In the Harry Potter books, there is a professor called “Mad-Eye Moody” whose experience fighting dark wizards has made him completely paranoid; he sees dark wizards almost everywhere. His refrain to the students is “Constant vigilance!” Although most of the students see him as a bit of a crank, in the end he is correct, as dark wizards are often looming around the corner trying to harm those who are fighting for good.

My wife and I have taken up Mad-Eye’s motto for the raising of our children. The sad fact is that today there are many forces that wish to attack our children and corrupt them with the values of this world, instead of the values of the Gospel. Two generations ago, Catholic parents could be somewhat relaxed about parenting because there were many other parents who were teaching their kids the same values, and they could trust their parish and parish school to do likewise.

However, the generation previous to mine had the misfortune of maintaining this trust in institutions yet having those same institutions (parish, school, and neighborhood) fail them greatly. There were many parents who sent their kids to the local parish or Catholic school in the 1970′s and 1980′s expecting them to get a Catholic education, yet discovered much too late that they instead got the same spiritual upbringing of public schools. As my former pastor once told me, “All I learned in CCD in the 1970′s is ‘Be nice’ and ‘Don’t do drugs.’” Not exactly a well-developed Catholic formation.

Most serious Catholics of my generation now realize that they cannot blindly trust others in the raising of their children – they must have constant vigilance in their parenting, testing those institutions before leaving their children with them. In other words, they need to take a “Mad-Eye Moody” approach to parenting.

What does all this have to do with Advent? Yesterday Christ warned us at the beginning of Advent to “Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent” (Luke 21:36). Sometimes our culture is positive enough that we can start to fall asleep and trust others to the tasks given to us. I think most would agree that this is not the case today. But in any time, we must be vigilant, as St. Peter also reminds us: “Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

This Advent let us all resolve to be more vigilant in all our responsibilities.

Constant vigilance!

Imagine you are a boy around the age of 10. Your mom buys you a children’s book in which your name is plastered on the front cover and the character with your name is also a boy your age. Not only that, he is the hero of the book. Pretty cool, huh?

But then imagine that the book and its sequels goes on to sell about a bazillion copies around the world and everyone in the world now associates your name with that character. Not so cool anymore, is it?

Well, that is exactly what happened to this unfortunate young man.

Yesterday my house lost power for seven hours. As someone who works on a computer from home, this had an obvious impact on my schedule. But I was amazed at how much of an impact this had on me – I kept thinking of non-work-related things to do, but I kept realizing I couldn’t do them without power. “I think I’ll pay the bills…oops, that is on the computer.” “I’ll fix that leak in the washer…oops, the washer is in a room in the basement with no windows, so I can’t see what I am doing.” Electricity runs through almost everything I do. If I’m not careful, I may soon end up looking like this.

My experience without power reminded me of a book I read a few years ago, Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende. A graduate student studying technology’s impact on society, Brende decided to spend a year (with his new wife) living with a strict Amish community which didn’t use any electricity. He chronicles how these people live without what we would consider essentials, and in the end, he decides that in many ways, they are “better off”.

Most people think that the Amish simply reject all technology. This is not the case. The underlying rule for Amish communities is that they do not accept new technology blindly. Instead, as a community they evaluate each new technology and determine if it will have a positive or negative impact on their community. Each Amish community makes this decision on their own, and thus you will have a wide variety of acceptance of technologies between communities. The community Brende joined for a year took a very strict line: no electricity at all. This means no appliances, no telephones, and of course no television or internet. Brende discovers that the absence of many of these modern conveniences actually leads to a strengthening of community bonds. Without a telephone (or email or text messages or facebook, etc.), people were actually more connected to each other, not less. This is because they would spend time in each other’s physical company, instead of just having “drive-by” contact with the people they knew. Furthermore, without entertainment options like televisions to occupy their time, they spent more time doing things with other people for recreation. In other words, they put people above things. (Likewise, without a TV to tell them that they could only be happy as a sex-crazed New Yorker, they were completely content with their choices in life).

I do not necessarily agree with all the specific decisions that Amish communities make in regard to technology – although I strongly support their right to make those choices. But I came away from reading Better Off with the conviction that each family should consciously make their own decisions about what technology they will embrace in their particular situations. We are not all required to have televisions or cell phones or even computers to be happy. None of those things are needed for sainthood, the epitome of happiness. If any technology is hindering our ability to draw closer to God, our family or others, then it simply not worth it. We would be better off without it.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the publication of The Way, one of the best selling spiritual books of the 20th century. Written by St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, it is a compilation of 999 points of reflection which are intended to help in the spiritual life. You can read the entire book online (although I don’t recommend that – print it out or buy it in book format so that you can better reflect on the points).

