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Jesus

Defending the Resurrection

Carl E. Olson

April 6, 2021 1:52 pm April 6, 2021

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How many accessible works of Catholic apologetics can you name that focus on the resurrection of Christ? Chances are your list is quite short. That’s one of the reasons I…

How many accessible works of Catholic apologetics can you name that focus on the resurrection of Christ?

Chances are your list is quite short. That’s one of the reasons I wrote my recent book “Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? Questions and Answers about the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ” (Ignatius Press–Augustine Institute, 2016). One of the main goals of the book was to provide nontechnical but substantive answers to a wide range of questions about and arguments against the Christian belief that Jesus Christ did, in fact, rise from the grave. Here are a few things I think are noteworthy about this topic.

There are very few recent books by Catholics defending the Resurrection. However, the fine Jesuit theologian Father Gerald O’Collins has written and edited several books on the topic, and I refer to his books many times. One great insight from Father O’Collins is that the Christian belief in the Resurrection is intimately connected to the Christian belief that God is Trinitarian and personal. He notes how often the apostle Paul “takes the Resurrection of Jesus (together with ours) as the specifically Christian way of presenting God.” He also notes that to “be wrong about the Resurrection is to ‘misrepresent’ God essentially, since Paul defines God as the God of resurrection (1 Cor 15:15).” This is a reminder of how the distinctively Christian beliefs in God as Trinity, the Incarnation and the Resurrection are intimately connected.

Many of the best books about the Resurrection in recent years have been written by evangelical or Anglican scholars, such as William Lane Craig, Michael Licona and N.T. Wright, or evangelicals, such as Craig Keener, Craig Evans and Ben Witherington III. Catholics need not, of course, agree with everything written by these authors to appreciate the rigor of their research and argumentation.

The internet is, in many ways, way behind the curve. While you can find plenty of sites run by atheists and skeptics claiming that Jesus didn’t exist or that there is no evidence for the Resurrection, there are few (if any) reputable historians who will deny that Jesus existed, or who will dismiss the many difficult questions posed by the textual and historical data. Bart Ehrman, who is both a prolific New Testament scholar and an agnostic, recently wrote a book, “Did Jesus Exist?”, that takes on “mythicists” — those who deny that Jesus was a real, historical figure. Ehrman compares such skeptics to Holocaust deniers. He notes that few of these mythicists have any training “in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field,” and he claims that no mythicists teach New Testament or early Christianity at “any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world.”

The importance of chronology cannot be overstated. Some skeptics tend to talk about the events following the death of Christ as if they happened in a sort of vague vacuum — as if we have no idea when certain things happened. That’s not really the case, even if exact dates aren’t possible. So, for instance, Peter and the other apostles began proclaiming the Resurrection within a few weeks of Jesus’ death. If Jesus had still been dead, why didn’t someone produce the body? And whatever would have inspired the previously frightened and hiding apostles to suddenly be bold and unwavering in their witness?

Details are always important, but we shouldn’t overlook the forest for the trees. Some skeptical scholars fixate — to the point of neurotic obsession — on supposedly conflicting details within the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection. But there are three key facts that the early Christians all agreed upon, even in the face of opposition and persecution: the tomb that held Jesus was empty; Jesus appeared at various times to the apostles and other disciples; and the Church grew based primarily on its declaration that, as Peter stated: “God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise of the holy Spirit from the Father and poured it forth, as you [both] see and hear” (Acts 2:32-33). Those three facts are reiterated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (see Nos. 638-658). There is, in fact, plenty of compelling arguments for the Resurrection.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com). He and his family live in Eugene, Ore.

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Culture

What Is Secularism?

Carl E. Olson

September 28, 2020 8:57 am September 28, 2020

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Catholics — especially those engaged in apologetics, evangelization and catechesis — hear a lot about secularism. There is the challenge of secularism, the spread of secularism, and the dangers of…

Catholics — especially those engaged in apologetics, evangelization and catechesis — hear a lot about secularism.

There is the challenge of secularism, the spread of secularism, and the dangers of secularism. But what is secularism? If you had to sum up secularism in a single sentence, how would you define it? What are the essential features of secularism?

That’s asking quite a bit, especially when I won’t be able to fully answer those questions in a single column, let alone a sentence. In offering three brief observations about the nature of secularism, I will draw on the thought of three men: a Catholic philosopher, a Calvinist professor and a Russian Orthodox priest.

Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher whose 2007 book “A Secular Age” has been widely praised for its thought-provoking insights into secularism. Taylor is especially keen to challenge the “secularization theory” — the belief that as modernity and science spread, religious belief will decrease, eventually becoming either rare or extinct. This is a presuppositon of most so-called new atheists, who pit science against religion and reason against faith. This leads to secularism being understood as the absence of belief in God. Taylor, however, distinguishes between three sorts of “secular.” The first is the classical understanding, referring to the earthly, temporal order. The second is the widely accepted notion of the absence of religious belief and participation. The third is Taylor’s definition of secularism being “a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.” This is unique to the modern era of human history, for people are now able to embrace “a purely self-sufficient humanism” aimed as material flourishing, without consideration of a transcedent order and reality.

James K.A. Smith is a professor of philosphy at Calvin College whose book “How (Not) to Be Secular” (2014) is a sort of CliffsNotes version of Taylor’s book. Smith, like Taylor, points out that “secular fundamentalists” often act as if their confident appeals to science and reason have adequately explained every aspect of reality. This, Smith argues, is only so much “secularist spin” that is, in fact, “the denial of contestability and thus the refusal to recognize secularity.”

Put another way, such secularists have simply created a narrative based on their materialist, scientistic assumptions, but without actually offering either real proof or satisfying explanations for a whole host of things. Among those is the deep sense of unease and malaise people feel or sense because, Smith notes, “our age is haunted,” bringing to mind the stories of Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor. Percy, an agnostic as a youth, once wrote of his conversion to Catholicism: “This life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, ‘Scientific humanism.’ That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore, I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and infinite delight.” Secular humanism simply does not satisfy hungry souls and searching hearts.

Father Alexander Schmemann was one of the greatest Eastern Orthodox thinkers of the past century. My favorite book of his is “For The Life of the World,” written just over 50 years ago, a profound study of worship and sacramentality. In the final chapter, “Worship In a Secular Age,” He states that he thinks most people have missed the essential core — or grave defect — of secularism. “Secularism, I submit, is above all a negation of worship…. If secularism in theological terms is a heresy, it is primarily a heresy about man. It is the negation of man as a worshiping being.” Father Schmemann points out that secularism is not the same as atheism; in fact, secularism does not try to eliminate God as much as completely change man’s relationship with God. Put very simply, God becomes a commodity for our use. Man was made to adore, but has chosen to be autonomous. And now man is haunted, trapped in his secularist cage.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com) and writes from Oregon.

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Saints

St. John Henry Newman

Carl E. Olson

August 7, 2020 2:03 pm August 7, 2020

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“He is the one Englishman of that era who upheld the ancient creed with a knowledge that only theologians possess, a Shakespearean force of style, and a fervor worthy of…

“He is the one Englishman of that era who upheld the ancient creed with a knowledge that only theologians possess, a Shakespearean force of style, and a fervor worthy of the saints.” This description of Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), from the 1913 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia, captures well three of the many impressive qualities of the man: his theological knowledge, his masterful literary abilities and his holiness.

Given Cardinal Newman’s reputation during his lifetime, both for his prodigious intellect and for his personal sanctity, support for his canonization not surprisingly began at his death. His formal cause for sainthood has been underway for some time now, making headlines, at times, even in secular publications.

An article in America magazine in 1941, along with Pope Pius XII’s support of the 1945 “Centenary of Newman’s Conversion,” played essential roles in moving the process along.

In an address to the Cardinal Newman Academic Symposium in 1975, Pope Paul VI acknowledged the powerful and ongoing witness of Cardinal Newman:

“He who was convinced of being faithful throughout his life, with all his heart devoted to the light of truth, today becomes an ever brighter beacon for all who are seeking an informed orientation and sure guidance amid the uncertainties of the modern world — a world which he himself prophetically foresaw.”

In fact, the Pope had hoped that he might celebrate the Holy Year of 1975 with the beatification of the English cardinal. But more research was needed before that event could take place.

Finally, in January 1991, Pope John Paul II declared Cardinal Newman to be “Venerable.” He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, and was canonized by Pope Francis on Oct. 13, 2019.

Cardinal Newman captured even bigger headlines when, in October 2008, his bones were exhumed and nothing was found save a few red tassels from his cardinal’s hat. Damp conditions had led to the decomposition of the body, thus frustrating the intended move of his remains from a cemetery in Rednal, Worcestershire, to a sarcophagus at Birmingham Oratory.

Cardinal Newman had founded the oratory in the 1840s after he left the Anglican denomination to enter the Catholic Church.

A Dramatic Conversion

It was Cardinal Newman’s dramatic conversion that captured, and still captures, the attention and imagination of so many.

Born into a family of bankers, the eldest of six children, the shy and studious Newman had a fondness for reading the Bible and the novels of Sir Walter Scott. The religion of his youth was Anglican and evangelical in nature; he described it in his biographical “Apologia Pro Vita Sua” (1864)as “Bible religion.” (It was also quite anti-Catholic.)

The future cardinal once wrote that he “had no formed religious convictions” until he was 15. “Of course,” he added, “I had a perfect knowledge of my catechism.”

The teenager experienced a profound crisis of faith in 1816, but emerged from it with a newfound fervor, evidenced by his frequent reception of communion in the Anglican Church and taking a private vow of celibacy. At 21 he was a professor at Oriel College, Oxford, and was ordained in June 1824 as a priest in the Anglican Communion.

Newman was a curate of St. Clement’s, Oxford, for two years, and then served as vicar of St. Mary the Virgin, the university church, where he overcame his shyness. Several years of impressive scholarly work followed, including his first major publication, “The Arians of the Fourth Century” (1833).

Much of that work had to do with early Church history and the Church Fathers. Such study would eventually lead him to communion with Rome.

During the 1830s Newman became a leader in the Oxford Movement, which consisted of several Oxford theologians who addressed key issues relating to the authority, nature and history of the Anglican Communion. They also sought to reinvigorate what they considered to be a spiritually lethargic institution.

Because of the many theological tracts published by Newman and others, the movement became known as Tractarianism. In Tract 90, published in 1841, Newman argued that the Thirty-Nine Articles — the defining creedal statements of Anglicanism established in 1563 — were essentially Catholic teachings.

This led to controversy and to Newman’s forced resignation from Oxford.

“From the end of 1841,” he wrote in the “Apologia,” “I was on my deathbed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church.”

Newman retired to the village of Littlemore with a small group of followers and lived a semi-monastic life as he worked on his now-famous “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.” It was during his years there that he worked through his various concerns and questions about Catholic doctrine.

He preached his last sermon at St. Mary’s in September 1843, and shortly thereafter he published a retraction of his previous attacks on the Catholic Church.

On Oct. 8, 1845, with his “Essay” still not completed (he never did finish it), Newman wrote: “I am this night expecting Father Dominic, the Passionist. … I mean to ask of him admission into the One Fold of Christ.”

Blessed Dominic Barberi, an Italian, received Newman into the Catholic Church the next day.

Service in the Church

The following October the new convert traveled to Rome, where he was ordained a Catholic priest and given a doctorate in divinity by Pope Pius IX himself. Father Newman joined the Congregation of the Oratory and, having been given a papal brief, set up an oratory in Birmingham, England.

The years of Cardinal Newman’s life were nearly equally divided between those when he was non-Catholic and those when he was Catholic, and the second half of his life, like the first, did not lack for controversy.

“Apologia Pro Vita Sua” was published in response to personal attacks against him by novelist Charles Kingsley. In it, he defended the civic loyalty of English Catholics against the accusations of William Gladstone.

At the same time, many Catholics remained wary of the new priest, not only because he was a convert, but also because some considered him to be a liberal. This accusation stemmed in part from his concerns about the First Vatican Council’s formal definition of the dogma of papal infallibility. In his “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk” (1875), however, he affirmed that he had always believed in the doctrine.

Whatever may have been the qualms of some Catholics about his thinking, in 1879 the convert priest was named a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII.

Cardinal Newman has sometimes been called the “Father of Vatican II” because of the influence of his writings on several key areas of theology and practice. Pope Paul VI, in his 1975 address, highlighted this influence:

“Many of the problems which [Newman] treated with wisdom — although he himself was frequently misunderstood and misinterpreted in his own time — were the subjects of the discussion and study of the fathers of the Second Vatican Council, as for example the question of ecumenism, the relationship between Christianity and the world, the emphasis on the role of the laity in the Church and the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions.”

In a 1990 address given on the first centenary of Cardinal Newman’s death, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote:

“The characteristic of the great Doctor of the Church, it seems to me, is that he teaches not only through his thought and speech but also by his life, because within him, thought and life is interpenetrated and defined. If this is so, then Newman belongs to the great teachers of the Church, because he both touches our hearts and enlightens our thinking.”

Shortly before his death, Cardinal Newman asked Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne of Birmingham to bless him. Bishop Ullathorne, deeply moved by the request, later wrote: “I felt annihilated in his presence. There is a saint in that man.”

Carl Olson is editor of IgnatiusInsight.com and writes from Eugene, Ore.

How Best To Explain The Faith?

Carl E. Olson

June 29, 2020 7:23 am June 29, 2020

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A couple of years ago I was part of a small group talking to an archbishop about evangelization. The archbishop, a very intelligent shepherd, remarked on the challenges facing Catholics…

A couple of years ago I was part of a small group talking to an archbishop about evangelization.

The archbishop, a very intelligent shepherd, remarked on the challenges facing Catholics in a seculiarized, postmodern world. “How are we,” he pondered, “to reach people who do not share a common culture or a common language?” Americans once could assume a common understanding, at least generally, regarding the objective nature of truth and goodness, the reality of a transcendent order, the existence of God, and even the divinity and uniqueness of Jesus Christ. No longer. The public square is now shorn and stripped of such common understanding and language. Most Americans are biblically illiterate, and precious few know or care about theology, philosophy and the permanent things. What is the best way to explain and defend the Faith? This is a question that every Christian should ponder and seek to answer.

Years before becoming Catholic, I was introduced to apologetics through the writings of Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis, Ronald Nash, James Sire and similar evangelical or Anglican thinkers. Now, having been a Catholic for nearly 20 years, I continue to read the works of certain evangelical thinkers. One such writer and scholar is Os Guinness, a prolific author who was educated at Oxford and now lives in the United States where he attends an Anglican parish. His first book, “The Dust of Death” (1973), was an outstanding analysis of the counterculture of the 1960s; it dug deeply into the philosophical foundations of belief systems ranging from atheism to existentialism to pantheism.

His new book, “Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion” (InterVarsity), is an exceptional reflection on apologetics and evanelization. “We are all apologists now,” writes Guinness. But, he notes, most “apologetics” today are secular in nature, often taking the form of online discussions and debates and facilitated through relentless social media. On one hand, Christians have an opportunity to witness in ways never dreamed of before; on the other hand, “there are oddities in the age of communication that make it actually harder to communicate well today.” We must, Guinness insists, regain the art of Christian persuasion. An essential problem is that most Christians assume “that people are open to what we have to say, or at least are interested.… Yet most people quite simply are not open, not interested and not needy.” In fact, many people are increasingly hostile toward Christianity and the Church.

