Scott Hahn

[graceandglory]

The following link is a rather old article that addresses the question you asked - be warned that it is on one of the most virulently anti-catholic websites you’ll come across:

bereanbeacon.org/articles/The_Lost_Soul_Scott_Hahn.pdf

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Ironically, I knew that man. (of bereanbeacon notoriety)

 

[Marie5890]

One of the greatest insights and understandings that Scott helps cradle Catholics understand is the idea of covenant.

It’s important. It was important in the time of Christ. It’s important now.

The Catholic Church is well known for being a “sacramental church”, but what is less known is being “convenantal” as well.

He brings great understanding and clarity to the issue.

His writings are well worth the time and effort.

I enjoy both his passion and understanding of God’s plan of salvation history.

I can well understand how he must have felt so lonesome amongst his peers in his past.
I feel that way many times in my own surroundings.

ANd I have no doubt that is how Jesus Himself felt when He dwelt amongst us.

 

[crazzeto]

As a Catholic I can honestly say, I really didn’t need Dr. Scott Hahn to “prove the CC was right”, I already knew that. I will say he’s been one very good convert for us, putting out a wealth of great study material, as well as great apologetic works. There have been some others as well, Steve Ray is another terrific convert apologist, lives very near to where I grew up actually supprisingly enough (small world) and a great cradle Catholic apologist is John Martinoni.

I do very much appriciate though, not just Hahn, but also Ray for the terrific study matieral’s they also put out. If you guys get an oppertunity to participate in a CSS course you should do it, Hahn and Ray are both authors. They also both have great DVD’s and CD’s out on the market.

From a protestant perspective, can’t really say. I know both lost a lot of firends in the process of converting.

 

[graceandglory]

From a protestant perspective, can’t really say. I know both lost a lot of firends in the process of converting.

I lost many friends in converting too. Hard to explain. But I know that other adult converts “get it.”

 

[Michael_Saint]

The Hahns are very humble, sincere people and they are obviously uncomfortable with anyone who confers a “celebrity” status on them. Scott actively discourages this. Whenever I complimented them for their knowledge and clear speaking on scripture, or thanked them for their role in bringing me into the truth of the Catholic faith, they smiled and (it seems purposely) said very little. They have no interest in being celebrities.
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I would have to disagree. He is very rude and arrogant. I know first-hand, because I was one of his students.

I think in certain contexts, Dr. Hahn can come across as humble. And I being around his wife helps because she brings him down to earth, and he knows if she ever did see him “lord it over” others, she would give him a good tongue-lashing to whip him off his high horse.

The first time I met him, when he was speaking at a conference, he really impressed me. I would have described him as you do. But once I got on campus, I began to see his other side.

Regardless, one who switches from humility to pride due to a switch in context (situation and the people who happen to be around and not be around) is, at root, proud. There is a lack of “integrity” there.

As for “they have no interest in being celebrities”, the way he has marketed himself seems to contradict this. And he sure enjoys the “perks” of it. He might “actively discourage” it - sometimes (depending, like I said, on context), but I do not think he always discourages it, and some of the time, this is probably false modesty.

In my dealings with Dr. Hahn, I was quite scandalized. But it is not “just me”. I have a friend who studies in the Opus Dei seminary in Rome, where Dr. Hahn has a priest-friend he often visits, and when I told him about what happened, he said that this did not surprise him, as he was “not at all impressed” with him either - citing the arrogance, the rudeness, the “greater-than-thou” attitude he held over the seminarians there.

My other friend, who studied in the seminary at Latrobe, said the same thing. He said most of the seminarians there did not like him, because he was rude and condescending towards them. Actually, when I went to visit my friend there, a few of the seminarians, knowing I was a Steubenville student, asked me what I thought of Dr. Hahn. My answer was always the same: “his teachings are good”, and they chuckled. Many of them really liked his teaching too, but did not really use the material he taught, because they could not divorce the excellent things he taught from the person they were put off by. (I experienced this too for a while, but now I am back to reading him and using his material). This is too bad, because it could make them better priests.

I have developed a sense that perhaps Dr. Hahn is envious of the seminarians, because he has admitted himself that at times, he wishes he had not met Kimberly before his conversion so that he could have become a priest. Perhaps this explains why he belittles them. But I do not want to assume too much here.

He has also become so consumed with his work that his family gets sacrificed. At the 2009 Theology Colloquium, the Theology Chair, Fr. Dan Pattee TOR, said words to this effect: “I have met a lot of lay theology grads who want to be the next Dr. Hahn. But do you think it is easy to have all these people who want you to come and speak for them or to make presentations when you have, what, 5 or 6 children at home? Do you really want that?” One guy in the audience found the guts to shout out “Nope! No way”. And Fr. Dan extended his hand to that person and said, “See, there you go”.

I think the biggest shock for me was when a group of students offered to take me to Belleview Blvd to look at his house. Well, it wasn’t a house - it was a mansion. The Church has written numerous times about how Preachers of the Word must live simplicity (not poverty). I was very upset.

I don’t know if Dr. Hahn was always this way - I maybe think the fame and fortune changed him. Maybe the faith is all cerebral now, I don’t know (this happens frequently when people get higher degrees in theology - actually, one of my theology profs at Steubenville does not even begin Grad Theology classes with prayer). I do know when I saw Fr. Dan, and Dr. Hahn’s name came up (because he was taking a long time grading one of my papers), Fr. Dan said, “I really look out for guys like Dr. Hahn and pray for them. When everyone wants a piece of your time, and when everyone is paying attention to what you are saying and writing, and it begins coming at you from all sides, it can make you ‘hard’. But the faith is not about that - it is about a loving relationship, and we can lose sight of that. So I really try to look out for him and take care of him”. Make of that statement what you will.

