Book Review

Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandments at Our Peril by David Klinghoffer gives a very interesting Jewish perspective on culture using the Ten Commandments. Each chapter goes through each commandment with plenty of commentary both on the commandment and the negative examples society gives by rejecting them. David Klinghoffer being from the Seattle area primarily uses news from Seattle and surrounding areas to make his points. The secularism of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest in general provides a good backdrop to roundly ignoring the Ten Commandments.

David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute and contributor to the National Review and the Jewish weekly newspaper The Forward is an Orthodox Jew, but he is quite willing to make common cause with conservative Christians. His harsher criticisms are given to both liberal Jews and Christians for their part in ignoring the Commandments and then secularists. The stories he culls from both Seattle and national news illustrates exactly the points he wants to make when we dump our Judeo-Christian heritage.

I found his commentary on the Ten Commandments primarily using Jewish sources to be quite informative and interesting. Though you can certainly see some divulgences in interpretations from the Ten Commandments that divulge from Catholic understanding. So while I might disagree with some of his interpretations I mostly agree with how he sees living the Ten Commandments and especially how not following the Sabbath has so disrupted Family and Community. The book though has definitely given me a deeper view on some of the nuances of the Commandment that are normally mentioned.

I had been looking forward to reading the 2nd edition of Mike Aquilina’s The Mass of the Early Christians and I certainly was not disappointed. This is absolutely a great book and I believe required reading for anybody who wants to read on the early form and development of the Mass.

Mike Aquilina takes us sequentially through history using documented sources to give us a good idea of how the Mass was originally celebrated. We of course have some idea of this from the New Testament and the book goes thoroughly through both Old and New Testament sources in reference to the Mass and we see over and over again how the Church Fathers did the same. Part of the development of the Mass is shrouded in history, especially concerning the Eucharistic celebration. Early Christians kept the Eucharistic celebration secret and seekers and catechumen were required to leave prior to the Eucharistic celebration. Early writers pretty much kept to this tradition and so often we only have oblique references to this and it only becomes more explicit after the Edict of Milan. I think this practice is a good thing to meditate on in how sacred the early Christians viewed this celebration and how cavalier we can think of it.

Despite this lack of openness regarding the liturgy there are still a lot of good clues to give us an insight into these early celebrations and we of course find that they are not much different in structured compared to our current celebrations. Part II – The Testimony of Witnesses is the largest part of the book and starts with the New Testament, the Didache and then then chapters focusing on individuals such as Church Fathers and other historical sources including some Pagan and Gnostic ones. I really like how he laid out the book because instead of getting brief texts from multiple sources we get much fuller texts from these authors when they reference the liturgy. This book is not a listing of all the texts available on the early church, but does contain a prominent sampling of them. As Mike Aquilina mentions including all of them would have made the book twice as large and I think he came up with a great compromise. I much prefer the fuller texts along with full scriptural texts.

I found some of the Pagan sources quite fascinating along with some of the early accusations made against the Christians. I had of course heard of the cannibalism charges, but some of the other charges made makes Church reporting by the modern media quite tame in contrast. The best part those are of the Church’s witnesses and the insights they had towards the Mass and the view they give us of the early liturgies. This book can be used both for apologetics purposes and for spiritual reading. What I found most fascinating though was the texts from the Mass that still exist and the variety of them from the various geographical liturgies.

The last section of the book gives us a short and imaginative look at what it would have been like to go to a Mass in North Africa and a good idea of what it would have been like to go to one of these house Churches during the time the Church was being heavily persecuted.

Highly recommended for anybody.

Mike Aquilina also maintains an excellent blog called The Way of the Fathers which specializes in patristics.

David Hartline of CatholicReport.org has written a book called "The Tide is Turning Toward Catholicism" that is a very good read. As the title implies it is an optimistic look at the current indicators as to the state of the Catholic Church in the world. Though his optimistic look is not of the Pollyanna variety.

He combines indicators along with history and apologetics to make his points. I found a lot of interesting details that I was not aware of as I read the book especially on history within the last 40 years regarding the Church. Especially nice is that he backs everything up thoroughly with footnotes for each chapter and an extensive references in the back of the book for points made in the various chapters. He also includes several interviews he made for his site CatholicReport.org such as his one with Gene Robinson which is quite amazing.

