Today we live in a biblically illiterate culture. Vast numbers of people think that all Jesus taught about was “tolerance” and they couldn’t tell you if Moses or David lived first. Yet at the same time our culture still highly respects the Bible. We recognize it as a holy book, and believe that it contains the answers to many of life’s most difficult questions. In many ways this is a schizophrenic attitude: if we respect the book, why don’t we read and study it more? Or, alternatively, if we can’t bother to take the time to read and study the Bible, why treat it with respect?

The most serious danger of these contradictory attitudes is the power of Biblical “experts.” Anyone who has a semblance of knowledge of the Bible is exalted as an expert and people flock to them to find out what the Bible “really says.” In today’s world, there are two extremes of these “experts”: skeptical scholars and Biblical fundamentalists.

Skeptical scholars are those who hold everything in the Bible in suspicion. Everything from who wrote the various books of the Bible to when they were written to what they contain is attacked and the assumption is that the traditional answers to these questions are most likely wrong. Skeptical scholars flaunt their knowledge of the Bible to lure unsuspecting students and readers of their books to question everything the Bible says, until finally their followers dismiss even the most basic details of the Biblical accounts.

An example of this type of scholar is Bart Ehrman, who I profiled recently on this blog. Ehrman claims that the Bible is full of errors, lies, and forgeries. Nothing in its pages can be trusted. And as a skeptical scholar, Ehrman gets plenty of air time from a fawning press. The media knows that many people are Biblically illiterate yet respect the Bible, so skeptical scholars like Ehrman are great at generating ratings.

The other extreme of Biblical “experts” are the Biblical fundamentalists. These are the Protestant Christians who can quote chapter and verse at the drop of a hat, yet have interpretations which often seriously contradict Catholic teaching. Biblical fundamentalists can amass a large following of people who are Biblically illiterate yet respect the Bible. These followers know the Bible is important, and fundamentalists give them answers that appear clear and simple.

We’ve seen an example of this type of Bible “expert” in the news recently with the failed predictions of Harold Camping, who famously thought the Rapture would happen on May 21st, 2011. Camping attracted many who realized how important the Bible is, yet didn’t know how to properly interpret it.

It is in this environment today that the Church must navigate between the Scylla of skeptical scholarship and the Charybdis of Biblical fundamentalism. On the one hand, the Church recognizes the importance of true scholarship. Pope Benedict has been leading the way for years in criticizing the skeptical presuppositions of many Biblical scholars – accepting many of the historical critical methods employed but rejecting the anthropomorphic and anti-supernatural assumptions that many scholars bring to their studies. On the other hand, the Church also recognizes and accepts the deep reverence Biblical fundamentalists have for the written Word of God, and the importance of it for leading people closer to our Lord. Yet the Church rejects the literalistic methods most fundamentalists employ.

The biggest fallacy both sets of “experts” fall into is separating the Scriptures from the context of the Church. The Bible is a book of the Church, written by the Church for the Church. When we remove it from that context, we are prone to flights of fancy, whether it be rejecting all stories of the supernatural as “myths” or forcing the text to fit our preconceived theological theories. Either way, we become our own magisterium, authoritatively determining what the Scriptures say, instead of letting Christ’s Church – which has the protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit – interpret it within the living tradition of the Church.

This past Tuesday I spoke at a Theology on Tap on the topic: “Scripture and the Liturgy: How our participation in the Liturgy deepens our knowledge of the Bible”. Below is a 4-part video of my talk (the beginning of the first video is missing a few moments where I mention earning my Master’s 17 years after starting the program):

This past weekend was flowing with graces in the Sammons household. On Saturday, my oldest daughter was confirmed. For the past year I have been preparing her and a group of homeschoolers for their confirmation. I was not only extremely proud of my own daughter, but also the wonderful young souls who were excited to become full members of the Church.

With our daughter after Confirmation

My Confirmation Class

Then on Sunday my son received his First Communion (and it was also his birthday – what a great gift!). I still remember his excitement two years ago when one of my daughters was making her First Communion – I don’t think then he thought he could wait two whole years until he received Jesus sacramentally!

My son receiving his First Communion

Needless to say, I was busting at the seams this weekend in thanksgiving for all the graces and gifts our Lord has bestowed upon my children. Praise be to God!

