If you want to defend the faith, you need to have good resources. A good apologist always has a good apologetic library. When I first started doing apologetics in a serious manner, there wasnt very many Catholic ministries out there to help me. As a result, I wasted a lot of money on books and tapes that didnt really fit my needs. You can avoid this problem and I can help. Periodically on this blog, Im going to give my book and tape recommendations on the best resources that I have run across. Some of them are in print and others will have to be purchased through used bookstores. All of my recommendations will be worth the effort. If you are going to discuss the Catholic Faith with Protestants, you ought to have a good handle on the history of Protestantism. The problem is that its history is very complex and no one book covers everything. Bossuets History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches is a good start. Bossuet (1627-1704) was a bishop and theologian who knew his history. His work chronicles the complex characters and events of the Protestant Reformation and how they interacted with one another. It is detailed and contains a lot of quotes from primary resources. The book is also very readable and it presents a good overview from a Catholic perspective. Another helpful feature is that, in its current format, each paragraph is numbered and headed with a short summary title. This is very helpful for locating people and events quickly. Trust me. There is nothing more frustrating that flipping through a thick history book trying to locate the passage where Luther denied Transubstantiation! Unfortunately, Bossuets History also suffers from a common drawback of books written during this era. The citations in the footnotes are cryptic and the assume that the reader is already familiar with the works cited. If you want to run down a quote, for example, youre going to have to do some legwork. I have read this book several times and have found Bossuet to be generally accurate and reliable. Outside of the cryptic footnotes, The History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches is a classic and it deserves a spot on every serious Catholic apologists bookshelf.Real View Books (www.grottopress.org) has reprinted Bossuets History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches. It can also be purchased at used book services.
