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Sunday, March 07, 2010

Who needs the Pope?

One of the ironies of Roman Catholicism is that Catholics think Protestants need the pope, but they don't thing Catholics need the pope. Who needs the pope when you can turn to Scott Hahn, Peter Kreeft, or Dave Armstrong for guidance?


Four of My Books Were in the Amazon Top 100 for Catholic Theology Tonight

It changes every hour, but as of 11:45 PM EST Friday, four of my books were listed on Amazon's "Catholicism" category for bestselling books:

#27 The Catholic Verses (#16,964 sales rank) [2004]

#65 A Biblical Defense of Catholicism (#37, 306 sales rank) [2003]

#73 The New Catholic Answer Bible (#41, 082 sales rank) [2005]

#96 Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths (#52,106 sales rank) [2009]

Moreover, The One-Minute Apologist [2007] was just off the list with a quite-respectable #55,581 sales ranking. My latest volume, The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton [December 2009], which is still in the process of becoming known, was listed at #165,353.

This is quite humbling and gratifying to me, especially when I look at the authors who have more books on the list:

Peter Kreeft: 8 titles

Scott Hahn: 7 titles

Pope Benedict XVI: 6 titles

St. Thomas Aquinas: 4 titles

Pope John Paul II, Groeschel, Merton, Sheen, Keating, Trigilio, Arroyo: two titles

http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/03/four-of-my-books-were-in-amazon-top-100.html

6 comments:

  1. That's probably a good trade off for them.

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  2. Off topic: Steve, have you written or would you recommend anything about whether or not a Christian is sanctified by works?

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  3. I'm with the Catholic Champion: the middle men must go.

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  4. Not to answer for Steve, but one place Ryan could start is:

    http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Bad-Theology/No-Lordship--Easy-Believism/

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  5. Somewhat off topic, but have you ever noticed that most Catholic epologists such as Dear Old Dave consider themselves another Chesteron or Belloc? One can only imagine what the latter two would have thought about Vatican II and the ecumenicalism of recent popes.

    -Steve Jackson

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  6. Ryan,

    i) As you know, works can't sanctify apart from the Holy Spirit. That's a necessary precondition.

    ii) And just going through the motions, in performing various externals, is not a sanctifying process.

    iii) However, just about every experience which God brings our way can be a sanctifying experience. This can include obvious blessings.

    But it can also include hard providences. We learn how to cope and adapt in the face of challenges.

    ReplyDelete