Book Review

I don’t often get outraged about religious coverage since it so often drives me to laughter over anger. There is such a disconnect of understanding that I feel more pity than anything else. It is like they have an editorial board meeting to decide just how wrong they can get a story. While the media’s coverage of Christianity is often so mistaken they crank it up a notch when covering the Pope.

Pope sets out to de-bunk Christian myths

They are of course referring to the Pope’s new book Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives.

This article presents plenty of evidence that CNN’s Atika Shubert and Hada Messia who wrote this piece had no idea what they were doing and if they actually read the Pope’s book I would be quite surprised.  Though I guess it is possible they read it scanning for the controversial and totally missing out on what the pope was saying.  I provide as evidence:

He also debunks the claim that angels sang at the birth, a staple theme of Christmas carols.

The reality is he said quite the opposite.

According to the evangelist, the angels “said” this. But Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually song, in which all the glory of the great joy that they proclaim becomes tangibly present. And so, from that moment, the angels’ song of praise has never gone silent.

Well I could go on about the mindset that produced this article and the total unreliability of so many other headlines and articles on the Pope’s new book.  I think it would be much more interesting to discuss what was actually in his book.

I had thought to delay buying this book as I had other books in my virtual stack of ebooks to go through. I soon dismissed such a foolish idea and went ahead and bought it, downloaded it,  and  read it.

First off it is interesting what the Pope said about his book in the foreword.

It is not a third volume, but a kind of small “antechamber” to the two earlier volumes on the figure and the message of Jesus of Nazareth.

While it is certainly true at around 130 pages this is a much shorter book than his first two books in this series I find this to be my favorite of them.  This is not to diminish how great the first two were and maybe I just love more whatever I am currently reading.  Yet with Advent and Christmas approaching the subject matter really grabs me and what the Pope writes also makes me see some things anew or for the first time.

While news coverage puts the narrative in terms of debunking, that is not what the Pope does.  Pope Benedict does not try to definitively answer questions and  at times questions the plausibility or certainty of some solutions put forward. He is questing towards the truth and puts forward different opinions and then makes clear what his preference is regarding this.  Still it is clear as he has previously noted that he is writing in a private capacity as a theologian and not making dogmatic statements.  He leads a way forward in understanding some common disputes regarding the infancy narratives.  While he does note why he thinks some things are improbable or mistaken, he certainly does not definitively rule them out.

Now as I was reading this book I was highlighting passages like crazy.  I highlighted so much that just reading through my notes is like reading the book again. At least the advantage of highlighting on an ebook is that it makes it so easy to retrieve the same texts. For example what he said regarding exegesis to illustrate my last paragraph:

Again and again, Jesus’ words exceed our rational powers. Again and again, they surpass our capacity to understand. The temptation to reduce them, to bend them to our own criteria, is understandable. Yet good exegesis requires of us the humility to leave intact this loftiness that so often overtaxes us, not to reduce Jesus’ sayings by asking to what extent we can take him at his word. He takes us completely at our word. Believing means submitting to this loftiness and slowly growing into it.

As I was reading through the book I was trying to formulate in my own mind his exegesis of humility and luckily instead of bungling through how to explain it he did it himself towards the end.

I especially found interesting his look at the two genealogies in Matthew and Luke and all the attempts to explain them and reconcile them.  After reading through what he had to say about the two genealogies and looking at them with the view of the authors he writes concerning reconciling the two genealogies:

It seems to me utterly futile to formulate hypotheses on this matter.

So much has been written trying to present possible solutions and yet the Pope cuts to the quick.

Neither evangelist is concerned so much with the individual names as with the symbolic structure within which Jesus’ place in history is set before us: the intricacy with which he is woven into the historical strands of the promise, as well as the new beginning which paradoxically characterizes his origin side by side with the continuity of God’s action in history.

