Boox

March 28, 2007 By 16 Comments

The discussions on Anglicans converting to Catholicism here and on Fr. Al Kimmel’s blog have been generating a lot of discussion across the blogosphere. Hits to this blog have gone through the roof.

If you are reading this and are thinking through the claims of the Catholic faith there are plenty of good books to read. On the papacy I recommend Steve Ray’s Upon This Rock. On Mary read a book I wrote with a fellow Bob Jones graduate, David Gustafson. It’s called Mary-A Catholic-Evangelical Debate. For the big picture read Tom Howard’s Evangelical is Not Enough. For a friendly, general explanation of the Catholic faith try my book More Christianity. On Justification read Not By Faith Alone and on the doctrine of Scripture read Not By Scripture Alone by Robert Sungenis.

Books of conversion stories make excellent reads. Try the one I edited: The Path to Rome which is a collection of mostly Anglican/English conversion stories. Pat Madrid’s series Surprised by Truth still reads well, and individual conversion stories of note are: Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain, Scott and Kimberly Hahn’s Rome Sweet Home and Cardinal Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

If you’re thinking of converting and you’re a pastor be in touch with the Coming Home Network.

Path to Rome, Mary-A Catholic Evangelical Debate and More Christianity are all available through my website. Link from here to the site and go to the ‘Books’ page.
Do readers have more recommendations? Put them in the combox.

Filed Under: Uncategorized 16 Comments
About Fr. Dwight Longenecker
  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/03892529674664589034 Jeff Miller

    “Jesus, Peter & the Keys: A Scriptural Handbook on the Papacy” is an excellent book that really makes the case for the Papacy based mostly on scripture and then the Church Fathers.Once you have the authority of Peter down, everything else should fall into place.

  • Anonymous

    Another reason for your hits going up–those of us who linked here from Fr. Pontificator liked what we saw in other posts and RSS-ed ya!

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/12373317560249811006 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

    what’s ‘rss-ed’?

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/17691145638703824456 kkollwitz

    from Wiki:RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.Users of RSS content use programs called feed “readers” or “aggregators”: the user subscribes to a feed by supplying to his or her reader a link to the feed; the reader can then check the user’s subscribed feeds to see if any of those feeds have new content since the last time it checked, and if so, retrieve that content and present it to the user.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/17799084432981230598 Brad Harvey

    During the quarter century leading up to my conversion, I visited Rome twice, studied Scripture, read some really rabid anti-Catholic works, some patristic writings, and near the end of the journey, The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Through it all, I managed to avoid reading a single Catholic apologetic work. Since dog-paddling the Tiber I have read most of the good apologetics published in the last dozen years. The one that would likely have convinced me to convert years earlier is Thomas Howard`s On Being Catholic.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/15800531286676786803 The Perpetual Malcontent

    your post about the ex-baptist guy seems to be missing.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/03814831624547392519 Jay Anderson

    Steve Ray’s Crossing the Tiber made a big impact on me.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/11237911074590229686 Brian

    I agree with Brad Harvey. On Being Catholic is a splendid book.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/17691145638703824456 kkollwitz

    “post about the ex-baptist guy”It must be on double-secret probation.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/12373317560249811006 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

    The post about the ex Baptist was yanked for personal reasons.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/09356738924839809045 Andrew

    Wow Father! You’ve listed almost my entire convert booklist!May I recommend Scott Hahn’s Hail Holy Queen on Mary, Lord Have Mercy on Confession, The Lamb’s Supper on the Mass, Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments as an introduction to the Sacraments and A Father who Keeps His Promises on a general Catholic Understanding on Salvation History. The Catholic For a Reason series in interesting as well.I assume you’re listing only those books geared towards popular reading rather than the serious scholarly stuff.

  • Anonymous

    I’d recommend Paul Williams, ‘The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism’ (Continuum, 2002) for anyone coming from a background related to Eastern mysticism. The author is Professor of Indian and Tibetan Philosophy at Bristol University, and was a practising Buddhist for more than 20 years.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/12373317560249811006 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

    Thanks, Paul’s book is good. Maybe other have recommendations for those coming to Christianity from other religions?

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/09356738924839809045 Andrew

    I would like to recommend a these books by Daniel Ali, a Muslim convert to the Catholic Church.Out of Islam: Free at LastInside Islam: A Guide for Catholics co-authored with Robert SpencerAnd the Islam and Christianity video series co-authored with Fr. Mitch Pacwa.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/13753776175726884530 Rowena Hullfire

    Well, if you’re talking Anglicans/Episcopalians, you can’t ignore John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua.One thing I’m observing of ECUSA on the ground in real life, is that for a church founded on sexual sin, and frontrunners in promoting sexual sin, my ECUSA sibs are shocked, shocked to discover that their teen kids are sexually active and just as indifferent about it as the culture in general. Well, duh, what has the preaching been? Accepting and embracing all manner of alternative lifestyles. Sex doesn’t matter. Zero on purity and chastity and a healthy theology of the body. Zero resistance to the broader culture that is hypersexualized and spits on the innocence of our children.Pretty liturgy, anglophilia, and All The Right People (TM) belonging to your church doesn’t make up for lacking the fullness of truth. I’m not being facetious here, those three points are what they brag about on their churches.Too bad their kids had to pay the price.

  • http://thesheepfold.typepad.com/ The Sheepcat

    Haven’t read Sungenis’s book on scripture, but from what I see on Catholic and Enjoying It, he’s gotten strangely obsessed with Jews, so I’d be inclined to take his stuff with a grain of salt. Personally I found Mark Shea’s By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition extremely helpful. The content of Ray’s Crossing the Tiber is fine, but it’s presented in an undigested manner (with footnotes taking up 80% of more than a few pages) as if the book was written in too much of a hurry.