Customer Reviews

Answering a Fundamentalist

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

Fr. Nevins has crafted an incredible weapon of Biblical truth. It is a powerful refutation to the silly, and sometimes outrageous misrepresentations hurled at the Catholic faith. This book asks and answers questions most Protestants never bother to contemplate... Who decided on the 26 books of the New Testament? And when? What did the Church do before the Bible was assembled? Where is "sola scriptura" in the Bible? It is a treasure chest of truth. I recommend it highly!!!!!

Authors of books on apologetics tend to cultivate an audience. Frequently converts from other Church traditions, they often write in an intentionally polemical style that is uniformly negative toward the theological beliefs they no longer accept. This confrontational approach often wins kudos among those who are traveling along the same path, but it can become wearisome to an honest inquirer.

That is why Answering a Fundamentalist by the Rev. Albert J. Nevins is such an enjoyable read. Using statements commonly used by Fundamentalist Protestants to disparage the Roman Catholic Church, he gives a clear presentation of the traditional Roman position and underscores the misrepresentations of his opponents. There are no broad attacks against Protestant motives, just a claim of the correctness of Roman Catholic dogma.

It is quite probable that this book is not so much aimed at bringing Fundamentalists to Rome as to provide a gentle reassurance to Roman Catholics confused by the claims of Fundamentalist acquaintances. For example, Nevins uses the granting of a plenary indulgence for scriptural study as an example of the seriousness of the Roman Church on encouraging scriptural literacy among the faithful. Whatever the motivation of such a policy, the introduction of the topic of indulgences likely raises more questions than it answers for those outside the Roman fold. There is also no attempt to address challenges from more serious opponents to specific Roman doctrines. Thus the reader might be left with the impression that the last word on a topic has been given without any discussion of more sophisticated arguments. This is perhaps forgivable since the subject matter clearly restricts the focus to the specific claims of Fundamentalist sects and not to the doctrines of Protestantism (or Churches outside the Roman Communion) in general.

Despite some flaws, the book presents a good introduction to Roman Catholics for the defense of their doctrine. Those not in the Roman Church can gain insight into the Roman position free of caricatures without having to endure polemical attacks upon their own beliefs. Indeed, when Orthodoxy and the more historically rooted forms of Protestantism agree with the Roman position against Fundamentalism, Nevins is quick to point this out. These attempts to demonstrate the historical consensus of the Church across traditions helps Answering a Fundamentalist avoid the bunker mentality far too common in apologetics.

I believe this was the first Catholic book I ever read. I never did review it, so I am doing it now. This is the book that introduced me to the world of apologetics. What is apologetics? Put simply, it is a reasoned defense of the faith which we subscribe to. As St. Peter says:

1 Peter 3:15 DRB But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, being ready always to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you.

This book, among other more detailed works I read after this, saved me from Christian fundamentalism as I was reeling back from years of atheism. As I sat and read an apologetic book which seemed to explain Catholicism called Understanding Roman Catholicism by Rick Jones, that book absolutely decimated my Catholic faith, however much of it was left. It made sense and it was "biblical". Little did I know, or would I expect that any person going by the label "Christian" would ever mislead. Taken out of context, all of Jones' arguments seem to fit. Until I read this book, Answering a Fundamentalist by Fr. Albert Nevins.

This book gives a simple approach to answering common objections to Catholic doctrines. He uses Holy Scripture and history to substantiate his arguments. It is not as powerful as Karl Keating's Catholicism and Fundamentalism, but it's good for beginners.

The chapters are as follows:
1. The Fundamentalist Phenomenon
2. The Bible
3. Tradition
4. The Church
5. The Papacy
6. Infallibility
7. The Magisterium
8. The Sacraments
9. Confession
10. The Eucharist
11. Purgatory
12. Mary
13. Saints and Images
14. "Call No Man Father"
15. The Inquisition
16. No Salvation Outside the Church

Good book. I recommend it for beginners...

