Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Accessible, popular treatment of issues facing 1999Catholics,
By A Customer
This review is from: Catholics in Crisis?: The Church Confronts Contemporary Issues (World According) (Paperback)
In his usual popular style, William Bausch launches with gusto into this self described "primer" for Catholics (and others) wanting to face the challenges and influences encountered in Catholic life today. In 229 pages he whirls us through Catholic treatments of the New Age, evangelical fundamentalism, apocalypticism (end of the world - ism), the collapse of the "Total Church" and finally his own best attempts at addressing the struggles of the so described "partial Church." Unlike so many such treatments however, Bausch is less concerned with who is right and who isn't, than with what we as Catholics can learn about our current situation. This latest work is Bausch's response to some of the most topical issues facing (US) Catholics in 1999 and beyond. These same issues are of equal concern to New Zealand Catholics and their treatment here requires only the usual level of cultural translation to fit our South Pacific NZ setting. With a determined and very Catholic hope, the author sets out to explore the depressing statistics, the left and right wing arguments, and the successes of churches and movements offering alternatives to Catholicism. New and Old Age The "New Age," says Bausch, " is so concrete, so appealing, so sentimental - and so fuzzy." Breaking it all down into its chief characteristics, chapter one shows how there is real danger here for the would-be practitioner who wishes also to keep a balanced Christian faith. Very helpful is the unpacking of the self-centredness of much New Age theory and practice, something which immediately jars with the Gospel imperative to selfless living. Bausch, however, is not out to demonise the New Age movement nor its followers, a refreshing change after the truly unchristian efforts of so many self-proclaimed Catholic apologists in recent years. Instead, in chapter two, he begins by asking how the 'Old Age' should react to the New, or better, how Catholic tradition and Catholic beliefs should confront and learn from the New Age? With a critical but open mind, Bausch discovers, there is indeed a lot for us to learn. 'Saved' for the 'Rapture' No prizes for guessing the subject of the next two chapters entitled, Are You Saved and The Bible at the Centre. If you have ever suffered that sinking feeling as you watched yet another friend or family member slide into a fundamentalist church, then these chapters will provide helpful enlightenment. Noting that fundamentalism is present in all religions, Bausch focuses on American Christian fundamentalism, which has made such dramatic in-roads into Catholicism in recent decades. Again though, he is looking for the learnings as well as the dangers. Definitions can be everything in this type of discussion and here I found the author's approach both fresh and balanced. The reader will be intrigued by the range of individuals and groups who get a mention in relation to this topic. Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Catholics United for the Faith (CUF), Raymond Brown, The National Catholic Reporter (NCR), Opus Dei, 'cafeteria Catholics,' the AOGs, Marian apparitions, the Tridentines, Humanae Vitae, The Jesus Seminar, Catholics for Contraception, Youth for Christ, David Koresh, conservatives, liberals... we're all in there somewhere! Yet, Bausch keeps the discussion not only moving, but reasonable and fair. Perhaps the greatest insight here is the role that religious illiteracy plays in making Catholics 'easy meat' for fundamentalists on the proselytising warpath. End Times Chapters five and six move the reader into a treatment of millennial apocalypticism or, "the end of the world as we know it," to quote REM. Says the author, "New Age advocates look with disdain on fundamentalism and fundamentalism returns the compliment in spades. Yet, on one point, the end of the world, they become strange bedfellows." 'Endtimes' are a bigger business today than ever before and whether their reasoning is based on the imminence of the Second Coming or simply on the fact that the year 2000 has a nice ring to it, a lot of people are concerned about the end of the world. In these chapters Bausch succeeds admirably in calling the bluff of the ever-increasing number of apocalyptic prophets of doom. Accepting that God alone knows the day and the hour, Bausch recommends his readers, "stick with the Catholic tradition whose note is hope not destruction and whose slide into a new millennium is one of promise and jubilee." Leaking, not Sinking The final two chapters place our own church leakage under the microscope asking how so powerful and prestigious a church could so quickly falter in its appeal to its own. Examining internal and external reasons for this weakness leads naturally into a search for strategies for Catholic restoration during a new millennium. The author hazards a list of sixteen practical suggestions aimed at renewing the church from the inside out. These range from serious reflection on our modern, post-Christian context to a recapturing of our sense of the sacred; from seeing ourselves as the church 'out there' (as opposed to 'in here') to addressing the religious illiteracy of so many contemporary Catholics. A Good Yarn Catholics in Crisis? will not win any honorary doctorates for its author and nor is it likely to end up as a core text for our theology students. But its popular style, well supported by up-to-the-minute research, will appeal to a far wider readership precisely because it fearlessly tackles, in an accessible manner, so many of 1999's 'in-your-face' issues. As a pastoral worker in the young Catholic arena I found it a helpful and hopeful publication, one which I will be recommending warmly to many of the young adults and youth leaders with whom I work. If the signs of the times concern you as a Catholic then Catholics in Crisis? comes highly recommended.
7 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A total waste of time!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Catholics in Crisis?: The Church Confronts Contemporary Issues (World According) (Paperback)
This book was yet another one of Bausch's attempts to trash his own religion. He is obviously closed-minded and would like to see the one true church blend in with all the thousands of untruths out there today. If you want to waste your precious time reading this slow-moving and biased book then suit yourself. But please, learn from my mistake! Don't waste your time or money on this book!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