I’ll be speaking at another Theology on Tap next week, this time in Ellicott City, Maryland. Here are the details:

Where: Cacao Lane (upstairs bar), Ellicott City, Maryland
When: Tuesday, May 24th at 7:30pm
Topic: Scripture and the Liturgy: How our participation in the Liturgy deepens our knowledge of the Bible

If you are in the Baltimore area, please stop by!

The enfant terrible of the Biblical scholarship world, former Evangelical-turned-skeptic Bart Ehrman, is at it again. Now he is hawking a book which claims that much, if not most, of the New Testament is made up of “forgeries”:

The Bible might be the best-selling book in history, but it may also be full of lies. At least, that’s the claim being made by biblical scholar and former evangelical Christian, Bart Ehrman, in a new book titled, “Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are.”

According to Ehrman, at least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries, while only seven of the 13 epistles attributed to Paul were probably written by him. Moreover, none of the writings attributed to the Apostle Peter could have been written by him, and even the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John can be questioned.

This is the type of claim that gets the media all in a lather, but any serious look into the claim shows it is more full of holes than Swiss cheese or the Chicago Cubs defense. Let’s take a closer look at some of Ehrman’s claims:

“The Bible not only contains untruths of accidental mistakes. It also contains what almost anyone today would call lies,” writes Ehrman, who is also currently a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Okay, we already have one problem here: Ehrman says, “what almost anyone today would call lies”. But we should not judge ancient writings by today’s standards, but by the standards of the times. So if it was common for a writing to be done in someone else’s name, and everyone knew this, then that practice would not necessarily be a “lie”. This is a minor point to the overall issue, but it is an important one – we judge things based on their own context, not based on later cultural norms and practices.

Ehrman builds his case by noting scores of inconsistencies in the writing styles among authors of the New Testament. Discrepancies in the language and content among books attributed to Paul are particularly glaring. For example, Ehrman’s analysis shows that the text in the book of Ephesians, which has been attributed to Paul, is filled with long Greek sentences, which is unlike the style found in many of Paul’s confirmed writings. The content of Ephesians also doesn’t seem to jive with what is known about Paul’s own thought, says Ehrman, and sounds more like something written to conform to the Ephesians.

This is one of my pet peeves – scholars today judging whether or not Paul really wrote something based on whether the scholar thinks it jives with their conception of Paul. There are two points to Ehrman’s critique here: writing style and theological consistency. Let’s consider each one in turn:

Writing Style: Although the letters attributed to Paul make up the bulk of the New Testament, we need to remember just how little of Paul’s writings we have. All we have are a maximum of 13 short letters he wrote over a period spanning a dozen years (assuming for the moment that Paul actually wrote all the letters attributed to him). From this, we are supposed to know all the details of his writing style? Furthermore, is Paul’s writing style stagnant, or can it not evolve over time? Consider two of my own writings – a paper I wrote on Catholic Scripture Interpretation back in the mid-90′s and my book Who is Jesus Christ? I’m willing to be that some future scholar 2,000 years from now would not be able to conclusively prove that the same person wrote them.

Theological Consistency: Ehrman’s claim that the content of Ephesians “doesn’t seem to jive with what is known about Paul’s own thought” is rich. How do we know what is “Paul’s own thought”? If some of these letters could be forgeries, how do we know for sure which ones are legit and which are not? Perhaps Romans was not written by Paul but Ephesians is? Furthermore, what Ehrman really means is that Ephesians doesn’t jive with his interpretation of Paul’s thought. Considering the diversity of theories about what Paul “really meant,” it seems to me that there is more consistency between Romans and Ephesians than between the scholars who follow him. Finally, we have so little of Paul’s writings that one cannot construct his complete theology from just his letters. He was writing each letter for specific purposes, and so each one contains only parts of his overall theology. Scholars for too long have assumed they knew all of Paul’s thoughts from a very small group of letters.

Moving on, Ehrman makes a claim next that only an idiot or a PhD* could make:

Meanwhile, Ehrman claims that the authenticity of any book attributed to Peter should be doubted since Peter was, like just about every other fisherman raised in rural Palestine at the time, most certainly illiterate.

I really don’t know how he can say this with a straight face, and how a reporter can report it at face value. There are two really obvious flaws in this specious argument. First, Peter did not remain a fisherman raised in rural Palestine. As the most reliable history tells us, he became the prime spokesman for the fledgling Christian Faith and ended up traveling throughout the Empire, eventually settling in the hub of culture and learning of the time, Rome. Does Ehrman really think that over the course of forty years with such extensive contact with others, that Peter could not have learned how to read and write? Perhaps if he had a PhD that might not have been possible, but it probably would not have been too difficult for most people.

Secondly, even if Peter didn’t bother to learn to read and write, that doesn’t mean that his letters are “forgeries”. Has Ehrman never heard of dictation to a secretary? We know that at least some of Paul’s letters are dictated, so why can’t Peter’s be as well? One does not need to be literate to talk, after all. In fact, many believe that the 1st Letter of St. Peter was originally a homily of Peter’s that was turned into a letter. This of course does not make it a “forgery”.

(Also, we should not assume that a fisherman raised in rural Palestine was necessarily raised illiterate. The Jewish people highly prized literacy, so there is a decent chance that Peter in fact learned to read and write at an early age).

Ehrman’s “proofs” of forgery don’t get any better:

So the question remains: Who did write these books and why did they attempt to conceal their identities? Ehrman points out that early Christian sects, struggling to legitimize themselves, would have had plenty of motivation to fabricate their religious texts.

“If your name was Jehoshaphat and no one had any idea who you were, you could not very well sign your own name to the book,” said Ehrman. “No one would take the Gospel of Jehoshaphat seriously. If you wanted someone to read it, you called yourself Peter. Or Thomas. Or James. In other words, you lied about who you really were.”

*Note: Nothing in this post is meant to denigrate PhD’s. Some of my best friends are PhD’s. Some of them even have common sense. But the evidence is clear that only PhD’s are constitutionally able to make such silly claims with a straight face. Must be something that happens to them during the dissertation process.

A Florida parish is in some hot water because they accepted a request to offer a Mass for the repose of the soul of Osama bin Laden. Although praying for bin Laden’s salvation is clearly acceptable within Catholic theology, some do not believe it appropriate to pray for the salvation of this notorious mass murderer. One commenter even asks,

So Adolph Hitler is next? Why not masses for Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, too?

Well, actually, there would be nothing theologically wrong with that either. We do not want anyone to go to hell, not even our worst enemy.

Some fear that such an attitude reflects a belief in universal salvation – that all men and women (and even demons!) will eventually be saved. Known also as Apocatastasis, the doctrine of universal salvation is most associated with the Church Father Origen (although St. Gregory of Nyssa also seemed to accept this doctrine), and has been condemned by the Church. In recent times, Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar seemed to flirt with this doctrine as well, although his position is a bit more nuanced than a simple acceptance of the salvation of all people (von Balthasar also explicitly acknowledged the eternal damnation of the devil).

Do we want bin Laden to go here?

However, praying for the salvation of the worst that the human race has produced – Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden – does not necessarily imply a belief in the salvation of all. There is a difference between hoping for the salvation of each person and believing in the salvation of all persons. Let me use an analogy that I’ve used here before.

My favorite baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds, is supposed to be good this year (and so far they are playing well). Before every game, I hope that they win. However, never would I believe that they could win all 162 games, as I know that is a hope for something that is simply not possible. The reality is that they will lose some games no matter how good they are.

The problem with believing in universal salvation is that it effectively negates human freedom. If all men are saved, then in truth there is no human element in the process of salvation, something which goes against Catholic teaching. To return to my analogy, if the Reds did somehow win all 162 games, I (along with everyone else) would suspect that something had been rigged. Likewise, if all men are saved, I would have to suspect that man is not truly free – his salvation is predetermined regardless of the choices he makes. And freedom is a necessary component of love; without freedom, we are simply slaves of a benevolent master, not children of a loving father.

So we can (and should) hope that Osama bin Laden is saved, as well as Hitler, Stalin or any other person who has committed terrible public sins (as well as ourselves, who commit terrible private sins). But that does not mean that we believe that all men are saved, for we know that God as our loving father respects our human freedom too much to force us even into something as blessed as eternal salvation.

This reminds me of Rule #4 of my Rules of Engagement for Catholics on the Internet:

H/t: Byzantine, TX

Sarah Reinhard over at CatholicMom.com has a very nice review of my book Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew:

I’ll admit it: I let Eric Sammons’s new book gather dust before I picked it up to read it. I don’t like that I felt an aversion to a book that looked suspiciously like a Bible study that I either (a) would not understand or (b) would not enjoy.

When I finally did pick up Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew, I found myself face-to-face with a book unlike any other I had read. It was a Bible study of sorts, but instead of approaching the Gospel of Matthew straight through, Sammons organized his approach based on the titles of Jesus found in the Gospel.

I had never thought to count the titles, and I certainly wouldn’t have thought you could write an entire book about them!

And WHAT a book! Hands down, this has earned the special honor of being a book I will lend very, very carefully, because I not only WANT to reread it, I PLAN to reread it!

Continue reading…

She is also giving away a free autographed copy of the book, so be sure to click over to the full review!

This past weekend I was at Franciscan University of Steubenville for graduation ceremonies for my Master’s Degree in Theology (see the convoluted story of my Master’s here). It was a great time, as I got to see good friends and former professors – and it is always good to visit the campus.

Here are some pictures:

Before graduation (notice the tassle on my right)

With my kids after the ceremony

With my wife, who practically earned a Master's herself from helping me.

A fascinating interview, by an Evangelical Protestant, with one of the most fascinating Christians alive today:

From Russia, with Love
Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion offers evangelicals more than an olive branch.

Hilarion Alfeyev, the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, located 80 miles northwest of Moscow, has a very big job. As head of external relations for the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Hilarion is responsible for talking to global Christianity on behalf of the 150 million people in Russian Orthodoxy worldwide.

Given his gift for languages, Hilarion arose as an easy pick for the job by Russian Patriarch Kirill. This year, the Russian-American Institute, a faith-based educational and support organization (formerly the Russian-American Christian University), helped Hilarion interact with a cross-section of evangelicals around the United States for the first time. Christianity Today deputy managing editor Timothy C. Morgan interviewed Hilarion while he was in Washington, D.C….

Do you want vigorous grassroots engagement between Orthodox and evangelicals?

Yes, on problems, for example, like the destruction of the family. Many marriages are split. Many families have either one child or no child.

There are many incomplete families, not to speak of various homosexual unions, which are equated with the family. This completely changes the whole picture of human relationships. It directly affects the future of many nations. The sign of a spiritually healthy nation is that it expands—it grows. If it shrinks, it is a very clear sign of unhealthiness.

There is a perception that religious freedom is declining in Russia. Is the perception true?

‘Secularism is dangerous because it destroys human life. It destroys essential notions related to human life, such as the family.’— Metropolitan Hilarion

It’s a completely wrong perception. We have to ask what we mean by religious freedom. If it’s a freedom for the sects, including dangerous sects, to buy time on television and to propagate their ideas, then I think we no longer have the freedom that existed in the beginning of the 1990s. But I think freedom was sometimes not used in a proper way. For example, I remember how every morning Shoka Asahara would preach on Russian television. He was later condemned to death in Japan for organizing a terrorist attack in the Tokyo underground.

With regards to traditional churches and religions: They have complete freedom of action. There is the law on the freedom of conscience, which makes a subtle distinction between traditional churches and religions that never existed in Russia. Religious communities are given a 15-year probationary period precisely for the reasons I described. They can act freely during this period. They can organize services. They can publish literature. They can do missionary activities. But they are not registered with the juridical status. After 15 years, they can be registered.

Continue reading…

I’ve never been a big fan of “sharing” small groups, so I thought this was pretty funny:

H/t: Byzantine, TX

Opus Dei is again in the press, this time because of the release of the movie There Be Dragons, which is somewhat based on the life of Opus Dei’s founder, St. Josemaría Escrivá. Whenever Opus Dei comes up, it seems that strong opinions and even controversy is sure to follow. Some of this is understandable – after all, any organization that quickly grows and becomes as influential as Opus Dei is sure to attract both strong friends and enemies – but some of it is also laughable for those who even have an inkling of knowledge of the group. But one thing I’ve noticed is how often in many minds the scandals involved with another Catholic movement – the Legion of Christ – have impacted Opus Dei.

