the practice for all Christians to have ashes applied to their foreheads to mark the beginning of Lent, the time when all of our minds should turn to acts of penance.  Here in North America, the usual practice is for the priest to make a kind of paste by adding holy water to the ashes and to apply them to our foreheads in the Sign of the Cross with the words, "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel."  

Immediately after receiving the cross of ashes on my forehead, my mind went to a passage from Ezekiel.  For me, it is one of the great prophetic images of how Jesus would save us.  The context is the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 B.C., but it is applicable to all of us who mourn for the world's sins and look forward to Christ's promise of salvation.  Meditate on this:

I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate [of the Temple] which faces the north, each with a destroying weapon in his hand. In their midst was a man dressed in linen, with a writer's case at his waist. They entered [the Temple] and stood beside the bronze altar.  Then he called to the man dressed in linen with the writer's case at his waist, saying to him, “Pass through the city and mark an X on the foreheads of those who moan and groan over all the abominations that are practiced within it.” To the others I heard him say, “Pass through the city after him and strike! Do not look on them with pity nor show any mercy!  Old men, youths and maidens, women and children--wipe them out! But do not touch any marked with the X; begin at my sanctuary” (Ezekiel 9:2-6, NIV)

What an honor to be marked with the sign of Jesus' Cross!

The Cover of the New Book!

Angelico Press emailed this to me earlier today.  

The release date is April 4th!

Curious About the Book of Revelation?

Hey, who isn't!  I began studying it while in high school and have revisited it every few years since. Two years back I did a morning-
long presentation of the subject here in St. Louis, which was recorded by I.H.S. Productions/ St. Joseph Radio.  Well, they've just released it on CD. 

Today I wanted to share some background information on the Book of Rev - things of a historical and literary nature:

1) Did you know that Revelation was the final book to be accepted into the New Testament Canon?  
That's an historical fact.  Here is part of the chart I compiled on the formation of the NT for The God Who is Love :

Key The final column indicates whether the author proposed a New Testament Canon or was simply commenting on the books in question.                    “–” indicates that this book was not yet recognized
Year	Author	Location	Work in which information is found	Canon or Comments
300 – 325 A.D.	Eusebius Pamphilus, Bishop of Caesarea	Palestine	History of the Church, Book III	Labels  Apocalypse of John “spurious”
343 – 381 A.D.	Council of Laodicea (Local council, NOT an infallible statement)	Phrygia, Asia  Minor	Canons [or Rulings] of Laodicea	Canon – Revelation
350 A.D	St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem	Palestine	Catechetical Lectures	Canon  – Revelation
367 A.D.	St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria	Alexandria, Egypt	Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter	CURRENT  CANON
380 A.D.	St. Ampholichius of Iconium, Bishop	Iconium (Present day Turkey)	Iambic Letter to Seleucus	Comment “the Revelation of John some accept, but most will call it spurious. . .”
382 A.D.	St. Damasus I, Pope	Rome, Italy	The Decrees of Damasus[1]	CURRENT CANON
383 – 389 A.D.	St. Gregory of Nazianz, Bishop	Arianz, Eastern Asia Minor	Collected Poems	Canon – Revelation
393 A.D.	Council of Hippo	Hippo, Africa	Canons of the Council of Hippo	CURRENT CANON
397 A.D.	St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo	Hippo, Africa	Christian Instruction	CURRENT CANON
405 A.D.	Innocent I, Pope	Rome, Italy	Letter to Exsuperius (Bishop of Toulouse)	CURRENT CANON

---

[1] The Decree of Damasus appears to have originally been part of the Decrees of the Council of Rome (a local council, not an Ecumenical). As such it is not considered an infallible statement.

2) Doubts popped up again at the time of the Reformation.   
When Martin Luther published his German translation of the Bible, he separated the books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation, placing them at the end of the New Testament.  He didn’t see them being on par with the NT’s 23 other books.

Luther's Preface to the Book of Revelation (1522)

"About this book of the Revelation of John, I leave everyone free to hold his own opinions. I would not have anyone bound to my opinion or judgment. I say what I feel. I miss more than one thing in this book, and it makes me consider it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic … I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it … Many of the fathers also rejected this book a long time ago; although St. Jerome, to be sure, refers to it in exalted terms and says that it is above all praise and that there are as many mysteries in it as words. Still, Jerome cannot prove this at all, and his praise at numerous places is too generous."