What to do? First, Christians must work to employ “prophetic persuasion,” which is marked by both creativity and fidelity to the Gospel. It is informed by examples in Scripture and in the history of the Church. The prophets were remarkable for getting people to see and hear what they didn’t want to see or hear. To accomplish this, they directly raised the questions and issues that made people uncomfortable. However, doing so did not ensure success, at least not in terms that we might accept or understand. Second, we must be “more decisively Christian in our communication.” This is not relying on rote formulas but is “a communication of the gospel that is shaped by our understanding of God’s communication in Christ, just as God’s communication in Christ is shaped by God’s understanding of the condition of our hearts.” Guinness posits that our witness must be shaped by the great truths of salvation history: “creation, the fall, the incarnation, the cross, and the Spirit of God.” In doing so, we recognize the place of reason but also acknowledge “the primacy of the human heart.” This, in fact, is a deeply biblical approach to witness. Finally, Guinness argues that all good thinking involves three questions: “What is being said? Is it true? What of it?” Unfortunately, most people are preoccupied with the third question and ignore the other two. A major reason for this is how technology has shaped our perception of how things work and should be understood. Technique rules. Yet Christian persuasion and witness is not a matter of technique; it is an art rooted in a biblical worldview and aimed at revealing Jesus Christ.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com). He and his family live in Eugene, Oregon.

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Evil

Why Does God Allow Evil?

Carl E. Olson

December 9, 2019 8:58 am December 9, 2019

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In October 2015, a young man opened fire on faculty and students at Umpqua Community College, just an hour south of my home in western Oregon. After shooting and killing…

In October 2015, a young man opened fire on faculty and students at Umpqua Community College, just an hour south of my home in western Oregon.

After shooting and killing nine people and injuring several more, the assailant took his own life. How can or should we think about such acts of evil? I use the word “think” deliberately, because while the emotions of anger and anguish are natural and understandable, it is not easy to reflect on such horrific acts. Following the shootings, I had a discussion with some Catholics who expressed how difficult it was to talk to young people about what had happened in Roseburg, Ore. “They want to know why a good God would allow this to happen,” said one of them. “They are upset that God didn’t stop it from happening.” We can begin by acknowledging, as does the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the difficulty of the question, “Why does evil exist?”, and agreeing that “no quick answer will suffice” (No. 309).

But we must also insist that the mystery of evil cannot ever be explained through merely mechanistic analysis or by invoking medicinal formulas. In fact, such supposedly “scientific” approaches provide little insight and even less hope. Even in the case of mental illness — a sometimes hazy and unsatisfying term — there is the reality of the Fall and the damage done to one’s heart, mind and soul. There is also the distorted, twisted paths man can choose, if he so desires.

Each of us has a natural desire to be known, acknowledged and loved. This, too, can lead down dark paths, warped into the desire to be feared, powerful and in control of life and death. The latter is key, for anyone who freely takes an innocent life is also spurning God, the author and giver of life. We must ask: “What is free will? Is it a good thing?” Having free will means that we, as rational and moral creatures, can make decisions and act upon them. We instinctively know this is a good thing. But why? Well, if we cannot think or act freely, we are not truly human; we would be lacking in an essential way. Even in a culture increasingly detached from a Christian anthropology people believe personal freedom is a great good. As Christians we believe, “Endowed with a spiritual soul, with intellect and with free will, the human person is from his very conception ordered to God and destined for eternal beatitude” (Catechism, No. 1711).

Related questions follow: “What are good and evil? And how do we know?” Some atheists argue God cannot exist because God would not allow evil things to happen to good people. But why do they assume there are things such as “good” or “evil” when they believe the world and everything in it is the result of a mechanistic accident and humans are simply accidents, without a Creator or a transcendent end? Evil is the privation of a good. “A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together,” states the Catechism. “An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself” (No. 1755). “A thing essentially evil cannot exist,” argued St. Thomas Aquinas. “The foundation of evil is always a good subject.”

We recognize that evil results from man seeking a good through disordered, selfish and unjust means. We have a desire to be accepted, but hurting others because they haven’t accepted us is wrong. The statement by Aquinas might startle us, but only because we fail to comprehend that evil is the warping of the good.

If God forced us to do only good, would He be God? Would we truly be “good”? No, of course not. Since God is love — free and total gift of self — He does not coerce. We really are free to reject both Him and authentic love. Which means we are free to pursue goods in a way that is unjust and unloving. When man rejects God, man also rejects man. That is what we saw in the horrible actions in Roseburg.