Despite the fact that I often concentrate on punditry in regards to individuals and groups within the Church I also think that there are a number of positive indicators that are quite hopeful as far as the Church is concerned. Despite the priestly abuse scandals which are often rooted in previous decades there are a number of signs that can be viewed optimistically. I think talking about as the tide is turning is a good simile. The tide will always ebb and flow throughout the history of the Church of which anybody reading Church history will be quite aware of. As I have said before the Church takes a lickin’ but keeps on tickin’ and one of the greatest proofs of the Church is that it survives despite her members.

David looks at the growth of predominantly lay groups defending the faith, youth embracing Apostolic tradition, increase of Eucharistic Adoration, and some of the hopeful signs in Catholic education among some schools, and the Church in culture. He also addresses several other topics such as the decline of liberal churches, the Catholic Vote, and other subjects of a more apologetic nature. His discussions and examples mostly apply directly to the Church in the United States, but some of it can be applied world wide. He doesn’t make the mistake of seeing everything with Rose colored glasses. Catholic education obviously has a long way to go and their will be increasing conflicts with the culture in regards to Catholic truths. This book is both an enjoyable and informative read.

Having read Fr. George W. Rutler’s books and column in the past I knew I was sure to enjoy his latest book Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections and ordered it as soon as it come out. The book contains fifty columns that originally appeared in Crisis Magazine and while I had read some of these columns before I enjoyed reading all of them together. Plus the lengthy preface was fun to read itself and provide a good introduction to these short essays.

The types of coincidences Fr. Rutler has detailed are not the sort that make conspiracy theorists shout Aha! They are instead the more mundane type of linking births, deaths, anniversaries, etc with other people and events. Each essay is built around a topic and you are soon immersed in a roller coaster ride through history. His command of history is breathtaking as he relates stories of people and events and links them together, albeit loosely, through coincidences of dates and even the numeric addition of the numbers in a date. Each essay runs about four pages and I kept telling myself that I would just read one more for now and then just going on and reading the next. His wit sparkles through and I found myself laughing over and over.

The annoying thing about the book is that it sharply illuminated how little I know about history, especially world history. Though I suspect a history professor might also feel a bit ignorant reading through this book. I would certainly have enjoyed to have had Fr. Rutler as a history professor instead of the social studies teachers that had little zeal for illuminating the grand adventure of history.

Here is one example of his style of writing and wit in this book:

Different hemispheres of the brain govern the propensity for intuitive artistry and inductive science. Extreme atrophy of one of the lobes can cause exaggerated aesthetism or nerdish scientism. Acute distinctions between the arts and sciences are artificial and unscientific. One dead lobe creates the National Endowment for the Arts and another dead one creates Planned Parenthood.

All of the essays are enjoyable, but I especially loved the one called “My Million Man Speech.” Louis Farrakhan gave a very strange speech where he took off on the coincidences of numbers such as the height of the Washington Monument. Fr. Rutler gives his own take in a perfect-pitch parody on coincidences in numbers.

This is quite an enjoyable book on so many levels and I highly recommended it.

I received Light in the Dark Ages: The Friendship of Francis and Clare of Assisi by Jon M. Sweeney for review from Paraclete Press. If you do a lot of reading of Catholic books you are sure to come across multiple readings of the life of St. Francis and sometimes St. Clare. Especially since after Jesus, St. Francis is the subject of the most books.

I found though that this book gave me a fresh look at the life of St. Francis and his friendship with St. Claire. Unfortunately there is very little historical information to go on concerning their friendship and what documents we have to go by concentrated on St. Francis. Regardless of these limitations gives you a good idea of how St. Francis inspired St. Clair and how her life really lived out his ideals.

The book is not a straight serial biographical account of these two saints but various chapters addresses various themes. Though you do end up with a very good look at their lives and the world they lived in. The historical context is very important when considering these two saints and it only makes them shine the brighter considering the problems and the corruption within the Church at the time. It is always a good reminder that the Church is always need renewal and that it is only the saints that can truly bring about that renewal. But more importantly that we all need to respond to the Gospel as fully as St. Francis and St. Claire did.

I liked the balanced way these saints were covered in that the author tried to stay within what we know historically about their lives and to discern from some of the source material of books written after St. Francis’ death while also at the same time not taking to skeptical of attitude to some of the surviving stories. You get a very good idea of the struggles of the early Franciscans and the book also address the sad chapters in early Franciscan history of the "Spiritual Franciscans" and the aftermath of the order after first St. Francis dies and then much later St. Claire.

So if your looking for a solid book on the life of both St. Francis and St. Clair is can highly recommend this one.

