Anne Rice, Catholic Author

Via The Japery ... Back in 1998, Anne Rice, author of the vampire series of novels including Interview With A Vampire, relapsed into the Roman Catholicsm she'd recovered from at 18. (Yours truly suffered the same relapse in his late twenties, very early thirties, a condition which continues to this day...) Now, according to Newsweek:

In two weeks, Anne Rice, the chronicler of vampires, witches and—under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure—of soft-core S&M encounters, will publish "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," a novel about the 7-year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. "I promised," she says, "that from now on I would write only for the Lord." It's the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan's "Slow Train Coming" announced that he'd been born again.

I read five or ten of Rice's books (vampires and Mayfair witches) during my freshman and sophomore years in college. Partly it felt like a guilty pleasure, but I also always had the sense that the lush and purple prose transcended somewhat the standard gothic romance and was sometimes genuinely beautiful. Looking at it now through the filter of this news story, I can't help but wonder if there was something of "smells and bells" in the writing. I'm still trying to figure out by what I mean by that (maybe that the intense understanding of the merging of physicality and spirit in the texture of the Church's liturgy -- incense, vestments, stained glass, candles, and bells! -- and the texture of Rice's prose have a sort of parallel?) , but in the meantime, I know for sure I'm quite curious to read this new book.

More good discussion of this over at Open Book.

The Japery Critiques Kreeft's Vision Of Heaven

Tying into Rick's last post ... The Japery has taken Peter Kreeft to task for his answers to the question What Will Heaven Be Like? Rick and I both admire Mr. Kreeft's work, and so it's interesting to see such a negative take on this piece... The Japery says that Kreeft "applies scripture and reason with a little cheating based on absurd logical conjectures and even out-of-body near-death experience anecdotes!" He goes on to say of Kreeft, "perhaps like [Scott] Hahn, residual Calvinism is to blame for his whacky rationalism that would fit well with an Umberto Eco character--usually a deranged Jesuit or monk in his novels--who reaps all the worst results from a mish-mash of modern and pre-modern epistemes."

In any case, one of the bits the Japery dislikes most about Mr. Kreeft's speculation on the nature of heaven is Kreeft's assertion that God will wipe our memories clean of any deeply loved person who doesn't make the cut ... so that we won't suffer in that person's absence.

I don't like this idea either -- mostly because I think in a reality beyond time, the concept of memory not likely to be similar to the way we understand memory now. I did like some of the other answers Mr. Kreeft gives, and the whole Q&A is well worth reading, as is The Japery's criticism of it -- if only for its eloquently over-the-top outrage.

Visions of Heaven

Ever since I was a teenager reading my beautiful old volume of Dante's "Divine Comedy" with its lavish Gustave Dore illustrations, I've been puzzled by the raw details that human authors (and illustrators) are able to give to their visions of Hell, but how Heaven tends to blur into an ecstatic white light. This could be that the Devil is indeed "in the details," or it could be that Hell is a bit closer to home for mortals and we have no qualms about trashing it with our prejudices or presumptions. Still, if Heaven is our inheritance, then we should feel comfortable speculating a bit about it.

I've heard it said that the three most important questions for any concious being are "Where did I come from?" "Why am I here?" and "Where am I going?" I love to prattle on about origins -- don't get me started on evolution, I can be quite a bore. The question of why we are here finds lots of fuel on this site, since the Church and its nature apparently constitute some significant portion of the answer.

Assuming for a moment that everyone reading this is going to Heaven (lovely thought, by the way -- if you have doubts, drop me a line and we can discuss it), what do you expect to find there? What do you expect it to be like? No fair merely quoting scripture, though it's fine to support your own vision with scripture.

To make this into a kind of ecumenical survey, it would help to reveal your church affiliation, if any. This can be short and sweet or not. My family and I go to a conservative Baptist church right now, but my wife and I were Episcopalians and Methodists before that and in the long, long ago I was a devout Cafeteria Pagan.

I'll chime in with my vision of Heaven once the ball starts rolling. Or sooner, if no one else does.

Burying A Saint To Sell A House?

This train of thought arises as my wife and I are currently selling our house. I often ask Mary and Saint Joseph to pray for us when we make decisions that affect our home and family (and other times as well), and this case is no different.

However, I've read about a practice some people have, in addition to (or, heaven help us, instead of) prayer, of burying a statue of Saint Joseph in the yard when selling a home. Seems like superstition on its face – but one could, I suppose, imagine an argument in which you saw the act as a method of facilitating prayer. As you bury the statue, you turn your mind toward the saint, and in beseeching him to pray for you, you turn your mind, of course, to God. And once the statue is buried, the knowledge of its presence could continue to return your mind to God, which could be important during a stressful and very matter-and-money--oriented process like selling a house.