In 1966, St. Josemaría explained the purpose of the book in an interview:

I wrote a good part of that book in 1934, summarizing my priestly experience for the benefit of all souls with whom I was in contact, whether they were in Opus Dei or not. I never suspected that thirty years later it would be spread so widely – millions of copies, in so many languages. It is not a book solely for members of Opus Dei. It is for everyone, either Christian or not. Among those who have translated it on their own initiative are Orthodox, Protestants, and non-Christians. The Way must be read with at least some supernatural spirit, some interior life and apostolic feeling. It is not a code for the man of action. The aim of the book is to help men become friends of God, to love him and serve all men. In other words, to be an instrument…as Saint Paul the Apostle wanted to be an instrument of Christ – a free and responsible instrument. Anyone who tries to see a temporal goal in the pages of The Way is mistaken. Do not forget it has been common for spiritual authors of every age to see souls as instruments of God.
- May 16, 1966 issue of Le Figaro

Why 999 points? St. Josemaría liked the “theology of mathematics” and he saw the number 9 – three to the third power – as representing the Holy Trinity. In The Furrow, another compilation of spiritual points, he adds point 1,000: “I write this number so that you and I can finish this book with a smile, and so that those blessed readers who out of simplicity or malice sought a cabalistic significance in the 999 points of The Way may rest easy.”

I remember first trying to read The Way a number of years ago and not “getting it.” However, a few years ago I picked it up again and this time it clicked. It has been very helpful to my own spiritual growth and I recommend it highly to anyone who wishes to advance in the spiritual life and thus become a better instrument of God.

St. Josemaría Escrivá, pray for us!

As you can see from the right side of this page, I’m currently reading Henry Chadwick’s translation of St. Augustine’s Confessions, as well as Peter Brown’s biography of the great saint.

By some weird convergence, I just discovered that Oxford University Press is about to publish a biography of St. Augustine by Henry Chadwick! He wrote it back in the early 80′s and it has only recently been discovered.

I am so looking forward to reading it.

After reading this story, I have a confession to make, one that is sure to scandalize many people:

I am a fan of Harry Potter

Yes, it’s true – I’ve read all seven books (twice) about the boy-wizard, have seen the first five movies, and plan to see the latest movie installment next week.

It all started like this: a few years ago I was desperate to find books for my bibliophile 10-year-old daughter. My mother-in-law, who is a former middle-school teacher and is now a librarian, couldn’t stop raving about the Harry Potter books. I had heard some negative things about them from people I respected, but my mother-in-law is a good Catholic as well, so I began to think they might not be so bad. I also saw a positive review of the HP books by my friend, Catholic author Regina Doman, so I thought there might be more there than I suspected. But since I had heard so many negative things about them, I wanted to read them for myself before allowing my children to read them.

So when I was at my mother-in-law’s one Christmas, I picked up the first book and read it quickly (I make no claims that the HP books are dense literature – they are children’s books, first and foremost). I wasn’t wowed by the story, but I also found nothing in it objectionable, and much to like. The most controversial part of the books in the Christian world – the use of magic – seemed to me to be so clearly tongue-in-cheek that I had a hard time taking seriously the argument that it could lead children to dabble in real-life magic. To be honest, I think Lord of the Rings is more likely to tempt a child to try magic than Harry Potter (and I consider LOTR the greatest fictional books ever written). Most of the magic in the books is laugh-out-loud funny, not a serious introduction to “black arts” in any way. Furthermore, magic in the Harry Potter books is clearly intended to be fantastical – you are born with it or you are not, and nothing a “Muggle” can do can lead them to be able to perform magic.

So I decided that it would be okay for my daughter to read the books, but didn’t actually get around to picking the books up at the library for her. I then was at my mother-in-law’s again and bored and picked up the second book in the series. At that point, I was hooked: I became immersed in the story and read through the sixth book (the seventh had not yet been released) in quick succession. I put the seventh book on hold at the library as quickly as possible and was able to pick it up the morning of its release and read it in one weekend. I have since then gone back and read them through a second time.

