Father Robert Barron: Evangelizing the Culture

hi everyone welcome to this evening with father Robert Baron the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin lecturer here at Elmhurst College this lecture has been selected to be recorded for Chicago amplified a web-based audio program produced by WBZ Chicago that captures some of the most exciting and informative cultural programming in the Chicago area in your program you'll find how how you can hear this lecture again or share it with others through Chicago amplified at this time I'd like to ask that you please make sure to turn off your cell phone and now I'm very pleased to introduce our chaplain H Scott Matheny thank you Judy and thank you all for coming our president dr. ray sends his greetings and is called away on a special project and it's quite sorry not to be with us right now but this lecture has taken shape and form and become a part of the heart and life of this College in a unique way it does as you all know stand in a particular tradition in the Protestant tradition of the United Church of Christ and in that embrace of that tradition it is fully conscious and opens its hands and doors to the Catholic community our Jewish brothers and sisters of the Muslim community people of faith people of no faith in this lecture in particular because of the joy that I've had watching it grow and in its inception it has been able to feed local congregations helped with the diocese help young people think about the great issues of the day from a faith perspective that is deeply Catholic and to engage in the broader society and so this lecture stands as a heart a part of the life of this College it's soul because faith and learning are Wed and this College believes in that the core values that dr. ray has helped the College fashion and move towards are integrated into that understanding of how we make a change in the world and how we are faithful and however God interprets and calls to that place and so we're deeply grateful that father baron returns to this college he has given the Burnet in lecture before but this night is different and what he brings is an example of why you are all here tonight there will be a chance for us to do questions and answers after the lecture and because of the size of the house Judy and I are going to have mics and we're going to position ourselves over in the corners over here and you'll come to us and we'll feed back and forth questions to father baron there's refreshments that will go probably in a nanosecond and hopefully the staff downstairs will bring more out for us you can pick up tapes after the evening they're reasonable I'm told and you can give credit cards back in the back behind the fireplace I'll make closing remarks at the end of thanks and also some other closing words with our Catholic chaplain who will offer prayer Kevin O'Donnell for this evening to help us get this started however was one of our faculty who is a part of the life of the college in many ways John vilem is integral to our Catholic campus ministries she's teach she is teaching here now obviously and it's just returned with Kevin a group of 26 students from Rome for an every other year January experience where we send a group to Rome to work and study John has the joy and pleasure of introducing our guest tonight we you all welcome her to the podium please and join me please good evening tonight Elmhurst College is honored to welcome back father Robert Barron as the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin lecture five years ago he spoke at the Bernadin lecture on the thought of John Henry Cardinal Newman tonight he speaks of evangelizing the culture father Barron is an acclaimed author speaker and theologian he is a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago the Francis Cardinal George professor of faith and culture at Mundelein seminary and the founder of the global ministry word on fire reaching a national global audience really he is also the creator and host of Catholicism a ten-part PBS series about the Catholic faith father Barron earned his master's degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC and his doctorate in sacred theology from the Institute catholique where he explored the work of st. Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich on creation faith and culture in his thesis he was ordained in 1986 and has been a professor of systematic theology at Mundelein seminary since 1992 has also been a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and the Pontifical University of st. Thomas Aquinas as well as a scholar in residence at the Pontifical North American College in Rome he has been called an innovative teacher of Catholicism and inspires us all to know Jesus better and to love him may I present father Robert Barron well thank you all very much it's wonderful to be back I was here as you heard about five years ago and the crowds increased a little bit it's helpful to be on PBS I guess but I'm delighted to be here at Elmer's college when I first came here five years ago I didn't realize the connection to Reinhold and Richard nibor who were two Theological heroes of mine I understood that this year 2012 is the 100th anniversary of the graduation of Richard niebuhr from this institution he was later president of it Reinhold Niebuhr was a student here the nibor brothers were very influential of course in the 20th century and they helped to bring Paul Tillich to this country you heard that I wrote my doctoral paper on Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich I wanted to establish a dialogue between these Catholic theological theologian and a Protestant theologian and so the Nira brothers I knew from that connection so I'm thrilled to be here at this place where they had such an important role to play also I'm delighted to be here for the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin lecture Carl burning ordained me to the priesthood 1986 I started the seminary in 82 the year that he arrived in Chicago and then he sent me to my studies in Paris I had a great affection for him personally and he was very important to me obviously as my archbishop so it's a wonderful coming together for me to be here for this lecture series and that this place where the knee bores were so important so thank you and thank you so many for coming out tonight to hear this lecture what I want to talk to you about is my practical work in evangelizing the culture I've been interested for a long time in the faith culture dialogue but it was about seven years ago that Cardinal George the current Archbishop of Chicago took me aside at the seminary and said I'd like to speak to you always a worrisome sign by the way he said I'd like you to jumpstart evangelization I said well what does that mean your eminence and he said I'm not quite sure but I'd like you to do it and then he told me a story his great hero is john paul ii and cardinal george is over in rome for the odd Limina visit he happens to be there right now for the same purpose bishops have to go on a regular basis and present the status of the diocese to the Pope in Rome so seven years ago or so the Cardinal was doing that in front of John Paul the second John Paul listened very patiently and then turned to Cardinal George at the end and said what are you doing to evangelize the culture now if you know Cardinal Francis George you know that he's rarely at a loss for words but he said he didn't know what to say to his great hero so he came home and he said that's what I want you to do I want you to evangelize the culture that's called passing the buck by the way I was very joyful too to enter into that work I did at his prompting I did some lecturing around the archdiocese including some talks downtown at the Union League club and University Club to business people on their lunch hour and I enjoyed those talks I think they were worthwhile but I said to the Cardinal afterwards there's something kind of charmingly nineteenth-century about this it's something John Henry Newman might have done to gather people in a room and give lectures I said we've got this explosion going on now in technology we have technology now that Fulton sheen a great hero of mine would have died for you know in the 1950s and I said your eminence we have to take advantage of that if we really want to evangelize the culture so he got that and encouraged me very much in this work the talk I'm gonna give tonight is coming up out of my experience evangelizing through the internet go back now about five years I received a donation for my ministry and the person said do something creative with this money so right at that time I just heard about YouTube this new phenomenon on YouTube at the time it was you know my cat jumps off the roof for getting six million views that sort of thing but I said you know maybe we could do something with this new thing YouTube we could we could put little commentaries up on whatever on books and movies and music and high culture popular culture and see what happens and my strategy is largely positive to look out to the culture and find points of contact between the culture and the Catholic faith the first one I did was on Martin Scorsese's movie The Departed I just seen that I did a little review slash theological commentary we know when we posted those things I had no idea of any more watch I thought maybe my mother what you know by the way my mother I saw her a couple weeks ago and she you know with the PBS series and all this and YouTube and she's to me Bobby do you think you're a little overexposed only a mother right well we put these YouTube videos up and my mother didn't watch she doesn't have a computer but we discovered that