Another thing that really struck me was when he was writing about passages in the Old Testament that seemed to have no context and meaning until the truth was revealed in the New Testament.  I just love the term he used “Word in waiting.”  He wrote about how Mary’s yes really was the dividing line between the Old and New Testament.  This seems to me to be kind of an ironic reversal.  The Old Testament was pregnant with the Word until Mary’s Fiat and the Word was conceived. This is a clumsy analogy on my part, but what the Pope had to say about the “Word in waiting” really made me see some of these passages in the Old Testament in a new light.  For example he covered  Isaiah 7:14 where the prophet Isaiah, addressing King Ahaz of Judah gives him the famous prophecy. The Pope dismisses attempts at relating the prophecy to specific events during the time of King Ahaz and relates this to one of his “Words of waiting” that required the fullness of time to understand.

Much of the media’s coverage of the book relates to what the Pope write about the date of Jesus’s birth.  There is really no controversy here as scholars have long questioned the traditional date that goes back to a miscalculation by the monk Dionysius Exiguus (550).  This might seem like news to the media which only proves their ignorance.  The Pope gives various evidences for an earlier date which he says is “placed a few years earlier.”  The dating of the census is part of this, but he does not pick any specific solution and sets forth some possibilities regarding this.  Also contrary to the press he does not speak at all on the subject of whether December 25th is the day Jesus was born.

Now I don’t want to write a review longer than the book being reviewed, so I will try to stop here.  I admit this is hard because the book really struck me and I was learning something through every page of it.  This would make a great Christmas gift for Catholics or any one of good will.  It is just so insightful, yet being so readable.  This is not something as dense as “Introduction to Christianity”, but obviously written for everybody. Though I hope readers of my blog need little encouragement in wanting to read this wonderful book.

One of the things I found coming into the Catholic faith is that there had seemed to be a conspiracy against me.  Large swaths of history involving the Church were edited out of my education.  There was also a bit of self-censorship in the books I choose to read.  One of those “conspiracies” against me was keeping G.K. Chesterton from me.  I had never heard of him until I kept running into mentions of him while investigating the Catholic faith.  There is just so much that is wonderful about now being Catholic and a bonus was thrown in – the writings of G.K. Chesterton. Over the years I have read thousands of articles on the internet and yet I recollect fully the time and place I first read a chapter from Chesterton.  It was “The God in the Cave” on PetersNet (now CatholicCulture.org) from “The Everlasting Man.”

Now this conspiracy to deprive me of G.K. Chesterton seems to have been a general conspiracy by academia and the cultural elite to ignore the man.  That is why the work of Dale Ahlquist the great Chesterton popularizer and president of the American Chesterton Society is so important. His previous book was In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton which I much liked.  Reading about G.K. Chesterton is enjoyable, but actually reading Chesterton is more so.

Mr. Ahlquist’s new book is The Complete Thinker: The Marvelous Mind of G.K. Chesterton.  While actually reading Chesterton is better Dale Ahlquist strikes a nice balance by including a lot of Chesterton while applying Chesterton-like analysis. There is the old joke about owners becoming like their pets and I keep finding that  Dale Ahlquist is a lot like Chesterton and has a bit of a “marvelous mind” himself.

The book goes on to demonstrate just why G.K. Chesterton was the complete thinker.  In this day of over-specialization we come to expect people to have only expertise in one area.  It is no surprise that the modern man will refer to someone whose knowledge spans numerous topics as a renaissance  man and not a modern man.  This concept is one reason I was always attracted to the character of Sherlock Holmes’ brother Mycroft in that he gathered information from multiple disciplines and could see as a whole what the specialists were missing.  Chesterton could see the underlying truth in all things and thus was able to talk about all things.  Not only have we become accustomed to not seeing the forrest for the trees, but we don’t even see the trees that well.  When all truth is relative it is not relative to see the truth.

The chapters of the book cover many areas from the problem of evil, war and peace, sickness and health, abandoning hopelessness, law and lawyers, and many other contrasts.  The structure of the topics build on each other and demonstrate all the areas in which Chesterton was more than competent.  People are often amazed at how prescient Chesterton was in seeing the roots of problems and where they would lead.  The gist of what he says applies equally today because the problems that were evident to Chesterton in his day have only continued.