A note at this point to those who do not know me personally: I am quite over-protective of my children. My wife and I are very intentional in what entertainment we allow our children to consume. We don’t own a television, and we restrict what books they are allowed to read (on an age-appropriate basis – for example, my eight-year-old is currently only allowed to read the first three books in the HP series). I take very seriously my responsibility to protect my children from harm, and I have no problem resisting societal pressure to have my children have what other children may have.

So why do I like the series? Number one, I find the characters very interesting. Rowling does a marvelous job of populating the HP universe with a broad diversity of characters, and like real life, none of them are perfect and none of them are pure evil (expect perhaps Voldemort, and even he has a back story that can produce sympathy for him). I have read a good deal of “Christian fiction,” and the biggest criticism I have of the genre is that most of the characters are very one-dimensional: they are either “good” (i.e. born-again Christians) or “bad.” I am not looking for books which represent a reality in which my children do not live – I am looking for books in which “real” (read: flawed) people do their best to make the right choices in their lives.

That brings me to a common criticism of the books: you often hear that Harry Potter himself is not a good role model because he often breaks the rules and doesn’t suffer any bad consequences. In actuality, though, Rowling does a good job of reflecting real life: sometimes Harry – like every teenage boy – breaks the rules, and when that happens, sometimes good things result, and sometimes, very bad things happen (think about what happened to his godfather in the fifth book when Harry didn’t do what the grown-ups wanted him to do). To act like we live in a world where following rules (not moral laws, necessarily, but just rules) always has good consequences is simply not accurate.

Furthermore, Harry clearly is a good role model in a fundamental area of life: he willingly sacrifices himself for those he loves. Yes, at times he acts like a typical teenager in doing that, but to me that makes him all the more powerful; it conveys to youth that one can have faults and problems and still rise above them to perform heroic acts of charity for others.

I am a strong believer that every parent must decide what is best for their own children – I cannot say what someone else’s children should or should not read. But I would say to all Catholic parents who are hesitant to allow their children to read the books based on what they have read (from Michael O’Brien, for instance): read the books yourself and then come to your own conclusion. Like me, you might be surprised to find a quite engaging and positive series of books that your children – and you – will greatly enjoy.

Emmaus Road Publishing is soon releasing a Catholic Concordance for the RSV-CE bible. This looks like a valuable resource, but I’m mostly interested in it because it was compiled by one of my best friends in college, Chris Lyons (he goes by C.W. Lyons for the book, but I’m revealing his top secret name here). Chris is a great Catholic and has spent years compiling this text. It will be a welcome companion to anyone who wishes to study the Scriptures more deeply (and shouldn’t that be every Catholic?).

This should be a great development: Our Sunday Visitor is getting in the catechetical field by purchasing Harcourt Religion. Anyone who has tried to find quality religious textbooks for children knows how difficult it can be. It seems that most textbooks are either bland, heretical, or written in the 1930′s.

My own family uses the Image of God series published by Ignatius Press and we are happy with it, but hopefully this aquisition will add more quality textbooks for parents and schools to choose from.

Yesterday in the mail I received my copy of Mark Shea’s three-volume work Mary, Mother of the Son. Here is some advance praise for this series:

“This fine book exploring the Church’s teaching on Our Lady will be a joy to Catholics and a revelation to Protestants. I highly recommend it for both groups.”
-Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R.

“The single most helpful book on Sacred Tradition written in our generation.”
-Scott Hahn

I’m looking forward to reading it; unfortunately, it joins a backlog of about a dozen books on my “to read next” list.

If you are interested in ordering the book, go to Mark’s website and order directly from him.

I am currently reading N.T. Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God, which is a survey of the origins of Christianity, especially its growth out of 1st century Judaism. I recently was reading the section on the praxis of the early Church: how did they practice this new faith of theirs? The first item Wright mentions that distinguished early Christianity was their sense of mission:

Why then did early Christianity spread? Because early Christians believed that what they had found to be true was true for the whole world. The impetus to mission sprang from the very heart of early Christian conviction. If we know anything about early Christian praxis, at a non- or sub-literary level, it is that the early Christians engaged in mission, both to Jews and to Gentiles…This missionary activity was not an addendum to a faith that was basically ‘about’ something else (e.g. a new existential self-awareness). ‘Christianity was never more itself than in the launching of the world mission.’ (Emphasis added)

An early Christian would not conceive of being a Christian and not working to bring others into the Church. But do not think that most early Christians were St. Pauls, travelling the world preaching the Gospel to everyone they met. No, most of these Christians spread the faith through their regular daily contacts: their familes, their friends and their co-workers. The key is that they truly believed that the faith that changed their life for the better could do the same for others.