a lot of people did and the numbers increased and then I discovered something I didn't know about that you could comment on YouTube videos well I quickly found out about that because the comments began coming in flooding in and they were coming of course not from the church so my experience was largely you know speaking to Catholic audiences or Christian audiences church people well the YouTube of course brings you totally outside the church to the wider culture and one thing I was taking on a lot were the new of atheists Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and company and so I heard from an awful lot of people in the mainstream outside the church culture and to be honest with you probably 90% of the comments were negative people had hated the Catholic Church or hated God or hated me more or less in that order but you know what though I really liked it because it proved to me so clearly that these were getting out beyond the church they were getting out beyond the walls the church and I was able to engage people who had never otherwise have any contact with the church you know 20-somethings 30-somethings largely males may be angry at the church angry at God well I was able to engage them and I've got a little bit of what the French call the Giada comme Bob the joy of the of the battle you know and so I would I would fight back someone makes a comment I said no no you're wrong about this or here you need to be correct and I'd fight back and if you look at some of these forums now I've done know about 250 of these little videos we've got tens of thousands of comments and conversations and a lot of people I know read the exchanges with great interest it reminds me a bit as a Catholic of my hero Thomas Aquinas who when he lays out as theology often does so in a question-and-answer format here are the objections and then Thomas answers them well the Internet is now a sort of virtual version of the Summa Theologica oh you got all kinds of objections coming I'm able to respond to them okay that's the setting now for what I want to talk to you about sorry what I call the YouTube heresies and see here's why I've discovered in the course of these conversations a number of blocks a number of obstacles things that are preventing people from hearing the Christian message and here are the four that means do the talk will just be kind of a brief expose on each of these four first of all I encounter in my work on the internet deep misunderstanding about what we mean when we say God deep misunderstanding about God number two deep misunderstanding about the way the Bible is to be read thirdly deep misunderstanding about the relationship between religion and science and finally perhaps most importantly a deep misunderstanding about religion and violence those are the big four now I can show you tens of thousands of comments on these forums but you can see them falling more or less into those four gray categories people are confused about God they're confused about the Bible they're confused about science and religion and violence and religion so what I'll do in the next maybe 45 minutes is just give you a brief look at those four call them YouTube heresies and the ways I've tried to engage them as I'm reaching out to the wider culture so first of all God one of my theological heroes is Herbert McCabe he was an English Dominican died just about 10 years ago McCabe often engaged atheists and dialogue publicly he always said I want the atheist to speak first so the Atheist would lay out his position in great detail McCabe would invariably respond by saying I completely agree with you as he how come how come he wasn't just being flip almost invariably what atheist deny McCabe would deny - I would deny - because atheists and is it true of the Hitchens and Dawkins and all the new atheist I read today they don't know what we mean when we say the word God I'll give you an example now this came I think from Dawkins originally but it's in all his disciples I read almost every day you believers believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster have you heard that little phrase they get it from Dawkins the idea is as wild and unlikely and without evidence is the Flying Spaghetti Monster so as wild and fantastical and without evidence is gone in fact I saw just the other day you know how some cars had a little a fish symbol for Christianity and then some people put the Darwin symbol I saw a Flying Spaghetti Monster one no kidding a little image of the figure spaghetti and these eyes and so on another one you hear a lot is oh it's so nice that you believe in your nice invisible friend that's God my little invisible friend another one you hear a lot also from Dawkins is oh it's so nice you can believe in your sky fairy so sky fairy invisible friend Flying Spaghetti Monster that's what God is gods as likely as any of those three wild fantasies I want take you back to the a book that a huge impact on me when I was a kid the seven story mountain of Thomas Merton the great Catholic spiritual writer Merton was a kind of typical modern as a young man didn't believe in God he said I thought that God was a noisy mythological creature that's a line from the seven story mountain ah Flying Spaghetti Monster invisible friend sky fairy a noisy mythological being but then Merton one day was walking down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan he came to the scribblers bookstore he saw in the window a book called the spirit of medieval philosophy by the French philosopher Etienne Jillson he picked up the book and he read it and what he found was this richly intellectual approach to God that you can find in medieval philosophy what he found was this God for the great medieval Catholic tradition is not ends sumu that means highest being whether God is and here's Thomas Aquinas phrase God is assumed si subsystems that means the sheer act of to be itself God is not one being among many in fact Thomas says God is not in any genus not even the genus of being it's fascinating little remark isn't it this thing is in the genus of podium I'm in the genus of humanity so are you God is not in any genus even the genus of being you see what that means he's not the biggest thing around he's not the biggest being among many God is the sheer act of to be itself when Moses asked for God's name in Exodus 3:14 when they asked me who said to you watch what should I tell them remember God's great answer I am Who I am in some ways his answer is stop asking me stupid questions because you see what he's asking which one are you there are a lot of gods right the God of this place or that the god of the mountain god of the river god of the egyptians which one are you God's not in a genus to be God is to be to be that's a line from David Borel the philosopher at notre-dame to be me is to be a human being to be this is to be a podium to this is to be a microphone to be God is to be to be now you say well that's a nice abstraction but what does that mean well see it means everything because it means God is not competitive with the world see friends lurking behind so much of the Atheist critique and this goes back to fire Bach and Freud and Marx and SARS and everybody else is the view that somehow God has got to be eliminated if we are to be fully ourselves Sartre put it just that way didn't he if God exists he said I cannot be free but I am free therefore God does not exist fire Bach the founder of modern atheism said the no to God is the yes to man you see how the new atheists are picking right up on there but you see what's behind that view that God and the world are competitive one to the other the God who's not a being but the sheer act of being itself is not my competitor but rather one the one in whom I find my deepest freedom to see how the God who is to be itself is the very ground of my existence and therefore the surrender to that God is the discovery of Who I am and that's why st. Irenaeus can say over and against jean-paul Sartre the glory of God is a human being fully alive now can I suggest you you could you could lose almost all the literature of Christianity but keep that one line you got the heart of it the glory of God is a human being fully alive that's the kind of relationship that obtains between us and it sumeyye say to be itself so I say to the atheists a lot I'll be happy to have a conversation with you but we got to be clear on what we do and don't mean by God what you deny some fantastic supreme in the world I denied that - there's no evidence for such a thing remember the some are old enough the room to remember the Russian cosmonaut going up into the into the heavens in the 1950s I went up there into the heavens I looked around and there's no God remember no Flying Spaghetti Monster no invisible friend well I mean anybody trained in the Bible would know he was speaking so much nonsense right as high as the heavens are above the earth so higher my thoughts above your thoughts my ways above your ways there's an infinite qualitative difference between God in the world that's because God is not a thing in the world something I come across a lot on the YouTube forums as people say there's no evidence for God well what do you want some physical trace what are you looking for something you can find under a microscope you can do an experiment on it there's no evidence for the architect of this room well yeah he's not in the room anywhere but yet everything in this room reflects the architect of it doesn't the architect can be discerned in every nook and cranny of this room though he or she is not an item in the room ah so it goes with God the heavens proclaim the glory of God yes indeed every nook and cranny of creation speaks and I'll come back to this speaks of the great mind of God but yet God is not a thing in the world the true God assume si by the way there's there's time as Aquinas good kal give you the Paul Tillich version of Ed the Protestant version Tillich says God is not in Zion de of being but zines Elst being itself same idea same idea you see they're both rooted in the great Exodus revelation I am Who I am so clarity about God is extremely important as we engage in the culture conversation friends here's the second one and I see it almost every day on these forums deep misunderstanding about the Bible now how many saw the a Bill Maher movie Religulous you see that no I'm glad actually I went to see and I was given an advance ticket they didn't I didn't put my Roman collar on I kind of snuck into this theater and the YouTube I've done on that actually has gotten the most attention of anyone that I've done but you're Bill Maher the comedian who is now talking about overexposed my mother things I'm overexposed Bill Maher is everywhere Larry King used to have mine I think like every other you know Tuesday or something well Bill Maher hates religion and the movie Religulous as the title would suggest it's just this ridiculous holdover from a primitive time and his strategy in that movie was consistently to take people who frankly just weren't that capable of defending their faith and bringing before them what he thought were just ridiculous claims from the Bible so you believe in this talking snake you believe that the world is 5,000 years old you believe that Jonah spent three days the belly of the fish so it's just bringing forward all these kind of scenes from the Old Testament especially and challenging the literalistic reading here's a first response now when I come again up against the sort of biblical literalism the Bible is not so much a book as a library and once you see that an awful lot gets clearer the Bible is a collection of tanks from a wide variety of genre written in a wide variety of different times written by different authors for different purposes you've got in the Bible sometimes some relatively straightforward history think of you know 1 & 2 Samuel or something you've got an apocalypse in the Bible like The Book of Daniel or the book of Revelation you've got letters in the Bible like Paul to the Romans or Paul to the Galatians you've got saga in the Bible like the beginning of the book of Genesis you've got Gospels in the Bible their own unique genre do you take the library literally well it depends on what section you're in right you walk in the library you walk into the history section okay you walk into a journalism section you look at old newspapers yeah you take that more or less straightforwardly but now you wander into the poetry section you wander into the mythology section you wander into the epistolary of section if you approach those texts with the same clunky interpretive lenses that you use to read literalistic texts you will if so facto Mis read them one of the disciplines we learn in hermeneutics or interpretation theory is how to take off and put on different sets of glasses one of the most fundamental questions you can ask about any text is what kind of text is this in fact earlier today I just in the other room there we're talking about one of my favorite books Moby Dick because the former presidents of Elmer's College reminded me of Herman Melville these wonderful nineteenth-century beards you know they all look like Whalers just off the Pequod beautiful I had my picture taken one of them I love I love that era you know well you pick up a book like Moby Dick well what is it what is the first question you have to ask what is this oh it's a journalistic account of a whaling venture in the 19th century no come on it's a novel you know once you know it's a novel you approach it with the right set of lenses one of the most fundamental problems is a lack of genre sensitivity in regard to the Bible and I see it everywhere on the youtubes forums either it's straightforward history or it's just nonsense that's the binary option you know one thing I found and maybe there's some English teachers here and it really helped us with this I have found in the general populace an extreme insensitivity to the way literary texts mean the you I'm talking about a deep insensitivity to the way poetry functions the way mythology functions the way a novel functions they all function in a very distinctive manner but so often my interlocutors say straightforward history or journalism option a or nonsense option B come on as all sorts of options in between those two and the Bible is full of different genre we have to be sensitive to that that's hugely important I think as we do our work in evangelization something else now with the Bible when I make this observation I'm almost always met with the counter-argument you're just cherry-picking you're just deciding which text you want to be literal which ones you don't and that gives me the opportunity to say no no I'm insisting that we read the Bible within an interpretive tradition now friends I'm going to speak here very much out of the Catholic tradition I don't think it's a good idea simply to pick up the Bible and read it just as I don't think it's a good idea to pick up Hamlet and read it you know I'm saying or pick up Moby Dick and just I'm going to read it and I understand how it works don't we when we approach a text like Hamlet a richly complex text don't we automatically consult a long disciplined interpretive tradition the long history of those who've read Hamlet if wrestled with it have argued over it you pick up a book like Moby Dick we of course you love to read all the critical history around the interpretation of it simply to pick it up on your own without that preparation without that discipline is almost a guarantee that you'll miss read it so I argue with the Bible we have to read it within the context of this richly disciplined and complex interpretive tradition that I would call the church and here I'm not just restricting it to the Catholic Church I mean the the whole community of those over space and time who've read the Bible that I think is something very much missing as people try to understand the Bible today here's something else people say to me oh come on father you're just responding with all stuff because science has finally forced you believers into these more symbolic or more subtle interpretations and I'll say no no man go back to origin third century what do you find richly textured symbolic non literalistic readings go back to Augustine 4th 5th century what do you find same thing richly complex symbolic readings go up to Thomas Aquinas go to st. Bernhard go throughout the Middle Ages and you find the four senses of Scripture I argue with these people that fundamentalism the literalism that we see today is really a modernism it's an invention of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Christians were fighting against what they saw as an aggressive modernity but in fact you look back further the Christian tradition you find this very complex satisfying rich interpretive tradition I think bringing that to bear is very important as we do our work in evangelization ok so God and the Bible number 3 religion and science friends almost every day usually several times a day I'm dealing with this problem of religion and science it blocks so many people I find in approaching or accepting the faith what's the problem well in a word it's what I call scientism what's scientism that's science I love science a Furman siient ism though is the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge and now if you would tell me this 10 years ago I'd never believe you but it is rampant in our society especially in young people because I hear it all the time the reduction of knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge now what's scientific form observe empirical observation form a hypothesis test it through experimentation draw conclusions good method yep it's great method effective you bet within its proper framework the attendant technologies it's given rise to wonderful yes and that's why I think it's one reason why scientism begins to take hold because people have scenes that the huge success of the sciences and they say that's the that's the way to know things now what's the upshot of that regard to religion religion ain't science therefore its what nonsense how often I hear this it comes right out of Christopher Hitchens Bronze Age mythology old superstition pre-scientific nonsense and the disciple of Hitchens are everywhere out there scientism relegates religion just to the kind of ash heap of intellectual history what do we do now with scientism how do we respond to it here's a first way scientism is itself logically incoherent how come where did you empirically observe or experimentally verify that all truth is simply scientific where'd you see that where'd you experiment with that how did you draw that as an empirical conclusion the answer courses you didn't scientism is itself a metaphysical or philosophical position and therefore the the advocate of scientism is lost in a deep incoherence seeing that little move does something great it opens you up now but in fact you are always already engaged in other ways of knowing beyond the scientific another way I've teased people who are caught in scientism do you think Homer knew anything worth knowing I think Aristotle knew anything worth knowing how about Plato how about Cicero how about Gustin or Thomas Aquinas Martin Luther how about Immanuel Kant how about Hegel how about the Niebuhr brothers think those people knew anything worth knowing none of them engaged what we call science art philosophy poetry literature do they yield up to us any truth of course anyone I think who's intellectually honest would say of course they do and yet they are not cyan tip for Manoa I've teased people often on the score because I found that they don't know philosophy well they don't know poetry well and see religion is a close cousin of philosophy and poetry and literature he's run the problems do with scientism so many people believe the great modern myth of origins at which I mean modernity science emerged out of a long Twilight Struggle with religion that sound familiar I hear it every day how did the scientist emerge well out of this terrible struggle against the obscurantism of religion back in those dark ages right by the way which gave us Chartres Cathedral and Dante and Thomas Aquinas a one so dark believe me but out of this terrible Dark Ages there emerged against the terror again with a terrible struggle there emerged the sciences who's the patron saint of this story Galileo whom I hear about again practically every day on these forums oh how the church persecuted poor Galileo imprisoning this pioneer of modern science and that becomes the paradigm in may people's minds for the relationship between religion and science so it's always gone well I suggest you friends that that is a complete myth and the fact that it sees the minds of so many of our younger people is really sad and tragic I would argue on the contrary that the science is in the West emerged when and where they did not so much against religion but precisely because of religion one thing I'll say to people is where do you think of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe Hey and Newton and company learned their mathematics there are astronomy there are physics they learned them a course in sponsored universities more to it what's required intellectually now for the emergence of the sciences to great assumptions at least both of which are theological inform for the sciences to get off the ground scientists have to believe that the world is not God and that the world is intelligible think about for a second if you think the world is divine and a lot of people do from ancient times through many forms of animism go right up to star wars right may the force be with you what's the force but the zoom of energy that runs through and unites all things well that's a kind of nature of mysticism if the world is divine what don't you do well you don't analyze it experiment on it objectify it no no you you honor it you worship it the science is the experimental science is the the empirical sciences emerge because people assume the world wasn't gone but secondly for any science to get off the ground the scientist has to believe and I use that word on purpose has to believe the world is intelligible now not defending any kind of intelligent design of point of view here something more basic that the world is endowed with some intelligible structure think now of any of science biology assumes what that life has a log loss to it psychology assumes the psyche has a law goes to it a reason and order astronomy assumes the Stars have a no Moss to them right a law and intelligibility any scientist in any field has to assume the world that she goes out to me is a world endowed with intelligible structure now I ask you where do those two ideas come from that the world is not God and the world is endowed universally with intelligible structure it comes from the belief in creation in a Creator God if God has made everything then we know that the world isn't God it's other than God but but if God has made everything then everything is stamped with some sign of God's great intelligence creation is the theological assumption behind the emergence of the sciences see once you see that you see this very deep compatibility between religion and science they're not mortal enemies but one is the condition for the possibility of the other now see revisit some of the great Christian texts in the beginning was the word important that is the word God's mind and of course the Greek term there is logos logic pattern harmony order in the beginning was the divine mind and all things came to be through that mind that's the foundation for science without that the scientists have to fold up if you don't assume intelligibility you will not go out to meet the world with your inquisitive intelligence something else now about the sciences the Galileo case I argue with all its complexity and it is complex it's not an easy black-and-white sort of case but the Galileo case I would argue is one paragraph on one page in one chapter of a very long book to isolate that one paragraph and say that tells the whole story of religion and science is simply a distortion look for example at the great founders of the sciences I mentioned I mean Galileo himself but Tycho Brahe Hey Pascal Day card Newton devoutly religious people who saw no conflict between their religion and their science in fact tried to show links all the time gregor mendel 19th century figure Augustinian friar absolutely central to the development of of genetics come up into the 20th century no one I love to tell because most Catholics don't know about this the formulator of the Big Bang Theory George lamento was a priest in fact I did a little YouTube video on this and it got a giant reaction from a lot of Catholics I had pictures of George lameta in his big Roman collar next to Einstein because George lamento had to convince Einstein of the rectitude of the Big Bang Theory Einstein didn't buy it and George Lemaitre convinced him my point is don't isolate Galileo as though as the story that tells the whole story the whole story is far more interesting far more compelling just a last observation when I was filming for the Catholicism series I wanted to make this point as vividly as I could so I went to a mountaintop outside of Tucson because on top of that mountain is an observatory with one of the highest level telescopes in the world the observatory is run by the Vatican the Vatican Observatory one headquarters is in Castle Gandolfo the Pope says summer home but the other one is in Tucson on this mountain where one of the best telescopes in the world is found science and religion at bottom are great friends and allies okay last one so we have God we have Bible interpretation we have religion and science and finally and perhaps most importantly religion and violence if there's one thing now that I hear over and over I hear most often it's religion and violence it's an old enlightenment argument could read it back in the 18th century even 17th century it goes like this religion is irrational therefore the only way that religious people can adjudicate their disputes is through violence now read that in Spinoza liveness Hegel conte all the great founders of modernity intellectually that's why so many of those figures tried to find some purely rational form of religion think of Locke's book you might and the reasonableness of Christianity think of Conn's religion within the limits of reason alone right or think of Jefferson's Bible Jefferson who takes all the supernatural elements out of the Bible well they're all trying in that Enlightenment way to find a religion that's perfectly reasonable because they saw religion as irrational and therefore violent now when was that old arguments stirred up it was stirred up at September 11 that's why I don't think it's the least bit accidental that the new atheist movement emerged after September 11 read the Hitchens and Dawkins and sam Harris is now and company Daniel Dennett you'll find over and over again that same argument nope there it is irrational religion becoming almost EPSA facto violent now once that stirred up what do people do is they go back to the Bible and believe me people who aren't very pious but man do they know their Bible when it comes to the violent texts the Bible they really know the the violent texts smashing heads of babies Yahweh of commanding all sorts of deeply objectionable things one of the great texted everyone refers to is in 1st Samuel you know when soul is is removed as king and the reason he's removed is he doesn't put the ban on the Amalekites remember in the ban ordered by God is to kill every man woman child and animal so when Samuel the Prophet comes along and he hears the animals making noise and he sees the king ag-gag the king of the Amalekites still alive he goes up to saul it says what's going on and salt goes hey I was pretty good here I killed off most of the Amalekites a night I know I kept a few here but a we won the battle samuel is not the least bit pleased dismisses saul is king and then it says takes the sword and hacked a gag to pieces and i said it after i read that story this is the word of the lord you know now I bring that one out because I hear all the time on the YouTube forums and you can find of course many others a text like that so people say see there it is there is violent religion it confirms the old enlightenment argument it confirms the post September eleventh perspective that's why you people are dangerous now look at all of Christopher Hitchens of debates and commentaries over and over again you religious people are the most dangerous people on the planet you know so that's the argument and I hear it all the time so what do we do how do we respond to this great obstacle to announcing the faith a couple of simple observations here Christians read the Bible from the standpoint of the last book in the Bible we find the book of Revelation that great scene when John the seer is up in the heavenly Court and out comes the scroll remember with the seven seals was the scroll stand for you could say it stands for all of history stands for the scripture and their totality who will open it and the seer weeps because no one's appearing who can open the scroll and then the announcement comes that the Lion of Judah will open the scroll and then in a delicious irony so typical the Bible Lion of Judah is coming but who appears a lamb standing is those slain a lamb a little lamby is going to come out now and and then he's been slain and this is not a real inspiring figure I'm looking for a powerful figure who can open up the scroll of history to scroll the Bible outcomes of course it's a symbol of the crucified and risen Jesus the one who in a great and supreme act of non-violence took upon himself the violence of the world and swallowed up in the ever-greater divine mercy he's the one who opens the seals who opens the scroll and can read it you see the point being made there the church father saw this we must read the whole of the Bible from the standpoint of the crucified and risen Christ from the standpoint of the non violent Christ we don't simply isolate passages in the Bible on their own but rather we read the Bible according to its great themes patterns and trajectories where do they all coalesce where do they all come to their culminating point in the lamb standing as though slain is the nonviolent Christ who opens up for us the scriptures okay now that's as old as the Church Fathers that perspective having said it they know they faced this problem well then how do you read these these startling texts especially from the Old Testament how do you read them can I go back to Origen whom I mentioned earlier I think one of the best readers of the Bible in the whole tradition dies in the year 230 very early figure Origen said in light of this interpretive principle we must read these texts in a spiritualizing way we must read them as evocative of the spiritual battle the Battle of sin and grace if you want now go back to the famous one from 1 Samuel put the ban on the Amalekites why the Amalekites Origen asks now go back to Deuteronomy remember that scene where the Israelites are battling the Amalekites and Moses has his arms up in the air as long as he's praying like this the Israel has the better of the battle his arms get weary so they have to be propped up by Aaron and by her right and as long as they're propped up then Israel carries a day and the pericope ends by saying and then Israel mowed down Amalek with the edge of the sword and then adds Israel will battle Amalek up and down the ages now if that's simply about this ancient near-eastern tribe that tax doesn't make a lot of sense doesn't what do you mean Israel's going to battle this little middle-eastern tribe up and down the ages so origins suggests again it's a very ancient reading or just a just the Amalekites symbolized something here they symbolize all those powers that stand opposed to God's creative intention I'll quote a great Protestant theologian here the grace of the 20th century namely Carl Bart Bart talks about dust nitch tiga the the nothing the non being and you can see it symbolizes it up and down the Bible it's in the Touhou Wabo who of the primal chaos remember God brings order out of the Touhou Wabo who the primal disorder you see it in the stormy waters of the Red Sea you can see it in the stormy waters upon which jesus walks and you can see it Bart suggests following origin in all those powers opposed to Israel as he please friends don't politicize it spiritual eyes it what's God's creative intention love forgiveness compassion non-violence what stands opposed to it well we know all the ways of sin we're all bedeviled by them the Bible you might say now is the story of this great struggle what must Israel read Israel now not politically not culturally read Israel spiritually what must Israel do it must wage war how must it wage war all the way samuel hacked a gag to pieces origin suggests it's the great struggle against sin hatred violence itself how must you fight it all the way down what mustn't do you do with evil you mustn't play around with it see now that reading begins to open up doesn't it what solves problem solves problems playing around with evil oh we won the battle yeah but I kept a little bit here I didn't completely destroy it people maybe some in this room I've dealt a lot over the years with people go through the 12-step process dealing with addictions suppose someone says to his a a sponsor I'm doing great I just have one drink every five days what would he say man you got a hack a gag two pieces that's the problem here yeah I'm saying there's a there's a evil here there's a dysfunction here that you can't mess around with suppose a husband comes to his wife says honey I love you and our marriage is just the most important thing in the world to me which is why I'm faithful to you 90% of the time all right how is that gonna work out or I say to Cardinal George your eminence I'm in a priest for 25 years of what a great joy it is and and celibacy is a beautiful gift from God which is why I'm faithful to it you know when I'm not on vacation what would he say he'd do I would laughs trust me but you see the point I'm making and we all know about this is there are certain forms of dysfunction certain forms of hatred and violence and and all that that have to be battled all the way down what are these great texts trying to do they're trying to show us this truth now just I'll make one last stop here before I end the talk with Jesus crucified what's he doing on the cross one way to read it is he's doing battle with sin evil death itself all the way down why did God have to send his son into this terrible suffering don't pose the question that way but rather the son's willingness like a great nonviolent warrior the sons willingness to go all the way down to the limits of God forsaken us so as to do battle with DA snitch with the toe huva boho with Amalek however you want to symbolize it not messing around with it not playing half way games but battling it all the way down hacking a gag to pieces if you want what's he hacking to pieces sin and death the Bible you might say in these quote-unquote violent tags is trying to communicate it seems to me this great spiritual truth and this opens up to us when we read the Bible the way Origen suggests from the standpoint of the lamb standing as those slain who alone can open the seals just a last couple of words here by way of conclusion go back a couple years I was visiting my brother and my eldest niece his eldest daughter was finishing up high school at a very good Catholic High School in the Chicago area and my brother proudly said to me I'll take a look at the books on the table those are Neela's books for the coming year and so I went to the pile of books on the very top of it was Hamlet Shakespeare's not Hamlet for dummies Hamlet under Hamlet was Virgil's Aeneid in Latin so she was a Latin student she's reading Virgil in Latin under that was a physics book with Einstein Ian's equations bristling with complexity under that was a big paperback book with a picture on the cover and big print and a lot of photos on the inside her religion book and I went over to my brother and I said do you have a problem with this no why I said she's reading she's reading Shakespeare in English she's reading Virgil in Latin she's reading Einstein in physics and she's reading a comic book for religion you know see right did her birthday was around that time and usually I just give her a little bit of money I went out that your I bought her a Volume one of acquaintances sumac on urgent Ella's I bought her Augustine's Confessions I bought her the Divine Comedy and I bought her Chesterton's orthodoxy and what I did I put a little yeah I got paper bags I put them down I said now those are the Catholic versions of the other books you're reading that's the at that level now I say it not just the Catholics but I think all people interested in evangelization and reaching out to the culture I think we have to be attentive to the great intelligence of our Christian tradition we do have a struggle today I mean I came of age in the years after vatican ii when there was a great I rent assist you know that we're going to reach out to the culture the culture is good and it is in many ways I predicate my internet work on that assumption but but the culture has in many ways turned on the Christian project at the very least has very serious questions about it I do think we have to be properly armed if you will intellectually harmed to deal with this challenge but we should always do it of course as happy warriors when I was a kid that was the term used of Hubert Humphrey who was a friend of Reinhold Niebuhr wasn't he GK Chesterton one of my heroes happy warrior went out to meet the culture with a great Jawad de vivre with great confidence but with an intelligent capacity engage it maybe I'll give the last word to to paul tillich as I speak at this great Protestant College Paul Tillich said we should always meet the culture McClendon spiel and that's German for roughly with Fife and drum and see I like about that is Fife and drum and that's a militaristic image so we have to meet the culture with a sense of you know we know we're about and we can take on the challenge but it's not like going out with with guns and and and cannons it's going out with Klingon tubes filled with a kind of joyful playful panache and I think that's the best way that that all of us interested in evangelizing the culture can do our work god bless you all and thanks for coming and listening tonight thank you thank you Thanks thank you good um thank you very much father so this is gonna be a trick Judy's over here I'm over here there's not a lot of ways to slip through but father barons been most gracious and why don't we do one more round of thank-you for you thank you sir maybe if we're lucky maybe if we're lucky we can get you back here a third time okay okay if you can sneak around over here to Judy and then I'll try and sneak over here and somebody anybody wishes like to offer a question column looks like he's coming out now come on Colin first question will come from one of our students okay good I wasn't able to see you from back there so it's nice to see you good you speak of atheist stare touch stereotyping Christians which I do believe happens quite often but I fear you're somewhat stereotyping atheists as well in a your response to them as someone who's like growing up with the Internet I know that the comment sections are not really a fair representation of people it brings out some interesting folks I would say yeah but like I think the new atheist from my generation might be changing a little bit and they would say something like like they aren't against God but you're against organized religion could you perhaps respond to a more less Bill Maher atheist or more moderate a theist yeah because what you're articulating there would not be atheism I mean there be a lot of people against like the kid on the recent video that Jesus loved Jesus but hate religion so you can have that which wouldn't be an atheist position but I mean I'm going back to John Paul Sartre in Feuerbach and Freud and the classical atheist who I think make this fundamental mistake about God they see God as a competitor to human flourishing and freedom and I don't think it's a caricature I mean the text themselves is so clear on that what bugs me about the new 8th is especially is they don't have the integrity of the older atheist someone likes art who said there's no God and therefore Lafayette absurd right life is absurd and cert I would say was was integral enough to admit that what bugs me a bit in the new atheist is there's no God and everything's great there's no God and life can be full of meaning and purpose and I would say it can't at least be consistent of to admit if there's no God then this deep longing in us for a fulfillment beyond this world is deeply frustrated you know so I don't think that's a caricature I think that's that's fair to what they're saying it does bug me furthermore that the so-called new atheist they they are crude in their thinking it seems to me it's not a serious nuanced engagement of religion and their their armies of followers do the same thing so I don't know I mean I would be critical of both I think the classical atheists are more consistent than the new atheist so I admire them for that but they all do it seems to me labor under the assumption that God is a competitor to us so I don't know that that's and that's where I agree with McCabe that I would tend to say I agree with you I agree with the thing that for your bloc of dismisses I agree with what what Freud dismisses but it's not the true God you know anyway a quick answer to a complex question you're raising there over here please please go ahead another one about great students great thanks I actually have two questions for you my first one is when you're talking with these atheists of people that are against some of the stuff you say in your YouTube videos I mean we can argue apologetics all you want and you can like give the most sound it's logic support Christianity but like at the at the base when you've dispelled a lot of their beliefs what do you find is the main thing that's keeping atheist people who deny the Christian faith from you know converting yeah no that's good I I agree with Billy Graham who said a long time ago that the real react the real resistance of God is moral not intellectual I find that's right if you admit that God exists then you're not in control of your life if you meant that God exists then there's a criterion of good and evil and truth outside of your own will and now that goes right back to the book of Genesis which names that in that richly symbolic language that that's the fundamental problem is I'm trying to find a criterion of good and evil that's simply identical to my own freedom that's our fundamental human problem and I think that's why people resist a god language so powerfully I've often laid out some of the classic arguments in the Catholic tradition especially the argument from contingency which I think is is a logically very sound argument and it's to me it's fascinating how people they won't really engage it logically they'll just run around it they'll just try to resist it so I think it's to me it's more of a moral objection than an intellectual one and then you use different strategies I think with fan the main one is the glory of God's a human being fully alive god is not a threat to our flourishing God's not a threat to our freedom in fact that's where we find our deepest longing you know in God so I think how people see that is key to an apologetic strategy go ahead and my second question is you talked a lot about the different genres of the Bible and ya mentioned fantasy and then the letters and stuff so when you mentioned the myths and you know think of John in the whale or like Shadrach Meshach and Abednego in the furnace how do you interpret those do you turbid them as they actually happened or yeah what's your interpretation of those events it depends and I mean I would read the Bible within the discipline of the church which I by which I mean this long tradition of conversation and interpretation Jonah I would read as a legendary kind of a theological legend I agree with bard who characterized the first couple chapters of Genesis as theological saga I'd read 1 and 2 Samuel for example as theologically informed history I'd read Daniels and apocalypse and so there I think we have to be very nimble-footed when reading the Bible we have to be able to adjust to these different genres and there's always that danger of trying to reduce it to 2:1 or even just a couple of different forms there's a whole variety of forms but I would learn that from the discipline of the church by which I mean that long conversation over space and time and within that disciplined conversation I think I find the best way to approach the Bible a quick answer to that complicated question - yes sir please hi father my name is Brian and I'm alumni of this college and I'm also Catholic and I'm very glad to be here great thing I really enjoyed your PBS series and I'm a student of religion myself just trying to find my own way if you will in your PBS series you had made a simple comment at the end of one the series and it kind of left me hanging you had made a comment that Protestantism is more about the Word of God whereas Catholicism is more of the of who God is and I wonder if you could speak more to that point do you recall like I'm know it's on tape no I must say I don't honestly I mean there certainly there is a greater stress on the word in the prostration but I don't remember actually in the series well I don't mean to put you on the spot no it's okay I just I don't have you recognized again I see in my own family who are they're going the Protestant way and I'm trying to find ways to explain you know what Catholicism is about and how rich it is in the traditions and and the Bible and everything and and you know that so that comment about the difference between those two just kind of caught me yeah honestly I don't recognize that line I don't know I don't know what that means there there are important distinctions there I mean I agree with you there important distinctions I one thing I often tell my class I teach a class on the Reformation and one of my fondest hopes is kind of a great what-if of history if Luther could have become the founder of a Lutheran order the way dominic became the father of a Dominican Order and and Francis the Franciscan and I think there there was a moment when that would have been possible in order that would put a great stress on the primacy of grace you know so for the Catholic tradition gratia Prima absolutely grace first we would balk at gratia Sola but I think there was a moment as I read Luther and there's so many texts of Luther I so deeply admire there was a moment when he could have been a founder of a Lutheran order now I'm not blaming Luther I'm blaming everybody around that time that that precluded that possibility just as you know let's face it when Francis and Dominic we're doing their work if things have been a little bit different they might have got burnt at steak or something you know but they were able to you know for a variety of reasons find a path of reform and they became founders of orders so anyway to me it's one of the great what-ifs of history if could have happened you know over here because yeah please could you reduce up to hi thought uh I'm Annie Jansen at first I just finished your PBS series and it is if anyone hasn't bought it buy it it is phenomenal thank you thanks it is a gate engaging it is you get to tour the whole world almost so anyway it's fantastic my question is it is loaded with such good information that is non-threatening it is just presented in such a logical fashion as what your talk tonight how does a lay person like myself or others here what's our best resource to be able to respond as you respond besides watching your tape over and over and over again and memorizing it keep buying it over to it no I would say no one thing I would recommend we have a really good study program that goes with the series and I would encourage people in groups to watch it and then have a really good disciplined discussion afterwards and use the study program for adults that we have so I'd recommend that I also