The other Reformers were able to prevail, and Revelation and the NT works questioned by Luther were retained on an equal footing with the rest of the NT.  (Sadly however, the Reformers did remove seven books from the Old Testament - an ongoing tragedy for their descendants, with their deep love of God's written Word.)

3) What style of writing do we have here?  
Scholars identify it as apocalyptic literature.  It was a style popular from roughly 200 B.C. to 200 A.D.

a. It’s crisis literature – it’s not written for those in power but for those undergoing persecution

b. The OT Book of Daniel was the first successful literary venture into apocalyptic (we find 88 allusions to Daniel in Revelation)

c. We find other Jewish writings of this type, such as 2 Baruch, The Apocalypse of Moses and Enoch, from around the same time.

d. It’s filled with fantastic, horrible, mesmerizing, beautiful descriptions; symbolic colors; symbolic numbers; angels revealing what is to come; promise that we’re closer to the end than we are to the beginning

e. It draws imagery from what scholars call the “apocalyptic arsenal”:  Exodus 7-12, Deuteronomy 28, Isaiah 13, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, the Psalms

f.  In Revelation’s 404 verses, scholars can identify at least 278 allusions to the OT

g. Jesus drew from this same “arsenal” (Isaiah 13) when He prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem.

4) The Book of Daniel provided a prophetic timetable, leading up to Jesus' coming (and the events we read of in Revelation):

Daniel’s Visions - Four Earthly Kingdoms and the Establishment of God’s Kingdom

Daniel 2 – An enormous statue	Kingdom Represented	Daniel 7 – Four Beasts coming out of the sea
Head (Gold)	BABYLONIAN	Winged Lion
Chest (Silver)	MEDO-PERSIAN	Bear with three tusks in mouth
Belly & Thighs (Bronze)	GREEK	Leopard with four heads  and four wings (Alexander the Great)
Legs (Iron) & Feet (Part Iron,Par Baked Clay)	ROMAN	Beast with iron teeth  and ten horns - A little horn sprouts, and uproots three. The horn spoke blasphemies
A rock, not cut by human hands struck the feet and smashed the statue.  Rock became a mountain filling the entire earth.	GOD’S KINGDOM	“One like a son of man,  coming with the clouds of heaven . . .  approached the Ancient of Days . . .  He was given glory, authority, and sovereign power; all peoples worshiped him.”

Daniel 9 – “Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city: to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophecy ... an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and sanctuary ... he shall make sacrifices and offerings cease; and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator.”

5) There are five ways Christians have read Revelation:

Futurist – All of the events described will take place in the future, in the few short years before Jesus returns.

Preterist – Nearly all of the events in Revelation occurred within the lifetime of its author or within a few centuries afterward.  This book has to do with the deliverance of God’s people from their persecutors:  leaders within Judaism as well as the Roman Empire

Historicist – Events are fulfilled throughout the history of the Church, from the time of Jesus’ ascension until His Second Coming

Spiritual / Idealist – The symbols in Revelation don’t have a one-to-one correspondence with historical events, rather, they symbolize the struggle between God and evil that every Christian witnesses in their culture, personal relationships, own soul, etc.

Progressive Parallels – Some hold that literary analysis of Revelation shows seven sections.  Each section is thought to run parallel to the other, describing the life of the Church in time from slightly different perspectives.

We’re Catholics - our name means “universal, all embracing;” so we are free to interpret Revelation through any of the above five lenses, so long as our conclusions don’t run counter to one of the truths of the Faith, the larger Tradition of which the Book of Revelation is a part.

So there you go, a little background information before launching into your study of the Book of Revelation.  It would be an honor to help you dig deeper.  What else can you expect to find on the CD set I mentioned at the beginning of the post?  Click here to learn more. And please don't miss out on downloading this FREE study guide.  The CDs are produced and distributed exclusively by I.H.S Producations / St. Joseph Radio, and all sale proceeds are used to support their media apostolate.