And always remember, they also knew that by sharing their faith with others they put themselves in a dangerous situation: the possibility of being denounced to the authorities and arrested for their Christian beliefs was always lurking in the background. What exactly is our excuse?

I’ve seen a lot of discussion about E-books recently, but I think that this article by Stephen Johnson in the Wall Street Journal is the best at summarizing the benefits and problems with E-books. In a nutshell, he lists the following ways that the E-book will change how we read:

1. We will be able to purchase books much more easily.
2. Searching the contents of a vast library of books will become incredibly easy.
3. It will become harder to read an entire book, for two reasons: (a) each book will be so annotated that one can jump from one book to another with little effort; and (b) because it is so easy to purchase another book you can jump from book to book as the mood hits you.
4. Books will become more interrelated, as it will become simple to link similar and cross-referenced books to each other.
5. Books will become more known by specific paragraphs and sentences, as these will be what comes up in Google searches.
6. Reading will become a much more social endeavor.

Regardless of the consequences, it seems clear that the E-book is where we are going. The day will come when the majority of people do all their reading on an electronic device, be it a computer, cell phone or reader such as Amazon’s Kindle.

(An aside: one of the things I admire about the Amish is that they consider the full-range of consequences before they embrace a technology. I don’t necessarily think they always make the right decisions, but one can’t help but think that this attitude would be helpful in today’s “if it’s new, it’s good” world.)

I will admit that I am a devoted bibliophile. My idea of a perfect gift is an Amazon gift certificate so I can buy (usually obscure) books. I love to sit on the couch and read a good book, and part of my enjoyment is holding the book and seeing how far I’ve read and far I have to go. I don’t get the same experience with an E-book.

But my biggest concern is the third consequence I listed above: the fact that it will become harder to read a book straight through due to the ease of being able to read something else. I can see the value in being able to view a referenced source, but I’m afraid that it will lead to fewer and fewer people being able to sit down and read through an entire book. Most (good) books are a complete whole – one must read the entire book to get the full value of it. Reading 20% of the book does not necessarily give you 20% of its value; only when the entire book is read is the overall point made.

All that being said, I’m not anti-E-book (in fact, I originally read that Wall Street Journal article on my cell phone). I am especially excited about the possiblities of easily building a “matrix” of similar books based on the books you have already read – this could give me a reading list a mile long. I just hope that the value that undoubtedly will come from putting all books in electronic format will not be offset by our society’s increasingly short attention-span.

Two new books are being published this year to eager anticipation.

One is The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code. It will continue the story of Robert Langdon and, if Brown’s previous work is any indication, will include depictions of Jesus Christ with no connection to history, Scripture, scholarship or reality. It might also be the most poorly-written bestseller since, well, The Da Vinci Code (yes, I did read it, and I still wish I could have those 2 hours back).

The other is Who Do You Say That I Am? by your blog host (okay, it’s eagerly anticipated in the Sammons household at least). It will contain Scriptural and historical depictions of Jesus that are consistent with the latest scholarship yet also conform to the teaching of Christ’s Church. And I’m hoping it is at least better written than The Lost Symbol, even if it doesn’t sell quite as many copies.

Last week Larry Hurtado, the author of Lord Jesus Christ (one of my all-time favorite books), wrote an article for Slate entitled “Why Was Jesus Crucified?” (h/t Mike Aquilina). Hurtado writes,

Indeed, one criterion that ought to be applied more rigorously in modern scholarly proposals about the “historical Jesus” is what we might call the condition of “crucifiability”: You ought to produce a picture of Jesus that accounts for him being crucified. Urging people to be kind to one another, or advocating a more flexible interpretation of Jewish law, or even condemning the Temple and its leadership—none of these crimes is likely to have led to crucifixion. For example, first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus tells of a man who prophesied against the Temple. Instead of condemning him, the governor decided that he was harmless, although somewhat deranged and annoying to the Temple priests. So, after being flogged, he was released.

