Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/misc/answers/answers.002

Text File | 1990-07-09 | 11KB | 180 lines

                How to Talk With Fundamentalists

     You surely have been through it.  There is a knock at the
door.  Outside is a man with a big smile, an open Bible, and tough
questions about the Catholic religion.  Or you are accosted on the
street by someone who asks, "Have you been saved?"  Or, outside
church after Mass, you find people passing out leaflets opposing
Catholic beliefs and arguing with any who object.
     If you get into a discussion, it appears to go nowhere.  You
end up frustrated, and no one seems at all convinced by what you've
said.  The others walk away, apparently thinking even less of the
Catholic religion than before.  You didn't handle the situation
well, and you know it.
     The moral is that knowing how to argue is just as important as
knowing what to argue.  If you have no appreciation of technique,
all the knowledge in the world won't help you since you won't be
able to pass it along.  You can be a walking theological treatise,
but if you antagonize opponents or talk past them, you've wasted
your time and theirs.  And it isn't enough to be a good
conversationalist.  That won't make up for doctrinal or historical
ignorance.  To be an effective apologist, you must marry delivery
and content.

     1. Know the Bible.  No matter how fine your religious
training, no matter how well you think you know doctrines or Church
history, you need to be quite familiar with Scripture if you intend
to make an impression on fundamentalists. (Of course, you should be
conversant with the Bible anyway, not solely as preparation for
controversy.)  Concentrate on the New Testament, though not to the
exclusion of the Old.  There's no need to memorize great chunks of
the Bible, the way fundamentalists do.  You should be especially
familiar, though, with the Gospels--if you aren't at ease with the
details of Christ's life, you're in trouble. Frank Sheed, the
street-corner apologist, put it this way: "A Catholic apologist who
is not soaked in the Gospels is an anomaly in himself, and his work
is doomed to aridity."  The New Testament is short enough to be
read during the evenings of a single week.  Spend several weeks
with it before doing anything else--and then read it regularly.
You should not read the Bible to the exclusion of all other books
(many fundamentalists do this and thus lack perspective), but it
has to be the ground on which your other reading rests.
     2. You will accomplish little unless you have a vibrant prayer
life.  A good way to pray is to meditate on biblical verses.  Read
slowly, sit back, think.
     3. In discussions, never be afraid to acknowledge ignorance.
If you don't know the answer to a question, say so.  You'll
survive, and so will your ego.  The answers you give on other
points will be taken more seriously if people you speak with see
you're not trying to bluster your way through a discussion.
     4. You must be absolutely honest.  Never pretend doctrines or
facts are other than they really are.  Don't avoid hard cases, but
don't pander to your listeners.  There's no need to try to make
hard truths palatable.  Just state them as they are--but first know
what they are.  If you can give only a one-sentence explanation of
the Real Presence, you don't know enough to be discussing it.
Admit your ignorance (to yourself, at least), then do your
homework.  An embarrassment today can result in fuller
understanding--and better apologetics--tomorrow.  When talk turns
to awkward points of Church history, don't misrepresent them.
Don't hide blemishes.  There's no need to.  Put things in context,
and recall that the Kingdom of God (the Church) contains wheat and
chaff, saints and sinners.
     5. Sarcasm always backfires.  Avoid it, even when your
opponents stoop to it.  When they do, their consciences will annoy
them later; don't allow them to justify their rudeness by
exchanging wisecrack for wisecrack.
     6. Familiarize yourself with anti-Catholic literature.  See
what topics are emphasized: the Bible as the sole rule of faith,
justification by faith alone, the Mass, prayers to Mary and the
saints, much more.  See how the arguments, weak as they may be, are
handled.  You'll at once perceive that anti-Catholic materials are
skewed, but if you can't think of complete and ready rejoinders,
make notes and study up.
     7. When arguing, keep your expectations modest.  Don't expect
conversions; they aren't overnight things.  Count yourself
successful if your opponents leave with the feeling that there is
a sensible (even if not acceptable) Catholic response to each of
their charges.  It would be a great triumph just to have an active
anti-Catholic withdraw from the fray and mull things over.
     8. Avoid technical words.  Even Catholics misunderstand what
is meant by  "transubstantiation," "Immaculate Conception," "Virgin
Birth."  On the other hand, don't be monosyllabic.  To oversimplify
is to sidestep fine points; that's equally bad.
     9. Try to show a doctrine in relation to other doctrines.
It's important to see the Church as a totality.
     10. Avoid verse-slinging.  It accomplishes little.  You need
to get some perspective--and you need to give your opponents some.
Enter the discussion with a plan; know what the main points should
be, then stick with them.  All fundamentalists concentrate on a few