What this book demonstrated to me is how much to the root of things Chesterton’s vision was.  After the recent election and reading again Chesterton’s thoughts on birth control we can see how much the debate has shifted or just plain deconstructed.  I was especially intrigued by Chesterton criticism of national health as it was starting in England in his day.  His arguments had nothing to do with slippery slope arguments about how such policies can go awry, but cut to the quick about the whole concept in the first place.  It is amazing how Chesterton can get you to re-look at something you believed you already understood even when you already agreed with his conclusions.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and there is also an appendix dealing with the Chesterton/Clarence Darrow debate. While sadly a transcript of the debate does not exists there is some information from those who attended and I thought this appendix was quite worthwhile in itself.  It is of interest to note that one of Clarence Darrow’s relatives Leah Darrow now works for Catholic Answers.

Now let me get back to my dog-eared copy of Orthodoxy. I wonder what the equivalent is for ebooks – pixel worn?

Terrapin: A Mystery is a new novel by T.M. Doran put out by Ignatius Press.  I previously reviewed his first novel Toward the Gleam which I certainly enjoyed.  A year later the plot and ideas of that novel are still with me.  I thought the idea of the novel was a great idea that was executed fairly well, though the author was a bit coy with all the historical characters introduced.

Terrapin is not as vast an idea as Toward the Gleam was, but in some ways I enjoyed it more.  For example the novel seems much more polished and with a more concentrated theme.  In this novel a group of childhood friends are having one of their reunions to spend time over a weekend. Something terrible happens and the whole thing escalates as we advance through the novel.  In some ways it is a closed room mystery with a bit of a twist.  As a mystery novel it proceeds along lines that you would expect leading up towards the final confrontation.  Just as a mystery novel it succeeds quite well. You are mostly kept guessing throughout as to whether the murder is part of a black bag operation from the government or something quite different.

The story is told in alternating chapters between following their reunion and going back to events in their childhood.  The events of their childhood that lead up to the occurrences involved in the murder mystery slowly unfold and we get character studies of these childhood friends.

Now since this is a book put out by Ignatius Press you expect some spiritual element to it. It certainly doesn’t disappoint there, but it is with quite a light touch and rather subtle.  The protagonist Dennis Cole is a mystery writer with whose father “TA” is a bit of a philosopher.  The interactions with TA and the people of the neighborhood provides some of the depths for the novel.  TA who is widowed as a result of a car accident provides one of the themes in the novel regarding Dennis and his desire to find the hit and run driver.  In some ways some of the conversations in the book between TA and his son remind me of Gandalf’s and Frodo’s conversation regarding Gollum.  Maybe that is not so surprising considering the subject of the authors first book.

I was engaged throughout both with the mystery and the semi-coming-of-age story. My only actual complaint is that the event in the past that lead to the conclusion was rather late in the book.  Maybe this was necessary and it did build up to this in a way that it made everything else make sense. So if you are looking for a good mystery novel with some depth to it I would certainly recommend it.

Ignatius Press

If Aristotle’s Kid Had an iPod: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Parents by Conor Gallagher is a new book from TAN Books that I believe has been released today.

This is kind of a cross between and introduction to Aristotle and a philosophy book for parents.  He purposely calls it not a parenting book as he says he is not qualified to write one – I think otherwise though.  As a philosophy book for parents I think it succeeds rather well as he takes the wisdom of Aristotle out of just the intellectual into the practical.  Preparing your children for a life of virtue, true friendships, and happiness. As this book has a Aristotelian focus it doesn’t try to project Christian theology upon his thought.  Though there is so much that integrates quite well as the Scholastics found.  Human nature has not changed since Aristotle lived.

I quite enjoyed the format of the book and the way he presented philosophical ideas that are easily grasped.  There is some humor in the writing which keeps it light while discussing serious philosophical ideas regarding human nature and living a life of virtue. The author also used various studies, statistics, and stories to support the underlying ideas.    A summary at the end of each chapters goes over some of the main ideas.  The theme of the iPod is used in these summaries which it calls a “Playlist” and overall I quite liked the layout of the book.  “Aristotle’s Dictionary for Parents” at the end provides references to ideas in the book.

I thought this books succeeds quite well at what it sets out to do both as a introduction to Aristotelian thought and philosophy in general and what it means to our daily lives.  If I every run across a time machine I will be sure to send a copy of this book back to my early self.

