The fall issue of the catholic homeschooling magizine Mater et Magistra is now out in electronic format, and you can get a copy free Here.
Worth a look, eh?
(It was worth a look even when it wasn’t free, I would note. You can see my review of my first issue here.)
Tell your friends!
My new Catholic Company review book arrived yesterday, and I’m tearing through it. Super good. It’s Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew by Eric Sammons.
–> Whose blog, The Divine Life, is the one I click on in my feed reader second, right after Dr. Boli. So I guess I should have known that I would like the book, but somehow with the title and Eric’s smartness and all that, I thought it would be too difficult for me, or sort of dry, or something like that. I thought this because I am pretty stupid that way.
Not boring at all. Not one bit. Eminently readable, no big words so far (I’m on p. 74), and the chapters are short, too. Just plain enjoyable. But jam-packed solid good. You know I have no patience for touchy-feely watery blathery stuff.
So that’s my mid-book pre-review, which I had to post because SuperHusband is getting sick of me saying “wow, this is such a good book”, so I thought I’d plague the internet instead. Full official review coming soon. Meanwhile, I think you can safely ask Saint-a-Claus to get you this one for All Saint’s Day.
The Salvation Controversy
by James Akin
Catholic Answers 2001
So I used to have this bad habit of making jokes about double predestination (gross violation of my own combox rules, you might notice) . . . until the other week when a pair of friends called me on it using the highly effective Stony Silence method. Point taken. And that was the week that The Salvation Controversy turned up on the Catholic Company’s list of blogger-review product choices. What with the promised Tiptoe Through The TULIP, how could I say no?
Verdict: Excellent book – highly recommended. But only if you are the intended audience. (Otherwise you might be kind of lost and bored – it’s a soteriology book. And yeah, I had to look up that word too.) So here’s a synopsis of what is in the book and who is the audience, to help you decide if this is for you.
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Contents: The book is about everything that has to do with what Catholics believe about salvation, and how that stacks up to common protestant views of salvation. (“Soteriology” is the branch of theology devoted to the doctrine of salvation. Per the glossary in the back of the book, verbatim.)
The first several chapters lay the groundwork, looking at what the Bible says (and hence, what Catholics believe) about the when’s and how’s of salvation. Key concept: the word “salvation” refers to more than just a single instant when your eternal fate is sealed. So when debating “salvation” it is important to make sure you know what kind of salvation you are debating.
→ These chapters are essential. Jimmy Akin is notoriously meticulous in how he examines a topic a builds arguments. If you jump ahead to the the really gory stuff – indulgences, predestination, faith-versus-works – without reading the front chapters, you will be lost. Maybe without realizing. Gotta read those laying-the-groundwork chapters. (If you are a catechist, you should read those chapters just for an “Aha!” about what it is Catholic believe about salvation.)
After these preliminaries, there are chapters tackling all the hot topics:
-Penance
-Indulgences
-Predestination (per Calvinism)
-Faith versus Works
-The Joint Statement between Lutherans and Catholics on salvation
And then it ends there. This is a handbook; no great thesis being pushed, just a thorough explanation of the issues at hand. In addition to the glossary, there is an index to all the scriptural citations, and a topical index.
The Reading Level: Jimmy Akin writes very clearly, and in ordinary language. Nothing at all like some horrid paper you had to read for an upper-level elective. BUT, he uses big words where necessary. I had to look up maybe four big words (I lost my list – I was keeping one for you) towards the beginning of the book, mostly ones I more or less knew what they meant, but wanted to make certain. There’s a glossary at the back of the book to help you keep your vocabulary straight.
The arguments are not difficult, but they are very precise, and laid out very carefully. Which means you need to pay attention and follow them step-by-step, both within and across chapters. At times this requires patience. Definitely not a three-quick-bullet-points approach to apologetics.
Pre-requisites: First, you need to have a basic understanding of the christian faith – that Jesus died to save us from our sins so we could live with Him forever in Heaven, all that. In no way is this an “introduction to Christianity” book. Just not.
Secondly, you need to be familiar with at least the broad lines of debate between protestants and catholics. Jimmy Akin is essentially walking into the midst of the argument, holding up his hands and saying, “Ho now guys, let’s get our terms straight, and then see how much we really disagree after all”. If you haven’t been immersed in these topics already, I think you might get lost.
And finally, you will want to be knowledgeable of the Bible. All arguments revolve around the study of scripture, and I expect you’d get exhausted if you had to go read all the citations for the first time. You should be at that point where when you read, “It says in Romans 2:6 . . .”, you can at least nod and have a rough idea of what Romans is all about, even though how many of us go around thinking, ‘Oh yeah, 2:6 . . . oooh . . .”. Maybe you need to go back and re-read, but the epistles should not be new material for you. (The word “epistle” should not be new to you.)
→ FYI Catholic Answers and the Enjoy Institute are both excellent sources for entry-level materials if you are just wading into the world of apologetics for the first time. Come back to this book later.
Would a Protestant Hate This Book? Mmn, I’m not sure. I was tempted to ask some friends to test-read for me, but in the end I didn’t. As apologists go – apologists are notoriously snarky and triumphant – Jimmy Akin is the picture of charity. He does indulge in the periodic “Catholics are just using the words of scripture” observation, which is of course very encouraging for Catholics, but if you were a sensitive non-catholic, that could rub the wrong way. (Unless you happened to agree with the catholic position on the particular point in question.)
To the best of my knowledge, Akin is very careful to state protestant beliefs accurately, and never to argue against a straw man. If anyone finds otherwise, I would like to hear about it. (Obviously in a short book he isn’t going to address every possible position on the various controversies. But my impression is that he builds fair arguments.)
→ Which makes sense, since one of his goals is to demonstrate that the catholic position is not necessarily an impossible leap for assorted protestants. So if you are a non-catholic trying to figure out “Is my position on salvation consistent with catholic teaching?”, this is the manual to assist you. [Good news: the odds are in your favor.]
Conclusion: This boy is not leaving my shelf. Immensely useful if you are ready to tackle the material. Clear, concise, well-explained, and covering material that was new to me. Due for a periodic re-read, because there’s no way I mastered everything on the first read-through.
(→ Luckily I lost my original copy for a while and had to buy a second, so I do have a loaner available for my handful of real-life friends who fit the target audience.)
Not a beginner book, but if you are looking for a very approachable take on advanced-intermediate, this one is superb. I give it a firm ‘buy’ recommend if this is the topic you want to study.
Tiber River is the catholic media-review project sponsored by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. After a few false starts, I finally got going as a reviewer this past week, with the DVD Father of Mercy. I chose it from the available review items because it seemed like a good fit for my eldest child’s study of just warfare this year. Not disappointed. Not at all.
What It Is: Father of Mercy (“The Children’s Angel” is the Italian title) is the made-into-a-movie telling of the story of Father Carlo Gnocchi, an Italian priest who served on the front lines as a chaplain in World War II, and afterwards undertook a massive work of mercy taking care of the many children injured and/or orphaned by the war. Fr Gnocchi was beatified in 2009, and the network of hospitals he founded is still in operation
The story is told in two parts. Part one begins during WWII, and tells of Fr. Gnocchi’s decision to leave his post as a high school teacher and university chaplain, and go to the front lines – first to the Albanian front, and later to the Russian front. Part II picks up during the Italian/German retreat from the Russian front, and tells the story of the vast works of mercy that Father Gnocchi undertook once back home. The two stories are told seamlessly in a single narrative, Part II literally beginning right there in the snow where Part I ended, with only a short intermission-style bit of music to tell you at the end of Part I to please go to bed and take it up again in the morning. (Total running time is 200 minutes.)
The DVD also includes a short study guide produced by Ignatius Press – excellent supplement, very helpful, provides both some historical background and a good breakdown of the moral issues presented in the film.
The story is somewhat fictionalized – timeframes are compressed or glossed over, and some real events are told via fictional characters (ie: Father Gnocchi did donate his corneas, but he donated them to others than the person depicted in the film). There is a love triangle among three youngsters thrown in for the purposes of building up of themes, and frankly in order to keep more of a plot going through the second half. (One of the supporting characters also helps ground us morally as the others are headed off to war in support of fascist Italy.)
What I Thought: Well, it was exactly what I had hoped. My boy watched the whole thing through in English, and hung around for a second viewing in Italian. (He tells me the light weapons were all authentic to the period, though he couldn’t verify the tanks.) We got to see a heroically-brave priest (and some heroically-brave soldiers), the honest horrors of war, and the waging of peace. More than I had hoped for: We get a film that is morally complex without being morally ambiguous. A mother and a catechist falls in love – yay! It’s a keeper! This is a movie you are perfectly happy for your youth to watch over and again. Even better: That study guide is VERY HELPFUL for those who need some assistance navigating the moral complexity.