I hope the moderators do not pull this comment - this is the dirty little secret about our “Catholic celebrities” [most of whom are on EWTN] that they try to make sure remains a secret. But if they do, it will not be for long. I wrote a lengthy letter to Dr. Hahn which you might call a “fraternal rebuke”. In it, I wrote of some of these things. I cc’d it to his wife and Fr. Dan. I have not received a response. As a result, I may try to have it published as an “open letter”. We shall see.

 

[Michael_Saint]

The only issue I have with Scott is that he comes across as less than…forthcoming in his book describing his conversion. It’s been a very long time since I read the book but it appears he was leaving something out when he was describing his departure from reformed theology into the Catholic church.

There is an article online that “fills in the gaps” of what Dr. Hahn conveniently “left out” in his conversion story. It is from a Presbyterian who knew him, I believe.

BTW, I must say, I too love Dr. Hahn’s work, and his work (not he himself) has had a profound effect on my spiritual growth.

But, I am not going to therefore justify his behaviour like some golfing fans have done for Tiger Woods, just because he is “so good at what he does”. Usually, any such criticism is meant with excuses like “well, we are all sinners”, or “can’t we all just get along - we are on the same team here”, etc., and although these statements are true, it is also true that these are smokescreens which divert us from a real serious issue that also needs attention.

 

[2nd_Adam]

Thanks for this thread. I will take the time to read it since I too come from the PCA. I always sense that some Catholics exhalted him as the answer to Protestantism. You have no idea how many Scott Hahn tapes and books were given to me by many many Catholics over the years.

 

[2nd_Adam]

Scott was an evangelical Presbyterian.

The following link is a rather old article that addresses the question you asked - be warned that it is on one of the most virulently anti-catholic websites you’ll come across:

bereanbeacon.org/articles/The_Lost_Soul_Scott_Hahn.pdf

I think most Catholics who leave are either disgruntled about something that happened to them, or they are caught by proselytizers who quote Scripture at them and the Catholics aren’t well-catechized enough to recognize the distortions. Either way they leave the Catholic Church thinking it is bad - running away, as you put it. But in my experience (including my own) many Evangelicals who are already well-versed in Scripture and know little or nothing about Church History are blown away when they read the works of Justin Martyr, Ireneus, Ignatius and Clement, or modern apologists like Alan Schreck and Mark Shea, and come to the conclusion that the faith they have known and loved is fully realized and expressed in the Catholic Church - so it is in fact not about repudiating the former denomination but outgrowing it.

Thanks for the link; it extremly insightful and interesting in regards to Scott Hahn’s conversion from Calvinism to Catholicism. I am familar with Justitication by Works and Norman Shepherd refrenced on the article about Hahn. Norman Shepherd’s thinking was linked to Aburn Avenue Theology which came out of the Reformed circles about 7 years ago. The group received many nicknames in which one being Catholic Calvinism.

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

I hope the moderators do not pull this comment - this is the dirty little secret about our “Catholic celebrities” [most of whom are on EWTN] that they try to make sure remains a secret. But if they do, it will not be for long. I wrote a lengthy letter to Dr. Hahn which you might call a “fraternal rebuke”. In it, I wrote of some of these things. I cc’d it to his wife and Fr. Dan. I have not received a response. As a result, I may try to have it published as an “open letter”. We shall see.

Perhaps your vocation is to humble people. If I send you my bio, can you rip me? My ex-wife would love a copy too and perhaps I wouldn’t need purgatory! :doh2:

 

[tundramom]

Don’t know Hahn. Haven’t read his book. Don’t know anything about the man.

I am going to say this, though: there seem to be three sorts of people who change religions:

those who leave and then look,
Those who look and then leave,
Those who find–and find that didn’t really have anything TO leave.

Of those who leave first and then look for a new faith, the reasons for leaving are almost always personal, not theological: someone has hurt their feelings, or treated them badly; they have physically moved and the new place doesn’t have the right ‘feel’; they have done something so against the rules of their faith that they were either kicked out or feel so guilty (and resentful, perhaps) that they kick themselves out. When they find another faith to join, these folks tend to be bitter and attack their former faith; blaming it for something it was not responsible for.

Of those who ‘look then leave,’ we have people who, while they are active members of their first faith, look around at other faiths to learn more, or someone convinces them that their first faith isn’t what they always thought it was; there is this new faith that offers more, IS more, of what they need. These folks are far less likely to go all Ed Decker (OK, “Jack Chick” ) on their first faith, but some do.

Then there are those who simply live their lives–and get blindsided by something in a new faith that they didn’t even know they were missing. When they go forward, they do so because they didn’t have much of anything invested in their first faith (if they HAD a ‘first faith’) other than social networking, culture, or family tradition. THESE folks very seldom go after their first faith; they are too busy learning about this new one, that is filling a void they didn’t even know was there.

I don’t know which of these categories Kahn falls in, but if his books are all about his new found Catholic faith rather than condemnations of his former faith, it’s a safe bet that he is either a "look then leave,’ or a “those who find” sort of person. That would make him someone who is ‘running to,’ not ‘running from.’

I know, long winded answer to a short question…I do that.

ROFL!! “Kahn”… Like Ricardo Montalban. I’m seeing Captain Kirk screaming his name. I’m sure it was spelled differently though.

I like your long winded answer. I know that for me, I think I went through all these phases on my Faith journey at some point. I didn’t get stuck in Ed Decker mode, praise God, but I was there.

Hahn’s journey is fascinating. I love to read his books. Jeff Cavins is another that I like to read. His journey is awesome for me because some of the people in his life have also been influential in my own. Bishop Paul Dudley in particular. Man, I miss him! RIP Bishop Paul!

Steph