-Laurence Gonzaga

I am a Catholic who converted from Pentacostalism and who has many family members still trapped in Fundamentalism...I have this book and while it's not the best I've read, it certainly does answer Fundamentalist challenges... my Huh? is response to the previous review above mine who states that there are various Catholic apologists refusing to debate James White...excuse me? Try looking up the Website entitled "Anti Catholicism Index"...you'll get more than you bargained for.

Father Nevins organizes the book by discussing 15 different challenges/topics of debate with Fundamentalists. Being a Fundamentalist, I found the "common criticisms" of Catholicism to be taking the most childish criticisms, ignoring the scholarly ones. Father Nevins took Fundamentalist objections, turned them into straw men, and then destroyed them. He spends very little time arguing the actual fundamental differences between Catholicism and Fundamentalism--for instance, if you accept the first 5 chapters, then the rest make a little more sense, but if you don't accept the first 5 chapters, then the last chapters are untenable to the highest degree. Nevins argues with word semantics in about half of the chapters, and takes much for granted by way of logical argumentation. Some of the chapters seemed merely to be a forced defense of a certain doctrine in light of binding doctrines already accepted, such as infallibility, etc. For instance, he uses a few "the Bible doesn't say this couldn't happen" phrases to contradict what the Scripture does say. For instance, he argues that even though Christ is the only mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5), it doesn't mean He can't appoint other people to be mediators. How else could you contradict that verse but by the way he did?

In short, logical fallacies and red herring arguments makes this volume weak if it's meant to be a defense against Fundamentalism.

I picked up this book as I was beginning my study of Catholicism. Coming from an anti-Catholic background, I appreciated reading the response to most of the things I had been taught. This led me to further study, in which I later found most of the concepts I had been taught regarding Catholicism, were wrong. It is a quick read and a basic overview of the beliefs. I recommend it as a starting place to begin your study between the two doctrines.

This was a disappointing read, to say the least. For starters, Father Nevins starts with a concept of Fundamentalism which would leave most self-described Protestant Fundamentalists scratching their heads! Nevins proceeds to "answer" a number of Protestant arguments, some of which would never be posed by any serious Fundamentalist or Evangelical apologist. Nevins also commits a variety of informal logical fallacies. (At one point, he even appeals to 20th century usage of an English word to determine 1st century usage of a Greek word!) In the interest of fairness, we should point out that we are not at all sympathetic to Nevins' cause, but we believe that the works of Catholic apologist Karl Keating are far more useful for both Catholics and Fundamentalists. With no animosity for the author himself, we do not believe Nevins' book was worth the brief time required to read it.

This defense of Catholicism is pretty basic. If you have a relative who isn't deep into anti-Catholic apologetics, try handing them this. However, this book won't bring someone like Dr. James White home.

You are encouraged to seek out Quaker- those are the English fundamentalsts as in Quaker Oats. I had and knew too teachers who were Quaker. He covers: the Bible, tradition, sacraments, purgatory, Mary, the Inquisition, papacy and infallibility. I thought it was witty and well written, which the Quakers were known for not really being successful, but witty. I was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran denomination after I accepted Jesus as my savior, the Bible as God's word to his people, the creation theory in Genesis and the American fundamentalists who still own the Consitution. To compare this Quaker argument to my own denomination and beliefs, it is similar to what is laid down in Luther's catechism. They both are fundamentalists who worship God, and are saying in these books that most of yesterday's supposed "Christians" are missing the whole point; when you convert to a religion the goal is to get the person so that they're not such a geek.

This book is not at all what I expected! I wanted some help in dealing with a couple of born-again crazed friends who won't leave me alone. I am not a Catholic, not even Christian, but I had no way to know this from the title or information on amazon.com.

The book is written by FATHER Albert Nevins and its purpose is to "help you strengthen your Catholic Faith." If that's what you want, don't buy it, I'll send you mine for the cost of postage. :-(

Definitely not a satisfied customer here.