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Rebuilding A Lost Faith: By an American Agnostic
A famous and fabulous apologetics book; written as the story of one man's 40-year search for Truth. How he went from being a Protestant seminary student to an agnostic to a Catholic (late in life). Answers intelligently all the basic arguments against the Faith.
315 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1922
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About the author
John L. Stoddard
453 books9 followersJohn Lawson Stoddard (1850-1931) was an American writer, hymn writer and lecturer who gained popularity through his travelogues.
Stoddard was born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1850. In 1871 he graduated from Williams College. At Williams Stoddard was a member of the fraternity of Delta Psi ( aka St. Anthony Hall). Later he studied two years of theology at Yale Divinity School. After that he taught Latin and French at Boston Latin School. He was proud of his descent from Solomon Stoddard.
He began traveling around the world in 1874, and published Red-Letter Days Abroad in 1884. He turned his experiences into a series of popular lectures delivered throughout North America. These lectures were periodically published in book form as John L. Stoddard's Lectures and eventually numbered ten volumes and five supplements (1897-1898). In 1901, Stoddard published a book on Gibraltar. The books include numerous illustrations derived from the immense catalog of photographs taken by Stoddard, and cover every subject, from art and architecture, to archeology and natural history. The books were immensely popular in their day and many copies still survive. Later in life, Stoddard also published poetry, as well as books on religious subjects.
Brought up a Protestant, Stoddard was an agnostic for over thirty years, before converting with his wife to Roman Catholicism. In 1922 he published Rebuilding a Lost Faith, a famous work of apologetics which is still in print.
The Main Street of Gibraltar - illustrated his 1901 book.
Stoddard was a proponent of the restoration of the Jews to Israel. In Volume 2 of his Lectures he told the Jews, “You are a people without a country; there is a country without a people. Be united. Fulfill the dreams of your old poets and patriarchs. Go back, go back to the land of Abraham.” A sentiment popularized as "A land without a people for a people without a land." However, his son Lothrop Stoddard, who remained agnostic after his father's conversion, held antisemitic views.
During his later life he used his fortune to support his adopted home of Merano, South Tyrol, contributing substantially to the building of its secondary school and to a home for homeless youth, now used as a rehabilitation centre.
Stoddard was born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1850. In 1871 he graduated from Williams College. At Williams Stoddard was a member of the fraternity of Delta Psi ( aka St. Anthony Hall). Later he studied two years of theology at Yale Divinity School. After that he taught Latin and French at Boston Latin School. He was proud of his descent from Solomon Stoddard.
He began traveling around the world in 1874, and published Red-Letter Days Abroad in 1884. He turned his experiences into a series of popular lectures delivered throughout North America. These lectures were periodically published in book form as John L. Stoddard's Lectures and eventually numbered ten volumes and five supplements (1897-1898). In 1901, Stoddard published a book on Gibraltar. The books include numerous illustrations derived from the immense catalog of photographs taken by Stoddard, and cover every subject, from art and architecture, to archeology and natural history. The books were immensely popular in their day and many copies still survive. Later in life, Stoddard also published poetry, as well as books on religious subjects.
Brought up a Protestant, Stoddard was an agnostic for over thirty years, before converting with his wife to Roman Catholicism. In 1922 he published Rebuilding a Lost Faith, a famous work of apologetics which is still in print.
The Main Street of Gibraltar - illustrated his 1901 book.
Stoddard was a proponent of the restoration of the Jews to Israel. In Volume 2 of his Lectures he told the Jews, “You are a people without a country; there is a country without a people. Be united. Fulfill the dreams of your old poets and patriarchs. Go back, go back to the land of Abraham.” A sentiment popularized as "A land without a people for a people without a land." However, his son Lothrop Stoddard, who remained agnostic after his father's conversion, held antisemitic views.
During his later life he used his fortune to support his adopted home of Merano, South Tyrol, contributing substantially to the building of its secondary school and to a home for homeless youth, now used as a rehabilitation centre.
