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Brief Conversation with the Madre Today

MOM: Thought you might like this one [essay from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries] - have you read any of Os Guinness? I've heard his name before, but haven't read anything by him - is he on the same plane as C.S. Lewis? Who is your favorite author?

ME: Ya, I’ve heard him speak before… He’s very intelligent. He was mentored in part by Francis Schaeffer of L’Abri in France. He’s a evangelical cultural critic. Though he is a smart guy and very respectable, he should never be placed on the level of C. S. Lewis. Lewis was a Theologian and a Writer and a Scholar on a level which very few people ever reach. Lewis is one of my favorite authors. I’ve never thought of who would be my favorite author, but I really enjoy reading Mark Noll, George Marsden, John Henry Newman, G. K. Chesterton, and various others…

Go to this link and see a lot of the books on my shelf:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=s_grace


MOM: Wow, that's a lot of books - does that mean you read them all? If so, are you a confused mass of information or are you pretty settled in what you believe????? The only one on the short list you gave that I know about is G.K. Chesterton, although I've never read any of his books, but I find it interesting that C.S. Lewis and Chesterton were Catholics in spite of their biblical knowledge. Having been part of the Catholic Church and knowing many of their false doctrines, I find it hard for someone who knows the Bible to remain in the Catholic Church, or joining it like Scott Caton. I used to get the magazine, First Things First, put out by some intellectual Catholic priest Richard Neuhaus, who wrote the bestseller, "The Naked Public Square," about results of taking religion out of the public eye. The magazine had many intellectual articles religious in nature, but I found it to be too verbose with little real biblical knowledge. Too often it seemed like a lot of "hot air" without really getting to the truth (at least as I perceive it to be), they often critiqued the evangelical who believed in "sola scriptura" or "sola fida" etc. Oh well, I know I'll never measure up to the intelligence of those highly distinguished theologians and scholars, but I do know that we all will be held accountable for the "true" light we do have and our actions upon it - that's scary enough with regard to the Judgment Seat of Christ, "therefore knowing the terror of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 10:11). Glad you had lunch on me today! Love Mom

ME: NO. I have not read all of those books. I have read portions and pieces of most. I would say I have only read 50% of them all the way through. Some are reference books. You don’t read reference books, you reference them.

Ha! Do I know what I believe? I’m not sure what exactly you mean by that, but on the macro level, YES, I am a Christian and I confess the Nicene Creed (the first expression of the essence of “Christian-ness” aside from the scriptures and the apostles). And I confess the Reformation teachings of Sola Scriptura; Solus Christus; Sola Gratia. Sola Fide; Soli Deo Gloria.

What I have learned through all this reading is that there is very little we can know purely and objectively, and what we do say we know for sure, we take on faith, such as the existence of God and Salvation in Christ and Future Redemption. We don’t KNOW they are true, but we BELIEVE they are true, otherwise it wouldn’t be faith.

I certainly don’t understand most of the distain between your generation of Protestants and Catholics, but I know Rochester was a “catholic” city so that might be part of it… I do not agree with some of Catholic Dogma, but I have to be honest and say that the growth and maturity of my faith has much to do with Roman Catholics. Don Curran told me several years ago that he thought there would be a whole lot of Catholics in heaven, more than we expected… I thought that was interesting and now I think he’s right. Thomas A Kempis, Aquinas, Newman, Henry Nouwen, Chesterton, and several others have developed much of the philosophy of life that I have received. I don’t think the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater. The mentality that I learned growing up was that Catholics were “bad” and “lost” and “evil”… etc, etc. Though I don’t doubt my teachers intentions, looking back I think it’s silly, and I now understand the misperceptions most theologically untrained people have and develop. God knows.

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