This is an important point: if your “Jesus” is not one that so upset the Roman authorities that they kill him in humiliating fashion, then it is not the true historical Jesus.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently finished reading Cur Deus Homo by St. Anselm. From this work developed the theory of atonement called “penal substitution” (note I don’t call it a doctrine nor do I wholly credit it to Anselm). This theory goes something like this:

Man sinned against God and thus in justice deserved punishment. Since the offense was against an infinite God, the punishment deserved to be infinite as well. But since it was committed by man, only man could receive the punishment. Jesus, as both God and man, was able to represent man but also accept an infinite punishment. His death thus substitutes for our punishment of death.

Or put another way: I am found guilty of murder and am sentenced to death. However, an innocent man (who happens to be the judge’s son) offers to die in my stead. So he is executed and I am set free.

I think it should be clear from the second explanation the problem with this theory: how is it just to kill an innocent man instead of a guilty one, even if he volunteers for the punishment?

Anselm himself uses a different analogy, which is a bit better: the people of a kingdom reject their king and the king decides to punish them. His son, however, does a great service for the king and the king grants him anything he desires as a reward. The son choose pardon for the people.

This analogy, it seems to me, comes closer to the theory of fiscal substitution. In this theory, we owe a debt to God we cannot pay (and Anselm often uses debt language in Cur Deus Homo). However, Jesus offers to pay this for us if we follow him. This is more understandable to me, for if I had a debt to the bank there is nothing against justice if someone else were to volunteer to pay that debt (and anyone can feel free to contact me for my mortgage payoff information).

Thus I am more apt to accept the theory of fiscal substitution over penal substitution. And yet…Jesus died for us. He died a horrible, humiliating death to atone for our sins. This is how he paid our debt for us; it was not just a financial loan – our sins literally brought death upon us.

Yet why does the death of an innocent man help us who are guilty? Perhaps, in the Incarnation, Jesus becomes part of the guilty race of men. He no longer is really innocent of the charges against man – he takes humanity on so completely that he too is guilty. So his death for our sins is not against justice. So although I’m uncomfortable wholeheartedly accepting the theory of penal substitution, there does seem to be a great deal of value in it.

I think the key is to realize that no theory fits completely. If you go too far with any one, it will fall apart. We can speculate for eternity how Christ’s death atones for our sins, but ultimately it comes down to this: his death does save us and I’m very thankful for that fact.

I just finished reading Cur Deus Homo by St. Anselm. It was my second reading of the book, the first being almost 15 years ago shortly after I became Catholic. Although not as well-known as classics such as Confessions by St. Augustine, Cur Deus Homo is one of the most influential books ever written. It is the foundational text for the theory of atonement know as “penal substitution”: the belief that man deserved death for his sins, but Christ as the God-man was able to die in our stead, thus taking the punishment we deserve. This is the most widely-held theory of atonement in Evangelical Protestant circles today.

I have a number of difficulties with the penal substitution theory, which I’ll attempt to address in a later post, but for now I’m more interested in the acceptance of this theory in Evangelical circles. At the time of the Reformation, Anselm’s theory reigned supreme in the West (it never gained traction in the East), and it was assumed as true by both Catholics and Protestants. However, it is a bit odd that Protestants have accepted Anselm’s arguments so readily. First. Anselm explicitly argues from reason, not the Scriptures. The whole purpose of Cur Deus Homo is to show to the “infidels” (i.e. Jews and Muslims) why God had to become man and die. Since these peoples don’t accept the authority of the New Testament, Anselm bases his arguments on reason, not revelation. There are few Scriptural references in the text and none are part of the main argument. This does not mean his arguments are contra Scripture, but considering the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, I find their wholesale acceptance of Anselm’s arguments ironic.

Furthermore, Anselm’s theory was quite innovative for his time. Penal substitution is not found widely in the Fathers, and it is only after Anselm that it becomes a “tradition.” Thus it seems to be the type of theory that Protestants are most leery of: a later tradition “added on” to the purity of the Gospel. Yet it endures as the heart of the Evangelical message.

Of course, proponents of penal substitution would argue that it is biblical and clearly in the sacred text. I’m not so sure. There is plenty of talk in the New Testament of the fact that Jesus’ death saves us, but very little as to why this is so. Also, if it is so clear, why did it not become prominent within the Church until the Middle Ages and then only after it had first been shown by reason alone?

Regardless of Evangelical acceptance of this theory, there is much value in the theory of penal substitution, but I also think much is problematic with it. I’ll try to address those concerns in another post.