Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

New: "The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections"

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections

by Trent Horn

This is the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and thorough defense of the Catholic Church against Protestant objections in print. This book is especially relevant as the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation draws near and discussion of the arguments made against the Church during that time in history receive renewed interest.  

The Case for Catholicism answers arguments put forward by early Reformers like Luther and Calvin as well as contemporary defenders of Protestantism like Norm Geisler and R.C. Sproul. It provides a meticulous defense of the biblical and historical nature of Catholic doctrines from Scripture and church history. Finally, in both answering Protestant objections to Catholicism and in providing evidence for the Faith, The Case for Catholicism cites modern Protestant scholars who question Reformation assumptions and show how evidence from Scripture and church history support aspects of Catholic theology.

This book is divided into four sections, with each answering a key question Christians have asked about the nature of their faith. Those key questions are:

• What is my authority?
• What is the Church?
• How am I saved?
• Who belongs to the body of Christ?

The Case for Catholicism will become a reliable, resource for any Catholic who desires a well-researched, readable, and persuasive answer to Protestant arguments made against the Catholic faith.

Trent Horn, a convert to Catholicism, has a BA in history from Arizona State University, and an MA in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is a regular guest on the radio program Catholic Answers Live, and a lecturer nationwide on the Catholic faith. He is the author and the author of Answering Atheism, Persuasive Pro-life, and Hard Sayings.

New: "The Immortal in You: How Human Nature Is More Than Science Can Say" by Michael Augros

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Immortal in You: How Human Nature Is More Than Science Can Say

by Michael Augros

Many scientists and philosophers believe that you are no more than a machine. By their account there is no afterlife and you are no better than any other kind of animal. The existence of mankind, according to such thinkers, is purely the outcome of chance events. There never was any tendency, natural or supernatural, to produce life and the human mind. The universe is hostile or indifferent toward you, and you occupy no special place within it.

At the heart of this story of mankind lies not science but a rarely expressed philosophical assumption that modern science, at least in principle, tells all there is know about you and the world. With his unique blend of cogency, clarity, and charm, philosopher Michael Augros hauls that assumption out into the light and demolishes it. The Immortal in You demonstrates how an astute use of common sense and a study of common human experience reveal that there is more to you—much more—than science could possibly say.

From the author of Who Designed the Designer?, this modern response to the ancient exhortation "Know thyself" delivers a wealth of fresh, powerful, and uplifting ideas about what it is to be human, which will engage thoughtful readers regardless of their beliefs.

Michael Augros holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston College and teaches at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California. He is the author of Who Designed the Designer? A Rediscovered Path to God's Existence and of numerous scholarly articles that have appeared in such journals as the Thomist, Angelicum, and the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.

"A fascinating journey of intelligent exploration into the greatest and most mysterious thing in the universe: yourself, your nature, and your destiny. This is far and away the best book I have ever read about the nature of mankind as far as natural reason can know it. On a scale of 1 to 10, I have to give it a 12."
— Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Boston College; Author, Summa of the Summa

"Augros's fine book is philosophically deep yet accessible to the non-specialist, and it acknowledges what we know from modern science while demolishing the error of scientism."
— Edward Feser, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Pasadena City College

"In his Lost in the Cosmos, Walker Percy detailed how we materialistic moderns lost our common-sense grasp of reality, especially the reality of our selves. Michael Augros has given us one of the finest maps I've seen, detailing—patiently, wisely, and humorously—how we can find ourselves again."
— Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Franciscan University; Author, In Defense of Nature 

"Through persistent questioning, Augros invites the reader to join him in an adventure in philosophy, a quest for self-knowledge."
— Thomas Hibbs, Ph.D., Honors College Dean, Baylor University 

"Don't be fooled by the light touch and the pop culture allusions. This book delivers some very interesting answers to the question posed by the psalmist, 'What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?'"
— Patrick Coffin, Host of The Patrick Coffin Show

"A master surgeon armed with words instead of scalpels, Augros makes his case meticulously, showing why the soul, the mind, and human purpose are real even if the sciences can't detect them. He never bashes science but makes a persuasive case that science doesn't have all the answers—or even the best questions."
— Brandon Vogt, Author, Saints and Social Justice

New: "The Great Heresies" by Hilaire Belloc, with Foreword by Karl Keating

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Great Heresies

by Hilaire Belloc

Foreword by Karl Keating

In this new edition of a classic work, the great Catholic apologist and historian Hilaire Belloc examines the five most destructive heretical movements in Christianity: Arianism, Mohammedanism (Islam), Albigensianism, Protestantism, and Modernism. Belloc describes how these movements began, how they spread, and how they have continued to influence the world. He accurately predicts the re-emergence of militant Islam and its violent aggression against Western civilization.

When we hear the word "heresies", we tend to think of distant centuries filled with religious quarrels that seemed important at the time but are no longer relevant. Belloc shows that the heresies of olden times are still with us, sometimes under different names and guises, and that they still shape our world.

Hilaire Belloc was one of the most important and versatile authors of the 20th century. A social commentator and a master of finely crafted prose, he wrote numerous books on social, historical and theological topics. His books include The Path to Rome; The Battleground: Syria and Palestine, the Seed Plot of Religion; and many more.

"We live with the aftereffects of twenty centuries of heresies. If this book speaks to us as though it were written yesterday, it is because heresy is a perennial problem. 'All men by nature desire to know', said Aristotle, but many men are incapable of knowing well or of thinking clearly. The result is religious error. To deal with it, we must learn its origin and history. There seldom has been a better teacher than Hilaire Belloc."
— Karl Keating, from the Foreword; Author, Catholicism and Fundamentalism

"The Great Heresies is a masterpiece of intellectual history which takes us on a journey across the landscape of the centuries. With the inimitable Belloc as our guide we follow the path of the Church Militant as she passes, sure-footed with the grace of orthodoxy, through the quagmire of errors which characterize the prideful wanderings of the human mind and heart."
— Joseph Pearce, Author, Catholic Literary Giants

New: "Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn from Each Other?" by Peter Kreeft

Now available from Ignatius Press:

Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn from Each Other?

by Peter Kreeft

The widely read author and philosopher Peter Kreeft presents a unique book that focuses on the important beliefs that Catholics and Protestants share in common. He says this book is inspired by Christ's high priestly prayer in the Gospel of John "that they may be one," and by St. John Paul II's ecumenical encyclical, Ut Unum Sint, which is also based on Christ's prayer for unity. While there are still significant differences, Kreeft says that there has been a radical step of agreement on the single most important issue, justification.

Kreeft says the style of the book is that of Pascal, Nietzsche, Solomon, and Jesus: short answers, single points to ponder rather than long strings of argument. It is direct, simple, and confrontational, but vertically rather than horizontally, "directing arrows not against each other (Protestant or Catholic) but against our own hearts and minds and wills."

It is timely because, as Pope St. John Paul II said, this next millennium is destined to be the millennium of Christian reunification as the first millennium was that of Christian unity, and the second one of Christian disunity.

Above all, Kreeft says that this work is simple, not easy, or obvious, but condensed. It – like all of reality – is Christocentric. Its purpose is to be "like an Australian sheep dog, herding and hectoring Christ's separated sheep back to His face. For that is the only way they can ever return back to each other."

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, is one of the most widely read Christian authors of our time. His many bestselling books cover a vast array of topics in spirituality, theology, and philosophy. They include How to Be Holy, Practical Theology, Back to Virtue, Because God Is Real, You Can Understand the Bible, Angels and Demons, Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing, and A Summa of the Summa.

