So many converts to the Catholic Church site Scott Hahn as a major influence on their decision. It will be easy for any of you to find information on this very interesting and knowledgeable person. Because of that fact, I prefer here to give my impression of the man and what I remember from my readings and viewings of him. You can fact- check me if you want with your own readings, should you find his story interesting. This approach is most genuine for me because I can truly tell you what his work means to me, as it has been filtered through the few years since I discovered him.
Everyone who mentions Scott in their own conversion story mentions Rome Sweet Home of course. I use his first name because he makes you feel like you’re friends, in spite of the fact he is so far beyond you in theological knowledge and is a distinguished author and professor (Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio). He is most likely to be described as an apologist which, as most readers probably know, does not mean to apologize. It is a term for one who explains their topic of expertise.
Dr. Hahn has written many great books, but the reading of Rome Sweet Home is a special experience as one experiences the agonies of a couple going through the doubting of their belief, training, marriage and the very fabric of their lives. Both Scott and wife Kimberly were trained in their Protestant faith and she came from a long line of ministers among the males of her family. I seem to recall her stating in Rome Sweet Home that all of the male members of her family were ministers.
You see that’s what is great about this book. It is written by both of them, with alternating chapters, as they went through the personal struggle of Scott, a brilliant young Presbyterian minister, discovering that the Catholic Church he hated was right. Nobody has ever had better tools for this sort of intellectual crisis, and his tool box of theological knowledge just kept coming up with the wrong answers for a rising young star in the Presbyterian church. And all the while we see, alternating chapter after alternating chapter, the agony his wife was going through. She tells of crying to sleep at night, of their best friends advising that she divorce him, and of hoping against hope the night Scott drives to debate one of his friends and one of his old professors, as she is certain they will stop his madness.
This profile sounds a bit like a book review, and Scott Hahn is much more than an author and certainly not a one book wonder. He is public speaker, teacher, author of one great Catholic book after another, and founder of the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology. His wife Kimberly serves in some of the same type roles, often focusing on family related issues. Their body of work will grow for years. And they are of course parents. I heard somewhere that if you live in the same neighborhood and drop your child off at some neighborhood Bible study, you might find one of the couple teaching the group.
My focus on this book is because of its uniqueness for books in its field. The back and forth playoff of his side - her side gives those facing similar challenges a book they can relate to and learn from. We see Scott’s determination to follow the truth where ever it leads. What else can you do, especially with respect to religious beliefs? No one was better equipped or prepared for the research, and he came up with the answer: Catholicism.
Perhaps I should end where he started. Apparently his wife was writing a report on abortion, and during the research phase she obviously read a lot of different books. A friend of Scott tipped him off that she was walking around campus with books from notable Catholic publishers like Ligouri. Scott started investigating and, to make a long story short, the more he looked at Catholic literature the more he agreed with it. It was a long process of course. He was coming from a position of actually hating the Catholic Church. He tells of the occasion of the U.S. visit of Pope John Paul II. Some of his friends are rather excited to see the pope, but Scott asks them why they would want to see the anti-Christ. His road to becoming America’s best known and loved Catholic apologist was obviously long because it started from pretty far away. I predict Rome Sweet Home will be one of the classics on many a Catholic bookshelf long after we’re all gone, especially in families where conversion from Protestantism was a factor. When an enemy of a belief becomes a leading member of that belief, and has to give up everything to do it, there must be something in that belief that is very true. Scott and Marcus Grodi and so many others, as Protestant ministers, had no careers once the made the decision to convert to Catholicism.
Click on the book below to go to Dr. Scott Hahn's website. This book & others are found there, under the Publications tab. Other materials are also available. Click on the rust-red highlited name here to go to Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology.
Everyone who mentions Scott in their own conversion story mentions Rome Sweet Home of course. I use his first name because he makes you feel like you’re friends, in spite of the fact he is so far beyond you in theological knowledge and is a distinguished author and professor (Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio). He is most likely to be described as an apologist which, as most readers probably know, does not mean to apologize. It is a term for one who explains their topic of expertise.
Dr. Hahn has written many great books, but the reading of Rome Sweet Home is a special experience as one experiences the agonies of a couple going through the doubting of their belief, training, marriage and the very fabric of their lives. Both Scott and wife Kimberly were trained in their Protestant faith and she came from a long line of ministers among the males of her family. I seem to recall her stating in Rome Sweet Home that all of the male members of her family were ministers.
You see that’s what is great about this book. It is written by both of them, with alternating chapters, as they went through the personal struggle of Scott, a brilliant young Presbyterian minister, discovering that the Catholic Church he hated was right. Nobody has ever had better tools for this sort of intellectual crisis, and his tool box of theological knowledge just kept coming up with the wrong answers for a rising young star in the Presbyterian church. And all the while we see, alternating chapter after alternating chapter, the agony his wife was going through. She tells of crying to sleep at night, of their best friends advising that she divorce him, and of hoping against hope the night Scott drives to debate one of his friends and one of his old professors, as she is certain they will stop his madness.
This profile sounds a bit like a book review, and Scott Hahn is much more than an author and certainly not a one book wonder. He is public speaker, teacher, author of one great Catholic book after another, and founder of the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology. His wife Kimberly serves in some of the same type roles, often focusing on family related issues. Their body of work will grow for years. And they are of course parents. I heard somewhere that if you live in the same neighborhood and drop your child off at some neighborhood Bible study, you might find one of the couple teaching the group.
My focus on this book is because of its uniqueness for books in its field. The back and forth playoff of his side - her side gives those facing similar challenges a book they can relate to and learn from. We see Scott’s determination to follow the truth where ever it leads. What else can you do, especially with respect to religious beliefs? No one was better equipped or prepared for the research, and he came up with the answer: Catholicism.
Perhaps I should end where he started. Apparently his wife was writing a report on abortion, and during the research phase she obviously read a lot of different books. A friend of Scott tipped him off that she was walking around campus with books from notable Catholic publishers like Ligouri. Scott started investigating and, to make a long story short, the more he looked at Catholic literature the more he agreed with it. It was a long process of course. He was coming from a position of actually hating the Catholic Church. He tells of the occasion of the U.S. visit of Pope John Paul II. Some of his friends are rather excited to see the pope, but Scott asks them why they would want to see the anti-Christ. His road to becoming America’s best known and loved Catholic apologist was obviously long because it started from pretty far away. I predict Rome Sweet Home will be one of the classics on many a Catholic bookshelf long after we’re all gone, especially in families where conversion from Protestantism was a factor. When an enemy of a belief becomes a leading member of that belief, and has to give up everything to do it, there must be something in that belief that is very true. Scott and Marcus Grodi and so many others, as Protestant ministers, had no careers once the made the decision to convert to Catholicism.
Click on the book below to go to Dr. Scott Hahn's website. This book & others are found there, under the Publications tab. Other materials are also available. Click on the rust-red highlited name here to go to Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology.