I'm Sorry to Play Grinch, But...

Today is the seventh day of Christmas, the day on which my true love gave me seven swans a-swimming. Did you know, however, that those swans represent the seven sacraments?

If you are Catholic, you may well have heard this story before. From the reign of Elizabeth I until the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829, Catholicism was supressed in England. During this time Catholics couldn't practice the faith openly so they couldn't openly teach the faith to their children. As a result of this they developed various coded ways of passing on the faith. This is where "The Twelve Days of Christmas" comes from, a coded way of passing on certain Catholic beliefs. So the true love represents God the Father and His gifts are various gifts of God to humanity, eg. the partridge represents Jesus, the two turtle doves represent and Old and New Testaments, all the way through to the twelve lords a-leapin' who represent the twelve articles of the Apostles' Creed.

So, what you may have thought was just a pretty childrens' song is both a source of rich theological symbolism and a link to our brave brothers and sister in Christ. It is, I think you will agree, a lovely story. There is, I fear, only one small problem; it isn't true.

Perhaps I should modify that last statement. I can't prove the story isn't true any more than I can prove for certain that there are no fairies at the bottom of my garden. What I can say is that the truth of the story and the existence of the fairies have about as much evidence in their favour.

The theory was first put forward in 1979 by Canadian hymnologist Hugh McKellar. McKellar later admitted that he had no evidence for his theory and that it was based on pure conjecture. Consider the following facts that stand against the theory:

* While we have evidence for the popularity of the song going back as far as 1870, almost 50 years prior to Catholic emancipation, we have no evidence of the song ever being more popular among English Catholics than among Protestants.

* There is no mention of the link in any of the many writing by, for, and/or about English Catholics in the decades following Catholic Emancipation. Indeed, nothing to suggest the link in any Catholic literature prior to McKellar putting forward the theory a century and a half afterwards.

* Of the supposed symbolic meaning, eleven of the twelve refer to beliefs which Catholics and Protestants share. The sole exception is the seven swans, which supposedly represent the sacraments. Aside from these, all eleven 'codes' refer to things that there would be no need for Catholics to teach secretly because the Anglican Church agreed with them. There is, for example, no mention of purgatory, Mary, the saints or the Papacy.

Now, I know some will say, as I've already had it said to me, that, even if this is right, I shouldn't be a spoil sport, if people get joy or comfort for believing this, what harm does it do? Well, I think it does do some harm. Don't misunderstand me, no, I don't think the sky is going to fall because people have a mistaken belief about the history of a Christmas carol. I do see, however, two bits of harm being done:

First, we Christians protest, rightly in my view, when myths about history are promoted by our opponents. When atheists, for example, promote rubbish about Jesus being only one of a long line of pagan deities whose mother was a virgin and who was born on December 25th, we object. Well, if we are going to object when our opponents do it, we need to not do it ourselves.

Second, God gave us intellects to follow the evidence and to know the truth. Believing something which goes against the evidence because that something sounds nice or makes us feel good helps to build the bad habit of misusing the intellect. It is a vice. It is, I will grant, a very small vice in the grand scheme of things, but still a vice.
 

A Reply to Eight Myths

This past September, Richard Hagenston, an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church wrote an article entitled "8 Things Your Pastor Will Never Tell You About the Bible". I've since seen the article cited by critics of the Christianity ranging from atheists to Muslims, so I thought it worth a response. I should add that Rev. Hagenston insists that he is "still a Christian" although I'll leave it to the individual reader to determine how compatible his beliefs are with Christianity.

1) "The Apostles of Jesus Seem to Have Known Nothing About a Virgin Birth."

His main piece of evidence for this claim is that St. Paul's letters make no mention of the virgin birth. While this is certainly true, to conclude from this that St. Paul knew nothing of the virgin birth seems a bit of a stretch. St. Paul never sat down and wrote out his beliefs in a systematic way. His letters are directed to churches or individuals either answering specific questions or dealing with specific problems in those bodies. The fact that no mention of Christ's virgin birth is made seems to me to be adequately explained by the assumption that it wasn't relevant to any of the questions he needed to deal with.

2) "Jesus Said He Wanted to Offer Nothing to Gentiles"

True, up to a point. Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, sent originally to the House of Israel. Therefore, during his earthly mission Jesus  focused his attention on His fellow Jews and only occasionally (and reluctantly cf. Matt 15:21-28) helped gentiles. After His death and resurrection, however, Jesus commands His apostles to go and baptise all nations (Matt 28:16-20).

I imagine Rev. Hagenston would reply that this is something the historical Jesus never said, and we can know this because it contradicts his earlier stance. I see no reason to assume this however. During Jesus' lifetime, the Old Covenant was still in effect and the Jewish priesthood was still God's means for the sanctification of His people. It is entirely consistent that Jesus' earthly mission would be to His own people while, after His death and resurrection, and thus the inauguration of the New Covenant, the command would be given to preach to all nations.

3) "Jesus Tells Everyone Not to Think of Him as God in the First Three Gospels"

This claim is based on Mark 10:18, Matt 19:17 and Luke 18:19. The context is this: a rich young man comes to Jesus, addresses him as 'good teacher' and asks what he must do to be saved. Jesus replies "why do you call me good, only God is good."

Critics of Christianity like to point to this story as Jesus denying His divinity. It seems to me, however, that the story can be equally well read as Jesus attempting to open the young man's eyes to who He really is. The young is coming to Jesus with the mindset that He is a rabbi and nothing more. Jesus attempts to challenge this by asking, in effect, "when you call me good, don't you realise what that implies?"

4) "The Resurrection Appearances in the Gospel Have Irreconcilable Contradictions"

The four resurrection accounts certainly differ. The fact that they different, however, does not mean that they are irreconcilable. Several attempts have been made to harmonise them and some, like this one, seem to me to be at least plausible.

5) "Jesus Was Against Public Prayer"

The justification for this statement is Matt 6:1-5. Read in context, this passage is a condemnation, not of public prayer its self, but of those who publicly pray with the aim of showing off in front of others how pious they are. To read this as per. se. opposing public prayer one would need to assume that, on all the occasions Jesus is depicted as praying in the synagogues or the temple, or in front of a crowd, that He was engaging in some fairly rank hypocrisy.

As a side note, Rev. Hagenston has told us that his article is about things "your pastor won't tell you." Does he really think that pastors the world over are not regularly preaching and teaching the Sermon on the Mount?

6) "Some Books of the Bible are Forgeries"

Rev. Hagenston writes: "My seminary professors mentioned that some books of the Bible, notably some letters attributed to Paul, were probably written by people who lied about who they were to gain Paul’s authority for their own ideas. But they never put it that bluntly."

I don't know where he went to seminary so I don't know his teachers and can't say for sure, but I suspect they never "put it that bluntly" because they don't believe that.

Now, lets be clear, most New Testament scholars don't believe that St. Paul wrote some of the letters attributed to him. For the record, I never found the arguments for the majority view very convincing and am inclined to side with the minority who think St. Paul wrote all thirteen of the letters that bear his name. For the sake of argument, however, let's accept the majority view, St. Paul did not write, for example, the Pastoral Epistles.

It is unwarranted, however, to go from "not written by Paul" to "written by people who lied about who they were." In the ancient world, there was a common custom of writing letters in the name of some revered leader, normally a dead one saying, in effect "this is what the great teacher would have said if he'd been alive." The recipients of such letters would have been well aware that the letter was not actually written by the person writing it. This is the understanding most scholars hold of the Pastoral Epistles.

7) "Parts of the Bible Were Intentionally Written to Contradict Other Parts"

The primary example here is Psalm 51 vv 18 & 19, which, we are told, were written to contradict vv 16 & 17. The earlier verses tell us that God does not need burnt offerings but that the sacrifice but that the sacrifice acceptable to Him is a humble and contrite heart. The later verses call on God to restore Jerusalem so that sacrifice, which God will be pleased with, may be offered in the temple.

Rev. Hagenston sees this as evidence that a later scribe, disagreeing with the theology of the original author, added these verses to contradict him. Why, if this scribe had the power to alter the text, he didn't simply remove the offending lines is not explained. Perhaps because, so far from being written to contradict one another, the verses actually form a whole, making the point that sacrifice is something God commands but is only truly pleasing to God if done in a proper spirit.

8) "Apostles Who Had Been Taught By Jesus Himself Insisted that Paul Was Wrong About the Gospel"

The only piece of evidence provided for this claim is 2 Corinthians 11:5 where St. Paul labels his critics "Super Apostles". Even though, Rev. Hagenston acknowledges that the label is 'sarcastic' he none the less asserts that: "In that time, “super-apostles” could have meant only one thing: the original apostles."

An alternative meaning is suggested by context where Paul, contrasting himself to the "Super Apostles" (which makes me think of the Avengers) says that he may not be as eloquent as them although he does have knowledge. With this in mind "Super Apostles" may well refer to individuals who consider themselves super because of their education and debating skills.

 

Happy Feast of St. John

Today, in addition to being the third day of Christmas, is the feast of St. John the Apostle, the disciple whom Jesus loved. There is so much we could learn from this humble man, the importance of personal friendship with Christ, the need to be faithful under the most difficult of circumstances, charity and patience. I was most struck, however, by a point which occurred to me as a I meditated on the prologue to St. John's Gospel, the importance of revelation.

St. John's prologue, the first 18 verses of his Gospel, is a literary masterpiece. More importantly, it is one of the great scriptural foundations of the central Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. As a philosophy student and budding apologist, I'm frequently drawn to study, write about and talk about those truths of the faith which can be demonstrated by reason. St. John reminds me, however, that the greatest and most important of truths about God, the truths that enable us to know Him as He truly is, the truths that enable us to be friends with God are truths that could not be proven by reason alone. I can know these truths because God, motivated solely by love, has taken the initiative to reveal them.

The collect for today's feast in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite sums up this lesson beautifully:

O Lord, in Your goodness, shine upon Your Church, that, enlightened by the teachings of Blessed John, Your Apostle and Evangelist, she may attain to everlasting gifts.

Amen!

Call it What You Want, This is Murder.

As write this, the great State of Texas is making plans to murder a man named Scott Panetti. Of course, if this murder is accomplished, it won't officially be called that; legally it will be an execution. Legal niceties, however, don't effect moral realities and if Scott Panetti dies at the hands of the state, it will be murder, whatever the law calls it.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I'm not of the view that every execution is murder. While I personally hold the opinion that capital punishment should be abolished, I recognise, as does the Catholic Church, that the state has the right to punish sufficiently heinous crimes with the death penalty. In the case of Scott Panetti, however, I fail to see how any person could regard the execution as morally justifiable.

Panetti has been sentenced to die for the 1992 murder of his in laws. There is no real doubt that Panetti did kill them. The reason his execution is so obviously unjust, however, is first, there is good reason to doubt his sanity at the time, and second, because his 1995 trial was a clear travesty.

Scott Panetti is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. In the years leading up to the 1992 killing he had no fewer than three compulsory admissions to mental hospitals, all on the same diagnosis. At his 1995 trial, he chose to represent himself, giving as his reason for doing so that he believed his appointed lawyer was part of a conspiracy against him. At the trial he dressed in a purple cowboy suit, called himself 'Sarge' and attempted to subpoena the then Pope, the late President John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ.

So, this ought to be the end of the matter, there is good reason to doubt his sanity at the time of the killings and he clearly wasn't fit to defend himself at his trial, he should be locked up for his own and others' protection but should not be put to death. Some, however, don't see it that way. Texas' governor, Rick Perry, has repeatedly refused to intervene in the case. Perry was candidate for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2012 and has flagged the possibility of running again in 2016. He likes to put himself forward as pro-life and a defender of Christian moral values.

In similar manner, one of those defending Panetti's death sentence in the federal courts has been Ted Cruz. Cruz, who defended the sentence in his capacity as the state's attorney general, is now a US Senator and darling of the 'Tea Party'. He also presents himself as a champion of pro-life values.

For anyone with a basic understanding of Christian moral philosophy or even basic humanity, understanding this should not be difficult. For Christians, one of the great glories of humanity is our freedom of the will. Our moral responsibility grows out of that freedom. For this reason, while we generally want humans punished when they do something wrong, we don't demand to see the tools they used or the clothes they wore punished, because we recognise that these things don't have free will. For the same reasons, people are not generally held accountable for what they do accidentally because they did not freely will it. (They are punished for the results of their negligence, but the negligence was freely chosen, even if the consequence wasn't.)

In the case of the mentally ill, however, that free will is impaired. In the case of someone as clearly insane and delusional as Panetti, that freedom is impaired to such a great degree that he can reasonably be deemed no more morally responsible that one of the weapons he used. In such circumstances, the state has no moral right to execute him and, should it do so, his death will morally be a murder, whatever the great State of Texas shall call it.

Fighting Ignorance With More Ignorance

It seems to be an established tradition. Every Christmas and Easter, certain new outlets compete to outdo one another in making uninformed attacks on Christian belief. This year's winner has to be an article entitled "The Bible: So Misunderstood It's a Sin." The article appears in Newsweek Magazine and was written by one Kurt Eichenwald. Mr. Eichenwald sets out to explain how us Christian dummies don't know the real facts about the history and contents of the Bible. This is fair up to a point, there is a lot of ignorance, even among professing Christians about the book we hold sacred. If Mr. Eichenwald wants to correct this ignorance, however, it would be nice of him to get his own facts straight, something he clearly could not be bothered to do.

There are many gaping errors of fact in this article, more than I'm going to be able to cover in one blog post. The biggest errors, however, lie in the fact that Mr. Eichenwald is apparently unable to distinguish between three important but separate issues. These issues all need to be understood, so I'll spell them out separately:

1) The issue of the transmission of the text, that is to say, we don't have the original bits of paper that St. Matthew, St. Paul, etc. wrote. What we have is copies, of copies of copies, and so on. This creates a challenge for the science of textual criticism to work out exactly what the originals said.

2) The issue of translation, once we've worked out what the apostles wrote, it's another question to translate their writings from the Greek of the New Testament and the (mostly) Hebrew of the Old Testament into the various modern languages.

3) The issue of canonicity, the question of which of the various ancient documents actually make up the New Testament.

All three of these are important issues and all three have an interesting history which the average Christian ought to know more about. To understand them, however, we need to be aware that they are separate issues, Mr. Eichenwald seems determined to confuse them. Early on in the article, for example, he tells us that nobody alive has read the Bible, all anyone has read is translations of translations of translations. This is not true, plenty of scholars have read the Bible in its original languages and those of us who read it in English usually read it in direct translitions from the originals. Eventually, the light dawns, Mr. Eichenwald has confused translation, with transmission; when he says "translations of translations" he means "copies of copies". In the next paragraph, he talks about the fact that which books belong in the New Testament wasn't agreed until the fourth century (actually debate continued until the fifth) but somehow confuses this with the issue of transmission. To be clear, it is a fact that, for example, the position of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament was debated until the late fourth century however this has no impact on manuscripts of the book that predate that period and nothing much to do with the question of whether or not we can know what Revelations originally said.

Now, lest there be misunderstanding, let me be clear, it is a fact that we don't have the original manuscript of any New Testament book. It is also true that the copies of copies that we do have contain numerous errors. This is a real issue about which Christians should do more to educate ourselves. However this education won't be helped by repeating the sort of basic errors that Mr. Eichenwald makes.

Mr. Eichenwald tells us that "None of this mattered for centuries because Christians were certain God had guided that hand not only of the originals but of all the later copyists." This is rubbish, divine inspiration of the copyists has never been a Christian doctrine. It is also false to suggest that Christians have only recently become aware of these issues. Textual problems were, for example, discussed at length by the third century work, the Hexapola, by Origen of Alexandria.

For those wishing to get an idea of how, in spite of existing textual problems, we can still claim good confidence that our bibles say what the original authors wrote, I would recommend The King James Controversy, by James White (yes, the same James White I recently took aim at for his comments on Rick Warren). If you want to get both sides of the issue at once, the same James White has an excellent debate with agnostic critic Bart Erhman (whom Eichenwald references in his article) on the question "Does the Bible Misquote Jesus".

As I said, it would take far too long to mention all of Mr. Eichenwald's errors but let me list a few:
He claims that the famous incident of the woman taken in adultery from John Chapters 7&8 was added by scribes in the middles ages. While it is almost certainly true that this story was not part of the original Gospel, it is very early, dating back to at least the fourth century (and probably earlier).

He also claims that the King James Bible is considered the "gold standard" for translations into English (it isn't, at least not by any mainstream Christian scholar) he claims that the KJV translation was made not from the original Greek but from a Latin translation (indicating he knows nothing about the KJVs actual history) and he claims that, at the Council of Constantinople, Jesus was proclaimed to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit (no, that wasn't meant as a joke.)

In short, Mr. Eichenwald is correct; a lot of ignorance does exist about the Bible. Christians should make an effort to better educate ourselves about the history of the Bible, we should be better aware than we are about the many issues related to the transmission, translation and canon of our Sacred Scriptures. Mr. Eichenwald, however, is simply seeking to replace ignorance with more ignorance.
 

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception when Catholics commemorate the spotless conception of the Mother of God and Thomists commemorate the fact that even the greatest of us make mistakes. Happy feast day to everyone.

For those unclear, the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not the belief that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus but that she was, at the time of her own conception,  free from original sin. It had long been held in the Catholic Church that the Mother of Christ lived a sinless life. There was, however, debate over exactly when and how her sinlessness was accomplished. Since the high middle ages, the debate had largely been between those who held that Mary, like St. John the Baptist, had been born with original sin but sanctified in the womb and those who held the position which came to be known as the Immaculate Conception.

In 1854, Bld. Pope Pius IX judged it prudent to end the debate and issued the Bull Ineffabillis Deus in which he infallibly defind that Mary, through a pre-emptive act of Christ's grace, was from her first conception, kept entirely free from all stain of original sin. Please note the words "by a pre-emptive act of Christ's grace". Mary, was a human and, like every other human, would, in the natural order of events, be subject to original sin, the same as everyone else. It was only by the application of Christ's merits that this was avoided. Christ is Mary's saviour just as much as He is anyone else's and she was as much in need of his grace as you or I.

A few days ago, responding to James White on the alleged 'worship' of Mary, I stressed that God is worshipped as the source of grace while Mary is honoured as the greatest and fullest recipient of that grace. In a fundamental sense, the Immaculate conception is not about Mary, it is about the grace of Christ. In summing up his belief in the doctrine, the great Franciscan theologian, Bld. Duns Scotus declared: "God was able to do it; it was fitting that God should do it; God did it." Note please that there is nothing here about Mary, the focus is on the act of God.

None of this, of course, is to take away from the love and veneration which Catholics ought to have for the mother of our Divine Saviour. We ought to love the one upon whom the God we worship has bestowed such amazing gifts; we ought to love the one whose 'yes' enabled our Saviour to be born; we ought to love she who provided such a good and loving home and family for the Incarnate Word. In all of this, however we must remember that we are loving and honouring what God made her to be.

St. Augustine of Hippo famously declared that when God crowns our merits He is only crowning His own gifts. This is particularly true in the case of the most gifted and most meritorious of all of God's creatures.

When Our Lady visited St. Elizabeth, she sang the song, the Magnificat, which has become so beloved of the Church and so central to her liturgy. In that song, Our Lady celebrates the wonderful things God has done for her. On this day, we should likewise celebrate the wonderful things the our Creator has done for our fellow creature, the woman He chose to be mother of His Son.

Review: First Episode of "The Flash"

This afternoon I watched the first episode of "The Flash", the latest Super-Hero show from the CW, T.V. network. The show apparently premiered over in the US in October and we are just now getting to see it Down Under.

For those who may not be up with the world of Super Heroes, The Flash is one of the most popular of DC Comics' Heroes, a man with the gift of super-human speed. The comics world has seen a total of four 'Flashes', the most famous being Barry Allen whose 1958 debut is seen by some as inaugurating the "Silver Age" of comic books. This version, has Barry Allen (played by Grant Gustin) as a young science nerd granted his super speed by a freak accident.

What did I think of it? All up, I'd give it a B, maybe a B+. I plan to watch future episodes, but I don't see it taking a spot on my list of favourite shows.

Mild Spoilers Follow:

Things I loved about the show: it was structured in a way that drew me in and made me relate to the main character. The opening shows The Flash running at super speeds, a red blur on a map, while Barry Allen, in voice over, talks about believing in the impossible. We then get a cut-back to Barry as a kid and are then shown the great tragedy of a young Barry, his mother killed and his father, wrongly convicted for the murder.

I also think this was really well cast. For my money, the two picks of the cast so far are Danielle Panabaker and Jesse L. Martin. Martin is probably best remembered for his role as Det. Ed Green on Law Order. Here he is, once again, playing a police Detective and frankly, the role suits him like a glove. In the show, however, he has the additional role as Barry's quasi-foster father, I liked the obvious warmth he brought to the role. Panabaker plays a scientist with a tragic backstory (more on this later) but does so with a real strength, but humanity too.

I was a lot less thrilled with Gustin's performance as Allen/the Flash; don't get me wrong, Gustin can definitely act and he brings a real likeability to the role, in those moments when we are meant to feel sympathy for Barry I was moved. I was less convinced, however, during times when our hero was supposed to be resolved or persuasive. Quite frankly, a super hero, even a science-nerd  super-hero needs, in my opinion, a certain level of gravitas and Gustin just never showed me that Gravitas.

Less Mild Spoilers

As much as I enjoyed the episode, there were a few things about it I disliked. Mostly, a few tired clichés that the show insisted in using. Pannabaker's scientist, who lost her fiancée to the same accident that gave Barry his powers, is a mild example of this. The female scientist who is brilliant at her work but is all business and shows little emotion, frequently as a result of some past tragedy. Seen it before, although this is mitigated by the fact that, as I said, Panbaker does a great job playing the role.

Far worse  is Candice Patton as Barry's best/friend love interest. How many times has this been done? The shy, awkward science nerd guy whose best friend is a girl. He's in love with her, she feels platonic affection for him. She's also completely oblivious to how he feels, even though it's blindingly obvious. Maybe they are going somewhere with this, maybe, as the series goes on, they'll rework the trope into something we haven't seen before, but so far, every time those two characters are on screen together I groaned. To make things worse, they've given her the most stereotypical pretty-boy of a boy friend possible. As soon as that character appeared I saw exactly where they were going with him. *Big Sigh*

All in all, however, I liked the show. Well written, interesting story, likeable hero. Well worth a watch.

P.S. If anyone who has seen further episodes of the show reads this and wants to comment, please begin your post with a spoiler warning.

A Reply to James White on Rick Warren (Part II)

This is the second part of my response to Protestant apologist, James White's video in which he accuses Pastor Rick Warren of compromising the gospel with his comments on the Catholic Church. Pastor White's video can be found here and part one of my response can be found here.

On the subject of Mary and the Saints, Pastor White is of the view that, whatever we officially may say, Roman Catholicism implies the worship of Mary. At about the 9:45, he rhetorically asks Pastor Warren if he is aware: "..[T]hat Calvin specifically dealt with the fraudulent, ridiculous kind of differentiation between lateria and dulia, within Roman Catholcism."

I don't know whether Pastor Warren has read Calvin on the subject, but I have. In Bk. I Chap. XII, section II of The Institutes of the Christian religion, he writes:

"The distinction of what is called dulia and latria was invented for the very purpose of permitting divine honours to be paid to angels and dead men with apparent impunity. For it is plain that the worship which Papists pay to saints differs in no respect from the worship of God: for this worship is paid without distinction; only when they are pressed they have recourse to the evasion, that what belongs to God is kept unimpaired, because they leave him latria."

First, for the benefit of those unfamiliar, Catholics use the term "latria" for that worship due to God alone, we use the term "dulia" to refer to the honour given to the angels and "hyper-dulia" for that unique honour given to Mary because of her unique position as the mother of God incarnate.

So, according to Calvin, this is a distinction without any real difference. But the difference is massive. Let's examine the most famous of Marian prayers, the "Hail Mary".

The prayer says "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death, amen."

Perhaps the first key phrase is "full of grace". The point of this phrase is the Our Lady is the greatest recipient of God's grace. This alone ought to demonstrate the real difference between latria and hyperdulia; God is worshipped as the source of grace and salvation, Mary is honoured as the greatest recipient of that grace.

A second point should be noted in the way that the prayer repeatedly stresses Mary's relationship with God and Jesus. We honour her because "the Lord is with [here]" and because she is "mother of God".
That is the second great difference, God is worshipped for who He is, Mary is honoured because of her relationship to Him.

Finally, the prayer ends with the request that Mary "pray for us sinners". In other words, when we pray to God we petition Him, knowing that He has the power to directly grant what we ask of Him, our prayers, to Mary are radically different, addressing her as a fellow creature and asking her to pray for us.

There you have it, in that short prayer, three fundamental differences between the honour Catholics give to God and that we give to Mary: He is honoured for who He is, she is honoured for her relationship to Him, He is honoured as the source of all Grace, she is honoured for being the foremost recipient of his grace, He is petitioned because he can grant prayers, she is petitioned because, as a fellow creature, she can pray for us.

To these three, let me add a fourth distinction, Catholics believe that the mass is the highest form of prayer and we offer the mass to the Holy Trinity alone. Calvin may claim that the distinction between latria and hyperdulia is a distinction without a difference. In fact, the difference is as radical as that between creature and creator.

R.I.P. Mary Cebalo

A week ago today was the funeral of Mary Cebalo, my Grandmother. Grandma was born in 1921 in Kalgoolie, Western Australia. Her parents, my great parents, were from the island of Korcula, in what is now the Republic of Croatia, that said, Grandma would be quick to tell us that she was Yugoslav, not Croatian.

Grandma had, from an early age, a deep love of literature and history. The first stirrings of my love of poetry began around her dining room table where she would read of recite or read some of her favourite poems and then encourage me to recite one of my favourites.

My interest in history and my belief that the current state of the world can only be understood was likewise nurtured by her and my grandfather's long talks which would cover everything from Alexander the Great, to the Roman Empire, to the history of Balkan Region to 20th century Australian History.

Grandma loved school and hoped to become a teacher herself; I don't doubt that she would have been a good one. Unfortunately, economic necessity forced her to leave school at only 14. I suspect this was one of the things that formed another key aspect of who she was, her strong sense of social justice. Grandma talked a lot about what life was like before the war, how difficult things could be for people from poor families if they became sick. She also, in spite of growing up in the Australia of the 'the White Australia Policy' was always adamant that anyone, regardless of colour, was welcome in her home and around her table. I know some people wonder why, in spite of my relatively conservative views on a number of social and cultural issues, I continue to identify with the political left; I think a good part of the credit or blame, depending on how you view it, belongs to Grandma.

I've mentioned her table, without a doubt my fondest memories of her have to do with her cooking. Grandma made an amazing pasta, she cooked a traditional Croatian recipe, similar to what the Italians would call Bolognese, although it would have taken more courage than I've ever possessed to call her pasta Bolognese within her hearing. Likewise, she made an excellent rissott. Yes, that is the same thing most people call 'rissotto'; no, we're slavs, we spell it without the vowel on the end.

Grandma, like most Croatians, was baptised and confirmed a Catholic. She didn't practice the faith, at least not as far back as I can remember. She did however, retain a deep love for the sacred heart. A picture of the sacred heart, which belonged to her parents, hang over her bed through most of her life. When she was unable to stay at home anymore and had to move into a hospice, that picture came to me. I'm not generally one for sentiment but I do love to think about the fact that I know have a holy object which belonged to my great parents is something that touched me deeply.

I ask you all who read this, please pray for the soul of Mary Cebalo.

 

A Day in the Life of Jason

TW: Mental Health Stuff

I had plans today for writing two posts today, one on the Book of Isaiah and the other a continuation of my response to James White. However, stuff happened, so you get this post instead.

Most of those who know me know about my long term mental health problems. To be specific, my diagnosis (or one of them) is Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD is a complex animal, giving a full explanation of what it's like is difficult, but the worst part of it, is an extreme emotional instability. On a bad day my emptions can swing back and forth at a really scary speed.

This morning, when I started composing this post I was feeling like there was an incredible weight that had somehow been attached to my stomach. The pit of my stomach felt horribly heavy and I had no idea what to do about it.  There were a whole lot of things I wanted to do, instead I just lay on my bed thinking about what a horrible person I am. I was pretty certain that if I got up and did something productive, this would have make me feel less horrible, yet there I lay.

Why don't I get up? In large part the answer is because I was scared. Scared of what, I honestly can't tell you, but that's a big part of my condition, frequently, when I try to do something to help me snap out of the condition, I frequently have an awful panic attack, but I can't tell what I'm panicking about.

So, that's been my day, or at least a large part of it. Here's the weird thing, however, I'm not depressed. I've never been depressed, at least in the strict clinical sense, so, if you suffer from depression, I apologise if I get this wrong, I'm going by second hand accounts. If I understand depression correctly, one of the symptoms is anhedonia, or an inability to gain pleasure from the things one would normally enjoy. This isn't a problem for me. I can be in a state of really deep emotional pain and self loathing and still enjoy all the things I would normally enjoy.

So, this morning, after laying on my bed feeling like crap for a bit and writing a first draft of this post, I put some funny videos on YouTube. I enjoyed said videos, and I cheered up, but only to a point. So, for most of today, I've been doing fun things to distract myself, and it has mostly worked, but again, only to a point. For most of today I've been doing things that I've really enjoyed, and my main focus has been on those things. But, always, in the periphery of my attention, that feeling has been there, that feeling that I'm a horrible person, that I hate myself and that everyone would be better off if I killed myself. I've managed to keep those thoughts out of the centre of my consciousness, but I haven't been able to fully escape them.

And that, friends, has been my day.
 

Response to Pastor James White on Rick Warren (Part I)

As most will have heard, Pastor Rick Warren, of the famous Saddleback Church in California, recently made comments about the importance of Catholics and Protestants working together. He also, while noting the many differences which exist between Catholics and Protestants, argues that the great truths we believe in: the Trinity, the incarnation, salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ are far greater than what divides us.

Not everyone agrees. One noteworthy critique comes from Pastor James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. In a video found here, White accuses Warren of "capitulating" on fundamental issues of the Gospel.

At approximately the 3:35 mark of his video, Pastor White declares:

"There is a reason why, at the reformation, the solas were promoted... it is Christ ALONE, it is by the Grace of God ALONE, it is by faith ALONE; those solas have a reason." (emphasis Pastor White's).

This is a constant theme in Dr. White's criticism of Roman Catholicism. I've heard him say many times, for example, that the issue of the Reformation was the sufficiency of grace, that both sides agreed that grace is necessary to salvation but that the reformers believed grace alone saves while Rome held that salvation is by grace plus something else.

This is completely wrong. Both sides of the Catholic/Protestant debate have always affirmed that salvation is by grace alone through Christ alone. The contrary heresy, that humans, unaided by grace, can do anything towards our own salvation, is called Semipelagianism (as opposed to Pelagiansim which affirms that we can be saved without grace.) Semipelagianism was solemnly condemned at the Council of Orange in 529. A reaffirmation of this condemnation is implicit in chapters 5, 6, 8 and 13 of the Council of Trent's Decree on justification.

Pastor White goes on to argue that, even where we agree, the agreement is superficial because of our reasons for agreeing. At approximately the 4:15 mark, he says.:

"Why does a Roman Catholic believe in the Trinity? Because the Church tells him so. Why do I believe in the Trinity? Because God has revealed it to be true in His Word. Why do I believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Scriptural authority. Why does the Roman Catholic believe? Church Authority."

To say the least, it's quite a bit more complicated than that. While I'm certainly glad to have the many magisterial declarations on the Trinity, I affirm that the truth of the Trinity can be amply defended on the basis of the Bible alone and I'd be very happy to prove this in debate with any Jehovah's Witness, Mormon or 'Biblical Unitarian'. In fact, I've pretty much done it already, in my debate with Muslim apologist Abdullah Kunde, and I can recall Pastor White having some reasonably complimentary things to say about my performance.

As for the resurrection, no, my reason for believing in the resurrection is not Church authority, actually it's the other way around. I was first convinced of the historical fact of the resurrection, convinced from the this fact that Christ was who He claimed to be. I was then persuaded that Christ established the Catholic Church to teach in His name. So, far from me believing in the resurrection because of Church authority, it would be closer to the truth to say I believe in Church authority because of the resurrection.

I will, Deo volente, continue my response to Pastor White in the coming days.