Illustrating how prevasive this practice has become, the very secular Bankrate.com Web site has an article recommending the practice, and even quotes a Catholic who tackles the superstition versus devotion question.

Here's an interesting history and description of the practice of snopes.com – a site which debunks urban legends.

And Catholic.com's This Rock says, with its customary firmness, of the practice: "What you have been told is a superstition, which is a violation against the First Commandment (CCC 2110). Burying statues to sell your house is not an approved Catholic practice. If you want to ask St. Joseph for his intercession in selling your house, that's fine. But don't go burying statues of him for this purpose."

So, your take, superstition or tool for focusing prayer? I'd say, despite the fact that one could rationalize it, that it seems more a superstition than a form of prayer… However, despite This Rock's black-and-white take on the issue, I imagine there are a rich range of Catholic devotions across a number of cultural traditions that are not formally "approved" but are sincere devotions and generally accepted by the laity and clergy alike. And I also can't help but wonder if some our evangelical and protestant readers might not wonder why I'm distinguishing between a practice like this and some of our other more standard Catholic devotions (statues, rosary beads, lighting devotional candles, etc.)? My answer to a challenge on any of those practices would be that they are tools for focusing prayer, which I suppose is no different than what the Saint Joseph Real Estate statue proponents would say, but … it feels different.

Catholic Evangelical or Vice Versa

Peter Kreeft, who I believe is a convert from the Evangelical ranks to the Roman Catholic Church, describes himself as an evangelical Roman Catholic. I was raised in the high church -- father Catholic and mother Episcopalian -- and, though never "properly catechized" in either tradition, feel an ancestral attraction to them. And yet my heart belongs to the tradition in which I found freedom from bondage, justification before God and salvation. I'm comfortable flopped on the couch in the messy house of the evangelicals, but I love to visit the tidy, posh, and lavishly decorated home of my neighbors, the Catholics.

I guess I could take a suggestion from Mr. Kreeft and call myself a Catholic evangelical, but the Catholic brand is so dominant that it tends to overwhelm. Overwhelmingness is a strength of the RC church. Flexibility is a strength of the Evangelicals.

Once again, work and home life have subsumed me and I owe Binx an answer or two. In his honor I've actually been studying a bit of history, so he doesn't get so flustered with me just popping ideas off the top of my head. Answers are in the works, but I wanted to share something I read from the notable Mr. (Dr.?) Kreeft. (Who works within an hour’s drive of me. I must plan to visit him one of these days.)

In "Fundamentals of the Faith" he writes: "How do I resolve the Reformation? Is it faith alone that justifies, or is it faith and works? Very simple. No tricks. On this issue I believe Luther was simply right: and this issue is absolutely crucial. As a Catholic I feel guilt for the tragedy of Christian disunity because the church in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was failing to preach the gospel. Whatever theological mistakes Luther made, whatever indispensable truths about the Church he denied, here is an indispensable truth he affirmed -- indispensable to union between all sinners and God and union between God's separated Catholic and Protestant children."

He goes on to say that much of Catholicism has not caught up with Luther and much of Protestantism has regressed from him.

In my humble opinion, it is human pride that has created this problem on both sides. When pride contaminates the Protestant churches you get more schisms. When pride contaminates the Catholic Church you get the Protestant Church (and the inquisition, etc.). I'm not a Lutheran, but I believe he was an agent of God to reform his church. The fact that the reformation is still under way should not be a surprise coming from a God for whom a single day is like a millennia and vice versa.

Back to Purgatory Pt. 2: Purgatory, New England-Style

Just because we didn’t have enough fun with our prior purgatory posts, I relate this from Mass today ... I missed part of the homily. David is just on the far side of potty training and when he says, "Daddy, I have to go potty," we go. Meanwhile, our visiting priest was elaborating on various elements of Catholic doctrine. Kris later recalled the priest's description of purgatory (roughly quoted/paraphrased, but the word "crud" was indeed central). Keep in mind that the following quote is my recollection of what Kris recalled of what the priest said.

"Purgatory in Vermont is a cow barn. Now, you're looking up at the main farmhouse and saying, 'that’s where I want to go Jesus.' And Jesus says, 'you're not ready to meet my Father yet, first you gotta go to the cow barn.' And he brings you in there, and there are a bunch of other people, and tools on the walls. And Jesus tells you to go get him the long-handled wire brush. And you say, 'okay, what do I do to get to God’s house?' And Jesus says, 'just stand there and I'm going to clean the crud off you, so you can meet my father.' See, you've sinned and been forgiven for your sins, but the crud still sticks to you. So Jesus starts using the brush, and you say, 'Jesus, this hurts,' and he says, 'I know, but I’ve got to get the crud off you.' And he keeps working until you're clean."

The priest had the whole parish in stitches. For those of you who have actually spent time in a cow barn ... does the metaphor hold up? Evocative or just odd?

How Can I Resist!

