Catholic Room

It started when our catholic neighbors got us to listen to some of Scott Hahn's tapes. They called themselves bible-believing catholics! That didn't make sense to us. So we made a deal. We would listen to Hahn if they agreed to listen to our pastor's sermons on tape. I thought they would see the light for sure.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to Cape Cod last summer. That's when we listened to Hahn's "Answering Common Objections", five tapes all the way through. The next morning I found her on the beach reading the Hahn's book, "Rome Sweet Home". I also found a copy of Hahn's other book, "The Lamb's Supper" in her beach bag. It turns out that our catholic neighbors were more generous than I thought, not just with tapes but books too. She finished them both in less than four days. Some vacation.

That's when I tried to call a halt to all the catholic nonsense. By then it was too late. My wife enrolled in RCIA in the fall and joined the catholic church last month at Easter... but not before she agreed to one more deal, this time with me.

I gave her my well-worn copy of Dave Hunt's book, "A Woman Rides the Beast", which tries to prove that the catholic church is the "Whore of Babylon" in Revelation. In exchange, I agreed to read Hahn's new book, "Hail, Holy Queen", as soon as it came out.

A slam dunk, right? Wrong.

For one thing, she had no trouble ripping Hunt's case to shreds, with the help of Karl Keating and Catholic Answers. On the other hand, I had no trouble seeing how the catholic church's teaching about Mary comes straight from the Bible, the WHOLE Bible, not just the New Testament, but the Old. As Baptists, we had always used the New Testament alone. Hahn shows convincingly that the only way to really understand what Jesus says and does in the New Testament, is by rooting it in the Old Testament. Then he applies it to Mary, to show why the early church fathers all saw her as the New Eve, the Ark of the new covenant, and the Queen Mother of the son of David. The bottom line, Mary really is Christ's masterpiece. Mary takes nothing away from her Son and Savior, since all her glory is His gift. It makes so much sense, and it is both true and beautiful.

The story has a happy ending. After much prayer and study, I've decided to join my wife by rejoining the catholic church next month at pentecost. Thank you Lord, and Dr Hahn too.