Brandon Vogt provides the info on a new book where the proceeds all go to charity.

When T.J. Burdick launched his blog back in 2010, one question puzzled him: how do you become an effective Catholic blogger?

Two years and many blog posts later, T.J. had few answers so he began searching for help. He emailed a number of blogging friends and asked, “in your opinion, what are the ‘ten commandments’ that Christian bloggers should keep in mind?”

Ten Catholic bloggers responded with a diversity of answers. Some were deep, some pithy; some were practical, some spiritual. But together they provided T.J. a solid foundation for Catholic blogging.

Wanting to help others, T.J. decided to package all of this wisdom into a short, $1.99 eBook titled One Body, Many Blogs: A Guide for Christian Bloggers (eBook, 52 pages).

The eBook includes contributions from:

• Brandon Vogt (BrandonVogt.com)
• Deacon Greg Kandra (The Deacon’s Bench)
• Devin Rose (St. Joseph’s Vanguard)
• Frank Weathers (Why I Am Catholic)
• Jeff Miller (The Curt Jester)
• Katrina R. Fernandez (The Crescat)
• Kevin Knight (New Advent)
• Lisa Hendey (CatholicMom.com)
• Marc Barnes (BadCatholic and 1flesh.org)
• Susan Windley-Daoust (Ironic Catholic)
• T.J. Burdick (TJBurdick.com)

Brandon also provides more information and quotes from the book.

The Secret Life of John Paul II is a book recently translated into English written by Lino Zani a friend of the late Pope. The title promises more than it delivers, but it does present some nice behind the scenes look at Blessed Pope John Paul II. The title though sounds more like a tell-all book, but that might help more people read it. I remember once hearing a story from a Protestant women who is the sister of a rather famous anti-Catholic who saw “The Confessions of St. Patrick” and thought it would shine a negative light on a Catholic saint she knew little of. Instead it put her on a path to conversion to the Catholic Church.

Lino Zani was born and raised in the Italian Alps and acted as a guide and ski instructor. And avid adventurer and mountain climber he relates his first contact with Blessed John Paul II when he comes to vacation in the secluded mountain lodge owned by his parents. This meeting led to a lifetime friendship for hime and his family with the Pope.

It confirms many stories I have read about the Pope concerning his personalism and the way he talked to people as individuals and with undivided attention. A phenomenal memory helped him remember people he had met shortly years earlier. When he first meets the Pope and acts as a guide he writes about the Pope’s intense prayer life which he combined with being an active outdoorsman.

The books details the many encounters he has with the Pope and a historic theme that provides a theme to these encounters. An old cross that marks the remembrance of the dead in this mountains from battles that occurred in WWI provides an intriguing link to both the history of this area and to the life of the Pope’s father. The history of these battles provides a backdrop that is built on in their interactions and becomes something more than just history. The story of this weathered cross and how it gets replaced with a memorial in cooperation with the Pope and a seeming connection with the 3rd secret of Fatima provides some interesting reading. The connection with Fatima seems like a real possibility and not some wild-eye projection at making connections where there are none.

This book as told through the authors eyes provides both a story of his life, but something of the holiness of Blessed John Paul II. Lino Zani was not always the most faithful Catholic and a bit of a woman-chaser and he makes no excuses for this and relates how the Pope chastised him over this flaw. Yet it was a flaw he finally did overcome. There is certainly plenty of interest here which includes the authors attempts at placing Papal blessed crosses on mountaintops across the world. There are also some fun stories involving the Pope and the people that travelled with him including one involving the President of Italy at the time.

David Athey the author of “Danny Gospel” let me know that his book is free today on Amazon for Kindle/Kindle App users. This is a quite excellent first novel. My original review.

His latest novel is “Christopher”, which I reviewed here.

Converts and Kingdoms: How the Church Converted the Pagan West and How We Can Do It Again is a new book by Diane Moczar being published by Catholic Answers.

This book illustrates some of the major movements of conversion throughout history.  Starting with the time just before Constantine and dealing with the growth of Christianity prominently in Europe and later the New World.  I was somewhat familiar with some of this history from the books of the late Warren H. Carroll and others, but I really liked the focus of this book and all the details amplifying the growth of Christendom and just how unlikely it all seems.

