Customer Reviews

By What Authority? an Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition

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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.

I read this book in my examination of the Catholic faith from a Protestant perspective. Don't get sidetracked by the author's use of ridicule. His examination of Protestant traditions regarding interpretation and the authority of scripture made so much sense that I realized I could no longer remain a Protestant. WARNING!
This book is very unsettling to zealous, confirmed sola scriptura Protestants.

Mark Shea's clever and at times witty examination of the authority of Catholic tradition is a book I turn to again and again in my conversations with others and in my writing.

A former Evangelical, Shea sets out to disprove reliance on Catholic Sacred Tradition for authority. He is unable to. His research and well-reasoned arguments make a solid case against the Evangelical argument of Scripture alone, and a solid case for Sacred Tradition as expressed by the Catholic Church.

This book is short and easy to read. It is meant for the lay person, not the theologian.

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.

By What Authority is a wonderful read. Shea's prose is witty and his argument is compelling. He describes how as a young evangelical Christian he encountered the writings of revisionist theologians who compose the "Jesus Seminar." After studying the Jesus Seminar's attacks on the central tenets of Christianity, Shea gradually realized that the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura could not provide a sufficient basis of authority to adequately defend his Christian faith. Shea's book marvelously describes his faith journey to the Catholic Church how and why the Church has an articulable and authentic basis of authority on which one can confidently stake one's faith. This is a refreshingly quick read (it took me a day) but the argument is timeless.

I have more than a 150 books, tapes and in-depth tracts on religious apologetics; a 1/3 by Catholics, 1/3 by Protestants and a 1/3 by converts to Catholicism. If I was required to surrender all of them, save but one, it would be this one: By What Authority by Mark Shea. It is above all both convincing, and compelling. It is gentle on the unbeliever yet firm in showing our obligations to give primacy to the Truth of the One who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life", as opposed to our own preconceived agendas. It leads you step by step that is pleasing and interesting (like a brotherly conversation) to both those who are logical as well as those who live their religious beliefs by feelings alone. For those who wish to find the truth and the True Religion in the smorgasbord of religious denominations and sects (30,000 and counting), Mark truly gives us the path to follow. When you are done reading it, you can't help but see the sweet harmony that exists between the Church's Bible (the Witness of light for the faith), the Sacred Tradition (the lens explaining and giving full flesh to the truth of the witness), and the Church which is judge and preserver of the truth. Without the teaching Church and Sacred Tradition of which Paul praises, we end up in the scandalous quagmire of "Bible Only" interpretations which have done so much to dismantle Christendom's attraction for all unbelievers who now gloat over our fundamental disagreements as to God's Truth.

Besides my own copy (which is glutted with marker clips and highlightings), I have given this book to many religious foes of Catholicism, and asked them to return it if they find it unconvincing. None have come back to me so far. This book will save many a truth - hungry soul and may Mark's own soul be saved as he has saved so many.

There are many, many new books on Catholic apologetics written by former ("I'd rather die than become a Catholic!") Protestants. This is one of the best! His style is interesting. It could be described as 'point/counter-point' or 'playing the devil's advocate' regarding any new insight. Mr.Shea's logic is impeccable and his reasoning deductible. He arrives at conclusions that one might never gain yet, when presented, make total sense.
It's style should not offend any but the most strident anti-Catholic. Even to this mindset, his attitude is open and welcoming. His conclusions are hard to refute because, in coming to these logical ends, he anticipates objections, defines them, attempts to defend the objection, and finally states his conclusion only to begin the following chapter with, "Yes, but!!" Highly recommended to Protestants who are secure enough in their theology to look openly and Catholics who want to understand their faith more deeply.

I just finished the book above. It was a very interesting read. I just realized I have too many Apologetic books and many times there is a sense of redundancy. Nevertheless, this book was a systematic analysis of Mark Shea's step-by-step conversion out of Evangelical-Protestantism towards "evangelical" Catholicism, which is what true Catholicism is supposed to be anyway. The nature of "catholicism" as the meaning of the Greek word reflects, is evangelical, to reach out to all peoples, to be universal. Mr. Shea demonstrates the inconsistencies of the "sola scriptura" (Scripture alone) doctrine and how much of evangelical-Protestantism does indeed embrace extra-biblical beliefs which are not explicitly taught in the Bible. If so, there needs to be an honest assessment of "tradition" in one's own belief system. If "tradition" is so bad, then why do Protestants have them as well? Of course, I would admit, a Tradition of the Assumption of Mary needs more theological scrutiny than a Protestant's acceptance of the "sanctity of life" tradition... But I will let the book earn it's own merits. A wonderful book for a non-Catholic looking to see where there are strengths and weaknesses in his/her own tradition, and to see the answers to those weaknesses, without sacrificing the strengths of his/her beliefs. The answers, to be found of course, in the Catholic faith, the Catholic Tradition, the Catholic Church.

Whether you are Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, it does not matter- I think this book may be able to answer many burning questions that one may have about the nature of faith, especially when the faith tends to be anarchic if not tinged with a sense of proper tradition from the authentic teachings of Christ. If one is Atheist or Agnostic, I would not recommend this book, b/c it does require a rudimentary knowledge and familiarity with the Christian Scriptures. I would recommend, "Mere Christianity" or "The Case for Christ" first...