John de Fiesole on Disputions has this great description of the Book of Tobit: "Demons, monstrous fish, love at first sight, bird poop as a major plot device, a hometown setting: it's got it all." Kids just went down for a nap, and I think I have some reading to do!

The introduction to Tobit from the New American Bible points out: "The inspired author of the book used the literary form of religious novel (as in Jonah and Judith) for the purpose of instruction and edification. There may have been a historical nucleus around which the story was composed, but this possibility has nothing to do with the teaching of the book. The seemingly historical data-names of kings, cities, etc.-are used merely as vivid details to create interest and charm. Although the Book of Tobit is usually listed with the historical books, it more correctly stands midway between them and the wisdom literature."

I find this style especially appealing ... which makes me wonder whether I need to rethink, or at least refine the point I was making here.

Back to Purgatory Pt. 1

Many interesting uncountered points have been left in the depths of the post titled "A Purgatorial Debate" so I'll bring a few to the surface, in separate posts, to make the discussion a bit more transparent.

Regarding my assertion of the commonly held evangelical belief that the Church of God is "invisible" i.e. bigger than any specific organization, Binx wrote: "But, the startling historical and biblical fact remains that this is a distinction that was never posited before Calvin. There is no such distinction in the New Testament, in fact the very opposite emerges clearly. Jesus founded one visible church led by the Apostles."

Would it be tacky of me to add that the idea of individual rights was also not posited in the first century and scripture was used to defend slavery until the 19th century? Yet the Bible, in the hands of social reformers, served as a powerful tool of liberation and today the church remains a bastion of liberty for the oppressed and the helpless. I would suggest that the modern church owes much to the early church for refining and protecting the canon (under God’s direction and protection, I might add) and the early church owes much to the modern church for never being satisfied with the edicts of men, either to limit or to expand the scripture, but have become “workmen approved, rightly dividing the word of God.” Ultimately God is in charge of the process, not the church. The church IS the process.

As for the unity of the first century church, the book of Acts lays out a different scenario, with disputes arising between Paul and Silas. And during Jesus's earthly ministry, when the disciples discovered others, not of their group, casting out demons in Christ's name, Jesus basically said, "It's cool." In 1st Cor. 12 Paul famously describes the church and the distribution of gifts within it as a body of parts, with each part performing a role and some parts more "honored" than others. This seems like a fairly vivid description of the nature of the modern "splintered" church. The problem cited by Paul is not the distinctions between parts, but rather the rivalry or dismissal between them. I suppose these verses could be seen to indicate the need for a number of different types of gifted person within each church. But the analogy also suggests that development of the Body of Christ would transform the homogenous infantile body parts into much more clearly defined, task-oriented parts. In this view, the nailing of Luther's 95 theses to the Wittenberg Cathedral door could be the ecclesiastical equivalent to puberty. Calvin may have simply been stating what had become obvious to him and others.

Another image often used in the Bible to describe the relationship between God and man is a family. Perhaps the modern church is a bit like the Prodigal Son and the grand Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions are like the faithful son who resented the father’s easy reacceptance of such a wastrel. The Catholic Church underwent a reformation (like it or not) and the Protestant church is probably due one as well. Some say that's what the evangelical movement is all about.

Bumper Stumper

A long while back, an evangelical friend and I were cynically discussing the proliferation of sappy Christian bumper stickers. Naturally we soon began trying to write our own Christian bumper stickers, just to see if it is possible to reduce theology to less than six words. I don't think anything we came up with was better than "John 3:16" on a rainbow background.

Since I haven't posted for awhile, and since Ernesto is taking the high intellectual road in his recent posts, I thought I'd toss a little fluff into the mix.

What (six word or less) Christian bumper sticker would you most be willing to put on your car? You can either mention one you've seen or write your own.

The Language of Science Is Not the Language of Theology

Via the Ignatius Insight blog (and see more discussion of this at Open Book) ... Cardinal Schoenborn said recently : "I see no problem combining belief in the Creator with the theory of evolution..." This may seem to some like a clarification, but I recall thinking when I read the cardinal's New York Times op ed piece over the summer, the one which caused many people to think the Church had rejected evolution, that all the cardinal was really saying was that he rejected a version of evolution that claimed to be able to discern metaphysics as well as biology. The cardinal was attempting to reject a theory of evolution put forth by some that claims it can prove God has no role in creating the universe. Richard Dawkins, for one, in The Improbability of God, implicitly makes such a claim.

All of which has been hashed out, in more depth, elsewhere.