The reason for this is due to the many similarities between Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ. A few include:

• Both were founded by Spanish-speaking men in the first half of the 20th century.
• Both desired to promote an orthodox understanding of the Catholic faith.
• Both were embraced by the Church hierarchy as a means to reform the Church after the troubles that followed Vatican II.
• Both focused on helping lay people grow in holiness in their daily lives.
• Both dramatically increased in size and influence in a short period of time.
• Both have been strongly attacked by outside forces, as well as by former members.

Because of these similarities, these two organizations have melded in many people’s minds almost into a single entity. So when the Legion faced serious scandals, some held Opus Dei in suspicion as well. I will admit to doing this myself. I personally have felt for some time that the Legion should be disbanded, and my strong feelings towards them seeped into my view of Opus Dei as well. I was suspicious that the failings of the Legion (which don’t just include the failings of its founder) were replicated by Opus Dei.

But over time I realized that my thoughts were an injustice to Opus Dei, which in fact is not in any real way related to the Legion. The similarities I mentioned above are superficial and none really relate to the Legion scandals. So to judge Opus Dei based on the sins of the Legion would be like judging Abel for the sins of Cain. And in fact, there is one big difference between the two organizations, which is:

The Legion of Christ doesn’t offer assassination training to its albino monks.

No, wait a minute, that’s not right (but realize that all articles on Opus Dei are required to have at least on albino monk joke). The real difference between the two groups is:

Opus Dei was founded by a canonized saint. The Legion of Christ was founded by one of the most notorious scoundrels who ever lived.

One cannot overemphasize this point too much. In the Catholic tradition, religious orders and movements are integrally linked to their founders. An authentic movement is faithful to its founder and keeps his or her spirit and teaching alive for future generations. In the case of Opus Dei, its founder has been officially recognized by the Church as living the faith heroically and in a way that can be imitated. In the case of the Legion, its founder has been recognized as a deceiver, an abuser, and an all-around scoundrel of the first order. Not exactly someone whose spirit we should keep alive, is it?

This of course does not mean that Opus Dei is for everyone or that its members have not sinned or done things at times improperly. But it does mean that as Catholics we should treat Opus Dei as we would the Franciscans or the Dominicans: as an authentic movement founded by a holy man whom we can look to as a heroic example of someone who lived the Christian faith well.

At a recent address on the liturgy, Pope Benedict said the following:

The liturgy, … lives a proper and constant relationship between sound ‘traditio’ and legitimate ‘progressio’, clearly seen by the conciliar constitution Sancrosanctum Concilium at paragraph 23. … Not infrequently are tradition and progress in awkward opposition. Actually though, the two concepts are interwoven: tradition is a living reality that, in itself, includes the principle of development, of progress.

This idea of the relationship – and tension – between tradition and progress has been a theme of Pope Benedict’s for his whole ecclesiastical career. We see it in his most recent book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, in which BXVI notes that Jesus himself was also a progressive traditionalist – adhering to the Law (“I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it”), yet also taking no issue with going beyond calcified ideas of how to follow God.

This has been the great internal struggle of the past 100 years in the Church. The first half of the 20th century saw the end of an era in which the practice of the Catholic Faith had become stale and even ritualistic. Then Vatican II unleashed a host of forces which wanted “progress” simply for the sake of progress. Throughout his life, however, Pope Benedict has consistently urged a progressive traditionalism, in which we stay in continuity with the faith of our spiritual forefathers, yet develop it more deeply to address the issues of modern man. To the world, this makes him appear inconsistent: he was a “progressive” before Vatican II, and then a “traditionalist” after the Council. Yet it is BXVI who has been consistent while the world around him sways to the latest fad.

We too must strive to be progressive traditionalists. We do not want change simply because the world demands it, yet we also should not be reactionaries who simply reject change because some want it. Instead, like Pope Benedict (and like Jesus), we embrace our traditions, yet realize that they develop over time so that we can more deeply  draw closer to our Lord.

Last Monday I spoke at a Theology on Tap in Alexandria, Virginia and had a great time. The crowd was very engaged, and they asked some great questions at the end of the talk. One of the questions was even from a young woman whom I taught 8th grade CCD back in the mid-90′s! (Yes, I felt old).

The Diocese of Arlington has put my talk online – you can download it here. Just find the picture of the really ugly guy and then click the Listen link underneath it.

H/t: Ad Orientem