Some of the best Catholic apologists (defenders) I've read are former Protestants theologians or Protestant ministers. Perhaps it's because they are so steeped in scripture; or perhaps it's because they've been taught where Catholicism's weaknesses are (real or apparent), so they know just where to investigate and defend; or perhaps its because once they discover the missing pieces to the Christian story, they become so passionate they are almost glowing. Or maybe its all these. One of my favorite writers with this background is Jimmy Akin, who writes kind of how I like to teach - easy to understand for the average reader-believer (at least that's my hope). Below is a review of his recent book by yet another former Protestant minister, Marcus Grodi. The subject - the early Church Fathers - is always enlightening for Catholics, Protestants, or of any faith, who wish to clarify the truths of what was handed on by the Apostles. This is especially true when the topics can be captured and told in simple prose. Who were the early church fathers? They were the renowned theologians of the first 7 centuries of Christianity whose writing established official church doctrine; some were later declared saints and became Doctor of the Church. The first three - Polycarp of Smyrna, Clement I, and Ignatius of Antioch are called Apostolic Fathers, as they were 1st century disciples of the Apostles. For those of you who might be interested, please read on. Ron
Go Ask Your Father A word from Marcus Grodi about Jimmy Akin's The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church
For the first forty years of my life, it never crossed my mind that I needed anything else but the Bible to know what I needed to believe to be a faithful Christian. When I was in seminary and preparing to become a Protestant pastor I studied the history of Christianity, but with a certain slant that skirted any acknowledgment of the historical relevance of the Catholic Church. For me, as well as most of my fellow seminarians, the important history essentially ended with the closure of the New Testament (Revelations) and picked up again with the sixteenth century Protestant reformation.
I certainly knew of some significant Christian figures and events from those “lost” fifteen hundred years, but for me and the congregations I pastored, all that was important was the Bible—which had been “saved” from the clutches of the “Whore of Babylon” through the courage of the Reformers. The few references I had read from the writings of the early Christian writers (I don’t remember referring to them as early Church “Fathers”) were selectively chosen to demonstrate that the early Church was more like Protestantism than Catholicism. Then, by God’s grace, my eyes were opened. Without question, it was my discovery of the witness of the early Church Fathers that most opened my heart and mind toward the possibility that there was more to the Catholic faith. Fortunately, God provided helpers to assist me in finding and working my way through the few available (Protestant) collections of the Fathers, most of which were out of print and some badly skewed by anti-Catholic translators. Suddenly, I was exposed to a treasure trove of historical writings i had never seen. Through their witness (these early Church Fathers), the Catholicism of the early Church became so obvious that my family and I knew that if we were to follow the truth then we had no option but to become Catholic.
A large majority of Christians today believe that all one needs to know about the early Church can be gleaned from the book of Acts, and that beyond that, the essence of early Church structure, liturgy, and praxis is somehow a prototype of what they experience in their modern-day Protestant churches. But the inspired words of the New Testament do not contain all that the Apostles taught the early Christians - there were initially 72 disciples of Christ, some of who became Gospel writers and Peter's successors (popes) in the first century. How then does one discover the rest of what these early Christians believed? The answer to this—at least for hundreds of modern Protestant ministers who have surprisingly found their way home to the Catholic Church—is in the writings of the early Church Fathers. How, though, can we access such a large corpus of writings, especially when they were written in languages that most of us today have not had the patience to learn? For this, we are particularly blessed by the release of Jimmy Akin’s superbly compiled synopsis of the writings of the early Church Fathers. There are other collections, which have helped many discover the beauty and importance of what these early writers reveal about the expanding and persecuted early Church. But Akin’s finely selected and categorized collection provides a far more accessible introduction into the full Catholicity of the early Christians. As a convert himself and a well-honed apologist, Jimmy knows the topics that are most crucial for those wanting and needing to know what the early Church believed—especially in those doctrinal areas where Catholics and non-Catholics bump heads.
Comments