George W. Bush in a presidential debate when asked who was his favorite philosopher, remarked "Jesus." He was roundly criticized for this at the time on multiple levels. Many thought it was a silly answer showing his ignorance and others that it was demeaning of Jesus. Peter Kreeft in his new book The Philosophy of Jesus explores Jesus as philosopher and explores his philosophy.

As Peter Kreeft states in the front of the book the audience for this book is both the Christian and non-Christian and I would say that the book achieves this admirably. It is also a book for both those trained in philosophy and those who know little or nothing on the subject. He defines the terms he uses along the way to ensure he leaves nobody behind. This book is also not full of technical philosophical or theological language and though while at times some of these terms are used his writing is very clear.

The book is divided into four major chapters:

• Jesus’ Metaphysics (What is real?)
• Jesus’ Epistemology (How do we know what is real?)
• Jesus’ Anthropology (Who are we who know what is real?)
• Jesus’ Ethics (What should we be to be more real?)

One of the hardest things to teach is to teach something that somebody already believes he knows. As Christians we accept the incarnation, but after a time we can talk about these mysterious things in a monotone. Peter Kreeft in his writing shows none of this tendency and presents Jesus and his teaching in fresh ways that once again invokes how you felt when you first started to believe. It is hard not to get excited once again as you read this book and for a book that deals with philosophical subjects you will be surprised how fast you are swept into the book, as if you were just doing some recreational reading from on of your favorite novelists.

This book is not the overt apologetics such as his outstanding Handbook of Christian Apologetics, but it certainly does show the philosophy of Jesus so that the non-Christian can understand it in a non-combative style and that the Christian will see the deeper dimensions of Jesus the philosopher.

So don’t let the title throw you off, this is not a dry text on philosophical subjects, but a book certainly to nourish you.

I received Christopher West’s latest book The Love That Satisfies: Reflections on Eros and Agape for review and I found this to be a wonderful book. I have never read any of Christopher West’s books before, but was aware of his work as one of the foremost teachers and populizer of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. His latest book takes Pope Benedict XVI first encyclical Deus Caritas Est for use as a guiding template on the topics of Eros and Agape. He selected 63 key quotes from the first part of Deus Caritas Est which mainly deals with the relationship of Eros and Agape and unpacks them in easily understandable language.

Reading Deus Caritas Est before I never realized how it matches up so closely to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Though this is not surprising and any way and Pope John Paul II’s understanding is quite useful in understanding and getting the most out of Pope Benedict’s first encyclical. While Deus Caritas Est is not that difficult to read, it is nice to take a more leisurely stroll through some of the key ideas in the first part and to explore them more closely in the context of our society today. The book’s nine chapters prominently deal with Eros and Agape, what they are, their proper relationship, and their common misunderstandings. Like just about everything in the Catholic faith once again it is a case of both/and and not the divisive separation the so-called sexual revolution has give them. It is not Eros that was poisoned by Christians, but Agape that was poisoned and a wedge driven between Agape and Eros by our culture.

Throughout the book Christopher West looks at the fruits of the “sexual revolution” which he says should be called the “pornographic revolution.” Like many revolutions they often end up with a dictator in control, and this case it was the dictatorship of libido. He uses the examples of people like St. Augustine, Hugh Hefner, Bono, Truman Burbank (from the movie The Truman Show), and others to illustrate his points. The book though does not take a confrontational view in the culture wars, but gives us a proper understanding and the hope that goes with it. He also describes the tendencies to either Angelism (spirit against the body) or animalism (body to the neglect of the spirit) and the damage these unbalanced views cause. As with all heresies and errors it is the exaggeration of one truth and the diminishing of another that provides the most potent damage. It is only when we start to realize God’s love for us that we can learn to respond in a fully human manner where Eros and Agape our properly balanced.

Christopher West as produced a quite magnificent book that takes serious theological ideas down to a level easily absorbed. I truly got a lot out of this book and it has given me much to think about and makes me want to read the Pope’s encyclical once again to get even more out of it.

Once years ago while driving on the beltway in D.C. on my way to a meeting at NAVAIR I heard G. Gordon Liddy on his talk show explain St. Thomas Aquinas five ways of knowing God to an atheist caller. As I have previously described I count this event as the first milestone on my way to the Church. It was a slight shake up for me since I was arrogant enough as an atheist to automatically assume that there could be no logical arguments towards the existence of God and the use of reasoning would always destroy those annoyingly persistent hunter-gatherer myths. Though hearing these ways of knowing God did not make me rush out and investigate St. Thomas Aquinas’s claims or to look for how theism was defended in a rational manner. I let it slip to the back of my mind or more correctly I pushed it back there. This though did put a small crack in my atheism, thought it would be another eight or nine years before I finally entered the Church.

