This is an discussion of Michael Coren`s book Why Catholics Are Right. My intent is not to debate Catholic doctrine; there are plenty of serious scholars and theologians qualified to do that. Rather, my interest is this book as a discussion of Christianity, and whether it contends for the faith properly. Is this a pursuit and exposition of objective truth, or intellectually dishonest dogma?
Full disclosure. I am not a Catholic, but rather an evangelical Christian with a finely-tuned baloney detector. I am also a fan of Michael Coren, and have been for many years. He hosts a show on the Sun News Network, has written countless articles, books, and is an outpost of good sense in the wasteland of Canadian news media. Therefore, I eagerly anticipated this book as a challenge from one whose work I respected.
Unfortunately, this book is an utter failure, undermined from its own brevity as much as anything. The simple fact is the book is a third the length it should be. I understand that any modern Canadian publisher would balk at a thousand page magnum opus that didn't involve Stephen King. Perhaps a different title, then? Some Stuff I Believe as a Catholic? A Little Book of Half-Arguments? The Longest Book We Expect the Publicly Educated Will Read? None of these are properly provocative. Neither the angry atheist or self-righteous evangelical would bother with it because he would not see it as an attack. Only the soft, mushy Laodicean would spend a tepid Sunday afternoon with that book. No, the title had to be what it is to provoke sales, as the book's length had to be what it is for publishing.
Did this mean the quality of content had to suffer? I don't think so. C. S. Lewis had plenty of content in his writings, and yet his tremendous works and sensible logic remain accessible to even the silliest of the college educated today. Michael Coren would certainly be the first to declare he is no C.S. Lewis, yet in this book, he does what not even that master would dare- he divides the brethren into Catholics and semi-believers. Lewis attempted to get a person into the door of the banquet hall and let them decide for themselves to which room they would go to enjoy the feast. It is a narrow Catholic conceit that only the kitchen at the Vatican produces real food, and Protestants gorge on sewage of varied putridity.
My objection to this book is not that it exposes me to statements with which I don't agree. I am not on the political Left. I will believe anything if you can make a good argument for it. For a book that claims to answer "Why?" there is precious little cogent argument. There is plenty of "This is what we believe, and you're silly if you don't believe it also." That might be good enough for your great-aunt Beatrice who is getting on in years and doesn't want any part of a vigorous back and forth, but Michael Coren is better than that. I have seen him skillfully dice fools, and stand his ground against better minds than his. Where is the analysis here? It is not enough to state that your views are correct. If you are to exhibit any intellectual honesty, you must show that opposing views are incorrect. I understand the defining characteristic of postmodern Western thought is the lack of objective universal truth, but a Christian must not be mired in such a dead end.
Consider this. In discussing the question of William Tyndale translating the Bible into English, it states "... he (Tyndale) also insisted on inserting his own words into passages with the specific purpose of changing their meaning. The word congregation, for example, was used instead of Church, the word ordinance instead of tradition, and instead of the original 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols,' he used the word images. The intent was quite clear: to contradict Catholic teaching even though the original words supported the Catholic position ñ they could not do otherwise because the Catholic position came from the text and not the other way around."
Any measure of intellectual honesty would reference the original Greek words so the reader would be left with no doubt as to the veracity of the statements. There is an end note to referencing some author I've never read, but how are people meant to dig any deeper? I can read Greek, and it is of little effort for me to do the research, but I submit it is M.C.'s intent that we accept him at his word that Tyndale was working to undermine Church authority by a shoddy translation. Consider these questions:
1. The word ekklesia literally means "the called." At what point did it begin to be translated as "Church"? What did the word "congregation" mean to a sixteenth-century English layman? How did he use it in his speech? Would he have seen Tyndale's translation of the word as an attack on the Roman Church, or is this a modern argument used to brush aside his work?
2. When did the word "Church" begin to take on the connotation of the hierarchical structure of the Papacy instead of referring to the mystical Body of Christ?
3. What did the Latin form of ekklesia connote to the layman, and did it have any significance here, considering both the Latin and English translations were respectively intended to be in the common tongue of their day?
These questions are not addressed. It is irrelevant what the noted source has to say, because I am reading this book. This book gives poor arguments and little substantive information. It is all the more annoying because the author is capable of so much more.
An even more egregious offence occurs earlier in the same chapter. "If the Bible is the final word of God and the only guide to salvation and life, why are there tens of thousands of competing Protestant denominations and why are so many of them mutually exclusive?"
Ugly, ugly ugly. This is dividing the brethren in the the most delightfully satanic way. We might observe that the Catholic church has the same issues. There are plenty of liberal Catholic leaders who would like nothing better than for the Pope to declare that homosexual married female priests shall now perform abortions. I have no doubt they could find Biblical support for their beliefs. It is easy to form a heresy. Find a passage, inflate its importance, ignore passages that contradict your new belief, and declare that the love of Christ shall overcome all. The truth remains that any Bible-believing teachers will differ on only the most trivial matters. Presentation of truth may be varied by culture or taste, but the truth remains constant. Could two congregations, each taking the Bible equally seriously with equal studiousness, hold radically different opinions on important theological matters? It is ridiculous. Proper use of the whole council of God may well produce some variety. The Bible is a complicated book, and good scholars will hold differing views on certain matters.
What is an unbeliever to make of the above quote? He will not see it as a valid criticism of the denominations, but of Christianity's validity and the Bible's reliability. "You see? They can't even make up their own minds!î Citing Papal authority will do no good to such a disenchanted heart. ìYou mean you actually admit they just make it up as needed? Absurd!" I submit M.C.'s little book will do more harm than good to such a one. C.S Lewis wrote some books. They're all good. Pick one at random and read it over and over.
Of course, I have admitted the Bible is a hard read. The noble Catholic believes we require divine guidance as filtered through the Vatican. I am not so silly as to deny knowledge from great theologians. I think John Paul II was a great scholar. However, I shall quote Acts 17:11- ìNow the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.î They were verifying Paul himself with Scripture. This is certainly at odds with Catholic teaching. As for that hideous misquote of Acts 8, it wasn't just some man reading Isaiah, it was a foreigner, an Ethiopian, reading the very Holy of Holies of the Old Testament, Isaiah 53. Of course people need quality instruction. It is quite a leap to use this passage, misquoted or not, as support for Papal supremacy.
I have declined to challenge the sanitized history of the Church presented simply because wallowing in the sewers of Papal history would serve no purpose here. Michael Coren waves off the Church's pursuit of temporal power as though it was not the major shaping force of European politics. Likewise, he dismisses the notion of bad popes as irrelevant to the work of Christ. I would submit all the Christians martyred under Leo X, or the girls raped by John IX would take some exception to this.
To conclude, this book is a well-intentioned first draft written by an important defender of the Faith. There is more good in it than bad, truth be told, but when it goes wrong, when it is incomplete, when it is silly, it is catastrophically so. The book states ideology instead of persuades, and ignores when it should confront. Faith is good. In fact we are commanded to it. It is vital, however, to know the difference between relying on faith and relying on logic and not pretend they are the same.