The mystery of evil is daunting, but “there is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil” (Catechism, No. 309).

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Evangelization

Apologetics At The Doorstep

Carl E. Olson

November 25, 2019 1:45 pm November 25, 2019

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4 min read

Imagine someone knocks on your door and proceeds to say: “You need to rearrange your furniture. And paint this house a new color. Oh, and renovate the master bedroom.” What…

Imagine someone knocks on your door and proceeds to say: “You need to rearrange your furniture. And paint this house a new color. Oh, and renovate the master bedroom.”

What little detail would he be overlooking? That he isn’t an interior decorator and has poor taste in colors? No, of course not — he’s ignoring the fact he doesn’t own the house!

Years ago, shortly after my wife and I entered the Catholic Church, there was a knock on our door. It was two Jehovah’s Witnesses, a husband and wife, eager to tell me about the Watchtower Society. The wife was especially anxious to explain how belief in the Trinity was unbiblical, a creation of the Catholic Church at the Council of Nicaea. Soon she was referencing this and that passage of Scripture, suggesting we examine “the original Greek” together.

She wanted, as it were, to rearrange furniture and argue over paint colors. As a former fundamentalist who had, by God’s grace, journeyed into the Catholic Church, I was tempted to jump into an argument about verse, passage and book. But I took a different approach, asking, “Why are you using a Catholic book to attack the Catholic Church?” In other words, I wanted to talk about ownership!

That surprised them. What did I mean? In short, I explained the following: They accepted, apparently without pause, the divine authority of the New Testament. Why? By what reasoning or evidence did they ascribe authority to those 27 books? I noted that although they denounced the Council of Nicaea for supposedly “creating” the Trinity through papist hook and Catholic crook, they somehow missed how the same papacy, bishops and Church later recognized and defined the New Testament canon. How could they — members of an organization founded in the 1880s — condemn with such confidence the authoritative pronouncements of the ancient Church while referring to a collection of books that was defined, compiled and defended by the same Church?

Their response was both defensive and desperate. “We trace our roots back through men like John Hus and John Wycliffe!” I noted that however much those two men deviated from Catholic teaching, neither one ever denounced the Church’s belief in the Trinity. My guests departed shortly thereafter.

A few years later, there was another knock on my door. This time it was three Mormon missionaries. After the usual pleasantries, I said: “There is just one question I’m hoping you can answer. When was the ‘great apostasy,’ and how did it come about?”

“Well,” said the apparent leader, “surely you agree there has been spiritual darkness in the world since the time of Adam —”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Sure. And?”

“— and that man has constantly fallen away from God and has sinned and —”

“Yes, of course. But when was the ‘great apostasy’? In the 300s? The medieval era? Some other time?”

He took a stab at an answer: “It happened right after Jesus’ death.”

But how is it, I asked, that Jesus, having promised Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, and having sent the disciples out to make disciples of all nations, would let everyone fall into apostasy? After all, there is plenty of historical evidence of early Christians martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ.

“Who?” one asked. “Give an example.” I told him about Ignatius of Antioch, martyred around A.D. 110, who was likely a disciple of the apostle John. To which he replied, with obvious impatience: “Well, clearly you aren’t going to change your mind. You’re set in what you believe.” He then added, defensively, “I know by the testimony of the Holy Spirit that Joseph Smith was a true prophet.”

Since then, I’ve had similar discussions with Mormon missionaries. Each time, they express a solid belief in the fact of a “great apostasy,” yet are unable to provide much in the way of details. Each time, they are consternated by my lack of faith in their lack of knowledge. One urged me, “If you read this booklet” — titled “The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” — “and pray to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, you’ll recognize the truth.”

Sorry. Just because you knock on my door doesn’t mean you own the house; so step away from the furniture.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com) and writes from Eugene, Ore.

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Byline: Carl E. Olson

Defending the Resurrection

What Is Secularism?

St. John Henry Newman

A Dramatic Conversion

Service in the Church

How Best To Explain The Faith?

Why Does God Allow Evil?

Apologetics At The Doorstep

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