Due to the many questions I have answered over the years about why I came back to the faith, and more particularly, why I came back to the Catholic faith (despite the scandals and trials that the institutional Church faces in America today), I am writing a similar work to this book. Not nearly as scholarly or as "well researched" or lengthy... lol... But I am unsure when that will be completed. I have much to do in preparation for my graduation from University. For undertaking that writing task, I have a few people to thank for their curiosity... Although I am not sure they would even wish to read something like what I plan to write, those who will read it and benefit from it (hopefully), have these "skeptics" to thank for what I do... They know who they are. May the Lord bless them and guide them in their search for Truth in this world...

Dominus Vobiscum,
Laurence

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.

When an Evangelical Protestant moves to a Church more in line with historic Christianity, it is often difficult to break old habits in defending this change to friends in the Evangelical movement. Frequently, the new convert defends his newly held doctrines by supplying lists of "proof texts" with an analysis divorced from the Faith that gives the doctrines life. From the perspective of historic Christianity, the context of the ancient Faith is everything. If you don't view the world from the eyes of the early Church, worship and pray as they did in their liturgies, and read the Scriptures within the context of their received Faith, then it is absurd to conclude you could share their beliefs.

In By What Authority?, Mark P. Shea shares his face-to-face encounter with this problem as he sought to counter scholarship questioning the truthfulness of the New Testament accounts of Jesus Christ. As he delved deeper into the issues raised, he came to realize the Evangelical Protestantism he sought to defend employed the same flawed deconstructionist principles as the modernist critics of the Gospel. The only difference between the two was in the degree these principles were followed to their logical conclusions. Scurrying for an answer to this challenge, he began to seek the wisdom of the early Christians in the writings of the Church Fathers and in the process discovered the rudder the Church has always used to steer its way clear of Scriptural misinterpretations: the Tradition of the Church.

In this engrossing account, Shea lays out for the reader his thought process as he began to appropriate the Tradition of the Church as a necessary component in the preservation of doctrinal integrity. Intertwining issues facing the Church today with past controversies, a context is provided in which the writings of the early Church come to life and the reader can see through a patristic lens the inseparability of Holy Scripture and Apostolic Tradition.

One common criticism for books of this sort is their failure to prove the case for Apostolic Tradition to the satisfaction of many advocates of sola sciptura. This usually means they have not engaged in listing "proof texts" from Holy Scripture and given a systematic development from those texts. Such criticisms are erroneous from the start as they presuppose the a use of a scriptural passage to develop an explicit proposition devoid of the historical, cultural, and theological presuppositions shared within the Church to whom it was addressed. Holy Scripture was given as an infallible witness to attest to the truthfulness of the Faith already given and present in the Church. It was never intended as a source of deductive theorems without recourse to the shared life of the Church. Furthermore, in assuming a restriction to scriptural passages, the critics assumes their conclusion. One must look to all evidence of the context in which the Holy Scriptures were used to understand how early Christians would have viewed the competing claims.

As Shea and many others from Evangelicalism have discovered, you cannot truly understand the Bible until you understand the Church. Furthermore, you cannot understand the Church until you understand Tradition. Many things not explicitly mentioned in Holy Scripture are nonetheless contained in traditional presuppositions shared by the New Testament writers and their intended audience. For example, the early Church that worshipped liturgically, baptized, and offered the Eucharist in union with the bishop and his presbyters might read things in passages mentioning work (the Greek word for liturgy translates roughly as "work of the people"), worship, water, bread, wine, order, and authority that would be missed by those Evangelicals who worship casually, have a quasi-gnostic view of matter as "evil" (hence grace can not come from material means such as Sacraments), and share a uniquely American paranoia concerning all expressions of authority. These contextual readings, obvious to any properly catechized Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican Christian, would never even occur to many Evangelicals.

However, there is one theme in this book needing further development. While making a compelling case for Tradition and skillfully handling many common objections, he without much explanation assumes the Tradition of the early Church to be the Tradition of the Roman Church. Shea can at points leave one with the view that the Catholic Church alone uses Tradition. This is certainly not the case - the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox have as high a view as Rome and the Anglican appeal is less but certainly not inconsequential. Many traditionalist Lutherans and Reformed Christians also appeal to tradition for their distinctives (even though they may never use the word). Furthermore, the historical evidence concerning distinctively Roman developments of Tradition (e.g., papal infallibility, specifically Roman doctrines on Mary) casts serious doubts on the veracity of Shea's claims. Thus the case for Rome as holding fast to the pure undefiled Tradition of the early Church must be viewed as suspect without further supporting evidence.

Despite this one drawback, Shea has still given a clear and powerful testimony to the necessity of Tradition in the Church. All Christians attracted to the beliefs and practices of historic Christianity will find much to contemplate in its pages. By What Authority? successfully calls the bluff of contemporary Evangelicalism and leaves its modernist foundations bare for all to see.