Blind Faith ... in Condoms? Studies find Condoms Actually INCREASE AIDS Rates!

"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," Pope Benedict XVI told reporters aboard an Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon. By "it," the pope is referring to the AIDS epidemic in Africa. "On the contrary, it increases the problem." Read more here, at The Washington Post, or here, at Fox News.

The Pope advocates that “fidelity and chastity” make up the only secure path to eradicating AIDS in Africa. He's right! Not only is this the moral path; it is also the most effective. It's not a coincidence that doing what's moral is also the best way to truly help people--it's ALWAYS this way.

People just assume that condoms will curtail the spread of AIDS in Africa. Many of these same people ridicule the Pope, saying he's trying to win adherents through blind faith to Catholic moral teaching. Isn't it funny that the adherents to the doctrine of condom salvation never question their own blind faith??? They should. Empirical evidence is not on their side.

There's an example below of this blind faith, in Edward Green's article in The Washington Post. UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, "quietly disowned" a study conducted by their own researchers that found "no evidence" of condoms working as HIV prevention.

You might be saying: "Why?! Why don't condoms help? It just stands to reason!" Well, perhaps your reason is infected. Think about the fundamental attitude behind contraceptives, and you'll understand the causal relationship.

Condoms and other contraceptives encourage men and women to divorce love from responsibility. Condoms are the instrumentality by which people are encouraged to view each other as sexual objects, not as persons of dignity and sanctity--as children of God. This is the causal foundation for why contraceptives can only worsen the AIDS epidemic. 

That's the Catholic way of explaining it; the Theology of the Body way. The sociological way, as discussed below, involves "Risk Compensation." That is, when people believe condoms make them safer, when used at least some of the time, they actually engage in riskier sex.

But don't take my word for it ...

Take a look at the following articles and research on this issue:

"Condoms, HIV-AIDS and Africa - The Pope Was Right" by By Edward C. Green (senior research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health) in The Washington Post, March 29, 2009:

"When Pope Benedict XVI commented this month that condom distribution isn't helping, and may be worsening, the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, he set off a firestorm of protest. Most non-Catholic commentary has been highly critical of the pope ... Yet, in truth, current empirical evidence supports him." 

"In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations' AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.) Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa. In a 2008 article in Science called "Reassessing HIV Prevention" 10 AIDS experts concluded that 'consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa.'" 

Why don't condoms help prevent the spread of AIDS???

"One reason is 'risk compensation.' That is, when people think they're made safe by using condoms at least some of the time, they actually engage in riskier sex."

"Another factor is that people seldom use condoms in steady relationships because doing so would imply a lack of trust. (And if condom use rates go up, it's possible we are seeing an increase of casual or commercial sex.) However, it's those ongoing relationships that drive Africa's worst epidemics. In these, most HIV infections are found in general populations, not in high-risk groups such as sex workers, gay men or persons who inject drugs. And in significant proportions of African populations, people have two or more regular sex partners who overlap in time. In Botswana, which has one of the world's highest HIV rates, 43 percent of men and 17 percent of women surveyed had two or more regular sex partners in the previous year."

"These ongoing multiple concurrent sex partnerships resemble a giant, invisible web of relationships through which HIV/AIDS spreads [emphasis added]. A study in Malawi showed that even though the average number of sexual partners was only slightly over two, fully two-thirds of this population was interconnected through such networks of overlapping, ongoing relationships."

So what has worked in Africa??

"Strategies that break up these multiple and concurrent sexual networks -- or, in plain language, faithful mutual monogamy or at least reduction in numbers of partners, especially concurrent ones. "Closed" or faithful polygamy can work as well."

"In Uganda's early, largely home-grown AIDS program, which began in 1986, the focus was on "Sticking to One Partner" or "Zero Grazing" (which meant remaining faithful within a polygamous marriage) and "Loving Faithfully." These simple messages worked. More recently, the two countries with the highest HIV infection rates, Swaziland and Botswana, have both launched campaigns that discourage people from having multiple and concurrent sexual partners."