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September 14, 2024
THE STORY OF A FORMER PROTESTANT TURNED AGNOSTIC, WHO TURNED TO CATHOLICISM
Author John Stoddard wrote in the Preface of this 1921 book, "This book is the result of numerous requests to write an explanation of the motives, influences and arguments which brought me back to faith in God, the Bible, Immortality and the Christian Religion, and finally led me to enter the ancient, Apostolic, Catholic Church, whose Primate is the Pope. It has seemed best to preface this explanation with a brief account of my youthful religious experience, between which and my present standpoint there stretches, like a desert between two oases, a spiritual wilderness of more than forty years.... As I formerly took a more or less public stand towards prominent religious questions... I feel myself constrained to state with equal frankness my present religious convictions." (Pg. ix)
He states, "All scientists agree that MATTER is indestructible... But if dull, senseless matter thus persists, is it unreasonable to suppose that what is spiritual is also indestructible? Or course God can by His omnipotence annihilate the soul, but is it likely that He should desire to exterminate the spiritual life which He called into being?... does it seem consonant with the wisdom of Almighty God that, after innumerable years of preparation, He will let the race die out, without fulfilling somewhere the potentialities which are inherent in it?" (Pg. 74)
Or Protestantism, he asserts, "consider the effect ... produced by the sight of so many little struggling and frequently hostile denominations, all claiming to be Christians. Such a spectacle does not tend to make thoughtful people wish to join any of them. It affords perhaps a striking illustration of individual Christian 'liberty,' but it does not correspond to the idea of the Church founded and outlined by Our Saviour. It is religious individualism run mad... How deplorable must the condition of some Protestant churches in America be, when advocates like Billy Sunday have to be resorted to, to keep them from dissolving!
"Such mournful eccentricities as these in the Christian life betray a state of spiritual desolation. A church replete with religious faith and true religious zeal would never tolerate them... it is evident that most of those who assemble in the prominent Protestant churches of American cities are well-dressed, prosperous members of the community. Poor, plainly clad people are less often seen there... any such equality before God, as is continually seen in Catholic churches, is never observed in Protestant congregations. It is also evident that in America the great majority of worshippers in Catholic churches are from the poorer classes... Protestant churches are too often social institutions with religious names, whose members are to a great extent composed of the rich and 'respectable' people of the place." (Pg. 158-159, 161, 162-163, 164)
He argues, "When Calvin burned Servetus because of his views about the doctrine of the Trinity, the cruel deed was applauded by almost all European Protestants, including Melancthon and Bullinger. Hence, whatever may be said of Catholic persecution, the spirit of Protestantism in this respect was just as intolerant." (Pg. 281)
This book will be of most interest to "traditional" Catholics (which is why it has been reprinted by TAN books), but will also interest anyone who likes religious biographies.
Author John Stoddard wrote in the Preface of this 1921 book, "This book is the result of numerous requests to write an explanation of the motives, influences and arguments which brought me back to faith in God, the Bible, Immortality and the Christian Religion, and finally led me to enter the ancient, Apostolic, Catholic Church, whose Primate is the Pope. It has seemed best to preface this explanation with a brief account of my youthful religious experience, between which and my present standpoint there stretches, like a desert between two oases, a spiritual wilderness of more than forty years.... As I formerly took a more or less public stand towards prominent religious questions... I feel myself constrained to state with equal frankness my present religious convictions." (Pg. ix)
He states, "All scientists agree that MATTER is indestructible... But if dull, senseless matter thus persists, is it unreasonable to suppose that what is spiritual is also indestructible? Or course God can by His omnipotence annihilate the soul, but is it likely that He should desire to exterminate the spiritual life which He called into being?... does it seem consonant with the wisdom of Almighty God that, after innumerable years of preparation, He will let the race die out, without fulfilling somewhere the potentialities which are inherent in it?" (Pg. 74)
Or Protestantism, he asserts, "consider the effect ... produced by the sight of so many little struggling and frequently hostile denominations, all claiming to be Christians. Such a spectacle does not tend to make thoughtful people wish to join any of them. It affords perhaps a striking illustration of individual Christian 'liberty,' but it does not correspond to the idea of the Church founded and outlined by Our Saviour. It is religious individualism run mad... How deplorable must the condition of some Protestant churches in America be, when advocates like Billy Sunday have to be resorted to, to keep them from dissolving!
"Such mournful eccentricities as these in the Christian life betray a state of spiritual desolation. A church replete with religious faith and true religious zeal would never tolerate them... it is evident that most of those who assemble in the prominent Protestant churches of American cities are well-dressed, prosperous members of the community. Poor, plainly clad people are less often seen there... any such equality before God, as is continually seen in Catholic churches, is never observed in Protestant congregations. It is also evident that in America the great majority of worshippers in Catholic churches are from the poorer classes... Protestant churches are too often social institutions with religious names, whose members are to a great extent composed of the rich and 'respectable' people of the place." (Pg. 158-159, 161, 162-163, 164)
He argues, "When Calvin burned Servetus because of his views about the doctrine of the Trinity, the cruel deed was applauded by almost all European Protestants, including Melancthon and Bullinger. Hence, whatever may be said of Catholic persecution, the spirit of Protestantism in this respect was just as intolerant." (Pg. 281)
This book will be of most interest to "traditional" Catholics (which is why it has been reprinted by TAN books), but will also interest anyone who likes religious biographies.
April 5, 2014
Superbly written in some areas. Chapter 8, "What Thing Ye of Christ?", is the most wonderful homage to Christ I have ever read/heard.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews