Strong Catholic Influences Everywhere
I am noticing that a huge amount of products being promoted by Logos to Protestants are Catholic.
1. All the "feature collections" I have seen now have Catholic resources in them that were not there before;
2. All the "individual commentaries" on sale this month are Catholic;
3. Many of the denominational base packages have many Catholic resources in them even though there is a Verbum series on its own;
4. All the "feature sets" have Catholic resources in them; and
5. Many more examples.
Just letting you know that I am noticing and that this may be a turnoff to those who understand the history and practices of the Catholic faith in light of God's Word.
Comments
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Depends on what you mean by 'Catholic'.
If it's just authors, publishers, or universities, then I'm all for 'Catholic' ... the quality (academic) is almost always quite good. My favorite is the Aramaic Bible. And we've been begging for New Jerome for decades (a little over one).
If you're talking about doctrine, then yes, that should be disclosed (along with the other protestant doctrine ones as well).
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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The OP is correct in perception.And it's bothersome. Of course we also have about 1000 years of church history where there wasn't any other denominational influence to speak of and God still managed to deal with it. FWIW, there's plenty of questionable stuff from the other side of the fence in Logos. We just need to be good Bereans
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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Michael John Nisbett said:
Just letting you know that I am noticing and that this may be a turnoff to those who understand the history and practices of the Catholic faith in light of God's Word.
I comfortably Protestant and evangelical (if that term means much anymore), but I find this post disturbing. If you pay any attention to the Catholics who post on this forum, and some of whom have produced some excellent Bible study training for Verbum, then you will witness people who are passionate about the historic Christian faith, Scripture, and Jesus.
Listen to them for a while, and you might be pleasantly surprised.
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Michael John Nisbett said:
I am noticing that a huge amount of products being promoted by Logos to Protestants are Catholic.
Michael,
You're right that this might be a turnoff to some. But at the same time, it appeals to others:
- There are a number of protestant with some Catholic leanings (anglo-catholics being the obvious example). Those protestants would want some Catholic content in Logos.
- There are some resources written or published by Catholics that are useful for the wider, for example in the area of trinitarian theology, where Protestants and Catholics share almost identical views.
You can't please all the people all of the time :-)
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Jordan Litchfield said:
I comfortably Protestant and evangelical (if that term means much anymore), but I find this post disturbing. If you pay any attention to the Catholics who post on this forum, and some of whom have produced some excellent Bible study training for Verbum, then you will witness people who are passionate about the historic Christian faith, Scripture, and Jesus.
Listen to them for a while, and you might be pleasantly surprised.
Hi Jordon, thanks for your reply. It is really important that, as you say, we listen to those of other traditions/religions (depending on how one views Roman Catholicism). I think what many, myself included, have an issue with is not individual Catholics themselves but rather the teaching of Roman Catholicism as a whole.
I agree in the main with what you say - most Catholics are lovely people and I have no problem saying that there are genuine believers within the RC church. I also agree that there is much to learn from those outside of one's own theological clubhouse. Whatever is true, good, and beautiful - whenever we find it - is of God and should be treasured and recognized as such. General revelation and God's Providence lead us to expect such truth, even to look for it.
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Roman Catholicism has a controlling narrative and worldview that really is poles apart from traditional Protestantism. A worldview and narrative which results in scripture, church, church authority, clergy, laity, tradition, sacraments, justification, faith, repentance, sin, and the afterlife (to name a few) being understood in a way that is often unrecognizable from Protestantism (even if they might use the same words). At times this might produce the conclusion that we all agree on (such as the Trinity, deity of Christ, the moral status of an embryo, etc.) at other times it won't (such as answering the question "Sirs, What must I do to be saved?" Ultimately though, this worldview and narrative not only impacts how an RC and P view scripture, but also how they approach a text, look for its meaning and draw conclusions from it.
So, whilst as you suggest, listening for a while might bring pleasant surprises. I don't doubt that. If anything it will give people a more rounded view of RC generally, and remind them some protestants that RC's are people much like themselves, trying to make sense of the world in which they live. It may even be cause for recognition and celebrating the things we have in common, produce more honest discourse, and more helpful debate. It won't however, dismiss the reality that what separates us is much greater and deeper than what we have in common. After all, a Catholic and a Protestant might both agree on the Apostles Creed as a historic summery of Christian Faith, but both will have a very different conception of what that historic faith is as found in that creed.
I am not suggesting for a moment that these resources be removed (far from it), exposure to that which we disagree with helps us grow and teaches us to read fairly and charitably. However, I would like to see such titles more clearly labeled and tagged on the store, in sales, and in the software itself.
Carpe verbum.
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Michael John Nisbett said:
I am noticing that a huge amount of products being promoted by Logos to Protestants are Catholic.
1. All the "feature collections" I have seen now have Catholic resources in them that were not there before;
2. All the "individual commentaries" on sale this month are Catholic;
3. Many of the denominational base packages have many Catholic resources in them even though there is a Verbum series on its own;
4. All the "feature sets" have Catholic resources in them; and
5. Many more examples.
Just letting you know that I am noticing and that this may be a turnoff to those who understand the history and practices of the Catholic faith in light of God's Word.