• Read more from Edward C. Green in his book “Broken Promises:  How the AIDS Establishment Has Betrayed the Developing World.” 
• In it, he insists that Western ideology has led to millions of preventable AIDS deaths in Africa: “[T]he best and the brightest in medicine and public health have led us to a global disaster of epic proportions.  In fact, we are now experience the greatest avoidable epidemic in history.” 
• The book “Broken Promises” is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the nexus of politics, ideology, and science.  No, everyone should read this book to understand where a “sex supersedes all” mindset can lead.

"Myth Buster Monday: Promoting condoms is the best way to curb the HIV/AIDs epidemic in Africa" from the The United Families International Blog:

The Unite Families International Blog provides this excellent bibliography for more scholarly articles on this topic:

• D. Halperin and H. Epstein, “Concurrent Sexual Partnerships Help Explain Africa’s High HIV Prevalence: Implications for Prevention,” Lancet 363 (2004): 4-6.
• Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen, “Condom Promotion for AIDS Prevention in the Developing World: Is It Working?” Studies in Family Planning 35, no. 1 (2004): 39-47. [this article was the basis for Edward Green's article, supra]
• P. Kajubi, M. R. Kamya, S. Kamya, S. Chen, W. McFarland, and N. Hearst, “Increasing Condom Use without Reducing HIV Risk: Results of a Controlled Community Trial in Uganda,” Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 40, no. 1 (2005): 77-82.
• Deborah Watson-Jones, et al., “Risk Factors for HIV Incidence in Women Participating in an HSV Suppressive Treatment Trial in Tanzania,” AIDS 23 (2009):415-22.
• James D. Shelton, et al., “Partner Reduction Is Crucial for Balanced ‘ABC’ Approach to HIV Prevention,” BMJ 328, no. 10 (April 2004): 891-93.
• Stoneburner and Low-Beer, “Population-level HIV Declines and Behavioral Risk Avoidance in Uganda,”  Science, Vol. 304,  April (2004):  714-718.
• G. Asiimwe-Okiror, A.A. Opio, J. Musinguzi. E. Madraa, G. Tembo, and M. Carael, “Change in Sexual Behavior and Decline in HIV Infection among Youhg Preganant Women in Urban Uganda,” AIDS 11 (1997): 1757-63.
• D. T. Halperin, M. J. Steiner, M.M. Cassell, et al., “The Time Has Come for Common Ground on Preventing Sexual Transmission of HIV,” Lancet 364 (2004): 1,913-15.
• J. Richens, J. Imrie, and A. Copas, “Condoms and Seat Belts:  The Parallels and the Lessons, Lancet 355, no. 9201 (2000):  400-403.

"Contraceptives Increase the Risk of Catching AIDS" by Clemente Ferrer in News Central Asia:

"According to a study, published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal by Renee Heffron (University of Washington), the use of hormonal contraceptives increase the risk of women in contracting the AIDS virus. www.thelancet.com"

"Previous research studies reached the same conclusion; however, the latter one is much more credible. The study was conducted by closely following 3,790 marriages; a strategy which allowed researchers to observe and carefully follow AIDS transmission from men to women as well as from women to men. The people who collaborated with the study come from seven African countries: Botswana, Kenya Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia."

"If the hormonal contraceptive is used through injection, then the risk of woman-to-man transmission is of 2.64%, while from man-to-woman increases to 6.86%. When it comes to birth-control pills, the percentages are 5.94% and 2.50%, respectively."

For those of you who still adhere to a "blind faith" in condoms, who still refuse to believe that empirical evidence is against you, I encourage you to keep researching this topic -- there's plenty more research out there!

The Jedi and the Communion of Saints

"You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." (Episode IV: A New Hope)


In a very similar--though more demure--way, St. Therese of Liseux (the namesake of this blog) addresses her own approaching death: "I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth." [St. Therese of Lisieux, The Final Conversations, tr. John Clarke (Washington: ICS, 1977), 102.]"


St. Therese is a fine and powerful example of the Communion of Saints. In this article, I suggest that the Communion of Saints' action in this world is similar to Obi-Wan Kenobi's helping Luke Skywalker, following his journey from the Jedi netherworld.


How does Obi-Wan come back from the dead after Darth Vader kills him? Let's cover a little background. Yoda and Qui-Gonn Jinn answer this question at the end of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.


At the end of Episode III, George Lucas does a lot of connecting the dots for us; for example:

1. We're shown how Leia becomes an Organa and Crown Pincess of Alderaan.
2. We see the construction of the first Death Star with a cameo from a young, beefy Grand Moff Tarkin.

3. We find out why Obi-Wan and Yoda go into exile, to Tatooine and Degoba, respectively, to learn Qui-Gonn's new trick.

What's Qui-Gonn's new trick? First off, Qui-Gonn is Obi-Wan's old Jedi Master. We find out at the end of Revenge of the Sith that Qui-Gonn has "returned from the netherworld of the Force" and is ready to teach Yoda and Obi-Wan the same. It seems Yoda had a conversation with Qui-Gonn's spirit in much the same way that Obi-Wan will later aid Luke.

On a side note, the book adaptation of Revenge of the Sith includes more details about Yoda and Qui-Gonn's conversation. Yoda regrets harboring doubts of Qui-Gonn's abilities, saying "A great Jedi Master you always were, but too blind I was to see it ... Your apprentice, I gratefully become."

Dead Jedi and Saints 
When a Jedi dies, he or she is not truly dead. They are alive in the Force, in the Netherworld of the Force. So it is with Saints. Christians live beyond death. They are alive in Christ. All baptized Christians form one, united body of Christ: the comm-union of saints.

Paragraph 2683 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this. The witnesses who have entered the kingdom of heaven before us (cf. Heb 12:1), especially those that the Church has recognized as saints, "share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today." They take care of those members of the communion who remain on earth, being "put in charge of many things" (cf. Mt 25:21). Refer, also, to the quote from Saint Therese at the beginning of this article.

Just as Saints help those who remain on earth build up the kingdom of heaven, Obi-Wan helps Luke destroy the Death Star, directs him to Yoda in Degobah, and helps him discern his ultimate battle with his father.

With parting words similar to Obi-Wan (and St. Therese), St. Dominic instructed his brothers, "Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life."

Sidenote: Should we compare the Jedi Netherworld to Heaven?
No. I think the Netherworld compares better to Sheol (cf. Job 7:9; Ps 18:5-7, 86:13, 139:8; Jonah 2:2). Sheol is a twilight sort of place, the destination of both the righteous and unrighteous. This is a Hebrew conception of the afterlife similar to Hades in Greek mythology, a gloomy place of shadows. Sheol is a place awaiting the Resurrection of Christ.

Use of the word "Netherworld" and a lack of a true resurrection lead me to this Sheol connection. Sheol is sometimes translated as "netherworld" and the two words are at least regarded as synonyms.

Also, the Messianic figure of Anakin Skywalker does not possess the power to resurrect his own life, though he very much sought this power credited to Darth Plagueis, as I've described in my post, "The Virgin Birth of Star Wars." Following his resurrection, Christ walked the earth as a glorified body; Anakin's resuscitated body, dependent on mechanical parts to keep him alive, is very different from this. Very different, as Saint Obi-Wan describes in Return of the Jedi,

"He's more machine now than man; twisted and evil."

The argument could be made, however, that Qui-Gonn's first return from the Netherworld and later instruction to other Jedi is similar to Jesus leading his disciples to the Resurrection. Not only is Jesus a teacher, he is the Resurrection, itself, and life (cf. Jn 11:25).

Lord of the Rings and the Trinity

Tolkien's stories are nearly bottomless and all of it is rich in theology, so I'll just give a snapshot in the following article. Tolkien was a good and studied Catholic, so the origins of his gods are steeped in solid Trinitarian theology.


First off, where did Gandalf come from?? He's the wisest of the Maiar, who are minor Ainu. Huh? The Ainu, which means "Holy Ones," were the first of the creations of Eru Ilúvatar--they were born of his thought. The wizards--Gandalf, Saruman, etc.--were each a Maiar, and existed before Elves, Men, and Dwarves.

God the Father
Eru Ilúvatar is the Godhead of the Tolkien mythos. He is God the Father, the first person of the Trinity. The name, Eru Ilúvatar, means "The One" (Eru) and "Father of All" (Ilúvatar) in the ancient Elvish language of Quenya. You can make a direct connection between Eru and El, the word for God or "The One" in Hebrew, such as in Elohim ("the all-powerful One"), El Shaddai ("God Almighty"), Gabriel [Gabri-El] ("Strength of God"), and Michael [Micha-El] ("Who is like God?").

