Rating: 
Summary: Footnotes alone are worth the money
Review: This book is the first one I ever read on the subject of catholicism. It is the single most influential book in my conversion to the catholic church from the southern baptist church. What makes this book different from other conversion stories is the massive amount of footnotes and research backing up everything. For that reason it doubles as both a story/testimony and as an encyclopedia of sorts. I don't recommend reading this book unless you are ready to go where God leads you.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent treatment of Baptism and Eucharist
Review: This book presents an excellent treatment of Baptism and Eucharist and is bound to be an eye-opener for anyone who reads it. Would make an ideal gift for those searching.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-researched look at the teachings of the Early Church
Review: This book takes an in depth look at two practices that have been hotly debated in Christianity since the Reformation: Baptismal efficacy and the Real Presence in the Eucharist. It takes the reader back to the Old Testament to establish foundations, through the Gospels to examine Jesus's teachings, and to the Pauline epistles. From there, it examines writings that as a former Protestant who has found a home in the Catholic Church I had never considered: early church fathers. The Fathers were the immediate successors to the Apostles--they worked side-by-side with them and learned their theology from the Apostles (in the middle of the first century the New Testament as we know it did not exist, the gospel was handed down by word of mouth). These men wrote prolifically to churches all over the Roman Empire and their teachings as represented here are in lock step with one another. While not accepted as canonical (by Protestants or Catholics), their writings give us profound insight into the verbal traditions passed down from Jesus to the Apostles to their successors, and the uniformity undergirds the credibility of the Catholic position on the issues. Exhaustively researched and thoroughly documented, Ray draws generally sound conclusions. From a layout standpoint, I found this book to be difficult to read. Many pages have footnotes that cover 3/4ths of the page and even continue onto the next page. To skip the footnotes is to miss a substantial part of the argument but to read them along with the text is distracting at best. Considering the importance of the footnotes to the development of the arguments, a rewrite would have been in order to incorporate footnotes into the text.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremly disappointing book
Review: This book uses scripture that doesn't match the message it was giving. I left wondering if I had made the right decision being a Catholic.
Rating:
Summary: Wow. Church Fathers Speak
Review: This is truely an amazing book that every Christian should read. It draws heavily from the Old Testament, New Testament, and early Church Fathers to show that the Catholic Church is what it claims to be - the Church Jesus promised his disciples, for this is the only Church that adheres to the teachings of the apostolic tradition and early Church Fathers. I love to challenge my Protestant friends to read it. It encourages discussion about the real issues, not religious prejudice. I also love that Ray does not feel the need to bash the Protestant tradition. This is important. Though he exposes their shallow theology and even how modern Protestantism disagrees with the thought of Calvin, Luther, and other Reformers, he does not denigrate it. Truely, Truely, a great read.
Rating:
Summary: Wow. Church Fathers Speak
Review: This is truely an amazing book that every Christian should read. It draws heavily from the Old Testament, New Testament, and early Church Fathers to show that the Catholic Church is what it claims to be - the Church Jesus promised his disciples, for this is the only Church that adheres to the teachings of the apostolic tradition and early Church Fathers. I love to challenge my Protestant friends to read it. It encourages discussion about the real issues, not religious prejudice. I also love that Ray does not feel the need to bash the Protestant tradition. This is important. Though he exposes their shallow theology and even how modern Protestantism disagrees with the thought of Calvin, Luther, and other Reformers, he does not denigrate it. Truely, Truely, a great read.
Rating:
Summary: Spiritually stimulating as one searches for Church truth.
Review: This well researched and thought provoking exegesis of biblical truth puts paid to the fundamentalists' stereotyping of the Catholic Church, and reveals the splendor and glory of Jesus Christ indwelling the Church that He, the Holy Spirit, the Apostles, and the Church founders bequeathed to us.
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