But Was It A Perfect Film? No. Here are a few things you should know up front, so you don’t send me hate mail because I said it was a great movie and it turns out it triggered a pet peeve.
I would say above all, and this is not so much a problem as a fact: There is definitely a genre divide between Part I and Part II. Part I is an intense WWII film, and very honestly it is exactly the one I wanted. The portrayal of war rings true with what I have heard from combat veterans, and it is stunningly lovely to see difficult questions of faith dealt with in a war film, with no namby-pamby mushy platitudes for the conclusion. Part II is more soap-opera-meets-warm-hearted-family-drama. (I know many people who would hate Part I, love Part II. It’s a taste thing. Though I think there is actually more kissing in Part I, hehe.)
And speaking of kissing, violence, graphic horrors of war, etc . . . the film is not rated. I give it a solid PG-13. Language is clean, kissing scenes are strictly kissing. (And not for nearly as many seconds as a certain 10-year-old-boys complained.) But the war violence is definitely there – scary, suspenseful, morally demanding. At times you get to see good guys do the wrong thing. And though the gore is very restrained, blood does spurt and wounds are shown; whole corpses (no piece parts) lay about in those places corpses are wont to lay, often with faces clearly visible. We see the lead-up to an unmedicated amputation, and there is a firing-squad scene where Fr. Gnocchi blocks our view right before we hear the shots fired.
Summary: I’m very glad I got this DVD – it was everything I had hoped and then some. Inspiring, well-told despite my quibbles (nicely produced, by the way), pleasure to watch both times through. I definitely felt pushed and moved – this is a story that stuck with me. My boy was inspired to go learn more, so it was an academic success as well. I give it a “buy” recommend if you want a solidly catholic movie that fits this era and these genres.
The big news first: I’m out of the hole! Yay. I can do things like check my e-mail, or water the garden without getting out of breath. Actually the mowed the lawn Monday, which involves more miracles than we need discuss here. (But, note to self: When in doubt, marry a man who can maintain heavy machinery. One more reason we call him the SuperHusband.) Was back to fighter practice yesterday after about a month off — won’t say I was 100%, but wow it sure cheers me up, getting out and trying to stab people for a little while.
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Now for our topic: Mater et Magistra magazine. My first issue arrived right when the baby was up with croup — she and I went out in the early morning hours to fetch the newspaper, and look, I’d forgotten to check the mail! New magazine! Which said 3-year-old immediately claimed, and for the first few hours I was okay with that. Until she hid it in her room someplace to keep it safe.
But we eventually cleared up that little misunderstanding, and wow, I had no idea. This is a great magazine! Written by actual homeschooling parents (as the better homeschool magazines are), the tone is very practical and honest. When you read an article encouraging you to respond to God’s grace, or persevere through a struggle, it is written, you discover, by a person who openly admits to dirty laundry.
The articles in this issue ran the gamut — encouragement, general practical tips, specific study ideas, and lots of reviews. The style is Catholic Lay Intellectual — this is the place where all the catholic nerd moms gather to compare notes. So think of articles a little longer, a little deeper, than what you find about anywhere else in the publishing-for-parents industry.
The Catholicism seems to me to be just normal catholic Christianity — I didn’t detect a particular strain to one extreme or another, other than a sincere desire to follow God. In my opinion, a non-catholic who was comfortable with Catholic-y stuff might also enjoy the magazine.
The format is small — half-size, like a Reader’s Digest — and very reflective-feeling. Lots of words, smallish print, no hype, a few pictures, mostly traditional artwork. Interior is all black-and-white or black-and-special-color-for-the-unit-study-insert. (Curiously: the color scheme and general format remind me a bit of this blog . . . I suppose if you hate this place, you might hate looking at the magazine, too.)
This is a small, low-budget production. But a really nice magazine. If you like to read here, or places like Darwin Catholic, Eric Sammons, or anything by Amy Wellborn, and you homeschool, you will probably like Mater et Magistra. Highly recommended. Maybe ask someone to give you a subscription for Mother’s Day?