Gandalf and the other wizards and Maiar were born of the thoughts of Eru Ilúvatar (of God, the Father). Similarly, God the Father speaks the Word, which is the Son of God--the Word made Flesh is Jesus Christ. You might be thinking, "Tolkien's Trinity is way more than three persons."


Tolkien actually addressed all the gods, sub-gods, and co-gods in his mythology. In a draft letter to Peter Hastings, the manager of a Catholic bookshop in Oxford, Tolkien explained his mix of monotheism and polytheism and its seeming unorthodoxy. All these gods are "a tribute to the infinity of [God's] potential variety."(1) A creature, Tolkien argued, does not necessarily have to create in the same manner as he was created.

HOWEVER! There are powers reserved to Eru Ilúvatar alone, such as the power of RESURRECTION, and other interventions into the natural order. And so God the Son incarnated as Jesus was revealing something particular about his Divine Nature and the Christian Trinity when he said, "I am the Resurrection and the life" (Jn 11:25). Gandalf, unlike Jesus, did not share in the Divine Nature of Eru Ilúvatar. Gandalf, unlike Jesus, did not resurrect himself.


There's no single Christ, Messiah, or God-the-Son in Tolkien's mythology--this will be the subject of another article: The Christs of Lord of the Rings. God the Son, as a person of the Trinity, is splintered among many different characters. The other persons of the Trinity--God the Father and God the Holy Spirit--are not splintered and are very straightforward.


The Holy Spirit
God the Father is Eru Ilúvatar, as I've explained, but who is Tolkien's Holy Spirit? It is the Secret Fire or the Flame Imperishable, which is the power of life possessed by Eru Ilúvatar alone. Tolkien, himself, admits to this Trinitarian connection.(2)


Do you remember hearing about this Secret Fire in Lord of the Rings? It's definitely one of the cooler scenes from the movie. Gandalf, himself, finds his courage to stand before the Balrog of Morgoth (Morgoth is the Satan figure, a fallen member of the Valar) when he calls himself a "servant of the Secret Fire":

"You cannot pass," he said ... "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. You cannot pass." (3)

I love this quote, not only because it shows what a bad mamma-jamma Gandalf is, but also because it reveals the good and evil of Middle-Earth and the discernment needed between them. There is the Secret Fire of Eru Ilúvatar, the Holy Spirit, which is purely good and all-powerful. At war against the Secret Fire is the "dark fire." The Balrog before Gandalf was created by Tolkien's Lucifer-figure, Melkor or Morgoth, in Tolkien's Hell-equivalent, the fortress of Morgoth, Utumno or Udûn.

Gandalf announces that he is a servant of Tolkien's Holy Spirit before the embodiment of evil, a creature made of the dark fire, itself. Gandalf's power is rooted in his faith. He stands on that narrow bridge, the razor's edge, guided by his faith. His willingness to sacrifice himself was further rooted in his faith in the resurrection--in Eru Ilúvatar, Himself. It was by the same faith that Abraham could sacrifice his only son, Isaac.


The power of the dark fire can only corrupt the creations of the Secret Fire; it cannot create on its own. Isn't this a true image of evil? of Satan? Evil can only pervert and destroy. Frodo explains this to Sam in Return of the King, as he describes the origin of orcs:

"The shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own."(4)

God the Son
As I said earlier, there's more than one Christ figure in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien splintered his Messiah into three characters: Gandalf, Frodo, and--of course--Aragorn. Each of these characters represents a different aspect of Christ:

• Gandalf the Gray (and White) represents the Resurrection, but more importantly he represents the third person of the Trinity, The Word, who exists outside of time.
• Frodo Baggins represents the Sacrifice (the Crucifixion), the journey which begins in sleepy, out-of-the-way Nazareth and ends on the slopes of Golgotha.
• Aragorn, son of Arathorn represents the King, the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom.

Is Tolkien's Trinity a true Trinity? Eru Ilúvatar never exists, truly, in three persons. Though Tolkien has Christ figures, his Trinity does not include a full-fledged God, the Son, much less is Ilúvatar actually incarnated. Also, the Flame Imperishable does not seem to exist as a person or as equal to Ilúvatar. Rather, the Secret Fire seems to be something that is possessed by Ilúvatar.


An Old Testament Trinity: I would have to conclude that Tolkien's Trinity is not a New Testament Trinity. It more closely resembles the Trinity as expressed in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Trinity is only partially revealed. Also, Tolkien's Trinity is most developed in its action of creation.

Compare Tolkien's creation to the Book of Genesis. In Genesis, God the Son is the Word spoken at creation. He appears in Scripture whenever Wisdom and Truth are spoken of in capital letters. God the Holy Spirit is present at creation, also, as the spirit moving over the waters (Gn 1:2). This very similar to The Lord of the Rings:

• The Son: the first of the creations of Eru Ilúvatar, the Ainu, were born of his thought, much as God spoke the Word at creation.
• The Holy Spirit: the Flame Imperishable is the power of life possessed by Eru Ilúvatar alone, similar to the Spirit of God which is active in creation across the formlessness.  

The full doctrine of the Trinity won't be fully explained until the Gospel of John and Paul's epistles. This is how doctrine develops: as "through a mirror dimly" which clears through the passage of time (1 Cor 13:12).
 
St. Augustine was warned by an angel not to expect too much of his feeble mind when investigating the mysteries of the Trinity. Tolkien seems to heed the same warning; the creation of Middle-Earth is not simply a recapitulation of the Genesis story. His imagination has great power. Tolkien reveals the infinite wonder which can be found in just the natures of God and creation.


1. Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (1981), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, #153, ISBN 0-395-31555-7
2. Clyde S. Kilby. Tolkien & The Silmarillion. Harold Shaw, 1976, p. 59.
3. Tolkien, J. R. R., The Fellowship of the Ring II 5: "The Bridge of Khazad-dûm"
4. Tolkien, J. R. R., The Return of the King VI 1: "The Tower of Cirith Ungol"

Paranormal Activity & The Theology of the Body

I don't treat lightly of demons and demonology, so I may take a different tact than you might expect in this review of the movie, Paranormal Activity. Let's look to the Book of Tobit and Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.

Biblical Demons: Get Down on Your Knees and Pray!
[SPOILER ALERT: I give away plot details of the movie!] There is a demon in the Book of Tobit that haunts a young woman. The demon of lust, a king of demons (whose name I WILL NOT mention) consumes the woman's seven husbands one-by-one as they enter the bridal chamber. It's a HONEYMOON MASSACRE! (of Biblical proportions)

Background on Tobit
Tobit, himself, is an interesting figure, with an interesting and seemingly boring vocation: burying the dead. He follows his vocation with a martyr's zeal. Providing respect to the bodies of the dead is a sacred duty in Hebrew society. Tobit (or Tobias) had plenty of work to do, also, because Sennacherib, the prince of the Assyrian Empire, is massacring Hebrews. Despite death threats, Tobit keeps on burying the his kinsmen's bodies. The king seizes Tobit's property and exiles him. 

His fortunes are eventually reversed when after Sennacherib's death he is allowed to return to Nineveh. Not long after, though, he is blinded when a bird's droppings fall into his eyes. DANG!! Enter the Angel Raphael. The angel, disguised as Azariah, protects Tobit on a journey to Media, through an attack by a strange fish, and guides him to Sarah, who is being haunted by the demon.

Okay, back to the demon: When a woman's husband dies in Hebrew society, she is forced to marry his surviving male relatives, one-by-one, if necessary. Sarah has already married her original husband's six closest relatives--poor girl! And since Tobit, too, is her kinsman, he also has a right to marry her. So he does.

What is Tobit getting into? Is he crazy??? Sarah's last seven husbands have been ripped to shreds by this demon of lust, one of the most powerful demons in human history. There's bound to be at least one or two gulps lodged in Tobit's throat. The rest of kinsmen are probably thinking he's insane...

But Tobit is a God-fearing man! Tobit seeks the salvation of his bride, and loves her even as Christ loved the Church (Ephesians 5:25). Before he enters Sarah's bed to consummate their marriage, he pulls both of them to their knees. He prays that God will deliver them from this demon. God delivers. Raphael is standing by to bind the demon. Actually, the longer story is pretty interesting. Here's a snapshot: Raphael instructs Tobit to burn as incense in the bridal chamber the entrails of that strange fish that the two of them met on their journey to Media. I bet that aroma really set the mood! The incense casts the demon to Upper Egypt, where Raphael finds him and binds him.

