One of my friends has asked me to read Crossing the Tiber and he is allowing me to borrow his copy of the book. I’ve only read about fifty pages so far, so I’m not going to give any specific critique of it yet. Instead, I’m going to focus on two things that frustrate me. These two things are seemingly paradoxical, but they actually are not.
The first frustration is the fact that this book deals mostly with strawman arguments. It does not go too deeply into the actual historical Protestant positions much at all, and as such (since I hold to the historical Protestant positions) I don’t find much in there in the way of compelling evidence against my position.
The second frustration, however, is that in reality the book is not that much of a strawman argument after all. Instead, it addresses the Evangelicalism that the author experienced. Likewise, I know from the church that I attended with my friend, that other Evangelical churches are doing a wonderful job of becoming the strawmen arguments.
Thus, to give a specific example, when the book critiques the Protestant idea of sola Scriptura, it doesn’t say anything about the historical sola Scriptura position, but it does go against the shallowness of many modern “Evangelical” churches in America.
Thus, I fully understand why this book has an appeal to some people who are struggling with issues relating to Roman Catholicism. Those who have been spoon-fed conclusions without learning the premises to go along with those conclusions are left floundering when challenged, and this book is a challenge to those conclusions.
Thus, I think in the end even though I have not found much compelling in the book so far as it relates to my position, it is a great wakeup call for showing that the American Church needs to learn to become intellectual. We need to teach our people how to think. We need to demonstrate our positions Scripturally and logically and historically when necessary.
Because even if someone has the right answer, if he doesn’t know how he got it he cannot have certainty in the correctness of his answer.