The relating of this history did bring to me often in mind the writing style of Warren H. Carroll  and I say that as the highest compliment.  Clearly shown just what is history and avoiding hagiography (in the negative sense of the word) while not being dismissive of miracles.  I also enjoyed some of the comments by the author peppered throughout that added some humor and here own clarification of what she thought of some streams of historical thought.  This is certainly not dry history and I found myself reading large sections of it at a time finding that I enjoyed it so much.  I found it an informative read.

The only complaint I had with the book is that it did not really live up to the subtitle. Specifically the “How we can do it again” part.  While I am sure there are lessons learned from these segments of history, the author really didn’t point them out as to their applicability today.  I expected that there would be a final chapter making these arguments.  Considering that many of these major conversion points in Christendom involved conversions of emperors, kings, and chieftains that aspect is much less important today.  Even in our celebrity-soaked culture, celebrity religious conversions don’t hold much sway” The same goes for nationality in relation to state religions.  We just don’t have the huge shortcut available today where the religion of the king becomes the religion of the people.  Though I can’t say I am very fond of that method in the first place.

What we can emulate is of course the same method always available of personal holiness and evangelical zeal.  While the conversions of leaders played a great part, these conversion came as a result of contact with saints.  The thing about conversion is that it is not a static thing and constantly requires reconversion.  Complacency is the enemy of holiness and we see so much complacency and luke-warmness today.  Though as this book demonstrates this is nothing new and a constant struggle.  Overall I greatly enjoyed this book and the unsanitized history it presented. Her other books now go on my must-read wish list.

“Praying the Rosary for Intercession” is a new book by Catherine M. Odell published by OSV. This book like so many that came before it has a standard format.  A history of the Rosary followed by meditations for each mystery and lastly specific instructions on praying the Rosary along with guidelines for intentions.

The reflections are mostly pretty good and on target.

What makes this book stand out for this type of book is both its strength and and its weakness.  After the scriptural reference and reflection on the mystery follows a section called “The Rosary in our lives”.  This section includes personal stories on how the Rosary has affected the lives of people.  There are modern conversion stories along with stories on the Saints and their devotion tot the Rosary.  This puts the Rosary in the context of people’s lives and thus would be quite helpful for the audience of this book.

The weakness of the  “The Rosary in our lives” is not the actual content of it, but the references to some dubious sources and apparitions.

For example four of the stories in this section relate to Medjugorje.  The introduction to one of these stories refers to Medjugorje as a place where “some people” think Mary is appearing.  Now there is a lot of controversy regarding this alleged apparition and I am definitely in the skeptical if not outright thinking it is a fraud camp.  Regardless I think a writer who brings up Medjugorje has a duty to say more than that “some people” accept them.  They have a duty to note that both Bishops of Medjugorje have not approved them and that the Bishop’s conference of Yugoslavia also did not approve them.   I believe that there are true conversion occurring in Medjugorje since wherever there is the Mass and the Sacraments and people looking for God there are conversions.  Even apparitions that were condemned by the Church had movements of conversions surrounding them.  So I have no problem with printing stories of conversion regarding Medjugorje, I just think there should be a firm disclosure regarding the current status of Medjugorje in relation to the Church.

The dubious sources I refer to is in one example referring to Dutch professor Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx O.P. in glowing terms.  Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a caution in 1986 that his theories regarding the laity were at odds with the teachings of the Church.  Under Cardinal Ratzinger this was somewhat cleared up in interactions by letters to explain himself, but he was drop the reference to lay ministry from any subsequent publications.   This is just one of he controversies surrounding him.  Fr. Rolheiser is also referenced and I find that he certainly flirts with heterodoxy with an oversexualization of everything.  For example he writes on St. Therese who he calls a a very lonely person “More deeply than we long for a sexual partner, we long for moral affinity—our deepest longing is for someone to sleep with morally.”  Really that is our deepest longing?  So much for “Our hearts our restless until they rest in you.”

