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L e t t e r s
You Teach Fear and Exclusion
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This Rock
Volume 14, Number 2
 February 2003 
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Please cancel my subscription to This Rock. I am sorry that you find Christ’s message so full of rules and regulations. I find that your magazine teaches fear and exclusion rather than focusing on the love message of Jesus Christ. Jesus was about loving and caring for all people and certainly would be against any war that killed people. Killed any people—collateral damage was not a term that Jesus would use.
When your magazine discussed the bishop’s message of peace ("The Bishops’ Statement That Wasn’t," "Brass Tacks," December 2002) you discussed silly rules and not the incredible love of Jesus. I am not interested in having any magazine that talks about Christ but agrees with war in my home! If there is any money left in my subscription, please forward it to your local chapter of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.
Wayne Henkels
via the Internet
Editor’s reply:
The article with which Mr. Henkels takes issue explained that the U.S. bishops’ recent statement concerning war in Iraq was not intended by the bishops to bind the consciences of American Catholics. The point of the article was liberty of conscience, not what position individuals should take.
Brethren = Follower?
I consider the debate over the relationship of the "brothers of Jesus" to be foolish for two reasons ("Burial Box of St. James Found?", "The Apologist’s Eye," December 2002). First, the word adelphos can be translated into English in nearly a dozen different ways. One cannot make an argument for applying any particular definition.
Second, Luke writes in Act 12:2, "And he [Herod] killed James the brother of John with the sword." If James were the "brother" of Jesus, why would Luke call him the "brother" of John?
Try reading the inscription on the ossuary "James, son of Joseph, brethren [follower] of Jesus."
Jim Reiter
Fairfield, California
Editor’s reply:
We agree that the biblical terms are quite flexible (though adelphos is Greek, and here we are dealing with Aramaic). Also, there were a number of Jameses in the New Testament, and the ossuary is not likely that of the James (son of Zebedee) killed in Acts 12:2. While it is conceivable that the term brother can be used in the sense of follower, it is unlikely to be used in this sense on an ossuary.
As in Dull
A couple of points for your editorial staff regarding the December 2002 issue: 1. If you’re going to use the French [in a headline], at least get the gender right. It’s "Vive la difference" not "Vive le difference" 2. The lead sentence in that same article is confusing. It is not at all evident to me (a person unacquainted with the University of North Carolina) that the school requires such reading. A bad start and a turnoff for this old writer/editor. 3. Some readers might want to know how to pronounce Tyndale. Is it "dale" as in hills and dales? Or could it be "duhl" as in dull? We’re also left in limbo as to Tyndale’s fate. Was he, in fact, executed? If so, when, where, how, and by whom might have been of interest. A good writer would have anticipated these questions.
Hugh Mulvaney
via the Internet
Editor’s reply:
And what about that first syllable—is it "Tyn" as in Rin Tin Tin? Or could it be "Tyne" as in fork tine? Speaking of writerly/editorly things, you write "a couple of points" but you make three—four if we count the unnumbered one regarding the fate of William Tyndale.
Pursued by the agents of King Henry VIII, Tyndale (rhymes with "kindle") was apprehended in Belgium in 1535. With the cooperation of Belgian authorities he was burned at the stake for heresy in Vilvorde on October 6, 1536.
Traditionalists Kept the Lamp Lit
I finally had time to peruse the December 2002 issue of This Rock. Naturally the first thing I read was Karl Keating’s "Frontispiece" ("Incomplete Conversion"). It made me wonder if the man I had come to know through his writing and speaking had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and I happened to bump into him during his brief sojourn into reality.
"Unprepared Catholics" is a term that applies to a large number of the uncatechized today, regardless of how they came into the Church. How on earth could Mr. Keating have missed this and be working in apologetics?
Then there is the somewhat underhanded tactic of criticizing a "colleague" and not having the courtesy to name him or his contested work. Haven’t we had enough ambiguity already?
The clincher for me was when Mr. Keating wrote that this unnamed, "formerly reliable apologist" has allied himself with a "raucous fringe." I would like to point out that the fringe Mr. Keating refers to is the "Traditionalist" movement. I wonder if he is aware that if not for this "raucous fringe" he might not even be able to be working in the field of Catholic apologetics without himself being relegated to the back page of some bimonthly handout.
You see, when the rest of us were so disgusted with the hijacked course the Church had taken, at least in the West, after the close of the Second Vatican Council, the "Traditionalists" were still there in the pews. They were stating their case, and ours, in regard to the heterodox direction the Church seemed to be taking. They enabled those of us who weren’t around yet to come in with our orthodox apologetics and actually have a voice.
I strongly disagree with your conclusions, Mr. Keating. Whether you want to admit it or not, one of the main reasons there is this interest in apologetics today is due to the fact that these fervent Catholics kept the lamp lit when a good number of people were content to put it under the bushel basket.
William Sellars
via the Internet
Karl Keating replies:
Mr. Sellars missed my chief point, which was that a few prominent apologists have failed to develop a "Catholic way of thinking." They have not unloaded all their pre-Catholic (usually Protestant) baggage, and they have adopted eccentric ideas and sloppy ways of writing or arguing. Some of these people (by no means all) call themselves Traditionalists, but they are not representative of the many thousands of Traditionalists in this country. They have allied themselves with what I term the "raucous fringe" of the Traditionalist movement, which is unfortunate for them and for apologetics. While the Traditionalist movement as a whole has done much good, the "raucous fringe" has been a net drag.
Judaism Does Not Have a Tendency to Violence
The article by James Akin ("Islam, Peace, and Violence," "Brass Tacks," October 2002) states that Judaism has a potential for violence similar to Islam but not as virulent. This is not borne out by Scripture. In John 1:1 and following, the Lord Jesus Christ is called the Word of God. Paragraph 105 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "The books of the Old and New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church." If Judaism has a tendency to violence, it follows that God must also have this tendency, which is utter nonsense.
In Judaism as in Christianity, people did many things that were not taught in God’s holy word. Notice when God in the Old Testament had his people go to war against another nation, it was because of his sovereign will. In the history of these nations, you will find they were involved in moral degradation, human sacrifice, idol worship, and other things that are detestable in the eyes of God. And, as in the case of Nineveh, they had opportunities to repent but chose not to do so.
When Jews fought against each other they did things outside of his will. Within Christianity, such events that caused the death of innocents—such as the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and the Holocaust—were not the teachings of God and were most certainly not his will.
The Lord Jesus in Mark 12:29 quotes from Deuteronomy 6:4 when he talks about loving God and then goes on to talk about loving your neighbor as yourself. This is the foundation of Judaism and of Christianity. To think in any way that this foundation was violent is not to understand the basic foundation of the faith. Mr. Akin needs to understand this, and so do you.
Lyle A. Nemzin
Skokie, Illinois
Jimmy Akin replies:
It is undeniable that the Old Testament contains more endorsements of killing than the New Testament. Because modern Judaism makes use of Old Testament revelation without supplementing it with New Testament revelation, it remains the case that non-Christian Jews will find it easier to justify killing than Jewish or Gentile Christians. But even the New Testament recognizes that loving others and properly valuing human life sometimes means taking life in order to defend it. The Church agrees (CCC 2263-2265, 2308-2309). Christianity is not a pacifist religion.
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