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Tumultuous Times: The Twenty General Councils of the Catholic Church and Vatican II and Its Aftermath
This book is an easy-to-read, well-documented story of the Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church. The first part covers the twenty councils from the First Council of Nicea to the First Vatican Council. The second part of this work analyzes Vatican II and its effect on our world today. The turbulent history of the Catholic Church will come alive as the centuries unfold before the reader. God's tender care for His children amid life's storms and tumultuous times is evident and unmistakable.
655 pages, Hardcover
First published June 24, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 22, 2022
A history of Christianity’s General Councils is potentially an interesting journey through the development of ideas and clarification of doctrines. Some of the characters in the councils also fought for their ideas with approaches which modern readers will find less than endearing. So there is a lot of material to make an interesting book.
I began with high hopes, but the book failed to deliver.
The history was narrated relatively clearly, but it was the clarity of over simplification. Heretics were always ‘evil’ or ‘cunning’ and craftily setting out to destroy Christianity. Sometimes they were also evil capitalists monopolising commodity markets. (like George the fourth century bishop of Alexandria).
Is that a fair reading of history? Was Arius really trying to destroy Christianity by denying that Christ was God. Or was he struggling with a different theological problem, trying to preserve Monotheism and so refusing to allow that Christ could be a second god. Was he just stubbornly wrong, rather than cunningly evil?
Probing these kinds of subtleties is essential to any adequate re-telling of history, especially theological history. It also helps people to understand the important point that the niceness or well meaning-ness of people is a completely separate issue to the rightness and wrongness of their views.
I was particularly surprised at the way that the book made no attempt to distinguish between historical facts, and pious legends. We hear that Arius died by his stomach bursting open, like the biblical figure of Judas (2%). We hear that St Peter celebrated mass on an altar which is preserved in the Lateran basilica (9%) and that his Chasuble (vestment) is preserved in Paris (50%). We also hear that the Canon of the (old) mass was composed by Christ (51%). Are those claims historically accurate? What is the evidence for them? Questions like this are disappointingly ignored, thus undermining the credibility of the book as a whole.
And some of the claims just seemed demonstrably false. Apparently the old Latin mass of St Pius V can be found in the writings of Justin Martyr who died in 150 (24%). No! Justin martyr refers to Christian worship, but he certainly doesn’t record, and thus justify, the Tridentine rite of mass.
And the book is a strongly opinionated attack upon the Second Vatican Council. Rather than narrating history, it marshals information and adds pointed asides to argue that the modern Catholic Church is in error. Communists, Freemasons and Modernists conspired to wreck the Church, with cunning deceitful popes as their stooges who produced a new mass which is an invalid, sacrilegious affront to God (53%). And what were the world’s bishops doing whilst this happened? Well, allegedly, they were approving heretical documents promoting Religious Liberty because their minds were distracted by their travel plans to fly home from the Vatican Council (45%).
In addition to concerns about the content of the book, the editing was also problematic. A large chunk of material covering the sixteenth to twentieth century seemed to be repeated twice in the book, giving the impression of hasty and inaccurate editing.
Overall, this was a disappointing book.
I began with high hopes, but the book failed to deliver.
The history was narrated relatively clearly, but it was the clarity of over simplification. Heretics were always ‘evil’ or ‘cunning’ and craftily setting out to destroy Christianity. Sometimes they were also evil capitalists monopolising commodity markets. (like George the fourth century bishop of Alexandria).
Is that a fair reading of history? Was Arius really trying to destroy Christianity by denying that Christ was God. Or was he struggling with a different theological problem, trying to preserve Monotheism and so refusing to allow that Christ could be a second god. Was he just stubbornly wrong, rather than cunningly evil?
Probing these kinds of subtleties is essential to any adequate re-telling of history, especially theological history. It also helps people to understand the important point that the niceness or well meaning-ness of people is a completely separate issue to the rightness and wrongness of their views.
I was particularly surprised at the way that the book made no attempt to distinguish between historical facts, and pious legends. We hear that Arius died by his stomach bursting open, like the biblical figure of Judas (2%). We hear that St Peter celebrated mass on an altar which is preserved in the Lateran basilica (9%) and that his Chasuble (vestment) is preserved in Paris (50%). We also hear that the Canon of the (old) mass was composed by Christ (51%). Are those claims historically accurate? What is the evidence for them? Questions like this are disappointingly ignored, thus undermining the credibility of the book as a whole.
And some of the claims just seemed demonstrably false. Apparently the old Latin mass of St Pius V can be found in the writings of Justin Martyr who died in 150 (24%). No! Justin martyr refers to Christian worship, but he certainly doesn’t record, and thus justify, the Tridentine rite of mass.
And the book is a strongly opinionated attack upon the Second Vatican Council. Rather than narrating history, it marshals information and adds pointed asides to argue that the modern Catholic Church is in error. Communists, Freemasons and Modernists conspired to wreck the Church, with cunning deceitful popes as their stooges who produced a new mass which is an invalid, sacrilegious affront to God (53%). And what were the world’s bishops doing whilst this happened? Well, allegedly, they were approving heretical documents promoting Religious Liberty because their minds were distracted by their travel plans to fly home from the Vatican Council (45%).
In addition to concerns about the content of the book, the editing was also problematic. A large chunk of material covering the sixteenth to twentieth century seemed to be repeated twice in the book, giving the impression of hasty and inaccurate editing.
Overall, this was a disappointing book.
October 7, 2016
The first half of the book is a very good account of the first twenty councils of the Church, explaining the historical events which lead to each council. The second section, covering Vatican II, did a great job pointing out the differences between Catholic doctrine and teaching which had been taught continuously for the previous twenty centuries and the documents and results of Vatican II. The authors are apparently sedevecantists, but for the most part they simply compare he documents of Vatican II and the writings and actions of the postconciliar popes with what the Catholic Church and previous popes have taught for two millennia.
August 9, 2011
Weak.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews