We received a Catholic book catalog in the mail this week. Today I flipped through it out of curiosity and my neverending search for More Good Books! On page 56 of the catalog I read two book descriptions that left me baffled. I had to read them again because in our marriage, Johnny is the sharper mind of all things theological and I figured I missed something. However, even I was able to spy an awful dichotomy that proves we are all not very smart sometimes, even the most brilliant minds. One of the books is titled Ecumenical Jihad by Peter Kreeft:
"Documenting the spiritual and moral decay of our times, Kreeft issues a wake-up call to all God-fearing Christians, Jews and Muslims to unite together in a 'religious war' against the common enemy of godless secular humanism."
What?! You must understand that Peter Kreeft is a wonderful theologian, a very orthodox Catholic writer. As Johnny said upon my reading him the blurb, "How could he be so stupid and try that crap?" And it gets worse; below the blurb is an endorsement by another great orthodox Catholic priest and writer, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. He said of the book, "A rollickingly adventurous journey into truths that might change people forever." Good Lord. I've heard Neuhaus speak twice on my beloved C-Span BookTV and he is amazing; he also heads up the rocking journal, First Things. Like I said, I am no theologian but nonetheless I can recognize serious stupidity in that book. There are no common truths between Christianity, Judiasm, and Islam. All three religions claim to believe in and worship God and our world today would like to be lovey-dovey and say, "Well now, isn't that sweet! We're all such Good people and believe in God." Sorry folks, but that will never be. Only Christians know the one true God - the Holy Trinity - Lord God, Lord Jesus Christ, and Lord Holy Spirit.
Right above the Ecumenical Jihad blurb was another book by Kreeft titled A Refutation of Moral Relativism. You can probably guess what my sassy side wants to tear apart. I will try to be kind and say he can't refute moral relativism in one book and then slip into relativist shoes in another book. The blurb for this book mentions he refutes moral relativism by defending moral absolutes. Yet he wrote a book about a relativist jihad that destroys the prominence of the only absolute - Jesus who is the way, The Truth, and the life. Granted, I have not read these books and perhaps I should do so but by reading the catalog descriptions and reviews on Amazon I believe my assumptions are correct. This kind of topic bugs the hell out of me lately. It's not because I merely want to be the smart Christian and prove everyone wrong. It is that today, more often than not, everyone just wants to get along instead of proclaim the Truth. There are not truths. We should all heed the importance of words - Truth means only one. It breaks my heart when the Truth is maligned by others or myself. Christians have a great responsibility to bear Light to all the world.
Well, that is about as "profound" as I will be tonight. I could write a righteous angry novella but domestic pleasure calls. Johnny leaves again tomorrow for another week and I'd rather spend the evening with him - cooking, sipping red wine (or in his case, any cocktail with vodka), folding laundry, procrastinating cleaning the bathroom one more day, and reading.
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