"Peter Kreeft has a remarkable gift for expressing complex issues in lucid, accurate, and pithy ways. He also has the fairness and insight needed to undertake a tractate to bring Catholics and Protestants into closer union. This book will no doubt help understanding and dialog between both."
— Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Author, The Soul's Upward Yearning

"No one has taught me more about what healthy ecumenism looks like than the brilliant and eloquent Peter Kreeft. He is a peerless apologist for truth and has been an inspiration to me for over two decades on the happy and vital connections between serious Catholic and evangelical faith."
— Eric Metaxas, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, Bonhoeffer; Host of the Eric Metaxas Show

"Readers will expect-- and be gratified to find -- what we always find in any work by Kreeft: thorough, solid, intelligent work, and agile prose style, brought to the service of dependable content. This book should help us to find a real step forward in the mutual understanding of these two sectors of the Ancient Faith."
— Thomas Howard, Author, On Being Catholic

"Peter Kreeft, one of our finest Christian writers today, has given us a passionate plea for Christian unity, one that builds upon the great common core of Christian belief confessed by faithful Protestants and Catholics alike. A volume full of faith-and hope."
— Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University

"In his unique style, Kreeft avoids academic verbosity and cuts right to the chase. His uncanny ability to reduce the complex into readable text is like poetry in motion. Christians from various traditions will find this book a pleasure to read."
— Stephen Ray, Author, Crossing the Tiber

"If only this book had been written five hundred years ago! Peter Kreeft is a reliable sherpa, guiding us safely through the theological and historical impasses into which countless unwary Christians have stumbled."
— Patrick Madrid, Author, Life Lessons; Host of the Patrick Madrid Show

"This is a book that lives up to its title, and will be a useful resource for any Catholic with Protestant friends or colleagues - and vice versa. It invites the reader to explore these often contentious issues with respect for both perspectives, and with genuine hope for resolution and reunion."
— Holly Ordway, Author, Not God's Type

Did Jesus rise from the dead and go directly to heaven?

The Spiritual Resurrection Theory appears to be alive (ahem) and well at the Associated Press | Carl E. Olson | The Dispatch at CWR

The always excellent Terry Mattingly of Get Religion points out that the Associated Press reveals a bit of biblical and theological illiteracy in a March 20th piece about the renovations done to the shrine in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The report begins in this way:

The tomb of Jesus has been resurrected to its former glory. Just in time for Easter, a Greek restoration team has completed a historic renovation of the Edicule, the shrine that tradition says houses the cave where Jesus was buried and rose to heaven.

The problematic phrase—"the shrine that tradition says houses the cave where Jesus was buried and rose to heaven"—is repeated in the photo caption. Mattingly writes:

OK, I know that this is complicated. Maybe there needs to be an expanded entry in the Associated Press Stylebook covering the events of Holy Week, Easter and the Ascension?

Attention AP corrections desk: Christians around the world do not believe that Jesus was "buried and rose to heaven" from the tomb cut into the stone of Gethsemane. They believe that he was buried there, was resurrected, then ascended to heaven 40 days later. Church tradition points to Mount Olivet as the site of the Ascension.

This very issue is addressed in one of the 75 or so questions found in my book Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? (Ignatius Press/Augustine Institute, 2016):

Q. Was the Resurrection also when Jesus ascended into Heaven and was exalted there by the Father?

This is a common misunderstanding, even among some Christians. It is even, as Brant Pitre points out [in The Case for Christ] remarkably popular “especially among scholars who do not believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection. Nevertheless, this idea is (literally) dead wrong.”  That is because the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven, as the creedal statements above indicate and Scripture clearly attest, took place forty days after the Resurrection; the two are entirely distinct events, even though the Ascension is made possible because of the Resurrection.  The risen Jesus, in fact, told Mary Magdalene that he had not yet gone to the Father:

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (Jn 20:16–17)

In addition, Luke begins Acts of the Apostles by stating, “To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).

The key point here is that the Resurrection was not a spiritual event only, during which Jesus was exalted, in some form, into Heaven; rather, it was a miraculous event in which Jesus was raised from the dead with real and glorified body, becoming “the first‐born from the dead” (Col 1:18; cf. Rev 1:5). And forty days separated that event from the Ascension, during which time Jesus, according to Paul, “appeared to Ce’phas, then to the Twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles” (1 Cor 15:5–7).

Mattingly reminds readers of a similar error made by The New York Times in a May 2013 piece about Pope Francis' first Urbi et Orbi message: "Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life."

These sort of mistakes certainly betray sloppiness and a lack of basic knowledge, which is frustrating enough. But a deeper issue, I suspect, is the implicit assumption that the Resurrection is an entirely spiritual event, having little or nothing to do with the material realm. This general approach to the Resurrection can be described as the Spiritual Resurrection Theory; here is an excerpt from Chapter 9 ("Physical and Spiritual") of my book:

Q. What is the Spiritual Resurrection Theory?

This is the idea that the Resurrection of Jesus was purely spiritual and not at all corporeal or bodily.  The risen Jesus was a spirit.  Those who encountered him encountered the spirit of Jesus. His corpse is irrelevant, in this view. Whether dogs ate it or it remains buried in a tomb makes no difference. Jesus’s body wasn’t transformed; he was raised a spirit.

Q. Who advocates the idea of the Spiritual Resurrection Theory?

Some theologically liberal Christians espouse the Spiritual Resurrection Theory, or a form of it. It is held by John Shelby Spong, John Dominic Crossan, and Marcus Borg, among others. Jehovah’s Witnesses, oddly enough, also advocate a form of it. They think the various Resurrection appearances recounted in the New Testament do not reflect Jesus’s actual resurrected state, but involve various bodies he assumed or materialized in order to indicate to his disciples his continued existence as a spirit. Unlike most people who reject the traditional understanding of Jesus’s Resurrection, advocates of the Spiritual Resurrection Theory generally appeal to the New Testament to support their views. As a result, the case against the theory involves a careful review of certain New Testament passages.

There is much, much more, as you can see from the table of contents and the Introduction.

New: "Who Am I to Judge? Responding to Relativism with Logic and Love" by Edward Sri

Who Am I to Judge? Responding to Relativism with Logic and Love

by Edward Sri

"Don't be so judgmental!"

"Why are Christians so intolerant?"

"Why can't we just coexist?"

In an age in which preference has replaced morality, many people find it difficult to speak the truth, afraid of the reactions they will receive if they say something is right or wrong. Using engaging stories and personal experience, Edward Sri helps us understand the classical view of morality and equips us to engage relativism, appealing to both the head and the heart. Learn how Catholic morality is all about love, why making a judgment is not judging a person's soul, and why, in the words of Pope Francis, "relativism wounds people." Topics include:

• Real Freedom, Real Love

• Sharing truth with compassion

• Why "I disagree" doesn't mean "I hate you"

Edward Sri, Ph.D., well-known Catholic speaker and the author of several best-selling books, is a professor of Theology and Scripture at the Augustine Institute, and host of the acclaimed film series, Symbolon. He is also a founding leader of FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students). He holds a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

"Too often our culture confuses love with moral relativism, and it is a dangerous misunderstanding. In this much-needed book, Dr. Edward Sri shows us that true compassion can never be separated from moral realities."
— Jennifer Fulwiler, author, Something other than God

"Pope Emeritus Benedict often spoke of the "dictatorship of relativism," and Pope Francis called relativism 'the spiritual poverty of our time.' Edward Sri heeds the clarion call to action and offers practical tools to talk about moral truth with greater conviction, clarity, and compassion in a world saturated by relativism."
— Curtis Martin, founder, FOCUS

Why did these Evangelical seminarians become Catholic?

Over at National Catholic Register, Kathy Schiffer asks; "Why were so many students from Southern Evangelical Seminary willing to risk losing their jobs, ministries, and even family and friends to embrace a religion they once rejected as false or even heretical?" She writes:

Douglas Beaumont has brought together ten compelling conversion stories in a new book, Evangelical Exodus: Evangelical Seminarians and Their Paths to Rome, published by Ignatius Press. Included among the Catholic converts who contributed to this book are Francis Beckwith, professor of philosophy and Church-State Studies at Baylor University; Joshua Betancourt, a lay Catholic hospital chaplain who has worked with St. Joseph Communications and Lighthouse Catholic Media; Andrew Preslar, a founding member of Called to Communion who had studied for the Anglican priesthood before being received into the Byzantine Rite; and seven others, all of whom have at least a Master's degree. Although ten SES students and faculty contributed to this book, Dr. Beaumont reported that there were two or three times as many converts whose conversion stories are not included in this collection.

Of course, their reasons varied. The contributing writers arrived at their Catholic faith from different perspectives, and were motivated by different concerns: the nature of the biblical canon, the identification of Christian orthodoxy, and the problems with the Protestant doctrines of sola scriptura (“scripture alone”) and sola fide (“faith alone”). Many were attracted by the Catholic Church's great beauty—its music, art, great cathedrals. It's important to note that many of the writers had never shared their thoughts with the others before the book was published.

Doug talked with the Register about his own conversion, and about the factors which led him to swim the Tiber and enter into full communion with Rome. “Several things got me thinking about the ancient church,” he explained. “Even though I had studied the Scriptures, I wanted to know more about the formation of the biblical canon. I was interested in what 'counts' as orthodoxy among all Christians, not just those in my tiny little group.” And as he studied and talked with other Christians, in both large and small denominations, the same problems kept popping up; there was always one more step to go.

Beaumont asked himself a hard question:  If I trust the church for the Bible that I have, at what point does it become acceptable to not trust the church any longer? 

Read the entire piece on the NCRegister site. Learn more about the book at Ignatius.com.

"A work of deft apologetics ... [an] admirably argued and consistently instructive book ..."

From Edward Short's review in The Catholic Herald of Carl E. Olson's book Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? (Ignatius Press-Augustine Institute, 2016):

Olson is at his best when confuting those like the liberal Protestant theologian John Selby Spong, who claims that the Resurrection must mean something other than that Christ rose from the dead. For Spong, since the Resurrection found in the New Testament and celebrated by Christians worldwide for more than 2,000 years cannot be squared with our technologically advanced, scientific society, it is necessary for obliging liberal theologians to disabuse “fundamentalist” Christians of outmoded views and to offer instead a more plausible “spiritual” definition of Christ’s greatest miracle. And thus, as Olson argues, “Spong and like-minded thinkers … shred and reassemble the New Testament in Frankenstein-like fashion, creating a monster that is part pseudo-spirituality, part slavish scientism”.

Throughout this admirably argued and consistently instructive book, Olson never loses sight of why understanding the Resurrection is so vital.

“Secular humanism simply does not satisfy hungry souls and searching hearts,” he writes. Nor does it tell us anything reliable about Christ, or his Resurrection. When it comes to the atheists who command so much respect in our uncritical culture, Olson is unsparing.

Read the entire review on the Herald's site.

More praise for the book:

"Every year, right around Easter, the super-skeptics come out in droves to call into question the truth of the Resurrection. In Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Carl Olson does an excellent job of laying out the key questions raised by skeptics and offering compelling and well-researched answers. A must-read for any Catholic whose ever wondered about the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus."
— Dr. Brant Pitre, Author of The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ

"Carl Olson offers a cogent survey of the most common objections to the historicity of the Resurrection, doing the particularly invaluable work of tracing their historical roots and philosophical assumptions in an accessible way. This book is an essential resource, especially for teachers, catechists, and anyone involved in evangelization."
— Amy Welborn, author of the Prove It! series of apologetics for Catholic teens

"This is a doubly scandalous book. It's about the greatest scandal in history, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it's a scandal in its own right because it dares to argue (convincingly, I think) that the Resurrection actually occurred and that all the arguments against its historicity have fallen flat, including recent arguments from the New Atheists and others. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? will give delight to believers and distress to unbelievers. What more can one ask?"
- Karl Keating, Founder, Catholic Answers

"'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ... we are of all men most to be pitied.' So says St. Paul. In his new book Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? Carl Olson demonstrates there is no pity necessary—the resurrection is true! He analyzes and presents the historical and objective reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central and crucial fact of all human existence. Written for novice and scholar alike, this book will convince even the skeptic."
— Steve K. Ray, Best-selling author and Host of "The Footprints of God"

"Conversant with both the relevant scholarship as well as the misconceptions and false presentations of Jesus current in contemporary culture, Olson’s book is an inviting, readable introduction to the question of the resurrection that deepens one’s faith in the fundamental fact of Christian faith—that Jesus Christ was truly raised from the dead."
— Dr. Leroy Huizenga, Associate Professor of Theology, University of Mary (Bismarck, N.D.)

"Scholars are often busy 'rethinking' the Resurrection of Christ only to find, so they tell us, that it never happened, or perhaps that Christ never happened. Carl Olson has read over these various theses and examined  their credibility. Not surprisingly, he finds them wanting on this or that particular issue of fact or logic. The Resurrection is at the center of Christianity. Olson's book shows quite clearly why it is and that it is. The scholarship that opposes the Resurrection is seen to be deficient not only in faith but also in reason, in scholarship itself."
— Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University

"For the earliest Christians, to preach Christianity meant primarily to preach the Resurrection. It was the focus of every sermon reported in the book of Acts. It was the heart of the good news which the Christians brought to the world. Yet in some circles today, it has become fashionable not just to doubt the Resurrection, but to question such basic facts as Jesus' very existence. That's why this new book by Carl Olson is so desperately needed. As St. Paul did in the first century, Olson affirms the life-changing power of the Resurrection. But he does more: he shows how the best evidence and contemporary scholarship affirm what Christians have believed for centuries, that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Comprehensive, well-researched, and accessible, this is the best defense of the Resurrection from a Catholic perspective."
— Brandon Vogt, Content Director at Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and founder of StrangeNotion

"Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? is a brilliant and lucid presentation of the overwhelming evidence for Christ's resurrection. Like a skilled surgeon, Carl E. Olson masterfully analyzes and dissects the radical skepticism and iniquitous criticism that often dominate the study of the Gospels. The question and answer format allows the reader to follow the arguments in a logical progression, and is a wonderful medium for Olson to showcase his unique talent for keeping the reader interested and engaged while bridging the chasm between academic scholarship and the armchair intellectual. This book should be required reading for every priest, deacon, seminarian, catechist, apologist—anyone who wants to strengthen their Christian faith and deepen their love of Jesus Christ."
— Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, author, Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality

"'Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?' contains a wealth of apologetic information...."

From a recent PopFam.com review of Carl E. Olson's new book Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?:

In spite of the author’s pre-determined perspective, Olson does of good job of dealing with many specific objections that non-religious (and sometimes anti-religious) thinkers raise as so-called proofs that the “historical Jesus,” not the miraculous Jesus, is the authentic Christ. He addresses logically and methodically the skeptic’s perspective and makes a compelling case for believing in miracles—specifically the miracle of Jesus’ Resurrection. ...

Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? contains a wealth of apologetic information … if any of your family members are more the intellectual type, this will be a fascinating book that prompts thoughtful faith discussions for days to come.

Read the entire review. 

More praise for the book:

"Every year, right around Easter, the super-skeptics come out in droves to call into question the truth of the Resurrection. In Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Carl Olson does an excellent job of laying out the key questions raised by skeptics and offering compelling and well-researched answers. A must-read for any Catholic whose ever wondered about the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus." — Dr. Brant Pitre, Author of The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ

"Carl Olson offers a cogent survey of the most common objections to the historicity of the Resurrection, doing the particularly invaluable work of tracing their historical roots and philosophical assumptions in an accessible way. This book is an essential resource, especially for teachers, catechists, and anyone involved in evangelization." — Amy Welborn, author of the Prove It! series of apologetics for Catholic teens

"This is a doubly scandalous book. It's about the greatest scandal in history, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it's a scandal in its own right because it dares to argue (convincingly, I think) that the Resurrection actually occurred and that all the arguments against its historicity have fallen flat, including recent arguments from the New Atheists and others. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? will give delight to believers and distress to unbelievers. What more can one ask?" — Karl Keating, Founder, Catholic Answers

"'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ... we are of all men most to be pitied.' So says St. Paul. In his new book Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? Carl Olson demonstrates there is no pity necessary—the resurrection is true! He analyzes and presents the historical and objective reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central and crucial fact of all human existence. Written for novice and scholar alike, this book will convince even the skeptic." — Steve K. Ray, Best-selling author and Host of "The Footprints of God"

"Conversant with both the relevant scholarship as well as the misconceptions and false presentations of Jesus current in contemporary culture, Olson’s book is an inviting, readable introduction to the question of the resurrection that deepens one’s faith in the fundamental fact of Christian faith—that Jesus Christ was truly raised from the dead."  — Dr. Leroy Huizenga, Associate Professor of Theology, University of Mary (Bismarck, N.D.)

"Scholars are often busy 'rethinking' the Resurrection of Christ only to find, so they tell us, that it never happened, or perhaps that Christ never happened. Carl Olson has read over these various theses and examined  their credibility. Not surprisingly, he finds them wanting on this or that particular issue of fact or logic. The Resurrection is at the center of Christianity. Olson's book shows quite clearly why it is and that it is. The scholarship that opposes the Resurrection is seen to be deficient not only in faith but also in reason, in scholarship itself." — Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University

"For the earliest Christians, to preach Christianity meant primarily to preach the Resurrection. It was the focus of every sermon reported in the book of Acts. It was the heart of the good news which the Christians brought to the world. Yet in some circles today, it has become fashionable not just to doubt the Resurrection, but to question such basic facts as Jesus' very existence. That's why this new book by Carl Olson is so desperately needed. As St. Paul did in the first century, Olson affirms the life-changing power of the Resurrection. But he does more: he shows how the best evidence and contemporary scholarship affirm what Christians have believed for centuries, that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Comprehensive, well-researched, and accessible, this is the best defense of the Resurrection from a Catholic perspective." — Brandon Vogt, Content Director at Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and founder of StrangeNotion

"Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? is a brilliant and lucid presentation of the overwhelming evidence for Christ's resurrection. Like a skilled surgeon, Carl E. Olson masterfully analyzes and dissects the radical skepticism and iniquitous criticism that often dominate the study of the Gospels. The question and answer format allows the reader to follow the arguments in a logical progression, and is a wonderful medium for Olson to showcase his unique talent for keeping the reader interested and engaged while bridging the chasm between academic scholarship and the armchair intellectual. This book should be required reading for every priest, deacon, seminarian, catechist, apologist—anyone who wants to strengthen their Christian faith and deepen their love of Jesus Christ."  — Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, author, Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality

“Christ is risen!”: The Big Bang within Time and Space

“Christ is risen!”: The Big Bang within Time and Space | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report

The movie Risen, now out on DVD, captures, in cinematic and artistic form, some key points I make in Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?

A few months ago, while writing Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?, I was able to watch the movie Risen, which releases today on DVD. It was fortuitous as the film captures, in cinematic and artistic form, some key points that I emphasize in my book.

Prior to seeing Risen, I was concerned that the film might fall into a some of the traps that trip up many films made from a Christian perspective. One of those is a certain gauzy piety, which can make real people and events appear as if they exist and occur in another realm and world, almost completely divorced from the grind and grit of reality. Another common flaw is a heavy-handed preachiness, in which a central character launches into an Al Pacino-like soliloquy in which All Is Explained, thus eliminating any real sense of narrative and mystery. A third problem in some Christian cinema is poor production, or uneven acting and writing.

 

While viewers of good will can and will disagree about certain details in Risen, I think the movie both avoids those three problems and, at times, has moments of real cinematic brilliance. Right from the start, the film is rooted in the dusty and often violent chaos of first century Palestine under Roman rule. There is no romanticizing or sugarcoating of the poverty, brutality, and fear faced by so many ordinary Jews of the time. Death and difficulty are common fare, and they have a deep and lasting impact on Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), the Roman military tribune who is tasked by Pilate to investigate the startling disappearance of a the body of the crucified Jesus (Cliff Curtis).

Secondly, while there is plenty of dialogue—the film is presented (at least on one level) as a sort of a detective story, so much discussion ensues—there really isn’t much if any preaching. Even when Clavius and Jesus have a conversation toward the end of the film, the point is usually more about posing the right questions than providing tidy answers. It’s not that the film doesn’t point to good answers. Rather, it’s approach is somewhat similar to novelist Walker Percy’s tactic of being “diagnostic” rather than didactic. And, in fact, the film has a strong existential quality to it, as it begins and ends with Clavius alone and in the desert, still pondering the great Mystery he has encountered through a seemingly ordinary mystery.

The production and acting in Risen are excellent, and Fiennes, in particular, delivers an impressive performance. The movie, in the end, rests squarely on his shoulders, and he conveys a serious mixture of Roman roughness and spiritual restlessness. He is meant, it seems to me, to represent the serious modern skeptic, who has profound doubts but is also open to something more than just a short life without any real meaning.

At the start of my book, I emphasize that the Resurrection has, from the start, both scandalized and divided.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Trinity: A Mystery for Eternity

The Trinity: A Mystery for Eternity | Carl E. Olson

On the Readings for Sunday, May 22nd, The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Readings:
• Prov 8:22-31
• Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
• Rom 5:1-5
• Jn 16:12-15

The apologist and novelist Dorothy Sayers dryly noted, in an essay titled “The Dogma is the Drama,” that for many people, even some Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity is, “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the whole thing incomprehensible.” There are likely a few Catholics who would candidly admit, “Well, the Church teaches that the Trinity is a mystery—and it’s certainly a mystery to me!”

In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (CCC 234). It goes on to explain that this great mystery is the most fundamental, essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith” and that it is a mystery of faith “in the strict sense”—it cannot be known except it has been revealed by God (CCC 237). A theological mystery such as the Trinity is a truth about God known only through divine revelation, not by reason or philosophy. It is like a well with no bottom from which we can drink endlessly, our minds and souls never going away thirsty.

Belief in the Trinity—one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is a distinctive mark of the Christian Faith. The first few centuries of the Church were filled with controversies and careful definitions regarding the one nature of God, the three Persons of the Trinity, and their relationship with each other. Yet the dogma of the Trinity cannot be proven in the usual sense of “proven” and “proof.” But this does not mean that the dogma of the Trinity is contrary to reason or that reason cannot be applied to understanding it to some degree (cf. CCC 154); it means that the Triune reality of God is ultimately beyond human reasoning. As St. Augustine remarked, “If you understood Him, it would not be God” (CCC 230).

Today’s readings do not use the term “Trinity,” of course, because it doesn’t appear in Scripture. But they are some of the many texts the Church has looked to as either foreshadowing the reality of the Trinity or giving explicit witness to it.  The reading from Proverbs is one of several Old Testament passages that describe the wisdom of God, which is often referred to as a sort of personal being or reality. Some of this language is taken up in the New Testament to refer to the Son, including St. Paul’s description of Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). Or, similarly, in a passage that bears a strong resemblance to today’s reading from Proverbs, the “one Lord, Jesus Christ” is described as the one “through whom all things are and through whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:6).

While the Old Testament contains hints and suggestions, the mystery of the Trinity was revealed with the Incarnation—first at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River, and then in His teachings. Jesus spoke of the intimate communion between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, including in today’s reading from the Gospel of John. “Everything that the Father has is mine,” Jesus tells the Apostles, “for this reason I told you that he”—the Holy Spirit—“will taken from what is mine and declare it to you.” The Father sends forth the Son so that, as St. Paul wrote to the Romans, we might have peace with God, while the Holy Spirit pours out God’s love, all so we might be justified and made right with God.

In his great work The Trinity, St. Augustine summed up the heart of the Church’s belief in the mystery of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by simply stating, “If you see charity, you see the Trinity.” God is One and three Persons; He offers His divine life and love to those who believe in Him (CCC 257). The Trinity is not just a mystery to us, but also for us.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the June 3, 2007, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Lord, Not Legend: A Review of Brant Pitre’s "The Case for Jesus"

Lord, Not Legend: A Review of Brant Pitre’s The Case for Jesus | Dr. Leroy Huizenga | Catholic World Report

The new book by a notable young Scripture scholar addresses both the dominant paradigm in academic biblical studies and the more popular errors about Jesus and the New Testament.

A Tale of Two Paradigms

The dominant paradigm reigning in academic biblical studies today is marked by radical discontinuity. That’s why people who know the basics of the Christian story—whether they believe it or not—are often nonplussed when they encounter radical reconstructions of Jesus and earliest Christianity. Others, of course, applaud them, finding that such radical reconstructions get them off the hook with the traditional Jesus and the Church. Gone is the Jesus who saves us, replaced by a Jesus who either affirms us, or is ultimately irrelevant, or who encourages whatever vague spirituality is du jour. In either case, they are presented with a reconstruction in which Jesus is alone, cut off, isolated—divorced from Judaism, from the Old Testament, from the Gospels, from the Church. The real Jesus, radical reconstructions insist, is some sort of mystic, or revolutionary, or Cynic, or teacher, or prophet, whose Judaism is incidental and irrelevant at best and who has been hidden—often deliberately—by the later dogma of the Church, even by the biblical Gospels themselves.

By contrast, traditional Christianity (whether Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or fundamentalist) sees Jesus in terms of continuity. In broad strokes, he fulfills the Old Testament promises, and the Gospels of the Church (however conceived) faithfully record eyewitness accounts of His Virgin Birth, miracles, prophecy, and teaching, his sacrificial death, his bodily resurrection, as well as his commissioning of the apostles to go and make disciples of all nations.

The dominant paradigm reigning in academic biblical studies today was developed largely by German scholars of a Lutheran confessional persuasion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. D. F. Strauss suggested the disciples made up almost everything in the Gospels out of Jewish legends, while Rudolf Bultmann claimed not only that the Old Testament could not be considered Scripture for Christians (and thus irrelevant for understanding Jesus) but also that most everything in the Gospels was a post-Easter retrojection back into the life of Jesus and thus that we can know next to nothing about the historical Jesus. Meanwhile scholars such as Heinrich Holtzmann were busy arguing that Mark, and not Matthew, was written first among the Gospels, while Walter Bauer was arguing that orthodoxy didn’t exist until history’s victors in what became the later Church invented it, with Adolf von Harnack contending similarly that later Christian dogma was an imposition upon the Gospels, the earliest Church, and Jesus himself.

The dominant paradigm reigning in academic biblical studies today, being developed originally by Germans prior to the horrors of the Holocaust, is also laden with anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism of a genteel but not necessarily virulent sort. While some like Bultmann did join the Confessing Church and oppose the Nazis, others like von Harnack were busy finding ways to deny Jewish scholars important professorships. In any event, to enlightened German Lutheran eyes, Judaism and Catholicism were cut from the same cloth. They belonged to the old world of sacrifice and ritual which the Reformation and its child the Enlightenment had buried forever. It would be inconceivable to such scholars that common, normal Judaism could inform our understanding of Jesus or earliest Christianity—this is why Germans excelled at exploring Greco-Roman backgrounds—or that Jesus and the earliest Church could be understood in Catholic terms.

The greatest contemporary popular exponent of the dominant paradigm today is Dr. Bart Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, a former fundamentalist whose forays into textual criticism made him a liberal Christian for a time but ultimately an unbeliever. A friendly convivial fellow and a serious, sober scholar, neither an anti-Catholic nor anti-Semite, Ehrman has sold millions of books popularizing the paradigm of discontinuity in several books, in which he endeavors to show the Gospels are unreliable and that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet far different from the Jesus Christ the Church has worshipped as divine son of God.

Pitre Revives Lewis’ Trilemma

Brant Pitre’s most recent popular offering, The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ (Image, the Catholic imprint of Doubleday, 2016), has Ehrman’s work as its gentle target as Pitre presents a spirited defense of the tradition paradigm of continuity among Judaism, the Old Testament, Jesus, and the Gospels. (Full disclosure: I wrote a positive blurb of an advance draft of the book.)

Interestingly, Pitre doesn’t discuss Jesus’ continuity with the Catholic Church, probably be cause he wishes to present an argument congenial to Christians and seekers of all stripes, even as his presentation would be fully at home in Catholic Christianity. Indeed, he begins with an Anglican, the famous C.S. Lewis, who offered the famous “trilemma”: a man who said the sorts of things Jesus did about himself was either a liar, a lunatic (“on the level with a man who claimed to be a poached egg”), or Lord. As most people don’t want to concede Jesus was deceived or deceptive, Lewis’ logic is designed to force readers to accept the third, fateful, option: Jesus was, and is, Lord.

Lewis, a man of letters who expressed explicit disdain for Bultmann and German scholarship, accepted the Gospels’ testimony about Jesus self-presentation as true. At this point the radical paradigm of discontinuity raises its head in protest, however, claiming as Ehrman does that there’s a fourth option that Lewis dismissed: the Gospels do not in fact represent the truth about Jesus, that the Gospels are largely legendary. All, then, hinges on the Gospels’ reliability. If they present Jesus faithfully, then Lewis’ trilemma works. If not, it doesn’t. And so Pitre offers a tour-de-force showing that the Gospels do indeed do so.

The book falls into two parts.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Olson's Resurrection

Olson's Resurrection | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Catholic World Report | The Dispatch

“Resurrection doesn’t mean becoming a spirit but having one’s mortal body transformed into a spiritualized body, a bodily manner of existing wholly animated by the Spirit of God.” — Carl E. Olson, Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead: Questions and Answers About the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus(Ignatius Press-Augustine Institute, 2016), 172.

I.

Grammarians, logicians, and other rare species that care about the meaning and accuracy of words in a language might wonder just what the title of these reflections might mean. First of all, just who is this “Olson”? Are we implying, as the order of the words can mean, that this Olson gentleman has somehow been “resurrected” among us? Just what does “resurrection” mean, after all? Is it just another word for medical “resuscitation” so that, like Lazarus, the revivified will live a while longer only to die again? Does the title refer to those “after-death” experiences that scientists these days are busily investigating? Would not this “resurrected” Olson mean, in logic, that he had been dead for some time so that he might need some assistance in getting back on his feet again? The currently living, after all, do not need to be “quickened”, as they quaintly used to say, though they may need to be incited into thinking accurately about these things.

Well, the “Olson” in question is none other than Carl Olson, the editor of this very Catholic World Report web site. He resides in Oregon, where no one, based on my numerous visits there, seems to possess, as yet, a resurrected body. I understand, though, that, if someone is in a hurry, the state’s pioneer “assisted death” laws can quickly dispatch anyone from this life into the great beyond. Once there, if he is not happy in his new digs, he might request a resurrected body sooner than he originally thought.

Olson is an unabashed fan of the Oregon Ducks, though I am not sure if this adds any further credibility to his well-articulated arguments about the resurrection. I have not yet consulted him on the new mandatory requirement at Oregon State University that every student must undergo “social justice training” to matriculate there. Given what this “training” probably means in terms of ideology, it sounds like a totalitarian mandate if I ever heard one. But Olson lives in Eugene, not Corvallis.

II.

In any case, “Olson’s Resurrection” refers to his very readable new book Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead: Questions and Answers About the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, which examines, in question and answer form, the basic issues about the resurrection of Christ. A significant amount of literature, one accumulating over the centuries since the event itself, has denied the resurrection of Christ itself or one of its basic implications. Since this doctrine and fact of the resurrection, as St. Paul said in the beginning, are the stones on which the faith rests, the only real way to undermine Christianity is to deny, explain away, ridicule, or otherwise seek to show that such an event never did or could have happened. It was, it is often claimed, contradictory, unscientific, incoherent, unhistorical, or all of the above Many fancy and sophisticated attempts, on-going over the centuries, try to explain that Christ’s resurrection could not possibly mean what it is taken to mean, namely, that Christ did what He claimed that He would do, or what the Father would do for Him. He would rise from a very terrible death administered in Jerusalem at the hands of Roman and Jewish officials during the reign of Tiberius Caesar.

Olson recognizes that the only way that one can deal with the denial of something presented as a fact is to examine the reasons and evidence given for this denial. And the historical reasons given are legion. The history of theology and science has been filled with ingenious and fanciful efforts to show why the resurrection never happened. People, especially intellectuals, seem to realize that they must deal with this extraordinary claim that Christ did rise from the dead. For if it is true, it cannot just be passed off as if nothing important for the human race really happened in the cosmos. We could, for instance, maintain that Christ never existed. Problem solved. Olson goes through the evidence given against Christ’s historical existence. It turns out that there is just as much evidence, if not more, for the existence of Christ as for any other historical character of his time. To deny Christ’s existence is a dead end street, followed only by those who choose to be willfully blind to the evidence.

Well, let’s admit Christ existed. But He was not God, right?. Who was He then? A nice guy? A fraud? An imagination of the Apostles? A revolutionary? A madman? A deluded visionary? Each of these avenues has been tried again and again. None of them, on examination, squares with the evidence we have of what Christ was in the era in which He lived. A favorite line is that the risen Jesus was a mythical creation, or some projected spirit of the imagination of the Apostles who, in their disappointment at His death, projected this return. He was never really there. He was only “imagined”. From the evidence, the people who would be most annoyed by this thesis would be the Apostles themselves, whose testimony  gives no indication that they ever thought the resurrected Christ was anything but real flesh and blood.

As Olson shows, the last people who really expected the resurrection were the Apostles themselves. Right up to the end, moreover, they kept thinking that He would restore the Kingdom of Israel in this world as a political entity. Interestingly, as I have sought to show in my book, The Modern Age, this effort to make a perfect kingdom in this world to be the mission of the collective human race is the principal alternative to Christ’s personal resurrection and what it portends to be the real and final destiny of each human being who ever actually existed in this world. The Apostles were themselves a bit slow to catch on to what Christ was teaching them. Christ was patient with them. He just kept correcting them about what He was talking about.

But Christ did what He told the Apostles that He would do—that is, He would suffer at the hands of the Jewish and pagan authorities, die, rise again, and finally return to His Father. This sequence, repeated over and over again in the New Testament, is what happened. After the events and the Ascension and Pentecost, the apostles looked back more carefully on what happened and how they were involved in the whole situation. They began to see that Christ died and rose “according to the Scriptures.” That is how they came to explain what had happened. They learned that Christ’s Incarnation, life, and death, was in fact the central point of the redemptive plan that the Father had worked out all along.

