One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church

Rating:
Summary: Whitehead does not do Roman Catholics any favors.
Review: In the tradition of such poorly written books as, "Rome, Sweet Home," "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic," and "Crossing the Tiber," Iganatius Press has published another howler. How a publisher can allow the likes of Hann, Ray and Whitehead alongside such great minds as De Lubac and Von Balthasar is beyond belief. Whitehead's book is written not for those with hard questions about church history and the growth and development of Roman Catholicism, but for the "converted," who are looking for glib answers to difficult realities. His prose is wooden, a death sign for any one attempting to write history. His worst problem is he is attempting to write history without all the basics needed for a fair and honest effort. Virtually no footnotes, no interaction with other scholars (is Whitehead a scholar, or just a propogandist for the Church?), while alternate explanations are swept away with the ease of a keyboard. The Roman Catholic Church needs good history books to explain and defend the growth and the development of the Faith. This is not one of them. This does the Church an injustice, while making our efforts to explain Church history seem lame and weak.

Rating:
Summary: Destined to be a classic despite bias reviews of it
Review: Keneth Whitehead historically based apologetic work on the early church, uses history to show the early church was in fact the Catholic church in all essential respects. I am writing this review to show how previous reviewers that maligned this book, on the basis of lacking footnoting is total bogus and has more to do with their own biases. I'm a former Graduate student in Political Science at the University of Central Oklahoma. Political Science scholarship often used Parethical text citation instead of footnoting. While it is true Mr. Whitehead's book does not use footnoting, his sources are well documented.
The structure of the book is composed of four chapters and a conclusion.
Chapter One is "Church of the Apostles". I hardly think footnoting is necessary when quoting the Apostle Paul the author merely documents this as (1 COR 10:17). Anyone even remotely familar with the Bible can recognize this.
Chapter two is the "Church of the early Fathers" in which sources are identified in the text such as the classic historians like Eusebius Ecclesiastical History and early church fathers such as Ignatius. Ignatius only wrote seven letters around 107 A.D which are well known even among Protestants, and the book identifies which letter he is quoting from in each case. Anyone with even most limited knowledge of early church fathers can look up the author's references. Similarly when Emperor Constantine Edict of Milan is quoted from, the parethical reference is sufficient.
Chapter three is on the "Church of the Four Great Councils"
It includes lengthly quotes from Great Church council offical documents. Consider on Pg. 84 of this book being reveiwed, the author quotes a statement made by the Arian Emperor Constantius in 355 A.D as saying "take my will for a canon". This source is cited in the text as (St. Athanasius, History of the Arians, 33). There are many similar examples to this one. This argument about footnoting to attack this book is totally bogus and without foundation. It is made by people with their own biases and agendas.
The reason is clear. The final chapter of book and much of the meat of the book on the "Primacy of Rome" in the early centuries is filled with historically damaging information. In particular, the documentary evidence is overwhelming (w/ Page Numbers!) of Eastern Christianity putting themselves to writing in Ecumenical councils recognizing the formal primacy of the Bishop of Rome despite what they and Protestants assert today.

Rating:
Summary: The Development of theOne, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic Church
Review: Mr. Whitehead provides a convincing case that the early Church was indeed the Catholic Church. Although lacking in footnotes or endnotes, Whitehead adequately describes his sources for his material. Further, he offers a fair critique of many of his sources in both their weaknesses and strengths.

To understand Whitehead's approach, the reader should have an understanding of the development of doctrine for the "kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed - when it is full grown, it becomes a tree."

In its essence, doctrine is not corrupted simply because it develops. Earch Church history is replete with instances whereby the early Church came to understand revelation largely as a result of reproofing heresies that developed in the early Church.

Whitehead's theme is largely developed on the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. Because doctrine develops as men gain a greater understanding of revelation (the Trinity is an excellent example) Whitehead does not make the mistake of arguing that what we know as the papacy today was fully understood or developed in the first four centuries of the Church. However, he provides a highly convincing argument that all the elements of what the Catholic Church claims were there from the beginning and accepted by the universal Church, both East and West.

For anyone seeking to understand the early Church, or the Catholic case for the papacy, this is an excellent resource. Following a read of this work, I encourage the reader to read the source documents themselves.

Highly recommended reading!