IgnatiusInsight.comDr. Mark Noll is the Carolyn and Fred McManis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College. An Evangelical Protestant, Noll is widely regarded as one of the finest Christian historians writing today. He has authored numerous books, including America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys, and Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity.
Dr. Noll graduated from Wheaton as an English major and matriculated from Vanderbilt with his Ph.D. in the History of Christianity in 1975. He has been on the Wheaton College faculty since 1979 and is the co-founder and present director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College. In recent years Dr. Noll has been a visiting teacher at Harvard Divinity School, University of Chicago Divinity School, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Regent College of Vancouver, B.C.
Carl E. Olson, editor of IgnatiusInsight.com, recently interviewed Dr. Noll and spoke with him about his new book.
5 comments:
Who cares what a Protestant thinks of the Catholic Church? I am sure that this tome rationalizes their breaking away from the Church...but really, who cares? Life is too short to be worrying about heretics, work on your own salvation.
Protestants willfully attack the Church by being outside.
Evil Capitalist
As Chris alluded to in the comments on another post, various Protestant communities share in the truth with Catholics, some more fully than others. Let us dialog together with them in search of the truth, which is most visibly and concretely present in Christ.
The comment by Anonymous is pathetic. We care about what Protestants think about the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church says it's important. For example, this from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "The Church's mission stimulates efforts towards Christian unity. Indeed, 'divisions among Christians prevent the Church from realizing in practice the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her sons who, though joined to her by Baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her. Furthermore, the Church herself finds it more difficult to express in actual life her full catholicity in all its aspects'" (CCC 855). Not only that, Dr. Noll is a Christian — and I would say that he is more Catholic than many Catholics I know.
Carl,
Mr Noll does not believe in Transubstaniation, he does not believe in the Immaculate Conception, he does not believe in our 7 Sacraments, he looks down his nose at the primacy of Peter, the list goes on. He knows all about these things, yet he choses to be outside of the Church. Now, without filling the screen with empty platitudes and euphemims, explain why should we force Mr Noll to be a Catholic? If he choses not to, that is the essence of free will.
By the way, why do converts to the Faith automatically feel the need to be arbiters of Catholicism?
Evil Capitalist
Evil Capitalist,
You wrote: "He knows all about these things, yet he choses to be outside of the Church." Yes, Dr. Noll knows what the Church teaches about these things, but the question is, "Does he believe they are true?" and "Does he believe that the Catholic Church is who she claims to be?" That is the issue the Catechism highlights in quoting Lumen Gentium:
"Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it." (CCC 846; LG 14. Emphasis added).
So, do you know that Dr. Noll knows "that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ"? If so, you have a rare ability to read minds and hearts. Put another way, how do we know, outside of him saying so, that Dr. Noll is not mulling these questions? Yes, it would be nice if conversion were a snap and didn't take months, years, or decades, as it usually does. But that's the reality of things.
Dr. Noll, by the way, certainly does believe in the sacrament of baptism (as well as the sacrament of marriage; perhaps others as well). And as a baptized Christian he deserves much better than being called a "heretic," as you describe him. You mock me by saying that we converts "automatically feel the need to be arbiters of Catholicism". Not so; rather, we believe that the Magisterium should have the last and final say in describing and defining Church teaching — not converts or anonymous "evil capitalists":
"Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church: "For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Justified by faith in Baptism, [they] are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church." (CCC 1271; cf. 817-819).
If you have an issue with those teachings, please castigate the Magisterium, not me.
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