What I really wanted to toss out here was a piece in this month's First Things that I thought added a really interesting perspective on, and perhaps clarity to, the language we use to talk about this issue:

Critiquing Cardinal Schoenborn's NY Times article, Stephen Barr writes that the "central misstep of Cardinal Schoenborn's article" is that "he has slipped into the definition of a scientific theory, Neo-Darwinism, the words 'unplanned' and 'unguided,' which are fraught with theological meaning." Barr goes on to point out that the cardinal, while referencing some lines from the document Communion and Stewardship, neglects key passages in which it "explicitly warns that the word 'random' as used by biologists chemists, physicians and mathematicians in their technical work does not have the same meaning as the words 'unguided' and 'unplanned' as used in doctrinal statements of the Church." Barr later uses a literary example to illustrate his point (about the word 'random' versus 'unplanned', I think, not as analogy for evolution…): "Prose, unlike a sonnet, has lines with final syllables that do not rhyme. The sequence of those syllables will therefore exhibit randomness. But this does not mean a prose work is 'unguided' or 'unplanned.'" The article, from this month's edition, will be posted on the Web site at the end of the month and is an interesting read.

In the end, the article also illustrates an important concept: it's hard to have a productive discussion, debate or argument when not all the parties have agreed on how to define the terms.

God Doesn't 'Punish', But Sin Does

I've been thinking for a couple of weeks about how I would describe my understanding of God's reaction to sin, sin's effect on a person, and the way God is described at times as vengeful. I began wondering if my conception was orthodox, and upon reflection, I think it is.* Feel free to comment on that conclusion after reading my ruminations below... What prompts me, by the way, to expound on this here is a post I came across on Adrian Warnock's blog entitled, "God isn't angry with Christians when they sin."

Seems to me, when we sin, God doesn't get angry with us (or hate us or wish us ill, etc.) at all since God loves us and is infinitely generous, infinitely patient and forgiving and infinitely desiring of our ultimate homecoming. God does hate the sin itself, because of the effect of the sin, which is to cause resistance within us to God. Since God's given us free will, that blockage we build up by sin can prevent us from accepting the grace God is constantly pouring out on us. The upshot of thinking this is, when I hear language referring to God "smiting sinners" or "inflicting punishment on sinners," I automatically assume that it is figurative language (as when we read that God is surprised by something, which would be impossible for someone outside of time to be) and translate it to mean, "Those people have, by misusing their free will to sin, built up blockades against God and His grace, and are suffering because they are willingly cutting themselves off from Him." Penitence and penance are, of course, necessary, because they (with God's help, even through our best effort at shutting Him out) realign our will to accept all of what God wants to give us. So what this amounts to may be one step further even than the idea, "God isn't angry with Christians when they sin." It amounts to believing that sin certainly has a punishing effect on the sinner, but that God doesn't punish.

* Not wanting to toss all this out here without providing some reference to back up this line of thinking, I turned after posting the original piece, to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for backup. This bit is from section 1472 on "The Punishments of Sin": The text first lists the two kinds of punishments for sin, eternal and temporal, and then goes on to say, "These two punishments must not be conceived as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin." I realize, of course, non-Catholics may find this less authoritative than I do...

Matrix Vocations Poster

Came across this a while back and have been meaning to throw it into the conversation. The Archdiocese of Indianapolis is distributing Matrix-takeoff posters to promote the priesthood. Based on the story I read, the concept was meant to show that today’s seminarians are both engaged with the world but also committed to orthodoxy, and to draw the analogy of the hero in the Matrix as someone who fights evil and the Catholic priest as someone who fights evil. I think there’s a better analogy available, which I’ll get to in a second.

First, though, I’ll point out that a quick search on this topic reveals some sneering comments on this marketing campaign, especially from non-Catholics who see the hierarchical Church as more analogous to the Matrix than the hero who fights against the Matrix.

To contrast that point of view, I’ll offer this: The first thing that sprang to my mind when I saw this poster was that Materialism was the Matrix. The material (temporal) world is a version of reality that exists within the greater (eternal) reality of the metaphysical – it cannot contain the metaphysical, yet it can easily be a part of the greater metaphysical reality. To the degree that we live in a culture that presumes the bounds of reality end at the material, a priest as an agent of the metaphysical, who is trying to convince us that there is a reality beyond the material, and that not only does it exist but that our interaction with it has important consequences, is analogous to the freedom fighters in the Matrix, who return to the Matrix to try and break others out of their illusions. Of course, from that perspective, not just priests, but all spiritual leaders (and the laity besides) from all denominations and faiths are battling the Matrix.

In general, I think the poster is fun, I am certainly not opposed to mining for, or even inventing when I have to, deeper meaning in pop culture, I have no quibble with viewing the priesthood as a heroic vocation (that’s how I see it, after all), but I’m also left feeling a bit discomforted by the campaign, because the reference to the film brings more analogies with it than the one I described above, and not all of them seem good fits. And if the priesthood is part of a battle to transcend the Matrix that is Materialism here on the earth, the poster almost seems to be an attempt to dress the higher, true reality up with trappings from the illusion - an awkward attempt to clothe a big reality in a jacket cut to fit a little reality.