If you are interested in reading the 2nd draft of my short story, contact me directly or leave a comment here. Your e-mail address shows up to me when you comment, so you don’t need to put in the text of the message.
What it is: short, fluffy, humorous. No quests, trysts, magic, murders, aliens or sermons. No deep thoughts or great art. Your basic model medieval sit-com. G-rated.
Not looking for approval right now — if you hate it, let me know. If you can’t bear to finish it, let me know where I lost you. We’ve got the story to where SuperHusband and I enjoy it, but are now trying to move it to the point where other people like it too.
Offer expires once I get enough readers.
Embryo: A Defense of Human Life
by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen
Doubleday, 2008
ISBN 978-0-385-52282-3
(Available as an audiobook on audible.com.)
The truth is, I picked this book up because I am a Chris & Laurie Tollefsen fan. Yeah, yeah, their philosophy is good (who knew!), but what I really like is them. Their cooking, their conversation, their de-cluttered home – hard not to like people who excel you in every way, and have the courtesy not to point it out. Not that I wasn’t interested in the book, of course. But I don’t think I would have trudged to my local catholic bookstore and actually bought a copy without that personal connection.
Wow. Way worth it. Even if there is no hope whatsoever of any kind of culinary benefit to you for reading this book, you still ought to read it. Even if you aren’t pro-life. And in particular if you aren’t catholic, because it is not a book about catholic (or even theist) perspectives on the topic.
–> If you are catholic, you should read it so that you can speak intelligently to people who want to understand your position on the proper treatment of human embryos, but who aren’t particularly interested in arguments that begin ‘Well, the Pope says . . .’.
Why Philosophy? Philosophy*, as I understand it, is more or less the study of What People Think About Things. For example, how should I treat my fellow human beings, and why so? This is a philosophical question. It can be answered with respect to God, of course, but if you are person who doesn’t believe in God, you still may have an opinion on right and wrong behavior, and probably even some good reasons for your opinion. In this book, George & Tollefsen argue that human embryos deserve ‘full moral respect’ – that is, that they share certain fundamental human rights along with the rest of the species (that’s us). They lay out the reasons for their opinion chapter by chapter.
What’s in the book? And am I smart enough to read it?
The opening chapter, “What is at Stake in the Embryo Experimentation Debate” is a sort of presenting of the situation. It will help tremendously here and throughout the book if you have a passing awareness of the public debate on the topic, and a little bit of familiarity with philosophical terms. The text is eminently readable – very clear and precise, and with quick prose given the technical nature of the topic — but this is not Embryos & Philosophy for Dummies. (Someone please suggest a link for those who want to do the pre-req reading. If nothing else, reading the Secondhand Smoke blog for a few weeks might help.)
Likewise, the second chapter, which lays out the biology of embryonic development, really requires that you have completed high school biology and have some vague recollection of what you learned on the topic. If words like “RNA” and “meiosis” ring a bell, you’re good. Don’t worry if you can’t exactly define them just now; as you read your memory will be refreshed and it will make sense again. It may be a little bit of work to follow the detailed explanations, but you can do it.
After answering the question of ‘is it a little tiny human being?’ in the embryology chapter, George & Tollefsen move onto the philosophical question of what to do with those tiny beings in the remainder of the book. Topics covered include things you might not have known people doubted, such as “What is a person?” (Once a person always a person? Or does your personhood come and go according to this or that factor? It is a relevant question, and one that apparently folks have some interesting ideas about.)
And then, once they’ve established their reasons for thinking that not only are embryos human beings, but they are, in fact, human persons, the book proceeds with building the arguments for what rights persons have, and therefore how they ought to be treated by all the other people.
Who should, and should not, read this book?
This is an important and useful book, regardless of your opinions on the topic. If you beleive in the human rights of embryos, it will help crystallize your thinking and recognize why others may disagree. If you don’t beleive in such rights, it will help you understand the logic of people who do. So it is a book that facilitates the mutual understanding essential to any hope of finding common ground.
And it is particularly useful because it is not a religious book. You may, of course, have religious reasons for your opinions, but those reasons won’t make much sense to people who don’t share your religion. Embryo argues that respect for the rights of the human embryo is not the province of any particular religion, but is in the same category of fundamental human rights that people of any religion or no religion at all tend to agree on.