Those who are turned off by the presence of Catholic stuff should read Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Bath and a Catholic Response by Hans Kung. It demonstrates that most of what happened during the Reformation was a gross misunderstanding on both parts, since they were talking across one another about the same things, but using different category words. What the Reformers called "Justification", the Catholics called "Redemption" (as Karl Barth did); and what the Reformers called "Sanctification", the Catholics called "Justification" (as Karl Barth did).
Dr David Staveley Professor of New Testament. Specializing in the Pauline Epistles, Apocalyptic Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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Hey All I just want to add my thoughts:
First I just want to mention I am a conservative Christian who is Reformed.
1) I actually bought the Sagra Pagina series awhile back knowing it was a Catholic commentary. I got it because the Exegesis and the insights of the authors are top notch.
However, when I do use it I am very careful and discerning, because I know that there could be Roman Catholic Presuppositions that could be imposed on the text. Sometimes that is the case, but for the most part, the authors stay true to the meaning of the text. The Sagra Pagina series is actually a great helpful series.
2) I do think Logos should NOT add Roman Catholic resources to sets that are named under another denomination. The customers should not get something they are not expecting to get or might not want to get. They should be able to make a decision for themselves if they want to have resources that are different than their own convictions.
3) Since we are on the topic of the faiths, I do want to add that unless the Roman Catholic church professes that Salvation is "by grace through FAITH" in Christ alone (without Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Confession or any works), then Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are two completely different faiths. Though the name of the entity of faith might be the same, the way to Him is completely different. Hence, though I personally like the Sagra Pagina series, I identify with Michael's thoughts that Logos should be more careful and intentional in making clarifications when resources are of a different faith.
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Without answering someone specific, I want to remind us all of the forum rules (available here), especially
Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:Please do not discuss or debate biblical, theological, or other controversial topics.
We all know that Logos software is for bible study, and the bible is studied by people from many different traditions - and that is good. Everybody using Logos should feel welcome here in the user forums.
For Logos to carry books, including commentary series from diverse denominational backgrounds, allows us users to compare different exegesis. I'm very much a friend of correctly tagging those resources in the shop, insofar this is possible. The Logos product managers probably welcome discussion of the content of denominational packages in the respective subforums - but given the broad content of those packages, I think it is more or less unavoidable to have resources in a larger library that one disagrees with, even in a most profound manner.
Have joy in the Lord!
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Chi Shun Cheung said:
3) Since we are on the topic of the faiths, I do want to add that unless the Roman Catholic church professes that Salvation is "by grace through FAITH" in Christ alone (without Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Confession or any works), then Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are two completely different faiths. Though the name of the entity of faith might be the same, the way to Him is completely different. Hence, though I personally like the Sagra Pagina series, I identify with Michael's thoughts that Logos should be more careful and intentional in making clarifications when resources are of a different faith.
Not speaking to preferences, your distinction of doctrine vs Catholic doesn't match protestant vs Catholic. You appear (?) to be selecting a subset of protestants relative to doctrine. A good chunk of protestants like straw-y James's works.
I only point this out, visa viz resource groupings in Logos. It's not so easy for them.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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NB.Mick said:
Without answering someone specific, I want to remind us all of the forum rules (available here), especially
Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:Please do not discuss or debate biblical, theological, or other controversial topics.
We all know that Logos software is for bible study, and the bible is studied by people from many different traditions - and that is good. Everybody using Logos should feel welcome here in the user forums.
I totally agree [Y]
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AMEN!
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1. First thing to consider is not mixing up small ‘c’ catholic authors with Roman Catholic authors when talking about this issue within the confines of the forum guideline.
2. With any denominational base package or featur set the lines are blurred as to what resources to include.
3. A’s for the individual commentaries on sale this month if you go to the product page for these they usually indicate if they are Catholic, Reformed etc.
FL selling Catholic resources is nothing new, it’s been happening for many many years. And post like this come up once in a while.
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He has a point, and Roman Catholics often make a similar point about Verbum, the difference is that they do not get accused of making Protestants feel unwelcome.
As people have pointed out Protestantism is wholly rooted in the historic church, after all Calvin was very insistent that “Augustine is wholly ours”. Whether this is true or not can only be considered if you actually study the Church Fathers. Also no Christian can ignore the historic church creeds and to understand these foundational documents you have to study the church doctrines of the time. The very definition of being a Christian is accepting the creeds.
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A point that we should always try to consider is that we have more things in common than things that separate us. Unfortunately, as Christians, many of us have a habit of majoring on certain doctrines which tend to grow out of proportion in our minds to the others - This can make us very unbalanced as Christians.
Like many others here I enjoy reading works that I expect to disagree with as it helps me to understand why I believe what I do believe far more effectively.
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Mike Pettit said:
He has a point, and Roman Catholics often make a similar point about Verbum, the difference is that they do not get accused of making Protestants feel unwelcome.
As people have pointed out Protestantism is wholly rooted in the historic church, after all Calvin was very insistent that “Augustine is wholly ours”. Whether this is true or not can only be considered if you actually study the Church Fathers. Also no Christian can ignore the historic church creeds and to understand these foundational documents you have to study the church doctrines of the time. The very definition of being a Christian is accepting the creeds.
If the very definition of being a Christian is accepting the creeds, that means all of the New Testament writers were not Christians.
No, of course they were. And they have taught us that the very definition of being a Christian is a) following the Messiah and making Him Lord of our lives; and b) making faith work through love for our fellow man.
Dr David Staveley Professor of New Testament. Specializing in the Pauline Epistles, Apocalyptic Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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