So now as a Catholic I have always felt a debt to St. Thomas Aquinas for this and even keep a statue of him on my computer desk. Because of this on my way into the Church I once bought a copy of The Pocket Aquinas hoping to learn more about his writings. I am loathe not to finish books, but this one I couldn’t finish. For me it was like reading some foreign language where you might understand a couple of words, but that is about it. I had about a zero understanding of philosophical terms and words I though I understood, obviously had a different connotation then what I was use to. Throughout my life I had pretty much disregarded the field of philosophy. To me it had seemed like a system used to explain away reality or in some cases to deny reality.

So after this initial reaction to the world of Thomism I pretty much put him aside besides the more biographical aspects of his life. Now though after several years of heaving reading within the faith and with more familiarity to philosophical terms and seeing how much I was reading often referred back to this great saint, I was looking for a book that would help me to dive into the Summa, but with water wings. That book turned out to be Peter Kreeft’s Summa on the Summa. Now I am a great fan of Peter Kreeft’s writings and I figured he would provide a good guide to the Summa, and indeed he has.

I really like the approach that he used in the book. There are plenty of books that summarize the Summa in the authors own words, but this book takes a different approach. Peter Kreeft believes the best way to explore the Summa Theologicae is by immersion in the work itself and not a mere summary of points made. The book starts off by defining the terms used in the book and this was highly useful. Meanings of words often shift so it is a good idea to ground them first in how they are used in philosophical language. Kreeft simply presents large chunks of the Summa along with plentiful footnotes. At around 530 pages Summa on the Summa takes a good representative sample of the Summa. Often included are the objections, the "On the contrary" (Sed Contra), the I Reply, and then the specific replies to the objections. For each article Kreeft picks from these as to what might be most helpful to the reader. Thus not always are the objections shown for each question, but mostly at least some of the objections are used.

In this day and age of writers erecting straw men and then demolishing them it is so refreshing to read Aquinas’s objections on a question since he makes them as complete as those objections could go. It becomes quite interesting as you read the objections and wonder how they are going to be answered. I found though after reading most of the book I could actually start to forecast how he would answer them. This rather surprised me since I had thought that a lot of Aquinas’s arguments were mostly going over my head. By reading the words of Thomas himself directly I got much more out of him then I had in summaries of his works. Plus I got a much deeper appreciation of his work. I also found that questions of Aquinas being rather cold in a cold as reason sense to be mistaken. I loved the way that in his Sed Contras how he would first go to scripture before laying out the case by reason.

Kreeft’s footnotes were very helpful and he has the knack of explaining things that needed to be explained and not intruding when most readers would understand directly. Though he does have the tendency of cheerleading for Thomas at points, but I pretty much enjoyed those footnote fawnings by a true lover of Thomas as Peter Kreeft is. The footnotes were often used when there would be problems for a modern reader who would normally misunderstand what the saint was saying. This is a great book for anybody who wants to go deeper into the Summa, but needs a helpful (but not intrusive) guide to help out.

Interestingly Rich Leonardi posts on Peter Kreeft’s other book on the Summa called A Shorter Summa which I have not yet read.

On a side note I wonder if in the history of mystery fiction if there was ever a Dominican detective used. I think a Dominican detective novel could be pretty cool. It seems to be the thought processes that lead someone to the Dominican charism could certainly be used in this direction. There have been plenty of parish priest detective’s such as Fr. Brown and Fr. Dowling, so why not a Dominican one? I can just see the last chapter when the detective lays it out saying "On the contrary, I answer that." They have Monk on television, why not Mendicant.

Last year a kind reader sent me several of Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, OSB books and I am quite indebted for that. I had read previously of Fr. Jaki and had wanted to read his books. Fr. Jaki who is a Benedictine and originally from Hungary and holds doctorates in theology and physics and is one of the foremost thinkers in the the intersection of science and theology. Often when you get theologians speaking on science or scientists speaking on theology it is often problematic. Fr. Jaki is one of those rare exceptions that can write on both disciplines to good effect.