III.

Olson examines each principal historical effort to explain why Christ did not rise as He said.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

New: "God So Loved the World" by Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ

Now available from Ignatius Press:

God So Loved the World: Clues to Our Transcendent Destiny from the Revelation of Jesus

by Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ

In this volume the brilliant Fr. Spitzer probes in detail the major question that if an intelligent Creator God – manifest in logical proofs, scientific evidence, and near death experiences - who is the source of our desire for the sacred, and the transcendental desires for truth, love, goodness, and beauty, would want to reveal himself to us personally and ultimately.

He then shows this is reasonable not only in light of our interior experience of a transcendent Reality, but also that a completely intelligent Reality is completely positive--implying its possession of a completely positive virtue – namely "love", defined as agape.

This leads to the question whether God might be unconditionally loving, and if he is, whether he would want to make a personal appearance to us in a perfect act of empathy – face to face. After examining the rational evidence for this, he reviews all world religions to see if there is one that reveals such a God – an unconditionally loving God who would want to be with us in perfect empathy. This leads us to the extraordinary claim of Jesus Christ who taught that God is "Abba", the unconditionally loving Father.

Jesus' claims go further, saying that He is also unconditional love, and that his mission is to give us that love through an act of complete self-sacrifice. He also claims to be the exclusive Son of the Father, sent by God to save the world, and the one who possesses divine power and authority. The rest of the book does an in-depth examination of the evidence for Jesus' unconditional love of sinners, his teachings, his miracles, and his rising from the dead. As well as the evidence for Jesus' gift of the Holy Spirit that enabled his disciples to perform miracles in his name, and evidence for the presence of the Holy Spirit today.

If this strong evidence convinces us to believe that Jesus is our ultimate meaning and destiny, and desire His saving presence in our lives, that evidence should galvanize the Holy Spirit within us to show that Jesus is Lord and Savior, "the way, the truth, and the life." And our faith in him will transform everything we think about our nature, dignity, and destiny– and how we live, endure suffering, contend with evil, and treat our neighbor.

Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ,is a philosopher, educator, author and former President of Gonzaga University. He is founder and President of the Magis Institute, dedicated to public education on the relationship among the disciplines of physics, philosophy, reason, and faith. He is the head of the Ethics and Performance Institute which delivers web-based ethics education to corporations, and he is also President of the Spitzer Center of Ethical Leadership, which delivers similar curricula to non-profit organizations. His other books include Finding True Happiness, The Soul's Upward Yearning and Healing the Culture. 

Pre-order: "Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?" by Carl E. Olson

Coming in April from Ignatius Press-Augustine Institute:

Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? Questions and Answers about the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

by Carl E. Olson

203 pages | Paperback | $14.95

Major feature films such The Passion of the Christ and Risen, and books such as Bill O'Reilly's Killing Jesus raise many questions about one of the greatest controversies in history—what really happened to the crucified body of Jesus of Nazareth.

Using a popular question-and-answer format, this book examines the historical evidence concerning the fate of Jesus. Did Jesus really die on the cross? If so, what became of his body? Was it stolen? Misplaced? Is the resurrection a cleverly devised plot to found a new religion? Did the disciples of Jesus hallucinate? Is the Resurrection of Jesus a myth developed decades later, after the original disciples' experience of Jesus was distorted by a subsequent generation? Or did Jesus rise from the dead, as he promised and as his disciples came to believe and sacrifice their lives to proclaim?

Carl E. Olson carefully weighs the evidence with in-depth analysis. Whether you are a believer, a skeptic, or something in between, be prepared to have your thinking challenged by this provocative and insightful book.

Carl E. Olson, MTS, is the editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight. He is the author of two best-selling books, Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"? and The Da Vinci Hoax, and the author of hundreds of articles on theology, Scripture, current events, and apologetics.


"Every year, right around Easter, the super-skeptics come out in droves to call into question the truth of the Resurrection. In Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Carl Olson does an excellent job of laying out the key questions raised by skeptics and offering compelling and well-researched answers. A must-read for any Catholic whose ever wondered about the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus."
— Dr. Brant Pitre, Author of The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ

"Carl Olson offers a cogent survey of the most common objections to the historicity of the Resurrection, doing the particularly invaluable work of tracing their historical roots and philosophical assumptions in an accessible way. This book is an essential resource, especially for teachers, catechists, and anyone involved in evangelization."
— Amy Welborn, author of the Prove It! series of apologetics for Catholic teens

"This is a doubly scandalous book. It's about the greatest scandal in history, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it's a scandal in its own right because it dares to argue (convincingly, I think) that the Resurrection actually occurred and that all the arguments against its historicity have fallen flat, including recent arguments from the New Atheists and others. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? will give delight to believers and distress to unbelievers. What more can one ask?"
— Karl Keating, Founder, Catholic Answers

"'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ... we are of all men most to be pitied.' So says St. Paul. In his new book Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? Carl Olson demonstrates there is no pity necessary—the resurrection is true! He analyzes and presents the historical and objective reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central and crucial fact of all human existence. Written for novice and scholar alike, this book will convince even the skeptic."
— Steve K. Ray, Best-selling author and Host of "The Footprints of God"

"Conversant with both the relevant scholarship as well as the misconceptions and false presentations of Jesus current in contemporary culture, Olson’s book is an inviting, readable introduction to the question of the resurrection that deepens one’s faith in the fundamental fact of Christian faith—that Jesus Christ was truly raised from the dead."
— Dr. Leroy Huizenga, Associate Professor of Theology, University of Mary (Bismarck, N.D.)

"Scholars are often busy 'rethinking' the Resurrection of Christ only to find, so they tell us, that it never happened, or perhaps that Christ never happened. Carl Olson has read over these various theses and examined  their credibility. Not surprisingly, he finds them wanting on this or that particular issue of fact or logic. The Resurrection is at the center of Christianity. Olson's book shows quite clearly why it is and that it is. The scholarship that opposes the Resurrection is seen to be deficient not only in faith but also in reason, in scholarship itself."
— Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University

"For the earliest Christians, to preach Christianity meant primarily to preach the Resurrection. It was the focus of every sermon reported in the book of Acts. It was the heart of the good news which the Christians brought to the world. Yet in some circles today, it has become fashionable not just to doubt the Resurrection, but to question such basic facts as Jesus' very existence. That's why this new book by Carl Olson is so desperately needed. As St. Paul did in the first century, Olson affirms the life-changing power of the Resurrection. But he does more: he shows how the best evidence and contemporary scholarship affirm what Christians have believed for centuries, that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Comprehensive, well-researched, and accessible, this is the best defense of the Resurrection from a Catholic perspective."
— Brandon Vogt, Content Director at Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

“Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? is a brilliant and lucid presentation of the overwhelming evidence for Christ’s resurrection. Like a skilled surgeon, Carl E. Olson masterfully analyzes and dissects the radical skepticism and iniquitous criticism that often dominate the study of the Gospels. The question and answer format allows the reader to follow the arguments in a logical progression, and is a wonderful medium for Olson to showcase his unique talent for keeping the reader interested and engaged while bridging the chasm between academic scholarship and the armchair intellectual. This book should be required reading for every priest, deacon, seminarian, catechist, apologist—anyone who wants to strengthen their Christian faith and deepen their love of Jesus Christ.”
– Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, author, Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality

The four things keeping millennials from finding God, according to Fr. Spitzer

Detail from the cover of "Finding True Happiness," by Robert Spitzer, S.J. (Cover design by John Herreid)

The four things keeping millennials from finding God, according to Fr. Spitzer | Connor Malloy | CWR

“We need some radical surgery, we don’t need Band-Aids.”

When he’s not lecturing around the world, giving interviews, producing documentaries, appearing on his EWTN show, developing curricula, chairing boards, and deepening his own spiritual life as a Jesuit priest, Father Robert Spitzer can be found writing his latest book out of his Magis Center office on the Christ Cathedral campus in the Diocese of Orange.

The former president of Gonzaga University (1998-2009), Father Spitzer launched the Magis Center with the stated mission “to restore, reconstruct, and revitalize belief in God, the transcendent dignity of every human person, the significance of virtue, the higher levels of happiness, love, and freedom, and the real presence of Jesus Christ.” Father Spitzer has breathed new life into Catholic apologetics, utilizing his grasp of science, philosophy, and the Catholic intellectual tradition to lift the veil imposed on modern society by secularism and the dictatorship of relativism.

This is the first of a two-part interview with Father Spitzer about his work at the Magis Center, as well as about his Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence quartet of books, two of which (Finding True Happiness and The Soul’s Upward Yearning) have been published by Ignatius Press and one of which (God So Loved the World) is now available for pre-order.

CWR: In less than one year we’ve seen an entire series emerge from you, the Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence series—a quartet of volumes on mankind’s relationship with the divine. Is the sense of urgency intentional?

Father Robert Spitzer, SJ: I think it is very intentional. It comes from my own intuitions teaching college students, originally. Then, when I saw the Pew survey and other surveys that tended to verify it, I became extremely concerned. The Pew Research surveys, both 2012 and 2015 surveys plus the 2010 survey of millennials, are all pointing to one thing: that millennials are becoming unbelievers—a category the Pew Forum calls “nones”—at about a rate of 1 additional percent per year. So that’s a rate of acceleration. About 11 years ago, we were at about a rate of 25 percent among millennials; today we’re at about 36 percent. If this keeps up, we’ll be at 50 percent or more unbelievers in just 15 years. And there’s no reason to suggest that it won’t keep up. So yes, the sense of urgency is there. If we don’t turn it around and soon, it’s going to really become an epidemic.

The other thing that’s really clear is that this has a lot to do with what’s going on in education—or should I say “mis-education”—starting not just in high school and in college, but also in seventh or eighth grade, where the kids are already online, looking at the Science Channel, getting a certain view of reality. Now, much of the Science Channel is great and I love it, but much of it has that hint of the pure Darwinian viewpoint, the materialistic viewpoint, a viewpoint that’s exceeding agnostic, a viewpoint that’s undermining the faith even in times of suffering. These are the kinds of things that need to be redressed in a hurry. Frankly, morality—as Pope Benedict pointed out many times—has become relativistic among young people. They are so convinced it’s all a mere matter of opinion…. But there are signs of hope, things we can use that God has given us. I think we have an interesting opportunity but, unfortunately, in the midst of an almost pandemic crisis.

CWR: Are there specific things that you see as blocking millennials from experiencing the divine in their lives?

Father Spitzer: I think it’s four basic factors that are coming into play. They are searching for authentic happiness. I think they would go up to transcendent happiness if they weren’t blocked, but here are the blocks that I see.

The number-one block, and the one that is definitely part of the whole propaganda scheme of many of the secular materialist people in our culture, is faith and science. The basic syllogism is this: faith and science are contradictory, science is truth, therefore faith must be false, a fantasy. This is, of course, not true, but it’s been propagated by the media and certain very vocal champions of science. I would say that 20-25 percent of our young people believe that cultural myth.

The second thing that is going on is the old “crutch argument” that was put together by Freud and Feuerbach a long time ago, but which has now reached the level of a huge cultural myth: that religion is reducible solely to human individual thinking. “We have suffering to contend with, feelings of darkness, we are restless and not at peace. So what do we do? We invent God. And we make God a very, very nice and benevolent God who protects us from suffering, darkness, emptiness, and death.” This is completely unfounded. No one ever invented a God who was nice—this came from Jesus! In the history of religions, gods are really capricious and mean, but starting with Israel and Christianity we begin to see who God is. But the problem with young people is that they get chided into it: “Oh dear, I see you are believing in a crutch. Little Johnny here has naively turned to religion, I’m so sorry to hear that…” Any kind of chiding which makes our kids look unintelligent and uncourageous is exceedingly difficult for them to deal with if they don’t have really good rational arguments and defenses. C.S. Lewis saw this in the 1940s, but it has made its resurgence today with social media and people like Richard Dawkins, a media darling, and now the kids are really up against it. I’m working with a high schooler now who literally gives me 15 questions a day; he is getting chided so much. Other kids are just throwing that Nietzschean-Freudian accusation against them and they’re falling prey to it at a fairly significant rate.

There’s a third problem with the more affectively-oriented kids, the heart kids: the seeming irreconcilability of suffering with God. They’ve been taught that God is a loving God, but when they come into their critical consciousness, they see the earthquakes, diseases, friends suffering, their suffering—the failure to address this question head-on is a really vexing thing for these kids. They believe that love and suffering are opposites. And Christianity has this incredible history of the reconciliation between love and suffering. Martin D’Arcy, C.S. Lewis have written wonderful works, but we need a contemporary re-interpretation of this and we need to get it out there as quickly as possible so they can see that love and suffering are not incompatible, that many times suffering leads us to love; suffering frees us from our narcissism, as Paul tells us in the Second Letter to the Corinthians. But the kids don’t have the ammo.

I’m not blaming the Church. I’ll just simply say we haven’t done any apologetics in a concerted fashion since Vatican II. I don’t know why. I’m still trying to figure this out myself—why did apologetics became a bad word, why did it become a reflection of some kind of inauthenticity of faith? We’ve somehow drifted into a Kierkegaardianism—we have to take a leap of faith across an infinite chasm. But I’ve never thought that at all! I luckily had great teachers who believed reason and faith came from the same source, with God never intending us to jump over an infinite chasm. We build a bridge over 99 percent of the chasm and then we jump, with the bridge constructed out of all the clues He has left us in nature, in the universe, in proofs of God, in miracles, in Jesus’s own life, and everything from the Shroud of Turin to near-death experiences. But you have to make the information known. And what has happened is we have now built up this incredible and wonderful curriculum from the bishops for high schools…with almost no apologetics built into it at all. They’re not addressing the faith and science question, they’re not addressing the question of the crutch argument, they’re not addressing the question of the reality of Jesus, they’re not addressing the question of suffering on any level that’s significant enough for students to be reinforced in their faith. If apologetics has to precede catechesis in order to engage kids both analytically and affectively, and if we are doing a great job on the second level but not on the first level, then we are building statues with clay feet.

The fourth problem is what I call “the Jesus doubt.” Even though there have been the likes of John P. Meier, Raymond Brown, and N.T. Wright, our kids don’t know they have crushed the Jesus de-mythologizers. So the History Channel (which does play good things) goes out and interviews these de-mythologizers…and these kids are uncritical: they don’t know the difference between a good or bad scholar. The kids hear this stuff—they hear Jesus was just a political guy or didn’t really rise from the dead.

But we have one other problem. It’s what I call perennial distraction by new media, by the Internet. These kids, even though they’re intrigued—“There’s a game to play, a website I got to go to.” Continual distraction. We are entertaining ourselves to death and I’m not sure if there’s the depth to ask the questions with all the multitasking. So when you combine the four problems, plus the continual distraction, they are in a tough situation.

We need some radical surgery, we don’t need Band-Aids. We’ve got to change our viewpoint.

CWR: It seems apologetics now is more about defending the Church’s positions on social issues than about clarifying her theological tenets.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Should Catholics Evangelize?

An inspiring new book, Catholic Street Evangelization: Stories of Conversion and Witness, answers an important question: should Catholics evangelize? And how can they effectively share their faith with others? This book begins with the inspiring story of the Editor, Steve Dawson – his dramatic conversion to Catholicism as a young man and his founding of St. Paul Street Evangelization, an international apostolate that has grown to hundreds of teams in seven countries in just a few years.
 
This book includes many moving stories of conversion and witness. The authors are ordinary Catholics who have come to love Christ so much that they now talk about Him with total strangers in public places—street corners, parks, and shopping areas. They aren’t theologians, nor are they highly trained apologists with Ambrosian rhetorical skills or Dale Carnegie slickness, yet their simple missionary efforts have yielded amazing results.
 
The book’s style is readable, accessible, and conversational. It illustrates the missionary calling of all baptized Christians, including Catholics. It reveals the joy and fulfillment that come to those who humbly yet boldly share the good news of God’s mercy with others.
 
“This book is a great reminder of the mission of the laity in evangelizing the world,” says the Most Reverend Allen Vigneron, Archbishop of Detroit.
 
Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, author of Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality, explains, “Dawson’s unique approach to sharing the Good News proves that it is not polemics but showing people the face of Christ that wins the day.”
 
Al Kresta, the President of CEO of Ave Maria Communications, says, “I love this book. I love these stories. This could be the most effective single volume at changing American Catholic attitudes about evangelization.”