wrote a book that goes along with the series and a group could read that I think in a focused way and and study it so I recommend those two I've written more academic sort of books but those were meant the series is meant for a broader audience so I recommend that stay with it use the adult study program use the book and work with a group on it you know please and just one last one I have four boys which are almost teen eight or teenagers and young adults yeah it would be a really bad thing if I paid them to watch it and I'm serious whatever works you know I mean I trust your paternal instincts there yeah well buying our way to faith you know where's Martin Luther when you need it right know whatever works I trust you on that yes may I ask you one more that I hope you can recall it because I only saw one on public TV yeah and that was when you were talking about Paul mm-hmm it was that episode and you ended I don't know it was rather peculiar you said that Paul saw God or saw Jesus now he maybe was inspired but where did you get that that he saw him again I have to show you work I mean he the Lord I'm just relying there on the New Testament accounts I mean it he encountered the Lord saw him but he didn't see him as far as I can read okay I don't remember the exact bring everybody thank you would yeah I mean I am Lutheran but you gave a very good talk oh good and and much better I think your your TV thing is a little too fast for me you know you could make it longer in slower okay thank you and I'm overexposed too prevalent no I appreciate that I don't remember I the main point about Paul that he encountered the Lord I mean how we interpret that you know I forget exactly what I said this series but over here so Kay yeah went over here please have how they think up yes my name is Joseph Lee please um I was my attention was caught by what you said about your niece is religion textbook yeah because I'm old enough to remember when our parish priest had to burn the Baltimore Catechism and they were replaced by books with pictures of clowns collages balloons if there was any doctrine it was in the caption under the picture yeah I have an Emmy in theology from a Catholic University and I'm working on my doctoral dissertation in New Testament at a Catholic University here and would say I don't want to name them because I think they have very little in common with the Catholic faith and I've talked to parents who said that they won't send another child to a Catholic University because they lose their faith I've also taught five and a half years scripture history of doctrine my impression is that after twelve years of Catholic education elementary in high school it's quite possible that a graduate would know a lot about service and justice which is great that's Baird of our mission but very little about Eucharist the sacraments sexual morality I only go to a Catholic University and they're taught how to dissent from things they never learned about to begin why that's my impression from both studying and teaching new in Catholic universities I wonder if you have any thoughts about that yeah it could I mean so it's again a complex set of things you're raising I agree with you we're from the same generation I mean I grew up with the banners and balloons Catholicism and it was a disaster I mean I have no hesitation saying that now I don't blame people it was a confusing time after the council but it was a disaster and I think of the Baltimore Catechism now and find it extremely powerful that little kids were learning pretty complicated things back in the 50s now did it need to be reformed undoubtedly but it shouldn't have been in the direction of banners and balloons and so I'm with you on that the university thing I think it's complicated depends on where you are which university which professors I've had you know wonderful experience of the riches of the Catholic tradition at Catholic universities and I've had the experience you talk about - so I think it depends on the place and faculties are are divided sometimes and then there's a distinction between you know dissenting from the essentials of the faith and perhaps a legitimate exploration of theological themes that can go on in the university setting so sometimes an people can fudge that distinction but I'm with you I'm I think if if people are taught essentially to dissent from the essentials of Christianity then what's the point of having a Catholic University so I'm with the I meant and I'm with you about banners and balloons I want kids and I'm happy when I hear that the kids might watch the series and maybe not take in every bit of it but you know why not and if we got I've got this 18 year old reading Shakespeare and Virgil and Latin and Einstein I don't know why they can't read Thomas Aquinas and Agustin so I'm with you on that absolutely before you come over there I know that one of the students asked me to throw to you about the violence piece because that's so critical yeah from our within our Christian tradition helped us think about the fact that we have a long history in against Jews yeah Muslims the Crusades yeah one of our student groups is changing their name on campus nationally to try to distance themselves from that language of pursue help us talk about that history within our own tradition as Christians of violence yeah good and it's helpful that's another part I didn't really address in the talk but I think a basic Christian truth is the human beings go bad and it's a way of stating our doctrine of original sin I mean that we just we tend to go bad there's something often us and so I think our own doctrinal tradition teaches us to expect bad behavior furthermore we have the resources to name bad behavior as truly bad behavior namely when a Christian does something like persecute a minority or engage in witch hunts or inquisitions and so on we can say that's out of step with Jesus who said love your enemies bless those who curse you pray for those who mail treat you someone strikes you on the right cheek turn to give him the other the Jesus who hung on the cross saying Father forgive them the risen Christ who showed his wounds and then said Shalom in other words looking at themes patterns trajectories that's what it's about and so when Christians act out of step with that we can say clearly you're out of step and more to it we expect them to go bad so in that way I think we shouldn't be overly scandalized like oh my god that means the whole project is coming undone in fact the project conditions us to expect it and it gives us the resources for naming why it's off kilter so I think the best of the Christian tradition rises up in names those as dysfunctional expressions you know and that's what the best of our like Martin Luther King has done and so many others Dorothy Day and and st. Francis of Assisi and so on so I guess I'd play it that way you know please father thank you for your great message in your experience how does one effectively engage those who live life with a posture of apathy toward virtuous ethical living such that all that matters to them is kind of satisfying their own sensual appetites or repetitive desires yeah good I mean Paul Tillich again he he said the worst danger spiritually is what he called self-complacent finitude Carl Bart said the worst of the deadly sins is not pride its sloth it's always certainly is right you know that they're both right and saying that when you just spiritually shut down this would slow with means doesn't mean like just being lazy it means you've spiritually shut down that my life is just about satisfying my appetites I mean one way to do it is that kind of a 12-step thing which is that will lead inevitably to hitting the bottom it just will because we're not built that way I'm with Augustine right our Lord you made us for yourself therefore the hearts Russell's the Russell V we're wired for God and therefore that relentless a bracketing of God leads to a very deep unhappiness sometimes all you can do is wait for someone to hit bottom where they realize that deep unhappiness and then to be there in love and compassion and reaching out you know with the gospel another way to do it you know think of someone who says I want to be a great golfer but don't tell me how to golf right then I'm going to go off any way I want cuz I'm my own man on my own woman I'm going to golf my way well good luck with that program right I mean any golfer knows that what you want is a great teacher who is going to place in your body and mind and all that the rhythms and and patterns that make good golf possible that I'm free to play the more I surrender to the law right see we get it in sports all the time we had a very easily in sports or at fitness you know well doctor I don't know I'm so unfit I laze around all day neat Big Macs and caramel sundaes well duh that's why you're unhappy so you need to get the law of good health in you right but someone when it comes to morality we don't buy that principal I don't know why we resist it but that the law is meant to place within you the capacity to achieve the good and once you get that then you start saying as the psalmist does Lord how I love your law right how I meditate upon it day and night I think of this whenever I'm a golf or a bad golfer if I break 90 and blue and really well that's where I am with golf but you know I get Golf Digest magazine and what's Golf Digest if any golfers here it's filled with laws right it's diagrams and pictures and how to swing an elbow position and and Here I am like I'm lying in bed and I but I'm reading my Golf Digest what am i doing I'm meditating upon the law day and night right because I I want to put the law of golf in my body well the same is true of morality you know that's why the psalmist says that is Lord I I meant of course I meditate on your law day night because I want it in me so that's a way I think to maybe tease someone into a into a better attitude toward the law and that moral sense you know and we come over here and our last question is going to be with Josh okay of our great students okay although my name is Martin Valadez I just have a question I guess about the Latin Mass you know it seems that with the Catholic Church there seems to be kind of a turn towards going back to the way things were in a sense with the new translation that just came about at home and with Pope Benedict and certain things that he has done up to this point um so I'm wondering what do you think about I guess where the church a Catholic Church is going in the future do you see any kind of return with um the Latin Mass with maybe things like which way the priest is facing and kneeling it when you receive the Eucharist in in the Western Church no you see anything like that a return in anyway not really obscene Pope Benedict is a man of vatican ii that's the key to understanding him and John Paul II Pope Benedict even more than John Paul he was one of the chief Parigi at the council meaning theological experts as a very young man but he was at vatican ii helped to produce vatican ii and it seemed the rest of his life as an attempt to interpret vatican ii correctly so I don't read him I read him liturgically as trying to appropriate fully what vatican ii was arguing for he's not trying to go back to a pre conciliar a good example of the new text you're talking about the new texts are based upon latin text that were formulated after vatican ii what it is an attempt to be more faithful to the those latin texts the ones that we had been dealing with frankly weren't very faithful to it they were very loosely translated the new ones are a much tighter more faithful translation but not of pre conciliar tax they're all post conciliar latin texts that are now rendered i think more faithfully one way you can tell i know if there's some some spanish-speaking catholics here but look at the spanish text of the liturgy it's now like our english liturgy that they were much closer to the latin text than we were in english so i don't think it's right to see benedict as like harkening back to a pre conciliar he's a council man who wants to read the council right it is the way I would I would look at it you know before we go to Josh you get the last one okay what's it this gentleman let him come in please the last question kind of address what I was going to ask you Father yeah and it kind of I'm a member of one of the Eastern Catholic churches the serum elantra Church yeah and a lot of things Vatican two is trying to address I feel it was kind of being practiced in the Eastern Church already yeah suspicion of the laypeople you know we have married and non married clergy there's different questions that came up is there any do you have one one questions do you have any plans to make a video of eastern and western Catholicism with a more emphasis on the Eastern Churches yeah I wish I had many people ask me about that when I was doing this series and I always said truthfully that I would be very interested I just need a lot more money and because and I did I mean if I had a lot more money and a little more time I would like to do it I don't claim any great expertise but I find them fascinating it's many of the Eastern Churches so yeah I'd love to if I could and if there was a follow-up question just about the I think you're right about many of the forms of Vatican 2 that were already present in some other forms of Christianity you know quite right quite right please father Barron thanks so much for coming I have a rather simple question but I think that's ok sometimes yeah I just wanted to ask what you believe your goal of evangelism to be when I think about evangelism I think about the Great Commission you know therefore go make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son of the Holy Spirit and to teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you do you feel that your efforts especially with the media is a is lending to disciples being made and is lending to those disciples being obedient to Jesus's commands hope so yeah I mean the first episode on Jesus ends with the declaration of Jesus lordship because I think that's the heart of evangelization the good news is that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and because he wasn't with the dead he is who he says he was namely he's the very embodiment of a loss of God and therefore he's the Lord the one to whom final allegiance is do and I think that is the great Gospel message up and down the ages and yes therefore were called to become as Paul described himself a new lost Chris - hey sue a slave of Christ Jesus he's the slave of this great Lord now what kind of Lord not one of these worldly sinful Lords but the crucified and risen Lord but we should become disciples followers of that Lord and thereby find joy that's the gospel that's what I'm for and so yeah I saw this as a vehicle to do that and what I was delighted by was that when PBS we sent the series to PBS in Chicago and was picked up by a hundred stations around the country they chose four they said we'll take 4 out of the 10 because 10 MB too many but they chose the one on Jesus the one on God the one on Mary and the one on Peter and Paul leading one of my friends to say well of course they're PBS they chose Peter Paul and Mary but but I was delighted with those four choices because the first one ends with the call to follow the lordship of Jesus and so that's evangelization so yeah I agree with you friends will you join me and thank you Father bear one more time thanks appreciate it thank you all thanks thank you god bless you all thank you if you could have a seat to please just one quick housekeeping matter before we get Kevin up um it's tomorrow night we have another amazing speaker coming here Robert Putnam has been a commanding writer and a major speaker in the nation's lexicon of intellectual thought seven o'clock in the chapel right behind us here on leap day the 29th of this month February we will have a me Jill Devine from Vanderbilt Amy Jo Levine is a very well-known New Testament scholar she's Jewish she's going to continue to talk exactly about what we've had tonight the tensions between faith and culture and the questions around Christians and Jews and how we have been on the wrong side of each other's fence and how we can get back together Amy Jill is a commanding person there's one other thing though if you enjoyed tonight's lecture and time here and how could you not but even if you did not enjoy it all of these gatherings we do at the college these tonight the two that are coming and all the rest are done on behalf of an institution that cares for its students its faculty and staff and believes in the life of the mind and faith and once the community to be involved in that so long in that program you found an envelope that the college is inviting you to consider writing your comments questions critiques that I'll read and if you want to write a check we would be most happy to help finance these events all of these things are done free for this community and for the greater city of Chicago so any kind of support you can give we'd be most appreciative we have a small gift for father and as I invite our Catholic chaplain Kevin O'Donnell to come and offer closing prayers in any words that he would like to say thank you all it's so good to have you here on behalf of the whole community and certainly my office's chaplain and dr. ray the president of the college father thank you again so good to have you here you all join me in welcoming Kevin O'Donnell to come on up how many of you actually are were father Bob because you saw his PBS special I kind of I ought to take a picture that cuz just gesture my daughter and I were arguing she insists nobody watches PBS and any words that I would want to say would be just to say thanks again you did that didn't you all the Elmhurst people know not to do then I does Express words of gratitude to Elmhurst College although I teacher during J term I'm largely an outsider really I work for the Diocese of Joliet doing Catholic campus ministry here and Elmhurst is always a great school very supportive of not just our outreach here on campus but of truly of all faiths and discussion and and real learning so grateful to the college for that I did want to begin this prayer by saying the Lord be with you but I don't know what the response would be right and also with you for me not a priest and we're not in church so I'll just say let us remember we are always in the holy presence of God blessed are You Lord God of all creation and astir your goodness that we have this night so your goodness that we've had this time with to hear from father Bob Barron it is right and just that you are given praise for you are the source of all life and all holiness you are the truth we seek grateful for the ministry of father Bob make you continue to bless him richly grateful that he tells a genuine story of the Christian faith a prayer of gratitude for this College and its support of learning and its generosity and engagement in the community we ask that you send us all forth with your blessing this evening challenge to bring light into the darkness amen you

Channel: Elmhurst University

Views: 173,663

Rating: 4.6842103 out of 5

Keywords: 2012, 02, 08, Lecture, Evangelizing, the, Culture, Father, Robert, Barron

Id: tlps1Svr2Fo

Length: 90min 34sec (5434 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 09 2012