New Book - Mackerel Snappers

[Awful_Things]

Hey all,

Please pardon my username, a holdover from years ago when I used to write speculative fiction semi-professionally. I was once a very regular contributor to the forums, but have been away for some time (intentional decrease of internet use to focus on prayer, family and work).

However, I wanted to post that I just received an imprimatur from my bishop for my new book Mackerel Snappers, a book on Catholic apologetics. For those who don’t know (probably all of you do), this designation from the bishop is his statement that the book is free from doctrinal errors.

The book is around 350 pages long and each of the 50 chapters focuses on the scriptural, historical and logical explanations for specific topics. In addition, I interweave personal anecdotes and humor to help make these otherwise difficult topics easy to relate to, especially for those who do not come from a Catholic background. Each chapter ends with a bullet-point summary to help you reflect upon the content. The book attempts to go into some difficult topics that many books on the faith do not usually treat (e.g. Why doesn’t God heal amputees?), and to explain them in a way that might be palpable to others. No doubt there will even be some topics that are very personal to even some individuals in this distribution, but I hope you’ll find my treatment of them objective and compassionate. Some of the chapters you will find especially relevant to the current societal discussions on such subjects as same-sex marriage.

“Mackerel Snapper” is a term that used to be directed at Catholics during the time when abstinence from meat was mandatory on every Friday. Just as this teaching was misunderstood by many, so too are most of the teachings that individuals object to. You can buy the book for around $13 online at createspace.com/4167631 (which benefits me more) or alternately at Amazon (ISBN 978-1482637595), where you can save in shipping if you bundle it with other purchases. Please consider leaving a review at Amazon.

My name is not generally as well known in Catholic apologetics, as I focus on a local ministry in Missouri, but I have been the apologist for the television show Our Catholic Life, the author of a regular series of columns in our Diocesan paper, and president of Apologetics from Scratch, a Missouri non-profit dedicated to bringing high-quality resources to the area. I’ve publicly debated in defense of Catholicism and have spoken at the same conferences as Tim Staples and John Martignoni.

 

[Awful_Things]

Here is the table of contents to give an idea of what the book addresses:

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1
Introduction 2
PART 1 ROADBLOCKS 7
1 You’re In God’s Army Now 8
2 You Can Handle the Truth! 14
3 How “Faith” Causes Atheism 17
4 Answering Atheist Objections 26
5 A Few Bad Men? Responding to Scandal 37
6 Big and Rich … and Holy? The “Wealthy” Church 44
7 Three-Card Monte - Logical Fallacies 48
PART 2 AUTHORITY 58
8 The Trinity – Fuzzy Math? 59
9 The Gospel Truth – Is Scripture Reliable? 65
10 A Chip Off the Eternal Block – The Divinity of Christ 71
11 Lies of Biblical Proportions - Catholics and the Bible 77
12 Very Bad Baseball - Is the Bible Alone Our Authority? 84
13 But Wait, There’s More! More Problems of Sola Scriptura 94
14 The Strong Arm of the Divine Law The Infallible Pope 105
15 Do Only Catholics Go to Heaven? 116
16 In Hell on a Meat Rap? Can Teachings Change? 122
17 Hey, Whose Glass of Martyr Blood is This? –
Is the Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon? 129
18 When the Doorbell Rings –Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses 134
19 What Are Mormon-Style Cream Pies? 143
PART 3 SALVATION 151
20 The End of the World As We Know It 152
21 Last Things - Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell 159
22 How You Like Dem Apples? Original Sin 165
23 Are You Saved? And Other Silly Questions 169
24 If They Just Weren’t So Much Fun! Mortal Sin 177
25 Workin’ Nine-To-Five, What a Way To Earn Salvation 182
26 God’s Doormat - Purgatory 188
27 A Cup That Runneth Over - Indulgences 194
PART 4 SACRAMENTS 198
28 The Magnificent Seven – The Sacraments 199
29 Why Catholics Are All Wet - Necessity of Baptism 203
30 Infant Baptism - To Such Belongs the Kingdom of Heaven 208
31 Baptism by Pouring and Sprinkling 215
32 Sorry Doesn’t Have To Be the Hardest Word - Confession 219
33 Onward Christian Soldier - Confirmation 224
34 The Sacrifice Completed - The Eucharist 228
35 Two Become One - Marriage 237
36 A Priest Forever - Holy Orders 243
37 Objections to the Catholic Priesthood 249
38 Anointing of the Sick 254
PART 5 PRAYER AND DEVOTION 257
39 Is There an Echo in Here? Catholic Prayer 258
40 Heavenly Worship in The Mass 265
41 Intercession of the Saints 271
42 Queenship of Mary 275
43 The Immaculate Conception and Assumption 281
44 The Perpetual Virginity of Mary 289
PART 6 CATHOLIC LIVING 296
45 Withholding Ourselves - Contraception 297
46 No Easy Way to Talk About It - In-Vitro Fertilization 317
47 Does God Hate Shrimp? Homosexuality 317
48 Respecting God’s Timeline - End-of-Life Decisions 297
49 Separation of Church and Vote? 310
50 Bearing our Cross - Suffering and Redemption 317
Conclusion 334
Index 336
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 340

 

[Robyn_p]

Looks interesting. I’d like to check it out.

Thank you for your ministry!

 

[landon13]

I added this to my Amazon wish list. Next time I order from Amazon I will bundle it with my order.

God bless and I’m interested to see this book.

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I’ll be looking forward to reading this book, and I’ll check out your earlier works, too.

Thanks for the update!

 

[Awful_Things]

I’ll be looking forward to reading this book, and I’ll check out your earlier works, too.

Thanks for the update!

Thanks. Most of my earlier works appeared in periodicals, and while they can be hunted down, I’d advice against it. There was a reason I moved away from the type of writing I did, which is that the content starting being more and more what I wouldn’t let my kids read.

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

Thanks. Most of my earlier works appeared in periodicals, and while they can be hunted down, I’d advice against it. There was a reason I moved away from the type of writing I did, which is that the content starting being more and more what I wouldn’t let my kids read.

I can understand that feeling. However, there are lots of good things that aren’t appropriate for kids, because they don’t have the life experiences and wisdom that it takes to handle some situations.

I have situations in my stories for my ownself that I never put in the version I would let my grown kids read, let alone my grandkids.

 

[Awful_Things]

I can understand that feeling. However, there are lots of good things that aren’t appropriate for kids, because they don’t have the life experiences and wisdom that it takes to handle some situations.

I have situations in my stories for my ownself that I never put in the version I would let my grown kids read, let alone my grandkids.

“Wisdom” and “life experience” aren’t the descriptors I’d use for myself as an author then … But we all grow and mature, don’t we. Thanks for the pep talk. Hope you enjoy the book.

 

[Boulder257]

Thank you for sharing. I look forward to reading this!

 

[Awful_Things]

Just an update that my book is now available for download for e-readers at www.smashwords.com. It should also be up at Amazon in the next eight or so hours.