I'm currently reading Israel in Egypt, a review from the perspective of an Egyptologist on where the evidence sits for Israel's journey into and out of Egypt. It seems most of the in-vogue theories are from biblical scholars wit no knowledge of the Egyptian language or latest archeology. I think it's pretty good but not being fluent in Ancient Egyptian, it's hard to say if the author is right. Regardless, would recommend.

Labels: books, religion

This is much better than the movie. As a matter of fact, it's not really related to the movie. No romance plots to speak of, and a lot of thinking about what citizenship means. Also what it means to be a soldier. Not sure why everyone thinks it's fascist.

Labels: books

I just finished reading The Soul of the Embryo by David Albert Jones, a British bioethicist. This book was published in 2004 and is "an enquiry into the status of the human embryo in the Christian tradition." The date of publication is significant because science has already changed so much in the past decade that some of the facts in the last couple chapters of the book are already out-dated. For example Jones states that only sperm can be frozen and not ova, that is no longer the case. He also contrasts Britains publicly funded abortion and healthcare system with America's private health care system. With the HHS Mandate and Obamacare, abortion coverage is increasingly funded publicly by tax-payer dollars as part of our new nationalized healthcare system. So this changes the landscape of the debate. But I digress, and these are minor details.

The scope of the book is not the most recent scientific developments, but rather it is to cover 2000 years of Christian perspective on the status of the embryo from a theological, philosophical, ethical, historical, and scientific perspective. So the history of our scientific understanding of the embryo is an important part of the puzzle, but it is only one aspect of this ambitious work.

Jones' summary is comprehensive and deals with topics that get at the heart of the human mystery:  Do we have a soul? What is the nature of the soul? Where do our souls come from? Where do they go when we die? As you can see, these are questions not necessarily answerable by science, and so much of the book delves into intricacies of historical philosophy and theology. It begins with characteristics of the pagan society and their treatment of abortion and infants. (It was not good, infanticide and infant-abandonment was widely practiced.) He also gives a brief outline of Jewish perspective in contrast to this, and then traces from Judaism the emergence of Christian attitudes toward the unborn in contrast to the pagan standard.

Jones gives philosophical and scientific understandings of embryos from non-Christian thinkers such as Hippocrates, Socrates, and Galen. Then with the advent of Christianity he goes into the earliest writings of topics such as abortion and miscarriage from the Didache to the church fathers. Contrary to what some people have told me, the earliest church always forbade abortion and treated all life as sacred. The notion of delayed ensoulment did come from the ancient Greeks and reemerged in Christian thought with the middle-ages. Some later Church fathers offered contrasting opinions or were frustratingly agnostic on the topic of the time of ensoulment (notably Augustine among them.) Thomas Aquinas favored a delayed ensoulment.

But part of the great disparity of opinion and confusion that emerged in later Christian thought it precisely because of a failure to understand the basic science of how an embryo is formed. Some thought that men alone provided the seed, sowing little homunculi into the fertile woman, who simple cooked and grew the new individual within her. Others thought it was a mixing of male and female fluids. Others favored the woman's role as dominant over the man's. Some people thought ensoulment didn't occur until "quickening" when the fetus's movements become detectable. This stems from the idea that rational thought is required to an ensouled being, and movement of limbs indicates the presence of a will and thus a soul. There was a long-held belief that baby boys were ensouled sooner than baby-girls. All of this is because of a poverty of scientific understanding.

It wasn't until the invention of the microscope that the female egg was discovered in other mammals, and eventually the human. My guess is that some of these great Christian thinkers, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, if they access to the modern medical understanding of how fertilization and embryo development takes place, might change their opinion.

As a scientist myself, I was a bit bored by historical overview of Christian views on the embryo, although I know this is important material, because I felt that so much was argued from the realm of ideas, and I do believe science must inform this discussion, but for the longest time, there was no idea of how conception took place, or how an embryo developed. The term "soul" at times equated to "life-force" and there could have been no understanding by the ancients of the molecular fabric (DNA) that underwrites and directs the destiny of each embryo to unfold into a unique being.

I was most interested in the final few chapters which did focus on the modern legislation and societal effects of abortion, IVF, artificial twinning, cloning, etc. and how these have impacted the Christian view of the embryo. These last few chapters seemed the most relevant to me, but sadly already need an update to keep up with the rapid changes in biotechnology that has already occurred in the past 10 years.

And yet, this is the most comprehensive book I have found on the topic, and so it is still worth a read by those seriously interested in the topic. Although the author is writing about the history of the Christian perspective, he does a great job of acknowledging secular views (which obviously shape Christian thought) and addressing the diversity of perspectives within modern Christian circles. For example he takes a serious look at the view of abortion as a compassionate option for women, which is a common view I encounter in others today.

Perhaps the book needs a sequel or update, but again it is one of the only books I have seen that even begins to address this issue so deeply, and it is still worthy of a read, especially for those interested in the historical Church views on abortion and the state of the souls of the unborn.

Labels: book, books, catholic, contraception, history, prolife, science, technology

This week I finished reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, which I started around Christmas. Given that it was over 700 pages, this may be the longest book I read, and in one of the shortest periods of time. I don't mean that to brag, but usually I find myself too busy to commit to lengthy works, because it takes me so long that sometimes I forget what happened earlier in the novel. Buy Ayn Rand doesn't read like War and Peace or Middlemarch, and honestly, if you did put it down for a while and came back, you could still know what is going on. But you won't put it down, because the story is so gripping. I turned back to the novel every chance I got.

After finishing The Fountainhead, I picked up a vastly different book, Abby Johnson's Unplanned. It is a short, easy to read, autobiographical work about a woman who volunteered and worked with Planned Parenthood for 8 years, before reaching a dramatic turn in which she changed her views from prochoice to prolife after witnessing an ultrasound-guided abortion. Ayn Rand and Abby Johnson are about as diametrically opposed as you can get philosophically. Rand has strong views against service and government overreach in people's lives, and Johnson has a heart made for service. She discovered Planned Parenthood at a volunteer fair, and her whole life was oriented towards social services and helping others in need. It is the kind of career that would make Rand shudder, not because of abortion, but because of the premise of sacrificing oneself and one's life to help women in crisis.

And that's what Johnson was doing. What was so beautiful and compelling about Johnson's story, is that is shows the clinical workers at Planned Parenthood, and how so many of them are women with large hearts in the right place of doing good for others. But when Johnson became director of the clinic and learned about the finances of Planned Parenthood, her superiors began to pressure her to have a better fiscal bottom line, and that meant more abortions. Family planning and contraception were not money-makers; abortion was. So she was pressured to expand abortion at her clinic by offering more "medical" abortions (Ru-486, as opposed to surgical procedures) which clashed with her conscience as Johnson had had her own awful experience with the drug and was very careful about administering it. She also celebrated adoption and was happy when women made courageous decisions to parent or give up their child for adoption. But Planned Parenthood wasn't happy with those outcomes, because they didn't help the bottom line. This put Johnson at odds with Planned Parenthood, even though she still supported a woman's right to chose.

