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Summary: A must read for any Bible beliver
Review: If you are a Protestent, as I was until 3 years ago, this book will open your heart and mind to the Revelation of tradition. If you are a Catholic, this book will explain in clear terms the basis of tradition as an additional method for God's revelation. Upon my conversion, I really didn't get the value of tradition in the Church. This writer sets forth a clear and compelling exploration of the truth behind tradition and should foster a closer understanding among all Christians. But even better, it is one of the easiest books to read and follow. The author does not follow a standard cronological time table, rather the book develops, chapter to chapter, as he explores first one alternative and then another, and another, until at last he, and we, are lead to his conclusion. It reads with the ease of a novel. It's contents are as firm as a study.
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Summary: Are you thinking about Catholicism?
Review: If you are an evangelical thinking about Catholicism, maybe for the first time, or because you have encountered some Catholic traditions and theology that pique your interest? READ THIS BOOK. As an evangelical, I found it very palatable, in that I understood Mark Shea's allusions to scripture and writing style better than I did some other Catholic writers who do not have the "advantage" of an evangelical background.
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Summary: Should have consulted Protestant scholars for answers.
Review: In By What Authority, Mark Shea documents his reasons for leaving Evangelical Protestantism, and for becoming Catholic in an enjoyable and easy to read way. Shea sets a good example for Protestants with his questioning mind. Too many Protestants are ignorant of the reasons for their faith, and never bother questioning the things Shea questioned.It appears to me that there are three main reasons for Shea's conversion. As a Protestant, he couldn't prove that the books accepted by Protestants in the canon should have been accepted. He came to realize that Protestants accept some things from tradition. And he learned that the early church fathers were actually committed Christians, not pagans trying to incorporate their pagan beliefs into Christianity. Shea's fellow churchgoers gave him several invalid reasons for accepting the canon. It appears as though Shea concludes that if they can't give him good reasons, Protestant reasoning must be flawed. Shea should have looked beyond his own church for justification of the canon. If he had, he may have discovered that Protestants know the canon because its authors demonstrated their authority with signs and wonders. We use history and reason to determine when those conditions have been met. But because this is a logically inductive argument, not a deductive argument, R. C. Sproul admits that this results in a fallible list of infallible books. This makes Shea uncomfortable. But how is this any more uncomfortable than Shea's fallible belief in an infallible magesterium? Even if the Bible taught that Christ established a church with an infallible magesterium (which it doesn't), you would still have to use your fallible reasoning to determine what he meant by that. A Protestant could come along and say, "Jesus wasn't speaking literally there. There is no infallible church." The Catholic would be right to respond, "Yes, it is logically possible I am wrong, however I am very reasonable to believe that Christ was speaking literally, so I am reasonable to believe the magesterium is infallible." It would still be fallible belief in an infallible magesterium, but it would still be reasonable. Likewise, Protestants are reasonable to accept the canon that they have accepted. Shea makes another common Catholic error in assuming Protestants believe that nothing about morals can be known unless it is in Scripture. To paraphrase Luther, we will not change our view unless we are persuaded by Scripture OR SUFFICIENT REASON. Though I believe the Bible does teach that abortion and polygamy are wrong implicitly, Protestants can still draw conclusions about these things through reason. We believe Scripture is the only infallible guide, not the only guide. I have no idea where Shea's misconception about the early church fathers came from. Protestants love and respect them. We simply recognize that they are capable of error, just like the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, etc. Shea's journey started with the challenge of the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar challenged the canon, and he needed to validate it. Shea thinks he has discovered a response to the Jesus Seminar. His infallible magesterium has told him the canon was correct. I really don't think Crossan is going to be too impressed.
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Summary: Small, friendly book with a powerful punch
Review: In this book, Mark Shea presents his reasons for entering the Catholic Church. This is a fairly small book, but it packs a powerful punch. At the same time, Shea's writing style is always lucid and friendly, and manages to be humorous without making Protestants feel like they're the enemy (as unfortunately too many Catholic Apologetics books do at times). Shea manages to keep things friendly without pulling back from his main and very well constructed argument that Sacred Scripture makes no sense without the support of Sacred Tradition. I personally know many people who have found the argument the book presents compelling enough to bring them into the Catholic Church, or to solidly buttress questions they had about their Catholic faith. And the number of lengthy, and very defensive reviews here on amazon should give an idea about how agitated it makes some Protestant apologetics with its success. These reviewers wouldn't be so worried about it unless it were in fact making a real impact.
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Summary: nice read, but unconvincing
Review: Mark has a pleasent style of writing which makes this an enjoyable book to sit down with for an evening. But have the red ink pen handy! There are numerous logical errors in this book. 1] Mark builds a substantial case for tradition, but then with slight of hand, replaces tradition, for Roman Catholic 'Sacred Tradition', without any explanation. 2] He leads his Roman Catholic readers to believe that Evangelicals invest Martin Luther with some degree of infallibility. 3] He is satisfied with assigning 'Sacred Tradition' as the source of the 'scriptural table of contents', but never asks the question, 'How do I know what is Sacred Tradition'? 4]he assumes that everyone must suffer from the same deficencies as 'his friends' when explaining the bookends of Holy Writ.
