Author: Msgr. Charles Pope

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Exploring Four Myths About the Crusades

Back in Seminary I remember a Church History instructor warning us not to be “too defensive” of the Church when others point to our shortcomings. He said that the Church is so big and so old, that just about anything you can say probably has some truth to it. He went on to clarify that it didn’t mean that everything said about the Church was necessarily fair or set in proper context to be understood. Neither was it fair that the Church was often singled out. Nevertheless given the billions who have been Catholic over 2000 years, there are plenty of sinners and plenty of saints, lots of glory and lots that was gory. So be careful he said, “Never deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish.

Hence when we come to the Crusades, we have a bit of a balancing act. At one level, the usual pointing to this historical period with selective moral outrage, is a tired old attack on the Church, an attack, usually simplistic in its understanding, devoid of historical context, and quite one-sided. That said, there were surely excesses and gravely sinful acts that often come in the fog of any war, religious or not.

With that in mind I’d like to look at excerpts from article recently published over at First Principles, the Article is Entitled: Four Myths About the Crusades. The Author is Paul Crawford. In the excerpts that follow, his text is in bold, black italics. My comments are in red plain text. The full text of his lengthy and excellent article can be read by click the title above.

Myth #1: The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and even a cursory chronological review makes that clear. In a.d. 632, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, North Africa, Spain, France, Italy, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were all Christian territories. Inside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, which was still fully functional in the eastern Mediterranean, orthodox Christianity was the official, and overwhelmingly majority, religion. Outside those boundaries were other large Christian communities—not necessarily orthodox and Catholic, but still Christian. Most of the Christian population of Persia, for example, was Nestorian. Certainly there were many Christian communities in Arabia.

By a.d. 732, a century later, Christians had lost Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Spain, most of Asia Minor, and southern France. Italy and her associated islands were under threat, and the islands would come under Muslim rule in the next century. The Christian communities of Arabia were entirely destroyed in or shortly after 633, when Jews and Christians alike were expelled from the peninsula. Those in Persia were under severe pressure. Two-thirds of the formerly Roman Christian world was now ruled by Muslims.

What had happened?…The answer is the rise of Islam. Every one of the listed regions was taken, within the space of a hundred years, from Christian control by violence, in the course of military campaigns deliberately designed to expand Muslim territory….Nor did this conclude Islam’s program of conquest….Charlemagne blocked the Muslim advance in far western Europe in about a.d. 800, but Islamic forces simply shifted their focus…toward Italy and the French coast, attacking the Italian mainland by 837. A confused struggle for control of southern and central Italy continued for the rest of the ninth century and into the tenth. …[A]ttacks on the deep inland were launched. Desperate to protect victimized Christians, popes became involved in the tenth and early eleventh centuries in directing the defense of the territory around them…..The Byzantines took a long time to gain the strength to fight back. By the mid-ninth century, they mounted a counterattack….Sharp Muslim counterattacks followed…

In 1009, a mentally deranged Muslim ruler destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and mounted major persecutions of Christians and Jews….Pilgrimages became increasingly difficult and dangerous, and western pilgrims began banding together and carrying weapons to protect themselves as they tried to make their way to Christianity’s holiest sites in Palestine.

Desperate, the Byzantines sent appeals for help westward, directing these appeals primarily at the person they saw as the chief western authority: the pope, who, as we have seen, had already been directing Christian resistance to Muslim attacks….finally, in 1095, Pope Urban II realized Pope Gregory VII’s desire, in what turned into the First Crusade.

Far from being unprovoked, then, the crusades actually represent the first great western Christian counterattack against Muslim attacks which had taken place continually from the inception of Islam until the eleventh century, and which continued on thereafter, mostly unabated. Three of Christianity’s five primary episcopal sees (Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria) had been captured in the seventh century; both of the others (Rome and Constantinople) had been attacked in the centuries before the crusades. The latter would be captured in 1453, leaving only one of the five (Rome) in Christian hands by 1500. Rome was again threatened in the sixteenth century. This is not the absence of provocation; rather, it is a deadly and persistent threat, and one which had to be answered by forceful defense if Christendom were to survive.

It is difficult to underestimate the losses suffered by the Church in the waves of Muslim conquest. All of North Africa, once teeming with Christians, was conquered. There were once 500 bishops in North Africa. Now, even to this day, the Christian Church there exists only in ruins buried beneath the sand and with titular but non-residential bishops. All of Asia Minor, so lovingly evangelized by St. Paul, was lost. Much of Southern Europe was almost lost as well. It is hard to imagine any alternative to decisive military action in order to turn back waves of Muslim attack and conquest.

Myth #2: Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich.

Again, not true. Few crusaders had sufficient cash both to pay their obligations at home and to support themselves decently on a crusade.” From the very beginning, financial considerations played a major role in crusade planning. The early crusaders sold off so many of their possessions to finance their expeditions that they caused widespread inflation. Although later crusaders took this into account and began saving money long before they set out, the expense was still nearly prohibitive.

One of the chief reasons for the foundering of the Fourth Crusade, and its diversion to Constantinople, was the fact that it ran out of money before it had gotten properly started, and was so indebted to the Venetians that it found itself unable to keep control of its own destiny. Louis IX’s Seventh Crusade in the mid-thirteenth century cost more than six times the annual revenue of the crown.

The popes resorted to ever more desperate ploys to raise money to finance crusades, from instituting the first income tax in the early thirteenth century to making a series of adjustments in the way that indulgences were handled that eventually led to the abuses condemned by Martin Luther.

In short: very few people became rich by crusading, and their numbers were dwarfed by those who were bankrupted. Most medieval people were quite well aware of this, and did not consider crusading a way to improve their financial situations.

Crawford states elsewhere, that plunder was often allowed or overlooked, when Christian armies conquered, in order that some bills could be paid. Sadly, plunder was commonly permitted in ancient times but was not unique to Christians. Here again, we may wish that Christian sentiments would have meant no plunder at all, but war is seldom orderly, and the motive of every individual solider cannot be perfectly controlled.

The bottom line remains, conducting a crusade was a lousy way to get rich or raise any money at all.

Myth #3: Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives.

This has been a very popular argument, at least from Voltaire on. It seems credible and even compelling to modern people, steeped as they are in materialist worldviews. And certainly there were cynics and hypocrites in the Middle Ages—medieval people were just as human as we are, and subject to the same failings.

However, like the first two myths, this statement is generally untrue, and demonstrably so. For one thing, the casualty rates on the crusades were usually very high, and many if not most crusaders left expecting not to return. At least one military historian has estimated the casualty rate for the First Crusade at an appalling 75 percent, for example.

But this assertion is also revealed to be false when we consider the way in which the crusades were preached. Crusaders were not drafted. Participation was voluntary, and participants had to be persuaded to go. The primary means of persuasion was the crusade sermon. Crusade sermons were replete with warnings that crusading brought deprivation, suffering, and often death….would disrupt their lives, possibly impoverish and even kill or maim them, and inconvenience their families.

So why did the preaching work? It worked because crusading was appealing precisely because it was a known and significant hardship, and because undertaking a crusade with the right motives was understood as an acceptable penance for sin….valuable for one’s soul. The willing acceptance of difficulty and suffering was viewed as a useful way to purify one’s soul

Related to the concept of penance is the concept of crusading as an act of selfless love, of “laying down one’s life for one’s friends.”

As difficult as it may be for modern people to believe, the evidence strongly suggests that most crusaders were motivated by a desire to please God, expiate their sins, and put their lives at the service of their “neighbors,” understood in the Christian sense.

Yes, and such concepts ARE difficult for modern Westerners to believe. Since we are so secular and cynical, the thought of spiritual motives strike us as implausible. But a great Cartesian divide, with its materialist reductionism,  separates the Modern West from the Middle Ages and Christian antiquity.  Those were days when life in this world was brutal and short, and life here was “a valley of tears” to be endured as a time of purification preparing us to meet God. Spiritual principles held much more sway than today.

Myth #4: The crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.

Muslims had been attacking Christians for more than 450 years before Pope Urban declared the First Crusade. They needed no incentive to continue doing so. But there is a more complicated answer here, as well.

The first Muslim crusade history did not [even] appear until 1899. By that time, the Muslim world was rediscovering the crusades—but it was rediscovering them with a twist learned from Westerners. In the modern period, there were two main European schools of thought about the crusades. One school, epitomized by people like Voltaire, Gibbon, and Sir Walter Scott, and in the twentieth century Sir Steven Runciman, saw the crusaders as crude, greedy, aggressive barbarians who attacked civilized, peace-loving Muslims to improve their own lot. The other school, more romantic, saw the crusades as a glorious episode in a long-standing struggle in which Christian chivalry had driven back Muslim hordes.

So it was not the crusades that taught Islam to attack and hate Christians. …Rather, it was the West which taught Islam to hate the crusades.

Yes, the strange self-loathing tendencies of the dying West do supply our detractors, and would-be destroyers, with ample reason to detest us.

I am interested in your thoughts. I don’t think it is necessary to vehemently defend the Church’s and the Christian West’s series of Crusades. There were many regrettable things that accompany any war. But fair is fair, there is more to the picture than many, with anti-Church agendas of their own, wish to admit.

And for those secularist and atheists who love to tout “how many have died as the result of religious wars and violence,” We do well to recall how many died in the 20th century for secular ideological reasons. Paul Johnson, the English Historian, in his book Modern Times, places the number at 1oo million.

Does this excuse even one person dying as the result of religious war? No. But fair is fair. Violence, war, conquest  and territorial disputes, are human problems not necessarily or only religious ones.

Painting: The Preaching of the Crusades form Wikipedia Commons

This video covers some of the Christian ruins in North Africa, including the See of St Cyprian of Carthage

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On the Paradox of What We Call Balance and What it Means for the Spiritual Life

In the video at the bottom of this post is a remarkable display of poise and balance as four women ride tall unicycles and perform increasingly astonishing feats. Yet is it proper to say that they display balance? Is it not, rather, a consistent lack of balance, within a range, that they actually display and accomplish? At no one moment can any of them be said to have perfect equilibrium. Frankly if they did have such equilibrium, they would fall. What they actually do is sway, and move back and forth to keep from falling.

What we call “balance” seems often and actually to be the on-going destruction of equilibrium within a manageable range. Without some “flexibility,” some ability to “teeter,” a fall is inevitable.

I learned this riding a bike, as I am sure you did. When I rigidly tried to avoid falling by maintaining perfect equilibrium, I fell at once. Only when I learned to accept a range of motion, and to lean and sway into turns, did I discover that balance is a range more than a fixed point. I learned the same with ice skating, roller skating too. True skating is a graceful and on-going destruction of balance within a range, a kind of perpetual falling forward and leaning sideways.

If you’ve never ridden a bike or skated, consider walking. When I am standing still I am at equilibrium, I am balanced. But I am also getting nowhere. If I want to get somewhere, I have to walk. Now walking involves leaning and imbalance. When I walk I lean and begin falling forward. I then catch myself with my foot,  before a complete fall. And the process continues: leaning, falling, catching…..leaning, falling, catching. Only in this way can I walk or run and get somewhere. So equilibrium has its place but sometimes it gets in the way or progress.

And all of this presents a spiritual picture.

Believing is Leaning – Most of us, if asked, would like everything in our life to be in perfect equilibrium, perfect balance. To loose our balance physically, we think,  is the prelude to a fall. Hence balance tends to be valued, not only in the physical sense, but also as a a symbol for emotional, spiritual and mental equilibrium. To become mentally or emotionally “unbalanced” is a euphemism for mental illness or distress. But the fact is, perfect equilibrium, perfect balance,  is seldom to be found in the human person. And perhaps that is good, especially in the spiritual life. The spiritual life is really about leaning.

Consider for a moment that one of the most common words we use to indicate belief is  “Amen.” Most people say it means “I believe” or “It is so.” But more fundamentally the root meaning of the Hebrew word Aman (from which we get Amen)  is that something is sturdy, firm, or sure. As such, “Amen” signifies a leaning action. Amen, implies we are leaning over on something, or depending on something for support, we are “basing” our life on God, and the truths of God.

The word Amen signifies, not only leaning, but also what is leaned on. Balance, as we have discussed, requires a graceful “imbalance” within a range. But it also needs at least one thing (usually the ground) which is steady, firm and constant. In the spiritual walk, this firm, steady and constant ground is God himself, and by extension the doctrines of faith he has revealed through the Church and Scripture.

Thus, in an extended sense when we say amen, we mean,  “I am leaning so far over on this truth of faith, and on God himself, that if He does not uphold me with it I’ll fall flat on my face.”

So faith is not so much about the control of equilibrium,  it is about the trust of leaning, confident that God will provide the steady support we need so we can lean.

Consider walking then as an image for spiritual growth. We progress in the spiritual life not merely by standing still with the familiar and the easily understood, but also by leaning forward into the unknown and mysterious. As we do so, we are confident that God is true and  reliable and will uphold us if we lean forward on him and what he teaches. God often asks us to lean on Him as he leads us out of our comfort zone and challenges us with new things and experiences. The future that lies ahead of us in often unknown. There are new challenges that await us. God asks us to trust by leaning forward on Him in a kind of spiritual walk knowing that he is a steady and firm support. But as with physical walking, we can only make progress spiritually if we are willing to lean and step out in faith.

We can also learn that some flexibility is necessary in the spiritual life, along with limits beyond which we ought not go. In the video, the women unicyclists can and must lean, but only so far. If they lean too far, they fall. If they lean not at all they also fall. Hence in the spiritual life, the doctrines of faith taught by the Lord, and through the Scriptures and the Church, present a kind of “range of motion.” Within the Church there are varying interpretations and applications of teachings, there are permissible varieties in terms of liturgy and authentic spiritual reflection, there are a permissible range of of what we call “schools of thought” and theological traditions. Flexibility permits such variety and a leaning toward them or away. However, there is a range to leaning beyond which we should not go, lest we fall. The Church rightfully thus sets forth the limits and designates a range for our leaning, lest we fall.

True spiritual growth is a journey and a journey requires walking, and walking requires some degree of “imbalance” and trust. In physical walking we “catch” ourselves and walking is a self-controlled fall. But in spiritual walking it is God who catches and who is in control. Do you want to get to heaven? Do you want to journey home? Then you have to walk. Lean, trust and keep saying “Amen!”

Photo Credit from The New York Daily News

Enjoy this video and consider that the paradox of true balance and motion is to permit a proper degree of imbalance and leaning.

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Who Says Theology Isn’t Science? A Reflection on the Reductionist Definition of the Word, "Science"

A few months back I blogged on the interplay between Theology, Philosophy and “science.” A reader wrote in the combox a mild rebuke of me, for using the word “Science” in a reductionist sense to mean, merely the physical sciences. He went on to insist that theology and philosophy ARE sciences, older and frankly more developed in many ways, than the natural or physical sciences, (whose fundamental theories still shift dramatically every few decades).  Further, theology and philosophy have served as the intellectual foundation for the scientific method and what has come to be called the natural or physical sciences.

I appreciated his rebuke and though I cannot remember exactly where to find it, I have thought a lot about it. Indeed, we have allowed the word “science, ” a word so respected by the modern world, to mean only the physical sciences, and many have tolerated others calling Philosophy and Theology “unscientific.”

Now the word “science” comes from the Latin “Scientia” meaning “knowledge.” For Aristotle scientific knowledge was considered to be a body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and rationally explained. Until the 2oth Century “science” was understood in this broader sense. Hence both Philosophy and Theology involved a body of knowledge that was a tested and reliable way of navigating reality, and can be rationally set forth as reasonable. Both sciences built a vast body of knowledge and a careful discipline of distinctions and delineations that set forth a framework in which to see and know the world.  (It will be admitted that, as in any science, there can be rather wacky and strange fringes that developed and were later discarded or critiqued within the discipline.  But this is true of the natural sciences too, that have also had their share of strange and exotic theories that were later and largely set aside).

In terms of theology, Faith is a way of knowing. I come to know certain things because God reveals them. Faith is a way of knowing based on a trust that God exists, and is both truthful and accurate in what he says. But the natural sciences also put a kind of faith in the reliability of the senses and what they reveal. By accepting the revelation that comes from God, I come to know many things.

Now therefore we must be insist, the Judeo-Christian theological tradition is a careful, smart and time tested way of knowing that extends in its roots back some 5,000 years. It is no mere whim. Any serious look at the Catholic faith will show forth a theology that is careful, nuanced, thoughtful, time-tested, and well rooted in both Scripture and ancient tradition. Just a five minute glance at the Summa Theologica will show this. One need not agree with the faith or even be a believer in God, but only fair-minded to see that there has been a careful and thoughtful and disciplined reflection over the centuries, and an accumulated body of knowledge that even now continues to deepen.

As a personal testimony I must say that I have come to have a deep reverence for the faith that I did not have as a youth and college student. But entering upon the study of theology I came to discover and respect the careful, thought and method that underlies the Catholic Faith. And I believe what I have been taught not merely because it is taught by authority, but also on account of the evidence I see for its truth and reliability. In the laboratory of my own life I have tested the teachings of the Scriptures and the Catholic faith and found them to be both true and reliable. I also find great credibility in the fact that these teachings stretch back to Christ and the Apostles, and even further into Jewish antiquity, and have been carefully tested by generations, and handed on intact for 2000 years of the Church’s history.

Hence the science of Catholic Theology is a careful, tested, and reliable way of knowing for me and it fully qualifies for the term “science” since it is a body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and rationally explained. To be sure, there are certain mysteries beyond simple explanation, but this is true in the natural sciences as well.

A few final thoughts on this from an excellent article written Matthew Hanley  over at The Catholic Thing. What I present here are excerpts. But you are encouraged to read the fuller article by clicking on the link. A few minor thoughts from me are in red.

Science and love don’t ordinarily seem to go together. Love we tend to associate with feeling, attraction, and passion – not exactly the stuff of science, which goes with reason, empiricism, and progress. But love as science is not an unfounded mystical metaphor or eccentricity.

One of the passages in Story of a Soul, the autobiography St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whose feast day is today, that has most struck me is when she recounted coming across the words Jesus spoke to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: “I want to make you read in the book of life, wherein is contained the science of LOVE.” This made quite an impact on Thérèse: “The science of Love, ah, yes, this word resounds sweetly in the ear of my soul, and I desire only this science.” Her famous vocation of love was crystallizing.

Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, also wrote that “love is a science, a knowledge, and we lack it.”

Not long before St. Thérèse’s time, the concept known as positivism, which holds that no sciences exist except those that study the phenomena of the natural world, had begun to gain traction. The French philosopher Auguste Comte [argued] that humanity was entering into an era in which scientific knowledge alone is fit to replace all other forms of knowledge, such as “primitive” theological knowledge or even philosophical knowledge. Yes, here is where the old synthesis began to break down.

The Enlightenment [had] also solidified the idea that science should supersede traditional moral and ethical systems, which could, after all, easily be dismissed as “unscientific.”

Science has enriched our world in important ways. But you don’t have to be a cradle Catholic to perceive that playing the science card – in contemporary bioethical debates, for example – is a manipulative, self-exculpatory means of attempting to secure carte blanche approval for blazing any trail you wish. Soloviev recognized, as too few do today, what was at stake in relegating religious and philosophical knowledge to the periphery where they are not allowed to inform how scientific advances should be interpreted: “Carried to its logical end, the principal of utilitarianism is obviously equivalent to the complete negation of ethics.” Benedict XVI said virtually the exact same thing just last year.

Only the “science of love”, which Benedict described as “the highest form of science,” can protect mankind from the corrosive effects of today’s default (utilitarian) mentality because – as Karol Wojtyla put it in his 1960 book Love and Responsibility – “only love can preclude the use of one person by another.” A magnificent insight.

This type of terminology, I think, ….invites us to revisit just what we mean by science – and by love, which John Paul II called “the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.” Exactly, the word “science” cannot and should not be reduced to merely the natural or physical sciences, or merely to the empirical method.

The saints all pursue their own diverse vocations of love by following the “scientific” method Jesus counseled: discite a me — “learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” [1]

Painting above is of St Thomas Aquinas surrounded by other Doctors of the Chruch

I have posted this video of Fr. Robert Barron before. In it he speaks of the modern error of “scientism” – The view that reality is restricted to what the empirical  sciences can explain.

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Sinner Please Don’t Let this Harvest Pass – A Meditation on the Gospel for the 27th Sunday of the Year

There is an urgency and clarity about the Gospel for today that is most often lacking in modern Christians, certainly including the clergy. In this Gospel the message is urgent, provocative and clear: there is a day of judgment coming for every one of us and we simply must be ready. The message is a sobering one for a modern world that is often dismissive of judgement, and certainly of Hell. Yet Jesus says clearly that the Kingdom of God can be taken from us for our refusal to accept its fruits in our life.

Parables and images used by Jesus to teach on judgement and the reality of Hell, are often quite vivid, even shocking in their harsh imagery. The are certainly not stories for the easily offended. And they are also difficult to take for those who have tried to refashion Jesus into a rather pleasant sort of fellow whose job is only to affirm, rather than the uncompromising prophet and Lord that He is.

No one spoke of Hell more than Jesus – How to perfectly reconcile these sorts of teachings presented so bluntly with the God who loves us so, points to the deeper mysteries of justice and mercy, and their interaction with human freedom. But this point must be clear: No one loves us more that Jesus and yet no one spoke of Hell and its certainty more than Jesus; no one warned us of judgment and its inescapable consequences more than Jesus. Hence, out of love for us Jesus speaks of death, judgement, heaven and hell. As one who loves us, he wants none of us to be lost. So he warns, he speaks the truth in love.

Historically this parable had meaning for the ancient Jews that has already come to pass. God had established and cared for his vine, Israel. He gave every blessing, having led them out of slavery and establishing them in the Promised Land. Yet searching for the fruits of righteousness he found little. Then, sending many prophets to warn and call forth those fruits, the prophets were persecuted, rejected, even murdered. Finally, God, sent his Son, but he too was murdered. There comes forth a sentence: He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times….Therefore, I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit. By 70 AD Jerusalem was destroyed, the Temple, never to be rebuilt.

The Jewish people are not singled out in the Scriptures, for we all, like them, are a vineyard, and their story, if we are not careful can be our own story. We like the ancients, have a decision to make. Either we will accept the offer of the Kingdom and thereby yield to the Lord’s work and bring forth a harvest,  or we must face the judgment that we have chosen to reject the offer of the Kingdom. God will not force us to accept his kingship or kingdom. We have a choice to make, and that choice is at the heart of the judgment we will face.

Let’s take a closer look at the Gospel and apply it to the vineyard of our lives.

I. THE SOWING – The text says, There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.  Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.

Note the care and providence of the Landowner (God) who has given each of us life and every kind of grace. The image of vineyard indicates that we have the capacity to bear fruit, and this signifies the many gifts and talents and abilities that we have been given by God.

The hedge calls to mind the protection of his grace and mercy. Though the world can be a tempting place, he has put a hedge of protection around us which is sufficient for us to remain secure from serious sin, if we accept its power.

But note too a hedge speaks of limits. And thus, God’s protective graces, though sufficient, mean we must live within limits, within the hedge that keeps the wild animals of temptation from devouring the fruits of our vine.

The tower is symbolic the Church, which stands guard like a watchman in a tower warning of dangers for we who live within the hedge. And, the tower which is the Church is also standing forth as a sign of contradiction to the hostile world outside which seeks to devour the fruit of the vineyard.

That the landowner leases the the vineyard is a reminder that we are not our own, we have been purchased and at a price. God and God alone created all these things we call our own. We are but stewards, even of our very lives. We belong to God and must render an account and show forth fruits as we shall next see.

But this point must be emphasized: The care that God has given us, his grace, his mercy, his very own self. As the text from Isaiah says, What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done? God loves us and does not want us to be lost. He gives us every grace and mercy we need to make it. The Lord says, As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? (Ez 33:11). This must be emphasized before we too quickly grumble about the subsequent judgment that comes. God offers every possible grace to save us. It is up to us to accept or reject the help.

II.  THE SEEKING – the text says, When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce.

There come moments in our lives when God looks for fruits. Notice, he is the owner and the fruits are rightfully his. He has done everything to bring forth the fruit and now deserves to see the produce of his grace in the vineyard of our life, which is His own.

And what fruits does the Lord seek? The values and fruits of the Kingdom: faith, justice, love, mercy, peace, forgiveness, chaste lives, love of the poor, generosity, faithfulness, love of one’s family and friends, even love of one’s enemy, kindness, truth, sincerity, courage to speak the truth and witness to the faith, and an evangelical spirit.

Note too the text says he sends servants to obtain the produce. Here also is God’s mercy. Historically God’s “servants” were the prophets. And God sent the prophets not only to bring forth the harvest of justice, but also to remind, clarify, apply God’s Word and warn sinners. God patiently sent many generations of prophets to help Israel.

It is the same for us. God sends us many prophets to remind us, clarify, apply and warn. Perhaps they are priests or religious, parents, catechists, teachers, and role models. But they are part of God’s plan to warn us to bear fruit and to help call forth and obtain some of those very fruits for God. Each in their own way says like St. Paul did in today’s second reading: Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me (Phil 4:8-9).

Yes, God seeks fruits, rightfully so, and he sends his servants, the prophets, to help call them forth in us.

III. THE SINNING – The text says, But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned.  Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way.  Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

Thus, despite all God has done, despite sending his servants the prophets, they are all rejected with increasing vehemence. Hearts grow harder. The Landowner, God, even goes so far to demonstrate his love, and will to save, by sending his own Son. But they drag him outside the vineyard and kill him. Yes, Jesus died outside the city gates, murdered for seeking the fruit of faith from the tenants of the vineyard.

And what of us? There are too many who reject God’s prophets. They do so with growing vehemence and abusive treatment. Many today despise the Church, despise the Scriptures, despise fathers, mothers, friends and Christians in general who seek to clarify and apply God’s Word, and warn of the need to be ready. It is quite possible that, for any of us, repeated resistance can cause a hardening of the heart to set in. In the end, there are some, many according to Jesus, who effectively kill the life of God in them and utterly reject the Kingdom of God and its values. They do not want to live lives that show forth forgiveness, mercy, love of enemies, chastity, justice, love of the poor, generosity, kindness, witness to the Lord and the truth.

We ought to be very sober of their are many, many today who are like this. Some have merely drifted away and are indifferent. (Some we must say, have been hurt or  are struggling to believe, but at least they remain open). Yet still others are passionate in their hatred for the Church, Scripture and anything to do with God, and they explicitly reject many, if not most of the kingdom values listed above. We must be urgent to continue in our attempt to reach them as we shall see.

IV. THE SENTENCE – The text says, What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.“

Here then is the sentence – If you Don’t want the Kingdom, you don’t have to have it. At one level, it would seem to us that everyone wants the Kingdom, i.e. everyone who has any faith in God at all, wants to go to heaven. But what is heaven? It is the fullness of the Kingdom of God. It is not just a place of our making, it that place where the will of God, where the Kingdom values are in full flower. But as we have seen, there are many who do not want to live chastely, do not want to forgive, do not want to be generous and love the poor, do not want God or any one else at the center, do not want to worship God.

Self excluded – having rejected the Kingdom values, and having rejected the prophets who warned them, many simply exclude themselves from the Kingdom. God will not force the Kingdom on anyone. If you don’t want it, even after God’s grace and mercy, his pleading through the prophets, you don’t have to have it. It will be taken from you, and given to those who do want it and appreciate its help.

The existence of Hell is rooted essentially in God’s respect for our freedom. For we have been called to love. But love must be free, not compelled. Hence, Hell has to be. It is the “alternative arrangements” that others make in their rejection of the Kingdom of God. At some point God calls the question, and at death our decision is forever fixed.

Yes, Hell, and the judgment that proceeds it, is clearly taught here and in many other places by Jesus (e.g. Matt 23:33; Lk 16:23; Mk 43:47; Matt 5:29; Matt 10:28; Matt 18:9; Matt 5:22; Matt 11:23; Matt 7:23; Matt 25:41; Mk 9:48; Luke 13:23; Rev 22:15; and many, many more). And it is taught by a Lord who loves us and wants to save us, but who is also sober to our stubborn and stiff-necked ways.

What is a healthy response to this teaching? To work earnestly for the salvation of souls, beginning with our own. Nothing has so destroyed evangelization and missionary activity, as the modern notion that everyone goes to heaven. Nothing has so destroyed any zeal for the moral life or hunger for the Sacraments, prayer and Scripture. And nothing is so contrary to Scripture as the dismissal of Hell and the notion of all going to heaven.

But rather than panic or despair, we ought to get to work and be more urgent to win souls for Christ. Who is it that the Lord wants you to work with to drawn them back to him. Pray and ask him, “Who Lord?” The Lord does not want any to be lost. But, as of old, he still sends his prophets (this means you) to draw back whoever will listen. Will you work for the Lord? Will you work for souls?  For there is a day of judgment looming, and we must be made ready by the Lord for it. Will you be urgent about it, for your self and others?

Photo Credit: Jean-Yves Roure

This video features the words of an old spiritual: Sinner please don’t let this harvest pass, and die and lose your soul at last. I made this video more than a year ago and in it there is a picture of Fr. John Corapi preaching. Since I made it long before “the recent troubles” please do not attribute any meaning from me by the inclusion of the photo, it is simply indicative of the “age” of the video.

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Yes, But How? A Reflection on the Mystery of Art

I cannot draw or paint. Yet I have always marveled at how some can take an empty canvas and bring it to life with color, form, depth, and shadow. And, little by little, from the painter’s brush and soul a picture emerges. So too with sculpting. A mere block of marble, with each blow of the sculptor’s tools, it comes to resemble the form of a human being or some other reality with nature.

Some years ago, there was a painter, on PBS (Bob Ross) who would, over the course of a half hour paint a picture and describe what he was doing as he went. I watched that show most every week for a number of years and, though I watched him, saw what he did, and even heard him describe the techniques, I never really ceased to be amazed by the mystery before me. How did he do it? Yes, he spoke of method and technique, but there was some deeper mystery at work; a power of the soul, a gift. He claimed we all have it. But I am more inclined to think some have it as a special gift.

Michelangelo famously said, Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. He also said, I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. Yes, but how does he see it? How does he set it free? Indeed, another great mystery and faculty of the human soul of some.

As with music, the art of painting and sculpting seems a unique capacity of the human soul. Animals do not draw, they do not sculpt, they do not even appreciate art. It is a special gift to the human person to be captivated by beauty, and for beauty, once seen and experienced, to emerge from his soul in expressive praise. There are special glories and a unique gifts given only to the human person, a mysterious gift to be sure. It is caught up in our desire for what is good, true and beautiful, caught up in our soul’s ultimate longing for God.

Perhaps Michelangelo should have the last word: Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.

Picture: A Painter in his Studio by Francois Boucher

Here’s a painter a work on a speed painting with a surprise end:

David Garibaldi: Jesus Painting from Thriving Churches on Vimeo.

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Here’s a video of Bob Ross, the Joy of Painting show I mentioned above. In this brief passage he teaches us to paint a mountain and gives a little philosophy as well.
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If you have time this video shows a remarkable transformation of a block of marble to a face.
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"Get To a Better State" Finding Christian Teaching in Yet Another Commercial

So here we go again, another Friday, another analysis of a commercial. Permit me an eisegesis (a “reading into”) of an Ad, wherein I see a Christian teaching. It is another State Farm Commercial where great destruction gives way to a “nice landing” and a “better state.” Let’s look at the ad in stages and see it’s (likely unintentional) Biblical themes.

As the commercial opens we seen chaos, panic, and destruction all about. We are told by the ad, that our location is in the “State of Chaos.” A terrible and monstrous machine-like enemy is on the attack.  And here is a paradigm for the world, with Satan afflicting it. For Scripture says,

  1. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
  2. The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.” (Job 1:7)
  3. After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast–terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. (Daniel 7:7)
  4. Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent…. (Isaiah 27:1)
  5. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth….When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child…..the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (Rev 12:varia)
  6. And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. (Rev 13:1)

And of the terrible fear incited by this monstrous devil Scripture speaks of how it holds us in bondage and that Christ must free us from such fear:

  1. Since the children have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Heb) 2:14-15
  2. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. (Rom 8:15)

But without Christ there is only fear and panic all about, and the power of Christ has not yet entered the scene in this Ad.

Two men walk up observing and describing what they see. They cannot really help anyone, they can simply observe and lament. Let’s call them Moses and Elijah. This is another way of saying they are the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament. And, in fact, the Old Testament could describe the problems we face and lament the human condition, but the Law and the prophets could not really save us, or overcome Satan’s terrible destruction. Scripture says,

  1. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering (Rom 8:3).
  2. The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect). (Heb 7:18)
  3. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin (Rom 3:20).

Hence, our Moses and Elijah figure in the ad, our living “voices” of the  Old Testament can describe the problem and lament the destruction, but not really be able to do anything to stop it. They can merely observe as the destruction focuses on a property of a man named Dwayne. One of the figures laments “Man, that thing does not like Dwayne!” Yes, indeed, it is Satan who is our accuser, our tempter, our ancient enemy, who demands to sift us like wheat, who  pursues us and seeks to devour us and all we have.

As the Satan figure destroys a house in the ad, we recall how Satan is a home wrecker and a devourer of families. As he destroys a car we are mindful of how he attempts to hinder our journey to God.

But in the midst of all this destruction, and just when it seems Dwayne himself is toast, the screen goes red (proclaiming the Blood of Christ).  And there is a voice of an unseen announcer. Lets call him the Lord….The Word made flesh, Jesus, who announces good news to the poor! And our announcer says on the very RED screen, “State Farm’s got you covered!“

Yes, but of course the “state farm” for us is ultimately the Kingdom of God, and it is the blood of Jesus which covers us like the blood of the lamb on the doorposts once rebuked the destroying angel and staved off death in the Exodus. We are saved by the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. Of this blood Scripture says, In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Heb 9:22). Yes, we’re covered alright:  The Kingdom of God has got you covered. As the blood of Jesus covers us, we are washed clean, and saved from destruction.

Suddenly we’re back to the scene, and the Satanic destroyer looses his grip on Dwayne. Saved by the Blood! Dwayne falls away from Satan, and makes a perfect three point landing. Our Moses and Elijah figure nod with approval and say, “Nice landing.”

Finally, our off screen Announcer, the Lord, says, “Get to a better state.”

Indeed, for Scripture records our announcer, Jesus, saying,

  1. I have called you out of the world. (Jn 15:19).
  2. Jesus said, “Follow me” (Jn 1:43)
  3. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28)
  4. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9)

Yes, indeed, Get to a better state. The world as we know it is passing away (1 Cor 7:31). And whatever destruction this world, the State of Chaos, dishes out, Just remember that Jesus has you covered and invites you to “Get to a better State” For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. (2 Cor 5:1).

Get to a better state, follow Jesus who’s got you covered.

Photo above is a screen shot from the State Farm AD.

Enjoy the Ad.

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Overpopulated of Olderpopulated? A Consideration of Some Suprising New Demographic Trends

I was alerted to a fascinating and alarming article on demographic trends that shows forth several significant trends: a globally aging population (not just in the West), the wide scale decline of the nuclear family, and the continued growth of mega cities. One of the most surprising assertions in the article is that many of the trends we have attributed to the increasingly decadent West, are becoming far more worldwide even to include the Muslim and African worlds.  Of course we must remember that demographics often look at current trends and project them out into the future. As the article itself points out, trends do not always continue unabated. Nevertheless we do well to observe current trends since they can actually help us to address them and alter their otherwise inevitable consequences.

Lets take a look at the article written by Phillip Longman. I am presenting excerpts, but the full article is available here: The World Will Be More Crowded, With Old People In what follows, the excerpts from the article are in bold, black, italics and my own comments are in plain red text.

What demography tells us is this: The human population will continue to grow, though in a very different way from in the past. The United Nations’ most recent “mid-range” projection calls for an increase to 8 billion people by 2025 and to 10.1 billion by century’s end.

I am aware that some other demographers disagree with this, seeing an implosion of sorts on the way. They argue that the U.N. has polemical reasons for forecasting such a large increase in population, since it will give greater urgency to its population control projects encouraging abortion, contraception and sterilization. For the purposes of my comments on this article I don’t want to get into that accusation here, though I largely suspect there may be some truth to it, at least at the margins.

[But] the U.N. projects that over the next 40 years, more than half (58 percent), of the world’s population growth will come from increases in the number of people over 60, while only 6 percent will come from people under 30. Indeed, the U.N. projects that by 2025, the population of children under 5, already in steep decline in most developed countries, will be falling globally — and that’s even after assuming a substantial rebound in birth rates in the developing world. A gray tsunami will be sweeping the planet.

Here note the word “globally.” Low birth rates have been the characteristic of the Western, developed world. But now it would seem that these trends are spreading even in to parts of the Muslim world, as we shall see.

Which countries will be aging most rapidly in 2025? They won’t be in Europe, where birth rates fell comparatively gradually and now show some signs of ticking up. (Mirable dictu!) Instead, they’ll be places like Iran and Mexico, which experienced youth bulges that were followed quickly by a collapse in birth rates. In just 35 years, both Iran and Mexico will have a larger percentage of their populations over 60 than France does today. Other places with birth rates now below replacement levels include not just old Europe but also developing countries such as Brazil, Chile, China, Lebanon, Tunisia, South Korea, and Vietnam.

Again, this will be true if current trends continue. For now, they seem to have every indication that they will. As for Europe, I have read some encouraging articles that certain countries, especially France, have begun to turn things around, with a birth rate edging above replacement level for the first time in decades.

Because of the phenomenon of hyper-aging in the developing world, another great variable is already changing as well: migration. In Mexico, for example, the population of children age 4 and under was 434,000 less in 2010 than it was in 1996. The result? The demographic momentum that fueled huge flows of Mexican migration to the United States has waned, and will wane much more in the future. Already, the net flow of illegal Mexican immigration northward has slowed to a trickle. With fewer children to support and not yet burdened by a huge surge of elders, the Mexican economy is doing much better than in the past, giving people less reason to leave. By 2025, young people on both sides of the border may struggle to understand why their parents’ generation built this huge fence.

Yes, here would seem to be a rather under-reported story. To the degree I have heard in the media that illegal immigration has slowed, I have heard it attributed only the failing US economy, not to a drop in birth rates in Mexico. I will say that I doubt that the Mexican economy has improved due to a lower birthrate. I am willing to admit that it may be temporarily true. But I am with Ronald Regan who said that growing population is ultimately a good engine to grow the  economy. For that reason he was more sanguine about the illegal immigrants of his day, and was willing to grant them amnesty.

Despite these trends, most people conclude from their day-to-day lives that overpopulation is a serious problem. One reason is that more than half the world’s population is crowded into urban areas. The high cost of raising children in mega-cities is a prime reason that global birth rates continue to fall, yet urbanization also makes the larger trend toward depopulation difficult for most to grasp. If the downward trend in birth rates doesn’t moderate and stabilize as the U.N. assumes it will, the world as a whole could be losing population as soon as midcentury. And yet few people will likely see that turning point coming, so long as humans continue to pack into urban areas and increase their consumption of just about everything.

This is the demographic equivalent of “all politics is local.” It is hard to see a decline, or even a leveling off of population when you’re sitting in the worst traffic ever in your growing city. National and worldly trends of lower birth rates mean little to someone in an Eastern Megalopolis.  But go to more rural places in the upper Midwest and the picture is different. I remember that back in the 1980s many rural towns in the upper Midwest were offering free land to people from other parts of the world to come and settle there. Generally, the flocking of people to the mega cities on the coasts has been a hundred year trend here in the US and it surely creates a picture of heavy overpopulation, even if the numbers are more modest with the physical footprint of humans on the planet is really no more than the state of Texas with people living four to home on an eighth of an acre.

Another related megatrend is the rapid change in the size, structure, and nature of the family. In many countries, such as Germany, Japan, Russia, and South Korea, the one-child family is now becoming the norm. This trend creates a society in which not only do most people have no siblings, but also no aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, or nephews. Many will lack children of their own as well. Today about one in five people in advanced Western countries, including the United States, remains childless. Huge portions of the world’s population will thus have no biological relatives except their parents.

This is quite sad and shocking. It is not hard to see the awful impact that the demise of the nuclear  and extended family has had on the formation of children here in America. And to see this trend spreading from the West to other cultures and countries is a harbinger of a lot of pain, children more poorly formed and prone to many social ills. Neither nature nor God intends single parent families as a norm for a culture. And with the demise of the extended family, there isn’t even anyone on the bench to step in for a lost parent. In the end it is children who suffer. And, as they become adults, they bring their brokenness to affect others in a descending chain.

And even where children continue to be born, they are being raised under radically different circumstances, as country after country has seen divorce and out-of-wedlock births surge and the percentage of children living with both of their married parents drop sharply. So not only is the quantity of children in the world poised to shrink rapidly, but on current trends, a near majority of them will be raised in ways that are today strongly associated with negative life outcomes. Exactly

Are there signs of any of these trends reversing before 2025? Only a few. The percentage of the world’s population raised in religious households is bound to rise, if only because adherents to fundamentalism, whether Christians, Jews, or Muslims, tend to have substantially more children than their secular counterparts. And there are certainly many ways — from increased automation and delayed retirement to health-care reform to the provision of baby bonuses — for societies to at least partially adjust to the tidal shift in global demographics.

Yes, we can hope, but none of these seem to be mega trends. As the number of religiously active continues to drop as a percentage, their larger families may have a marginal impact, but probably not a mega-impact.

OK, remember there is a lot of speculation when it comes to trends and how steady they will be into the future. To a certain extent, just the fact that we are talking about them, influences these very trends. But this article cuts across certain presumptions that I myself have presented on these very blog pages. Namely, that the Islamic world, and also the (so-called) “Third World” is on the ascendency (demographically) and the West is committing suicide. This article, and to some extent the data, suggest that such presumptions may need adjusting.

As always, I am interested in your comments.

Painting: The Crowded City by Kerry Belgrave

Here is a scene from Star Trek which presents the standard “nightmare scenario” of overpopulation which was a steady diet for school kids like me in the 1960s. We were warned of grave overcrowding if “proper measures” were not insisted on. In this clip, as a planet so overcrowded that there is no place even to sit, appears in the background, Kirk lectures the leaders on using birth control measures. It is a perfect snapshot of the late 1960s.

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The Probability of You Existing at All is Almost NON-Existent. A Brief Reflection on the Contingency of our Being and the Glory of God, Based on a Recent Math Article.

I was alerted to a fascinating article by Ali Binazir who sets forth mathematically the odds of you or I existing, just as we are genetically. It turns out that, when taking into consideration the astonishing number of possibilities of parents meeting, grandparents before them and on and on going back the generations, and adding also the vast numbers of sperm and ova in possible combination over a the lifetime of the marital acts, of all those generations, it would seem that the odds of me existing just as I do, are 1 in 102,685,000. That’s a number so huge it hurts to think about it.

To say that we are contingent beings, is a vast understatement. To say that some one or something is contingent is to say that the existence of same is not inevitable, but can only come about based on any number of previous things being true in a chain of being or causality. Hence I would not exist if my parents had not existed and met. Further, they would not exist if the parents had not existed and met, the chain going back many generations. Thus, my existence depends on a vast number of “meetings” going just right, or I am not here.

Consider some of the contingencies and requirements for your existence as set forth by Mr Binazir. Some of the numbers are based on hunches, but generally those numbers are on the conservative side. I am only publishing a small amount of his musings here. You can read his full article here: What are the Chances of You Being Born? and see how he comes up with these numbers.

So here are listed some of the probabilities of required events for you to be born:

  1. Probability of boy meeting girl: 1 in 20,000.
  2. Now let’s say the chances of them actually talking to one another is one in 10.
  3. And the chances of that turning into another meeting is about one in 10 also.
  4. And the chances of that turning into a long-term relationship is also one in 10.
  5. And the chances of that lasting long enough to result in offspring is one in 2.
  6. So the probability of your parents’ chance meeting resulting in marriage and kids is about 1 in 2000
  7. So the combined probability is already around 1 in 40 million
  8. Now things start getting interesting.  Why?  Because we’re about to deal with eggs and sperm, which come in large numbers. Each sperm and each egg is genetically unique because of the process of meiosis; you are the result of the fusion of one particular egg with one particular sperm.  A fertile woman has 100,000 viable eggs on average.  A man will produce about 12 trillion sperm over the course of his reproductive lifetime.
  9. Let’s say a third of those (4 trillion) are relevant to our calculation, since the sperm created after your mom hits menopause don’t count.  So the probability of that one sperm with half your name on it hitting that one egg with the other half of your name on it is 1/(100,000)(4 trillion)= 1/(105)(4×1012)= 1 in 4 x 1017, or one in 400 quadrillion.
  10. But because the existence of you here now on planet earth presupposes another supremely unlikely and utterly undeniable chain of events.  Namely, that every one of your ancestors lived to reproductive age we must also go further presuming 150,000 generations going back to man’s origin.
  11. Well then, that would be one in 2150,000 , which is about 1 in 1045,000– a number so staggeringly large that my head hurts just writing it down.
  12. But let’s think about this some more.  Remember the sperm-meeting-egg argument for the creation of you, since each gamete is unique?
  13. Well, the right sperm also had to meet the right egg to create your grandparents.  Otherwise they’d be different people, and so would their children, who would then have had children who were similar to you but not quite you.
  14. This is also true of your grandparents’ parents, and their grandparents, and so on till the beginning of human time.  If even once the wrong sperm met the wrong egg, you would not be sitting here noodling online reading fascinating articles like this one.  It would be your cousin Jethro, and you never really liked him anyway.
  15. That means in every step of your lineage, the probability of the right sperm meeting the right egg such that the exact right ancestor would be created that would end up creating you is one in 1200 trillion, which we’ll round down to 1000 trillion, or one quadrillion.
  16. So now we must account for that for 150,000 generations by raising 400 quadrillion to the 150,000th power: That’s a ten followed by 2,640,000 zeroes, which would fill 11 volumes of a 250 page book with zeroes.
  17. For the sake of completeness: (102,640,000)(1045,000)(2000)(20,000) = 4x 102,685,007 ≈ 102,685,000
  18. Probability of your existing at all: 1 in 102,685,000

Now, there are some assumptions you may quibble with. I would certainly add in (sadly) some probabilities related to being aborted, or miscarried. But even a simpler analysis yields astonishing numbers. One of my brothers made his own calculation regarding one of Binazir’s numbers:

My numbers are more simplistic.  But assuming 100,000 eggs/woman & 12T sperm/man, that creates 1.2 x 10^18 combinations for every man/woman pairing (i.e., signficantly more combos than 400T or 4 x 10^14 mentioned in the article).  If you assume 3B women on earth & 3B man, that means 3 x 10^14 eggs and 3.6 x 10^22 sperm currently on the planet, for a total combination of 1.1 x 10^37 pairings.  If you assume current population is 1% of the history of humanity, total combos go to 1.1 x 10^39.

Not only are you and I contingent, we are very improbable! Yet here we are! Mirabile visu! (wondrous to behold).

Theologically of course we are no accident or happenstance. God has always known us, intended us, loved us and planned for us. Scripture says,

  1. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you (Jer 1:5).
  2. Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, in the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world (Matt 25:34)
  3. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:13-16)

Yes, you’re here alright, and math can barely account for your existence, so tiny are the odds. But God has overseen every detail and knew you long before you were born. In fact he has been preparing a place for us in the kingdom, from before the creation of the world. Not only has he always known us, but he has known everything we would do, for every one of our days have been written in his book before one of them ever came to be.

The great mystery of our existence stretches back in time into the very heart and mind of God who has always known and loved us, has prepared for us and made a way for us. You are wonderfully and fearfully made and God has done a marvelous thing. You’re not just one in a million, you’re one in a 102,685,000

Photo Credit: Portland Glass

This video makes a moving point, but attributes our existence to luck. But you are not here by luck, you are here by the grace and will of God.