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U p F r o n t
By Karl Keating
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This Rock
Volume 5, Number 4
 April 1994 
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When thinking about how to engage in apologetics,
I keep coming back to Frank Sheed. To him I owe much of the credit
(or blame, depending on your point of view) for my interest in the
field. I return frequently to Theology for Beginners (which
is more than a primer), to Theology and Sanity (perhaps his
most intriguing book), and to the work (written with Maisie Ward,
his wife) that probably is the most important apologetics book of
our century. Of course I refer to Catholic Evidence Training Outlines.
During his long career Frank Sheed legitimized apologetics
for two generations of Catholics, those who reached maturity from
the 1920s into the 1950s. His books, when discovered by more recent
readers, still elicit an appreciative "Aha!" (I'd bet that
if Theology for Beginners were required reading for
every adult wanting to take Communion, the Church in this country
would be in immeasurably better shape.)
In this issue we publish the first part of a booklet
Sheed composed when he was about 28. It's an introduction to the procedures
used by the Catholic Evidence Guild in training its members to speak
in public. For many years the Guild was best known for taking on all
comers in London's Hyde Park. The image is somewhat misleading, since
the Guild at one time boasted as many as 600 active street corner
teachers in Britain alone. If we apply ourselves, we can learn much
from the Guild's methods and from Sheed's thinking.
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