Tag: apologetics

Jewish Purgatory

Ludovico Carracci, An Angel Frees the Souls of Purgatory (1610)

Are Catholics right to pray for the dead, and to believe that such prayers can help to release souls from Purgatory? Many Christians are unaware that these doctrines are Jewish in origin, and that the Jewish practice of praying for the dead continues on to this day. Even fewer are aware that this practice of prayer is tied to a tradition of temporary purgatorial fires after death.

The Idolatry of Anxiety?

James Sant, Courage, Anxiety and Despair - Watching the Battle (1850)

Given the rising tide of anxiety over the election and current events, I think it’s worth discussing the idolatry of anxiety. What does it mean to say that anxiety is a form of idolatry? And how do we rid ourselves of this subtle idolatry?

Six Biblical Passages to Revolutionize Your View of Prayer and Heaven

Matthias Gerung, The Triumph of the Lamb / The Fall of Babylon (1532)

Protestants tend to be opposed to praying to the Saints and Angels for two reasons: (1) it’s offensive to the dignity of God, since we’re going to someone besides Him; or (2) it’s a waste of time, since we can go directly to God. This hints at the underlying issue – that Catholics and Protestants tend to think of prayer and Heaven very differently. So the core question ought to be: is the Catholic vision of prayer and Heaven true?

Answering 6 Arguments Against the “Apocrypha”

Zacharias, woodcut from the Nuremberg Chronicles (1493)

Protestant Bibles have seven fewer books than Catholic Bibles. These seven books are called “the Deuterocanon” by Catholics, and “the Apocrypha” by Protestants (although, confusingly, they also use “the Apocrypha” to refer to several other books, ones that are rejected by Catholics and Protestants alike).

So what’s the basis for the Protestant rejection of these books? Matt Slick, at the popular Protestant website CARM (Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry), offers six reasons, each of which turns out to rely upon lies, deceptions, or double standards.

3 Surprising Lessons from Jesus’ Weirdest Parable

Hieronymus Bosch, Death and the Miser (detail) (1490)

The weirdest and most troubling of Jesus’ parables is almost certainly the parable of the dishonest manager in Luke 16, in which Jesus presents a parable of a manager who, upon being fired, exploits his position to cut deals with his master’s clients so that he can try to leverage this into a job with them. Rather than being justly furious, the master *praises him* for his ingenuity.

What on earth is going on? Three things to keep in mind with this parable.

Celebrating the Real St. Francis of Assisi

Nazario Gerardi as St. Francis of Assisi, from the film Francesco, Giullare di Dio

Pope Pius XI, G.K. Chesterton, and Pope Francis have all warned about the danger of a sort of “False Francis of Assisi,” of loving a sort of distorted vision of the great Saint of Assisi.

The truth is, all of those things that the world (rightly) loves about St. Francis are, in fact, simply the natural result of St. Francis’ love of God. If you ignore that root of sanctity, you end up with these false Francises: Francis the Hippie, Francis the Italian Nationalist, Francis the poet, etc. The true Francis is Francis the Lover, which is to say, Francis the Saint.

But Who Created God?

Cima da Conegliano, God the Father (1517)

A surprisingly common objection raised by atheists against the idea of God is “who created the Creator?” The argument asks, essentially, why theists think that creation needs a Creator, but the Creator doesn’t. For example, Lawrence Krauss asks, “the declaration of a First Cause still leaves open the question, ‘Who created the creator?’ After all, what is the difference between arguing in favor of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one?”