One of the most interesting books I have ever read is his 1974 Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe. The title may be off putting to many, but I think this is a book many will enjoy. Most that read my blog are probably aware of the many scientific achievements that have been made by those who are members of the Church and especially individual priests and monks. The Church’s history in this regard and has recently popularized in books such as Thomas E Woods Jr.’s How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization Though sadly most people only hear a distorted version of the Galileo affair. Some have even heard the conjecture that it was specifically Christianity that helped science to finally bloom. What Fr. Jaki has done in this book is to put flesh to that theory and the facts to overwhelmingly show this as being true.

Fr. Jaki is quite an accomplished historian of science and in the case of this book a historian of philosophy. The beginning chapters of the book each take on a different culture and gives a very thorough overview of that culture and its underlying philosophy. His overview of the culture and philosophy Hinduism, the Egyptians, Greeks, Mayans, etc is worth reading just of itself and he packs a lot of information in the multiple chapters dedicated to these cultures. The main thrust of the question throughout the book is why did not science develop further in these cultures. Often we find the beginnings via mathematics and astronomy and looking back at some of these achievement we wonder why they didn’t make the next step, especially in some cases the next step was not very distant. We find that in all of these cultures that even with some promising beginnings that the scientific method is always stillborn.

The books subtitle From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe gives a clue to why this is. Al of these seemingly diverse cultures pretty much agreed on the idea that the universe was eternal and that it was constantly going through cycles of growth, death, and reverse and that these endless cycles repeated the same history as had gone before. Their view of the universe was like that of the mythical Phoenix. What I found interesting that this idea had also infected the Greeks and I found even more amazing just how recently into history this idea had continued on. We are rather spoiled now with the idea of the big bang firmly in our consciousness and the idea of the universe having a beginning matches exactly with the Judeo-Christian tradition and theology on this subject.

As Fr. Jaki shows it is not just the idea of a start of the universe that helps science in the right direction, it is the idea of a universe that is intelligible with underlying rules that can be explored with man’s reason that was so missing in previous philosophies. Monotheism and a created universe is a great help in the development of the scientific method. Though this is also not enough. Islam which has much in common with Christianity on this score (since they lifted it in the first place) later developed some ideas that truncated the so-called Golden Age of Islam. As Pope Benedict mentioned in his infamous Regensburg address "Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word." This idea is scientific poison since it implies that the underlying rules can change and thus exploring them is useless. This ties in with the idea by some of the universe being created and recreated constantly instead of God creating the universe and then holding it in existence. All of these ideas became like walls for scientists since they assumed them and rarely looked beyond them. Scientists often assume they are working on pure science and not tainted by any philosophy, this though is pretty much never the case.

Now I realize I am not giving Fr. Jaki overview and critique the justice it deserves since he says all of this so much better and much more accurately than I can. But if you are interested in how Christianity gave birth to the scientific method, then this is a great book on the subject. Those that attack the Church for being anti-science only show their ignorance and are really quite unthankful for what they were given by the Church in the first place. Though this is an ignorance that so many articles, books, textbooks, etc work to further.

Now as good a writer that Fr. Jaki is on the history and philosophy of science he is also a very good spiritual writer. He has recently written books on the Litany of the Sacred Heart, Litany of Loreto, The Litany of the Holy Name, The Litany of St. Joseph and a book on the Rosary called Twenty Mysteries. The books on the litanies are really really good. Now you might think that books on these litanies would be just short pamphlets. These in fact our full length books. In each of the books he takes each phrase from the litany and then gives a three to five page mediation on it. These mediations combine history, theology, philosophy, and social commentary. These reflection on each refrain will really hold your interest as both being informative, but also containing good spiritual insights. I especially like his social commentary as he relates the phrase back to our modern culture.

I recently also read his Miracles and Physics which I had recently ordered. I had received The Physics of Christianity by Frank J. Tipler for review and I didn’t know what to think of it before reading it and feel pretty much the same after reading it. I enjoyed the first half of the book that mostly talked on physics but found it increasingly odd as he expounded on God as singularity and miracles .I think he gets miracles mostly wrong since he tries to frame them in a one hundred percent physics perspective where all miracles are just divinely ordered as far as timing goes. This thinking lead to miracle of loaves and fishes becoming the miracle of sharing and sin discussed as a genetic disorder and even Jesus (and I am not joking here) having small testes. I was looking for something much more sane on the subject which is why I picked up Fr. Jaki’s Miracles and Physics. This book wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but was still quite interesting. He details the history of the demythologizers of miracles in the scientific community over mostly the last two hundred years. Though he also critiques though who over scientific reasoning in defense of miracles that when followed really end up denying all miracles. This is a shorter book of 96 pages but again shows Fr. Jaki skill as a historian of science and his ability to critique bad philosophy.