“The young Catholics of St. Paul Street Evangelization have been remarkably successful in drawing to the Catholic faith people who had little interest in religion. In these pages are their stories: full of hope, full of joy, and full of success,” says Karl Keating, author of What Catholics Really Believe.
 
Dr. John Bergsma, Professor of Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, says, “Pope St. John Paul II called for a New Evangelization, but who’s actually doing it? These people are. Read their stories, learn, and be encouraged.”

“These modern-day ‘apostles’ have undertaken the momentous task of teaching Catholics to step up and live out their calling,” says Steve Ray, author of Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church.
 
About the Author:
Steve Dawson is the founder and National Director of St. Paul Street Evangelization. He has been featured on EWTN Television and Radio, Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Connection, the Radio Maria Network, Sirius Satellite Radio, and Archangel Radio. He lives with his wife and two children in Bloomington, Indiana.
 
Steve Dawson, the Editor of Catholic Street Evangelization, is available for interviews about this book.
To request a review copy or an interview with Steve Dawson, please contact:
Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or [email protected]
 
Product Facts:
Title: CATHOLIC STREET EVANGELIZATION
Stories of Conversion and Witness
Editor: Steve Dawson
Release Date: February 2016
Length: 184 pages
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-58617-988-5 • Softcover
Order: 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com

New: "The Ultimate Catholic Quiz: 100 Questions Most Catholics Can't Answer" by Karl Keating

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Ultimate Catholic Quiz: 100 Questions Most Catholics Can't Answer

by Karl Keating

This book offers a fun and challenging way to see how well you know Catholic teachings, practices, and history. Karl Keating, best-selling author and founder of Catholic Answers, presents a multiple-choice quiz with 100 questions about a wide variety of subjects connected with Catholicism.

Each of the 100 intriguing questions gives five possible answers. Only one of the answers is completely correct. The book is laid out in an easy-to-read format with the question and five possible answers on one page, and the analysis of each of the five answers, noting the correct one, on the next page. The questions, and the possible answers, are written with thought, precision, and sometimes a little humor to make for engaging reading.

The quiz does not pretend to be comprehensive, but the questions cover multiple areas—doctrines, morals, and customs, as well as historical events and personalities— and should provide your mind and soul with a good workout. This book will be useful for individual or group study.

Karl Keating is the Founder and President of Catholic Answers. He is a well-known Catholic speaker and apologist, and is the best-selling author of several books, including Catholicism and Fundamentalism, What Catholics Really Believe, and Controversies: High-Level Catholic Apologetics.

"Every Catholic family needs this book. It possesses the rare combination of being entertaining and even fun to read, while at the same time being challenging and educational."
— Tim Staples, Author, Behold Your Mother: A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines

"In The Ultimate Catholic Quiz, Karl Keating's drollery is on display in equal measure with his deft knack for teaching the faith and making it fun. My family had a jolly time getting some answers right, some wrong (and learning as a result), and snickering over hilarious fake answers in this multiple choice bonanza. As was said by a) Augustine, b) a Mysterious Voice in Augustine's Garden, c) the Confessions, d) me, e) all of the above: 'Take and read.'"
— Mark Shea, Author, By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition

"Everybody enjoys a challenge, and Karl Keating has created an excellent and challenging quiz that both Catholics and non-Catholics will enjoy. More than a mere test of knowledge, The Ultimate Catholic Quiz explains not only which answers are correct—but why they are correct, making it an outstanding opportunity to learn!"
— Jimmy Akin, Author, The Fathers Know Best: Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church

"Karl Keating is the godfather of Catholic apologetics. He wrote this book the same way he talks—straight-talk Catholicism—and he doesn't mince words."
— Jesse Romero, Author, Catholics, Wake Up!

"This book is a fun way to learn more about the Catholic faith. It's great for parties, families, and small groups, as well as personal study."
— Trent Horn, Author, Answering Atheism

New: "Evangelical Exodus: Evangelical Seminarians and Their Paths to Rome"

Now available from Ignatius Press:

Evangelical Exodus: Evangelical Seminarians and Their Paths to Rome

Edited by Douglas Beaumont

Over the course a single decade, dozens of students, alumni, and professors from a conservative, Evangelical seminary in North Carolina (Southern Evangelical Seminary) converted to Catholicism. These conversions were notable as they occurred among people with varied backgrounds and motivations—many of whom did not share their thoughts with one another until this book was produced. Even more striking is that the seminary's founder, long-time president, and popular professor, Dr. Norman Geisler, had written two full-length books and several scholarly articles criticizing Catholicism from an Evangelical point of view.

What could have led these seminary students, and even some of their professors, to walk away from their Evangelical education and risk losing their jobs, ministries, and even family and friends, to embrace the teachings they once rejected as false or even heretical? Speculation over this phenomenon has been rampant and often dismissive and misguided—leading to more confusion than understanding. The stories of these converts are now being told by those who know them best—the converts themselves.

They discuss the primary issues they had to face: the nature of the biblical canon, the identification of Christian orthodoxy, and the problems with the Protestant doctrines of sola scriptura ("scripture alone") and sola fide ("faith alone")

Douglas Beaumont has a Ph.D. in theology from North-West University and an M.A. in apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary, where he served as assistant to President Norman Geisler and taught Bible and religion for ten years. Beaumont is the author of The Message Behind the Movie (Moody, 2009) and has contributed to The Best Catholic Writing (Loyola, 2006), The Apologetics Study Bible for Students (B&H, 2010), and Got Questions? (Pleasant Word, 2009). He lives in Charlotte, N.C., with his wife and four children.

"This is a true 'Book of Exodus' — riveting like the original, inspired, and inspiring. The contributors have taken a long journey to the banks of the Tiber, and it is every step an adventure."
— Scott Hahn, President, St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology

"The integrity of this significant book is matched only by the passion of its contributors. Their honesty in recounting an odyssey of faith is refreshing indeed."
— Wayne Alan Detzler, Professor Emeritus, Southern Evangelical Seminary

"Just when I thought I'd heard all the reasons why Protestants become Catholic, I encountered Evangelical Exodus. This book has set a new standard for compelling conversion stories."
— Devin Rose, Author, The Protestant's Dilemma

"As these thoughtful contributors reveal, there is an exodus of smart Evangelical converts, marching backward in time, but forward in thought, to the promised land of Catholicism."
— Brandon Vogt, Author, Saints and Social Justice

"These conversion stories will encourage more Protestant ministers to come into the Church, as well as fallen away Catholics to come back home. I recommend this great book for everyone!"
— Terry Barber, Author, How to Share Your Faith with Anyone

The empiricists and their rubes

(us.fotolia.com | aihumnoi)

 
The empiricists and their rubes | Thomas M. Doran | The Dispatch at Catholic World Report

Or why atheists don’t have a corner on reason

Catholic World Report recently published my mischievously titled “Why we’d all be Catholic if we really thought about it”, to which no small number of atheistic empiricists replied with loud roars.

There’s no lack today of atheistic empiricists who loudly and insistently proclaim that they’re the only ones who know how to think and reason, and that religiously inclined people can’t, or don’t. When I speak of empiricists, I’m talking about people with a materialistic view of the world and life, where only what we can measure is real, often combined with anti-religion. They are proud and evangelizing atheists. And many of them are productive members of society, colleagues, family members, and friends. So long as the conversation doesn't descend to name-calling or bluster, I enjoy talking to them, debating them, listening to their perspective. And yes, I myself have to be vigilant against bluster.

First, a few of the atheistic empiricists’ blind spots. Others have ably demonstrated that atheism—the assertion that God doesn’t exist—is irrational. To deny (as compared to agnostic questioning) the existence of God requires conclusive proof that God doesn’t exist. As the universe is a pretty big place and as there are more than a few things we don’t know about it and as many of the things we once thought we knew are now known to be other than what we once thought, making the bold statement that there is no God is irrational, according to the definition of the word. Think of how hard it would be to conclusively prove there are no 6-toed purple, yellow, and red frogs on Earth, just one planet in one galaxy. In what little nook or cranny might such a frog exist, even if just one mutation?

Second, many atheistic empiricists accept on “faith”, i.e., the witness of people they deem credible, scientific principles such as black holes and related theories about the retention of fundamental particle information in black holes or at their event horizons, dark matter, string theory, that they themselves don’t understand, meaning they can’t follow the advanced mathematical proofs themselves. Thus, these beliefs become a matter of trusted testimony rather than evidence.

Continue reading on the CWR site.