The literal and symbolic fence which separated prolife and prochoice people in Bryan, Texas where Johnson worked became a theme throughout the book. Johnson's story is compelling because she has been whole-heartedly on both sides of the fence, and the conversion from one side to the other is a beautiful testimony to the Holy Spirit tugging at someone's heart and answering the prayers of many around her. It struck a chord with me, because I had my own dramatic conversion around prolife issues, and working through the darkness of one of the worst moments of my life, was the groaning of the Holy Spirit, pushing me to reach out to the Father who forgives all things, and makes all things new, and brings life out of death. I never worked for Planned Parenthood, but I was an activist with them, taking the bus to DC to march for a woman's right, and marching across the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. I was on an email list and contacted my representatives and wrote letters in support of prochoice causes. I believed so strongly in these issues, that when the "scales fell off my eyes" and I began to see the truth about IVF, abortion, and the morning-after pill, it was a dramatic turn for me, costing me friendships and causing me to radically reorient myself in life. But like Johnson, in the end I was richer for it, I developed new and deeper friendships, and found a life-giving path that opened up so many wonderful opportunities. It was not an easy, nor sudden transition, and I did not had a single pivotal moment as Johnson did, but rather a series of small but powerful moments and conversations that gradually tipped the scales for me. God has been very good to me since I heeded the call from the Spirit to return. I think there may be a book in me as well. I have attempted to write snippets of my conversion story, but it is difficult to structure a narrative as it was very complex. Johnson's story is actually pretty straightforward and simple, so it makes a good quick read. My own story has a lot of layers of complexity, that I have trouble weaving into a single narrative. I look back and try to rationalize what happened and put a cohesive story to it. I want to be able to say, "This is what happened, for these reasons," but every time I do, I feel it is still not the whole picture.

At any rate, I recommend both The Fountainhead and Unplanned for entirely different reasons. The Fountainhead is incredibly well written, and raises many fascinating philosophically interesting points that are intriguing to think about and discuss, preferably with a good friend who has also read the book. The characters are fascinating studies in themselves.

Unplanned is not the most sophisticated or well written of books, but the story, which is true, is so compelling, that I couldn't put it down. Perhaps because it was so personally relevant to me. But I read it within a few days. It's a story that anyone who has dealt with Planned Parenthood, or cares deeply about abortion one way or another, needs to read.

Labels: books, prolife

Fathers and Sons was an exceptionally quick read for me. And this was quite a beautiful book. Perhaps it was a little short for my liking, even, as I got to know the characters, and see them develop, but it all felt quite rushed. If I had to give one sentence on the message, it would be that people are complicated.

Russia of the 19th century is probably my favorite period for literature, what with the debates over freeing of the serfs, nihilism, liberalism, Slavophilia, etc. This book is a bit about intergenerational clash, old ideas against new ideas. It is also very much about love, and how love can make or break people. Pavel Petrovich, I felt a deep sympathy for him, a man running from himself.

Turgenev got serious grief from both the Right and the Left when he published it. That's always a promising sign, in my book, that the author has something good to say. I think Mark Shea has a similar problem sometimes.

Labels: books

I just finished this this morning, only a little late for this. Well worth a re-read, and I may re-read it again later this year. Summary in one sentence:

Be not afraid!

Labels: books, catholic

Did God or a demon speed her pen? The writings of Italian mystic Maria Valtorta continue to rouse furious debate more than 40 years after her death. Her supporters insist that her principal work, the five-volume The Poem of the Man-God (1956-59), is a "flawless" expansion of the gospels that records heaven-sent visions and direct dictation from Jesus Christ. But in 1959, the Poem became the second-to-last publication placed on the Index of Forbidden Books.

In saner times, something being condemned by the Holy Office might result in Catholics understanding that it sucks. In these confused times, it results in a large number of confused people talking about how wonderful it is.

More than a decade ago, the Medjugorje movement has become entangled in the Valtorta controversy because pilgrimages to the Bosnia site were major vectors for disseminating the Poem. Two of the seers--one of whom is writing her own "inspired" Life of Mary-- have been queried on Our Lady's views of the work and reported a positive response. This reflects an ominous contemporary trend among followers of apparitions to treat mystics as the ultimate arbiters of Catholic belief and practice.

Reason enough to condemn Medjugorje, I think. And of course, a racial dimension sneaks in.

But Valtorta's anachronisms are not nearly as objectionable as her distorted characterizations of Jesus and Mary. They are, of course, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and alabaster-skinned quite unlike the swarthy Jews around them. Because a pale complexion signifies holiness, Mary Magdalene and John are also fair while Judas is dark.

It's always a bad day when someone tries to convince you that Jesus and Mary weren't Jewish.

Labels: books, catholic

In explaining what the after-life may look like, Fr. Groeschel does make reference to Dante's Inferno, but he places much more of an emphasis The Dream of Gerontius by John Henry Newman and other poetic and theological sources. Fr. Groeschel writes as he speaks - clear and directly, with occasional anecdotal or humorous tidbits to spice up the narrative.

Fr. Groeschel is, as always, well grounded in history, theology, psychology, science, and the literary, giving a very well-rounded shape to his discussions of heaven, hell, and purgatory. For a short book (only about a 100 pages) he packs a punch. There is much worthy of rereading in this thought-provoking book. I read it rather quickly, but I have already gone back over sections to read it slowly and ponder more deeply some of the content. The book is theologically dense, and yet a pleasurable and easy read. Fr. Groeschel explains the divine in human terms, and makes some of the more difficult concepts quite simple and graspable.

I had the pleasure of hearing Fr. Groeschel speak last winter in Albany, NY, where I purchased this book and had the chance to receive Fr. Groeschel's blessing and autograph. The talk was on life after death, a subject of much interest to me these days, but I have not gotten to the book till recently. This topic seems to come up a lot, especially in my work as a catechist, so I am glad I finally got around to reading this short book. I recommend it to all who catechize, defend the faith, or are simply curious as to what our eternal moment with the Lord might be like. If you sit with this text it may well impact your faith-life, as it has mine.

Labels: books, religion

Labels: books, faith, religion

Of interest to the Columbia University crowd.

Labels: books, education, New York

In The Five Gospels the Jesus Seminar warns against looking for a comfortable Jesus. That is sound advice. What I have tried to demonstrate in this book, however, is that the truly uncomfortable Jesus, the genuinely “countercultural” Jesus, is not the one reconstructed according to the ethos of contemporary academics-whether it is Crossan’s politically correct revolutionary Jesus or Borg’s charismatic-founder Jesus or any of the others-but the one inscribed in the canonical Gospels. The Jesus who truly challenges this age, as every age, is the one who suffers in obedience to God and calls others to such suffering service in behalf of humanity. This is the Jesus that classical Christianity has always proclaimed; this is an understanding of discipleship to which classical Christianity has always held.

- The Real Jesus, epilogue, by Luke Timothy Johnson

Labels: books, theology

The book that is.

Borg is brilliant and challenging. His uncovering of the historical Jesus, a pre-Easter versus post-Easter understanding, may seem irrelevant to Biblical literalists, but for those with an open mind, this book may prove revolutionary. At least it did for me. So many Gospel stories that I struggled with, had difficulty reconciling with my personal experience and understanding of God and Jesus, were given radically new explanations that breathed fresh life into some of the tired and awkward explanations I had previously accepted. Borg espouses a sort of "Neotraditionalism" one that goes back to the roots of Christianity, seeking to understand who Jesus is as the disciples understood Him. The result is a striking emphasis on Jesus' humanity, but one that makes him seem all the more radical and relevant in today's world. Well worth a read, even if you disagree with some of Borg's assumptions.

Labels: books, history

Now I have wondered if there is a technical term for the time it takes a book to suck you into the story. Sometimes a book gets you going from the first pages and sometimes much more is required to be setup before you really enter the story.

I pretty much am always into a book, outside of a few real stinkers. But for the rest of the world, this is an interesting analysis.

Labels: books, humor

As I sit by the phone waiting for a call from the emergency room about my father, I finished reading Come be my Light, the book detailing the private writings of Mother Teresa, as preserved in the thousands of letters and notes she wrote. I have been reading this book for a couple months and it is appropriate I finish it this morning, the feast of Mother Teresa, and the day I am scheduled to enter into a religious community. With my father in the hospital I wonder if I will still be moving today, but all is in God's hands.

