I'm almost done with the introduction and I couldn't finish it before I commented on it! Even though I've only tasted a small bit of what this book is about, I've already learned a lot. It's surprisingly easier to understand than I thought- but I'm not naive, and I'm sure it's going to get hard.

One mistake I've already made is not taking notes as I read. This book is way old so I can't just highlight stuff like I usually do. The pages are long and dense, so even though I've only read like 15 pages, it's packed full of info. Throughout the book I'm basically going to be regurgitating ideas and even pulling quotes directly from the book that are important. I'll try to make my comments to the point for your sake :)

- Boettner starts off by saying that 20th century Americans in particular don't understand how significant our freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly is. We take our forefather's struggles during the time of Reformation for granted.

- RC's (Roman Catholics from now on...) represent Protestantism as something new that was created after the Reformation. On the contrary, Prot. came from the New Testament 1st century church.

- B/f the reformation, popes controlled Europe- they and the priests held the power, people's rights were taken away, marriage, courts, public affairs, etc. were all in their hands. State revenues paid priest salaries. Anyone who resisted risked losing their job, property or life.

- Important results of reformation- Bible was given to people in their own languages. Before this, it was taught that only the church speaking through the priest could interpret it correctly. Luther translated it into German first.

(By the way, this book was written in the 60's in America. There are a lot of comments regarding communism and how RC and Communism is a dangerous threat to America. I'm curious to know if these are paranoid biased statements or if they're legit. Nevertheless, I'm going to repeat what the author is saying and figure that out towards the end of the book.)

- Communism and RC= totalitarian systems that threaten freedoms. RC is more threatening than Com. b/c it has the cloak of religion over it.

- RC believes they're the only true church, its' right to suppress all other religions, superiority to government, control over marriage and education, and that tax money should support the church.

- Boettner notices that predominantly RC countries happen to have a very high illiteracy rate (30-70% usually).

- He says without the help of US aid and our political influence, many countries like Italy and France would have turned communist after WW2. Anyone know if this is biased or unbiased?

- Really interesting: End of WW1, the Czarist regime and the Ortho. Catholic church was overthrown. The dead, formalistic Russian church lost respect from the people and was identified equally with the govt. that was just overthrown. When people rose up in anger, they threw out the political govt. AND the church too- they then turned against religion alltogether and then to Atheism.

- RC church isn't what it used to be, but has been developing through the centuries. It has a chart, listing the different heresies and inventions and what year they were adopted. It starts in 300 with Prayers for the Dead, and goes all the way up to 1965, ending in Mary Proclaimed Mother of the Church by pope Paul VI...all changes that came to the church AFTER the death of Christ. Described as an anti-evangelical church formed out of centuries of error.

- The RC church claims Semper Idem, or "Always the same", meaning she never changes or teaches new doctrine. Uhhh duh, seriously?

- Protestantism accepts the basic principles of the bible- it is the essence of God stripped down from all the man-made inventions and heresies. It is the 1st century church of CHRISTIANS. The reformation, led by Luther, Calvin, and other men, was considered a (I love this!) "Back-to-the-Biblie" movement- a return to apostolic Christianity.

- Protestant applied to the reformers who protested against false doctrines and practices that were contrary to the bible. But it did not spawn from these men- it spawned from The Gospel! With Jesus Christ- nothing more, nothing less, he says. It wasn't based on the writings of mere men, but of the unchanging Book.