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Summary: "Brevity and depth is the language of a wise fellow"
Review: Mark Shea by no means gives an exhaustive review of Sacred Traditon and the Life of the Church, but, rather, gives his Evanglical readers reason and ability to peer at Christianity from outside the box. For those whose eyes have been opened just enough to see a glimmer of sunlight and who are still disgrunted with "Roman" Catholic Tradition, I would suggest reading the late John Henry Cardinal Newman's "The Development of Christian Doctrine" [New York: Longmans, Green and Co., Inc., 1949].
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Summary: An Important book
Review: Mark shea does an excellent job of laying the case for sacred tradition. He starts off talking about why we should believe Jesus is God and then refutes many of the arguments for sola scriptura. He does it in a very loving way and doesn't put others down. As a matter of fact he says he is very grateful for what he learned as an evangelical. This is a great book on a very important topic.
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Summary: There's tradition, and there's Tradition....
Review: Mark Shea makes a fair case for the fact that Sacred Tradition is a necessary part of the Christian life. Where his argument fails, however, is in his equating of Orthodox Tradition with the traditions of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. It is surely true that St. Paul taught that we must keep the Tradition, both the written and the unwritten. It is also true that until St. Athanasius, we had no list of the canon of Scripture. It's even true that St. Ignatius of Antioch taught that the only way to be a member of the Church was to follow one's local bishop, and that that bishop must have Apostolic succession. However, this does not mean that the current Roman Catholic structure is the one to which the Christian must adhere. The Roman Catholics broke with every other local Christian community mentioned in the Scriptures in 1054. The issues over which the Roman Catholics decided to leave the others -- whom we now usually call "Eastern Orthodox" or, simply, Orthodox -- all involved Roman innovation in the period between Christ's Assumption into Heaven in A.D. 33 and the apostasy of Roman Catholics in A.D. 1054. In sum, so-called Roman Catholic "tradition" is not Holy Tradition, because Roman Catholicism left Orthodoxy in A.D. 1054. In short, Christians in the other four patriarchates never accepted the notion that Rome was the dictator of the Church. Obviously, they never thought of Rome as "the Apostolic See," for there are lots of Apostolic sees in Greece, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, etc. Mr. Shea likes to write about Church "councils" (which, in the original Greek, were always called "synods"), but does he ever mention that the canons of the Second Ecumenical Synod declared an anathema on anyone who added to or changed the Creed? Does he mention that Rome broke with Constantinople in 1054 because Constantinople wouldn't agree to a unilateral Roman alteration of the Creed? Go to a RC service today, and you'll hear the uncanonical interlineation of the _filioque_ recited by everyone there -- which brings everyone there under the anathema of the Second Ecumenical Synod! (Space prohibits me from going into the dozens of other examples of Roman abandonment of Tradition, such as the canons on fasting, in favor of the new-fangled notion of Universal Papal Jurisdiction.) The Orthodox, on the other hand, still recite the Creed of the Second Ecumenical Synod verbatim, and the Fathers in Heaven recite it right along with them. (Imagine the Fathers reciting the anathematized version along with the RCs!) If you think the nearest Roman Catholic group, with its modern architecture, its naturalist art, its liturgical dance, its electric musical instruments, its post-Vatican II abandonment of fasting, its sexually scandalous clergy, and its adherance to a Roman pontiff selected by a college of cardinals (an institution that was invented in the 11th century, by the way; what's "apostolic" about that?) is "the Catholic Faith," chances are you don't know much about Church history. In short, the fact that Protestantism was invented in the 16th century doesn't prove that Roman Catholicism is the Apostolic Church. There's [Roman Catholic] tradition, and there's [Orthodox] Tradition....
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Summary: A refreshingly plain-spoken apologetic
Review: Mark Shea writes for the non-theologian. There's a lot of information in this realtively small tome. The only down side might be to encourage laziness in me. Instead of defending the role of Tradition in my faith walk, I often hand them Mark's book, and say "Here! Read this!" Mark's positive way of stating his faith without bad-mouthing others is one of the book's most attractive features. I'm looking forward to more from this author.
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Summary: Excellent apologetic by a thoughtful writer
Review: Mark Shea's apologetic is a sort of stealth evangelism directed at evangelicals who have unwarranted prejudices against Catholicism. The author takes the reader on a journey through his own intellectual evolution from a staunch evangelical to an equally staunch Catholic. Shea's journey begins by him attepting to debunk the claims of the Jesus seminar which claims that "orthodoxy" is not the true Christianity seen in the NT, but rather later corrupting traditions added by power hungry clergy. While trying to prove the seminar wrong, Shea realizes his own unthought out reliance on tradition and how Evangelical assumptions are essentailly the same as the Seminar - though perhaps less radical. The question that really gave the author a rough time was the question of the canon. This question enabled the author to see how the seminar people were simply carrying Protestant "sola scriptura" logic to its natural conclusion. The author also realized during his search that many doctrines he took for granted really were not spelled out explicitly in scripture and that he had been relying on tradition. The book is very well written and easy to follow. Shea's style has been compared - rightly I believe, to C.S. Lewis. I witnessed someone close to myself completely change his attitude against Catholicism after reading this book. There is much food for thought here for both Protestants and Catholics.
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