Fr. Jaki does have rather a large catalog of books and the one thing I know is that I will be working through more of them.

Yesterday I received The Mystery of Harry Potter written by Nancy Carpentier Brown of the Flying Stars Blog and pretty much set down and read it in one sitting. It is subtitled A Catholic Family Guide and that is it is exactly what it is. Over the years there has been a certain amount of controversy over whether Christian parents should let their children read the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowlings. Mrs. Brown provides a great resource for parents in prudently deciding this question and the answers and suggestions she gives should be used by all parents in deciding what literature they should allow their children to read.

Nancy Brown had originally started at the the point of a negative view towards the world of Harry Power and later revisited this because a Catholic friend of hers who she trusted recommended them and ended up reading the books and reading some of them to her children. I myself had quite a negative view of the Harry Potter book since I had read and heard commentary against them by Catholics whose views I generally trusted. Though over the years I was surprised to find that there wasn’t this anti-Potter bias in the Catholic blogosphere and in fact there was quite a positive view of the books and the movies in general. I have seen the first four movies and enjoyed them and finally got around to reading the first six books in the series earlier this year in just a two week period. I enjoyed the series and like so many others is awaiting the final book in the series. I got around the to reading the books mainly because of Nancy Brown’s blog and her entries on the books.

I really liked the advice given in The Mystery of Harry Potter in that even though she enjoys the books she does not advocate parents just going out and getting the books and giving them to her children. I also liked the fact that she encouraged parents to read the books first and then to make their own decision as to whether their children should read the books at all. She mentions that after all there are just so many good books that they could read and it certainly is not mandatory in any way that people should read these books. This advice certainly goes along with the Catholic view that parents are the primary educators. She also gives good general advice on pre-reading children’s books in general and web resources for book reviews. She also gives a general guide as to what ages each book is appropriate to and that this must be used with prudence in considering the sensitivity of each child. The books do get darker as they go since they do deal with the battle of good and evil and death. While talking about the series she is careful not to give away plot points to those who have not yet read the book.

Since Nancy Brown is a thoroughly going fan of G.K. Chesterton I was not surprised at the Chestertonian references throughout. I did find it quite interesting that through out the book she used sections of Chesterton’s Lepanto poem with sections of the HP books along with contrasts. Besides Chesterton she references C.S. Lewis, Thomas Fleming’s The Morality of Everyday Life, John Granger’s Looking for God in Harry Potter, and several other books. One section of the book starts off with Michael O’Brien’s A Landscape With Dragons: The Battle for Your Child’s Mind, though I think she should have mentioned that O’Brien (an author I really like) has written extensively against the Harry Potter books. This book was also accidentally left out of the biography at the end of the book.

I do think that Mrs. Brown did a very good job of addressing the complaints of critics and where they had valid points she agreed with them. I do think seeing these books primarily as a Fairy Tale as she and others have proposed is the best way to understand them and that they are driven by a Christian imagination and the magical elements to the stories are the background and not the primary focus. She points out that really it should be secular side that should be complaining about the series because amazingly it is so free of political correctness so often found in children’s books today. That the power of love and sacrificial love, friendships, good vs. evil morality, children needing the help of adults are the main themes of the books. I think what I enjoyed most about the book was the balance. There is no tint of "if you don’t like the books something is wrong with you" and that she doesn’t just overlook some problematic aspects of the books such as the so-called "white lies’ told by Harry and his friends at times. She puts all the impetus on the parents to judge. Towards the end she also addresses the movies in the Harry Potter franchise and cautions that Harry is much nobler in the books and the scripts in the movies sometimes inject dialogue not really fitting.

An appendix includes interviews with Dale Alquist the president of the American Chesterton Society and Regina Doman author of Angels in the Water and other children’s books on the subject of the Harry Potter books. Both of the interviews are interesting for their insights and Regina Doman was once in the anti-Potter camp. Another appendix includes discussion questions for teachers, catechists, and parents. Throughout the book there are discussion points of topics pertaining to the books to make for fruitful parent child interaction and to ensure that proper lessons are learned from the series.

This is a really good book whether you are a fan of series or have some serious questions about it.

* I would also recommend SQPN’s series The Secrets of Harry Potter podcast where Fr Roderick and Brother Giles explore the world of Harry Potter and the Christian connections throughout.