I'm not sure how I happened across this book, as is the case with many books and things I find, but I thought the story of how a Protestant minister converts to Catholicism would be interesting.
Here's some background: When I was growing up going to Sunday School at the Southern Baptist church my dad grew up in, I remember reading the Christmas story and asking questions about Mary, the mother of Jesus. (I asked a lot of questions, I don't think my Sunday School teachers cared much for some of them.) My questions about Mary were, let's go with, "not well received" and I was kind of shut down. I would randomly think about her every now and again and knew that Mary was a more prominent figure in the Catholic church. (Other questions I asked included things about the Pope, about why the Catholic church had images of Christ in their church but we did not, etc.)
So, back to the book. Dr. Hahn and his wife Kimberly got married and he was a minister and all was great. He (they) were staunchly anti-Catholic (my aside: anti-Catholic Protestants and vice versa seem silly to me because they are both part of the Christian religion, but whatever). But then he started having some questions and digging further. Ultimately, he did convert to Catholicism but not without much hurt to his family and losing many friends.
I enjoyed reading the story and some of the questions he expanded on were things I had often wondered. He explained some Catholic theology using Protestant terminology. (Yes, that sounds weird, but trust me, it makes sense and made a difference.) I came away with a better understanding of the Catholic view of purgatory (one of my many questions) as well as much more about Mary. There are a lot of other questions I still have, and this didn't go as deep into the theological differences as I would have liked. I may pick up one of his other books.
I'd recommend this book if you are Catholic or a Protestant who is open-minded enough to consider differences between the faiths.
204 pages
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