From Sand to Solid Ground: Questions of Faith for Modern Catholics
By Michael Morwood. Crossroad (New York, 2007). 255 pp., $14.95.
Reasons to Believe
By Scott Hahn. Doubleday (New York, 2007). 227 pp., $21.95.
The One-Minute Apologist
By Dave Armstrong. Sophia Institute Press (Manchester, N.H., 2007). 141 pp., $14.95.
Three new books seek to answer faith questions raised by Catholics and others, with varying degrees of success.
Michael Morwood, an Australian spiritual writer and the author of "From Sand to Solid Ground: Questions of Faith for Modern Catholics," argues that the Christian church has from its inception sought to distort Christ's "understanding that living in love went hand in hand with living with God." Instead, Morwood says, the church has sought to assert its authority by separating humanity from God and making itself the only means of bridging a remote and forbidding God to his subservient creation.
This separation has led to a church unwilling to let go of its authority and a worship of God which alienates modern, rational believers. Morwood urges readers, and in particular Catholics, to reject the "elsewhere God" and embrace an "everywhere God."
The problem with Morwood's argument is that Catholics don't see God as elsewhere. While we accept that God is ultimately mysterious and beyond our comprehension, Catholics also believe that God has been made intimately close to us through Christ in the Eucharist and in the power and love of the Holy Spirit.
Morwood, a former Catholic priest, believes that transubstantiation is medieval nonsense and that no one in today's world could possibly accept that Christ is present in the sacrament. While most Catholics might have a difficult time explaining transubstantiation, they do believe that God is present in the Eucharist and, if we are consuming his body and blood, how much more intimate could God be?
It is hard not to admire Morwood's belief that a more loving, inclusive church could produce a more just society. But it is naive to think that by letting go of the idea of a personal God and other teachings Morwood considers outmoded, we can somehow transcend the less attractive parts of human nature.
While Morwood acknowledges briefly the reality of sin, he doesn't seem to take it very seriously. If he did, it would be clearer why, even if God does not need our prayers as the author contends, God wants to hear them and we need to say them.
Two other recent books --- "Reasons to Believe" by Scott Hahn and "The One-Minute Apologist" by Dave Armstrong --- are guides for Catholics to defend the teachings of the church. Each author became a Catholic as an adult and each seems anxious to show that Catholics know the Bible just as well as Protestants.
Every church teaching is given ample biblical support. But sometimes the biblical support for certain teachings seems strained at best. Both authors could be accused of triumphalism, of believing that we have it right and, if everybody else doesn't have it wrong all the time, that we have the fullest and best knowledge of God's intentions. Nothing else about Catholicism annoys non-Catholics more.
But our authors don't always have it right; Armstrong doesn't seem to understand papal infallibility at all. But his book has the advantage of being concise and sometimes amusing. As "The One-Minute Apologist" is already in paperback, it might be wise to stow it in one's book bag or pocketbook in case a pesky Protestant comes up unexpectedly and asks a difficult question. ----CNS
Graham Yearley is earning a certificate of advanced study in theology at the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore. |