I certainly might be too critical on this in that the use of material from these two men were not problematic in themselves.  People can read this book to their good, though if it interests them in Medjugorje or the writings of these two men in my mind that is not to the good.

I had noticed that TS of Video, meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor had been reading through Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat and quoting passages from it.  The title and subtitle intrigued me as does the author and so I added it to my wish list and finally got around to buying and reading it.

This book is sort of a history and critique of Christianity as practiced by Americans especially in the last seventy or so years.  His critique is that we are a nation of heretics and that really we have always been a nation of heretics from the foundation of the country.  What has changed is the amount of orthodoxy as practiced by the various strains of American Christianity.  His use of the word heretics is the more general term of use and not a precise canonical one.

As a critique the history provided is of  the major trends and personalities involved along with snapshots of data to help you put it all into context.  We see how these religious trends often intersected with societal ones and how more and more they took on political tones.  These movements within Christianity as practiced in America paralleled movements of thought from Europe resulting in very American formulations of it along with negative reactions to this.  He breaks up these movements into two basic areas of accommodation and resistance and reviews both the Protestant and Catholic sides of it.  Accommodation being the various forms predominate in a more liberal Christianity along with resistance like the neo-Orthodox movement. This makes up the first half of the book and provides a very readable summary of this history along with exploring the philosophies and personalities behind it.

The second half of the book looks at  the various heresies that are predominant now.  The culture and the media’s fascination with some of the so-called lost gospels and other gnostic writings used to beat Christianity shows the old adage about “any stick will do.”  From the inept translation of the Gospel of Judas as headed by the National Geographic to so much nonsense that has made it to the History Channel we see how that stick is used.  They will call the Catholic Church anti-women while promoting the “Gospel” of Thomas where you have to become a man to go to Heaven.

He also explores those who promote a materialistic  prosperity gospel of “Name it and claim it” the Word of Faith movement.  I find it no surprise that this movement developed in the U.S. and also not a surprise that it runs parallels to the New Age teaching of the “the law of attraction” as espoused in so many books Oprah promoted. Strains of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale “The Power of Positive Thinking” have taken some strange paths.

New Age emphasis on the “God within” has also made many inroads and entries into not only the popular culture, but also the retreat house. It is almost despairing when books like Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray. Love” which exhibit a toxic selfishness not only becomes a best seller, but a movie also. But when the god is within you than sin is dispelled and whatever you happen to be doing is of course part of the will of the god within for you. Mystical pantheism dressed up in radical selfishness.

I found especially interesting the last chapter “The City on the Hill” which looks in part at the various religious/political intersections and how they have played out in our history. The alternations between messianic and apocalyptic views which more and more are existing in parallel. These intersections were to the good in the Civil Rights movements where we had both sides of the political divide along with the parallel elements in various churches. Ross Douthat analysis of this success of this only highlights the failure of modern religious and political partisanship. This is certainly not a simple “liberal bad, conservatives good” book as I think he gives a fair analysis regarding both sides. I certainly did not agree with all of his analysis, but when I didn’t I was more apt to look at my own ideas and see if perhaps I was mistaken or needed to reevaluate something. The conclusion of the book reflects both his “spirit of pessimism” and a hopeful optimism.

This book has been written in a spirit of pessimism, but for both Americans and Christians, pessimism should always be provisional. Even in an era of disarray, Americans can draw confidence from our nation’s remarkable past, with its stories of expectations confounded, obstacles overcome, declines reversed, and better futures attained. Christians have an even stronger source of confidence: the belief that history has an Author and that the destiny of both their country and their creed is in God’s hands.

Ross Douthat as a Catholic knows that the promise concerning the Church’s protection from the Gates of Hell does not mean a protection of American Christianity as he points out. He does not pretend to predict how this ebbs and flows of Christianity within the context of the United States will play out, but he also knows that there have been many predicted ends for it.

As a writer Ross Douthat is really a joy to read and I especially liked the precision in what he wrote. Some people will use their large vocabulary as a spotlight to show how bright they are. I don’t think that was the case here, but I am glad I read the ebook version where a dictionary definition was only a finger press away. When he did use unfamiliar words I found they were perfected fitted to what he was saying.