The goal of this short post is to help truth-seekers to take stock of a number of the significant issues that exist between Protestantism and Catholicism. I will do this by means of a curated and evolving reading list:
- Mark Noll – The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (304p)
- Mark Noll – Is the Reformation Over? (272p)
- Matthew Levering and Kevin Vanhoozer – Was the Reformation a Mistake?: Why Catholic Doctrine Is Not Unbiblical (240p)
- Peter Leithart – The End of Protestantism (240p)
- Alexander Schmemann – For the Life of the World (186p)
- G.K. Chesterton – Heretics (112p)
- G.K. Chesterton – Orthodoxy (126p)
- Hatch and Noll – The Bible in America, Chaps. 3-5 (and 7 optional) (85p)
- Christian Smith – The Bible Made Impossible (211p)
- Krister Stendahl – “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” (article) (17p)
- N. T. Wright – Justification (279p)
- N. T. Wright – What Saint Paul Really Said (245p)
- Johann Adam Moehler – Symbolism, Volume 1 (526p)
- Matthew Bates – Salvation by Allegiance Alone (256p)
- Matthew Bates – Gospel Allegiance (269p)
- David Aune, ed. – Rereading Paul Together (272p)
- Ed Sanders – Paul and Palestinian Judaism (744p)
- James Dunn – The New Perspective on Paul, Rev. Ed. (ch. 1, “The New Perspective on Paul: Whence, What and Whither?”) (98p)
- Alister McGrath – Iustitia Dei (516p)
- John Henry Newman – Apologia Pro Vita Sua (608p)
- John Henry Newman – An Enquiry on the Development of Christian Doctrine (308p)
- Origen – Homilies on Luke (288p)
- Origen – On First Principles (576p)
- Thomas Scheck – Origen and the History of Justification (310p)
- Irenaeus – Against Heresies (516p)
- A good Catholic conversion story or two (e.g., Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn or David Currie’s Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic) (say, 300p)
- G.K. Chesterton – Collected Works, Volume 3, Sections: “Where All Roads Lead”, “The Catholic Church and Conversion”, and “Why I Am a Catholic” (311p)
- Any decent popular level work on Catholic doctrine (e.g., Trent Horn’s The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections [342p])
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994 edition) (846p)
- Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jensen – The Catholicity of the Reformation (sections by Jenson [1-12], Yeago [13-34], and Braaten [53-66]) (48p)
- Ola Tjorhom – Visible Church–Visible Unity (114p)
- John Barclay – Paul and the Gift (582p)
- Stanley Stowers – Rereading Romans (329p)
- Richard Hays – The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11 (297p)
This reading list aims to bring some critical theological issues into focus and provide a broader set of categories. This post aims to help set the stage for seeing how those issues and categories cross-pollinate.
The challenge is to get to the last items before the details of the first become too fuzzy to evaluate in conjunction with one another. If too much time passes between the first and last items, the point and purpose of the approach I will recommend will suffer, as will pace and progression.
A Few Words about Pace and Progression
For many people, the above reading (well under 11,000 [~10,741] pages) is accomplishable within three years (at 9-10 pages / day). With some planning, discipline, and selective skimming, it can be accomplished within one year (under 30 pages / day). It may not be easy, as the reading is dense and contemplative. Some may greatly benefit from pursuing this course within a group. But do not fool yourself: it is doable.
To those who balk at or write-off such a reading load, nobody said the pursuit of truth would be easy. Nobody said it wouldn’t require time and discipline and some sacrifices. And nobody said it has to be done within any given timeframe. But somebody (i.e., the Prophet Jeremiah, in chapter 29, verse 13) did describe the basic relationship between “effort” and “results”: you will find if you seek and find. I used to think this was an awkward way to phrase it. Then I realized that finding is a process, and you have to find some things before you can find others, and you will find little if you do not seek.