scriptural passages that seem damaging to Catholicism.  Take the
initiative.  Address their points, but don't allow them to ask all
the questions.  Ask your own.  Put them on the spot, and point out
the weaknesses of fundamentalism.
     11. Don't argue to win.  You can "win" yet drive people
further from the Church. Argue to explain.  Show fundamentalists
the Catholic position from the inside.  This means reorienting
them, giving them a new perspective.  Remember, they think they
take their beliefs straight from the Bible; in fact, the Bible is
used to substantiate already-held beliefs.  They begin with their
own "tradition," which is generally their pastor's inter-pretation
of the Bible.  (For many fundamentalists, their pastor is their
pope.  When confronted with hard questions, they don't turn to the
Bible to discover the answers; they say instead, "Let us ask our
pastor.")
     12. No matter how well they have memorized it, fundamentalists
know little other than the Bible, which they know only selectively.
They know little Church history, little formal theology.  They may
never have seen a catechism.  You must provide the larger picture.
If the topic is the interpretation of a scriptural passage, go to
a good commentary and study up, but also go straight to the Fathers
of the Church and learn what they wrote about the subject.  Tell
your opponents you do this because it is unlikely that people who
were writing when the Church was young and memories of Christ vivid
would erroneously report what beliefs the Church started with.  If
early Christian writers took it for granted that a sacrificial
priesthood was set up by Christ (which they did), that fact is a
powerful argument in support of the priesthood.  If writers living
a few generations after Christ mentioned the Real Presence (which
they did), that argues in favor of the Catholic interpretation of
John 6.  And so on.
     13. Know what fundamentalists mean by particular terms.  You
can waste much time by discussing two different things while using
the same terminology.  Take faith.  To Catholics, faith is the
acceptance of revealed truths (doctrines) on God's word alone.
This is called theological or confessional faith.  But for
fundamentalists, faith is trust in Christ's promises.  This is
fiducial faith.  Tradition is another confusing term, as are
inspiration and heaven.  See what fundamentalist writers mean by
the terms; compare them with Catholic definitions.  If you don't
define terms clearly, fundamentalists will misunderstand your
argument.  And don't presume a question means what it seems to
mean.  Find out what your opponents are trying to say.  Take time.
If the question refers to the Virgin Birth, make sure they don't
mean the birth of the Virgin.
     14. Fundamentalists may say, "Let's start by admitting that
the Bible as the sole rule of faith."  Translation: "Let's admit
the Church has no authoritative role; all answers to religious
questions are to be found on the face of Scripture only."  Don't
agree to it. It just begs the question, and it's untrue.  As a
counter, ask your opponents to try to prove that the Bible was
intended to be the sole rule of faith.  The Bible makes no such
claim--in fact, it denies it--but you have to know which verses to
cite to prove it.
     15. Discuss the history of the Bible.  You need to make plain
it was the Church that formed the Bible, not the Bible the Church.
Note, too, that the New Testament wasn't designed as a catechism.
It was written to people who were already Christians, so it
couldn't have been intended as the sole source of religious
teaching.  In the early years, teaching was oral and was under the
authority of the Church, which also decided what books belonged to
the Bible and what didn't.
     16. Bishop Fulton Sheen once wrote that few Americans hate the
Catholic Church, but millions hate what they mistakenly think is
the Catholic Church.  You need to show fundamentalists what the
Church really believes.  Remember, their knowledge of the Church is
based almost entirely on what they have heard from the pulpit or on
anti-Catholic tracts.  They are working in good faith, but they
have been misinformed.  Perhaps they should have done more
homework, but the fault isn't theirs completely.  They trust the
sources they've had, but now they should be shown there is more to
consider.
     17. Take up a single topic at a time; look at it leisurely,
from several angles, and never presume fundamentalists know what
you mean even by what you think are simple terms like soul,
revelation, Mass.  If they did, they wouldn't have such odd ideas
of what the Church stands for.  You have to speak with them the way
you would speak with uninstructed Catholics.  The first task is to
make them see what the Catholic positions are.  Don't start by
justifying Catholic doctrines through apposite Bible passages.
That can be effective, but it invites digressions.  First you need
to show them what the doctrines are.  They will almost always have
preconceived and quite wrong notions of them.  Only once the
doctrines are understood in themselves should you turn to their
justification.  Showing what a doctrine means is the principal task
you have.
                                        --Karl Keating
                                          Catholic Answers
                                          P.O. Box 17181
                                          San Diego, CA 92117