–> And here is an important caveat: This book assumes that you are not a Nazi. If you need someone to explain to you why people deserve the same rights regardless of race or religion, you need to get that explanation elsewhere. This book assumes you already hold that view. Likewise, it assumes you understand the difference between people and animals. If you think it is okay to eat people, or to do deadly medical experiments on them without their full informed consent, again, you need to look to some other work to understand why this is, in the view of the rest of us, not so.
I warn you of this, because George & Tollefsen really do hit a tremendous variety of arguments against their opinion, and deal with them respectfully and thoroughly. [Do you wonder, for example, whether you are really the person who inhabits your body, or if ‘you’ is something else? They address this possibility.] But these two particular views I mention above (not a nazi, people are not fodder for your whims) are assumed, and at times even central to their arguments.
For nearly all readers, this shouldn’t be a problem, I hope. But I am aware that ‘nearly all’ does leave out a select few.
**
In summary: Highly Recommended. Well written, thorough, examines the debate from every angle. The tone is charitable and friendly, at times even humorous. Deserves to become a standard work on the topic.
*I mention this because if you are like me, you may not really have that clear of an idea of what exactly it is philosophers do. I’m just starting to catch on. And it’s relevant to this book review, because you can’t really know what is in the book if you don’t understand what Philosophy means, or at least what it seems to mean in this context.
It’s a quiet afternoon. Big kids are at friends’ houses, the baby is napping, the house is all yours. The kitchen could use some attention, but that’s never bothered you before. What you need is to settle down in the recliner with a bag of chocolate chips and a philosophy podcast.
Specifically this one: Chris Tollefsen’s talk on Disability and Social Justice, given at Anselm College this fall.
Count me in the ranks of the philosophically ignorant. Historically my efforts at studying the topic have been met with disaster. (As certain of Dr. Tollefsen’s colleagues can attest, if they have not supressed the memory.) And I’ll admit very plainly that there were bits of this talk where I just did my best to pay attention, and hope that sooner or later it would start making sense again. Because I couldn’t follow all the references quickly enough — what I really needed was a transcript I could read slowly, but so far no luck searching the internet. Have a tried contacting the author? Of course not. That would be logical. But next time I see him I’ll put in my request. Honestly I hesitated to do so because I was concerned it would be either too difficult or not quite my thing, or both. Didn’t want to bother a perfectly good philosopher just to satisfy my curiosity. But now I know better. It was challenging for me to follow, but not too much to make it worth the effort.
So, if it isn’t too hard for me, it isn’t too hard for you, either. Indeed since 80% of my readers are smarter than me, it should be a piece of cake for most of you, and the other one can manage at least as well as I did. When it gets to a bit where you start to lose track of the ideas, just hang in there, because more good stuff is just around the corner. Do allow a bit of time to listen, it is a fairly long talk. And allow for some quiet, you need to be able to pay attention and think.
–> Handy tip: The inaudibly asked questions (during the Q&A at the end) are all fairly long. You can safely run your trash to the curb while you wait to hear Dr. Tollefsen’s reply, assuming your curb isn’t too far away.
So what’s in this podcast that makes it rate my monthly recommended reading (er, listening) post? If I understood him correctly (debatable point), his argument went something like this:
-Interdependence is normal for human beings. The idea of ‘self-sufficiency’ cannot be applied to people in a meaningful way.
-We tend to think of government being a contract by and for citizens. That is, people who are capable of consenting to their government and interacting with it.
-Not so. Government exists to provide for the human needs that individuals and social groups (family, friends, church, etc.) are unable to provide themselves. Think: protection from enemies, etc.
–> Government as a contract between citizens is a *form* of government, not the purpose of government.
-Understanding this gives us a more accurate way of addressing the needs of people who are disabled, who are dependent on others for care (for whatever reason), as well as those to whom the caregiving responsibilities fall.
Also in there: Why one of the legitimate roles of government is to provide a moral environment that promotes virtue. (Answer: we are unable to do it for ourself. We cannot individually create the environment in which we live, we need the cooperation of wider society). And how this fits into the challenge of providing for the needs of caregivers and the cared-for.
Worth listening for: The comment on how providing for the needs of people with disabilities, caregivers, and others fits into the balance of providing for other legitimate demands on the government. It’s quick and at the end, but provides some helpful perspective.
And much, much more. Check it out. Not just to see how badly I mangled a perfectly good philosophy lecture, but in order to enjoy the lecture itself.