CHALLENGING CATHOLICS:
A Catholic/Evangelical Dialogue
By Dwight Longenecker & John Martin. Paternoster. 208 pages
ISBN 1 84227 096 6
These dialogues do not always work. I always felt that John Stott's foray with David Edwards in a similar book, Essentials, was the least valuable of his many books. However, on the whole John and Dwight avoid most of the pitfalls, not least the danger of agreeing on a lowest common denominator. Their differences remain quite openly and at the end the reader would have to choose which way he or she prefers to go.
Big issues are debated, most of which have not changed over the centuries. We have a fresh look at the papacy, Scriptural authority, transubstantiation, the role of Mary and the place of the Reformation. Alongside the theological debate there are some very clear personal touches which can be quite moving as we see these two men in their spiritual pilgrimages.