This book, and Mother Teresa's Secret Fire written by MC priest, Joseph Langford, have more than any other writings aside the Gospels themselves, influenced my spirituality and been a great source of strength. I encourage everyone who struggles with darkness, or feels called to serve the poor, to take a close look at the life and spirituality of Mother Teresa. Her mission of responding to "I Thirst" and a life of quenching the thirst of Jesus, is really a mission for us all. You would do very well to start with these two books.

Labels: books, liturgical calendar, religious life, saints

Labels: books

A most intense work of literature. This was my first time reading it.

My first impression was that the Ancien Regime and the French Revolution were much scarier places than I remembered from my history classes. Terrifying. The depiction of the Defarges was particularly powerful.

My second impression was that it was somewhat shorter than I wished, that events moved too quickly from one point to the next. Or maybe I read it too quickly. I suppose part of the reason that I preferred Bleak House was because I felt that the characters had more time to develop and become part of my mental menagerie. Here some of the characters, in particular Mr. Carton and Mr. Lorry, began that process but were unable to complete it due to the untimely end of the book.

On the other hand, I suppose the fact that I stayed up one Friday night and missed the beginning of the great Public House Beer Pong Tournament in order to read the end of the book suggests that I enjoyed it immensely.

Any suggestions for my next Dickens-like book?

Labels: books

I've had this book on the "What I'm reading" section of my website for four years, and that's not because I haven't been updating. Never before have I been so humbled by a book. Well, a non-religious book anyway.

Having no formal training in number theory, or anyone to talk about these things with, I don't know if this book is really good, but I do know that I learned much about what numbers are, the relations between infinite series and infinite products, and that it is possible to understand a page that is mostly Greek letters and arrows. I think seeing the deep relationships between apparently unrelated numbers, especially when it comes to counting things, is a view of the infrastructure of the universe. Sort of like going backstage at a play.

Perhaps the material is a little advanced for the introductory student, however, as in the middle of one proof the author drops in a result from Ramanujan which he later describes as pulling a rabbit out of a hat. For the non-math types, this is essentially proof by graduate student, except using the most brilliant mathematician who ever lived.

At any rate, this is a fine text if you want to expand your mind, though I also recommend having four years to bang your head against a brick wall. Though now that I've finished it, perhaps I can help you and it will only take you a year or two. I have to start studying things with actual economic value.

Labels: books

Belloc and GKC's younger brother describe the ins and outs of the British political system circa 1910, and all of the various abuses that come about from having an ossified party system. Also interestingly, they note that the legislature is beholden to the executive, which is beholden to no one. It seems to me that the whole system worked better when the King was at war with Parliament, though that is not a point that they directly address. Secret party slush funds are identified as a major sore point, as they allow the parties to spend their way to victory.

I wonder if anyone has perspective on how functional Parliament is now, and how beholden it is to the parties?

The introductions by Ron Paul and Prince Sforza Ruspoli are somewhat disturbing, but easily skimmed over.

Labels: books, catholic, politics

I've read many works of Nietzsche, but I was having some trouble keeping all of the different ideas in my head at once. This book provides a brief discussion of the main points of Nietzsche's life and several varying interpretations for each of his main ideas. It is not a substitute for reading the works themselves by any means, but it is a useful framework and refresher. I would have appreciated some more depth, but then it wouldn't have really been an introductory text anymore.

Labels: books

Realistically, I will have nothing to say that hasn't already been said. However I do say that this is a very quick read, all things considered, and it has been a long while since I have read a work of such quality.

Also, when I was on a northbound Lexington Avenue express train, an elderly Russian gentleman gave me a lecture on how the title should be "War and Society", which sounds reasonable to me given that I don't know any Russian.

This particular translation supposedly has something of an imprimatur from Tolstoy himself. I don't know if that really matters - did he even know English?

Labels: books