Tobit and Paranormal Activity
While the similarities between Tobit's story and Paranormal Activity may now seem obvious, there are some significant differences. The young couple, Katie and Micah, make some serious mistakes that lead to Micah's ugly end:

1. They're not married and they're living together!! Let this serve as a WARNING to all you young couples! The demon of lust is very much waiting to destroy your relationship.
2. Katie keeps her haunting a secret from Micah. Oops! This is the argument Micah brings up when Katie forbids his camera in their bedroom.
3. The demon of lust is slain in Tobit. It's the demon who does the slaying in Paranormal Activity.

Do you see the connection between book of Tobit and Paranormal Activity? The demon attacks Tobit and Micah both at their most vulnerable--in their own beds.

The Bedroom. What Happens While You Sleep?
What does this movie, Paranormal Activity, say about the morality and sanctity of sex and the bedroom? The Israeli director of this movie, Oren Peli, admits that the true horrific power of this movie rests in the vulnerability we feel as we sleep. What fuels this movie is "the concept of what happens at night when you're asleep in the dark and vulnerable. It plays on people's primal fears."(1)

What could have saved this young couple? Only the power of God and his angels. Not a psychic nor a demonologist, would have been as powerful as an exorcist priest or a simple prayer.

The Theology of the Body
Micah of Paranormal Activity was selfish and immature; his girlfriend, Katie, is quick to point this out. It's his job to protect his woman from evil, even as it was Adam's job to protect Eve from the cunning of the serpent. How did Micah fail? Alternatively, How did Tobit succeed?

All men everywhere, especially husbands, are called to love their wives, as Christ loved the Church, giving his very life for the life of the Church. This is what the controversial Ephesians 5:25 attests to. "Wives be submissive to your husbands"--okay, but husbands ... husbands! You better give everything, even your own life, to protect your wives from evil.

In the movie Paranormal Activity, Micah was clearly more concerned with toying with a demon that protecting his girlfriend, though his girlfriend, admittedly, wasn't too concerned with protecting Micah.

The goal of a relationship is to see God, himself, through the one you love. What else could so bring a man to his knees? It is the glory of God, Himself, at whose Name every knee shall bend.

Lastly, one final note ...
What's with the name Micah?
What should Micah have done? Call on the power of his namesake, the Archangel Michael, who defends us in battle.

It's interesting that the male lead in this movie is named Micah, pronounced (strangely) as MEEK-ah. Micha is a minor prophet of the Old Testament and that name appears in a couple other unremarkable places, save one. The name, itself, is significant. Micha is a question--the name is a question. It asks, "who is like God?" Also, when you add the theophoric suffix "-el" to the end of it, it names the commander of God's legions of angels, the demon-slayer, the Archangel Michael. The name changes from "who is like God?" to its answer: Michael "is one like God."

Also, Micah is the actor's real name, Micah Sloat. Maybe you can see God's protective hand reaching into this movie through the Archangel's name. It is unwise to treat the subject of demonology lightly.

Footnotes:
1. John Barber, "The Q&A: Oren Peli, director of Paranormal Activity" (Toronto, ON: The Globe and Mail, 2010) accessed January 1, 2010, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/the-qa-oren-peli-director-of-paranormal-activity/article1411783/

The Theology of Ents (Lord of the Rings)

Where did all these armies of trees--Tolkien's Ents and Huorns, Shakespeare's Birnam Wood, even Kurosawa's Throne of Blood--come from? The Bible.

In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the Ents march on Saruman's fortress of Orthanc in Isengard and are an unstoppable force and just plain cool. Also, the Huorns, who are either Ents who have turned treeish or trees that have grown wild and grumpy, march from Fangorn forest. They consume the retreating Uruk-hai from the Battle of the Hornburg at Helm's Deep.

What was Tolkien's inspiration for the Ents?

In a letter to the Anglo-American poet, W. H. Auden, Tolkien explains his inspiration for the Ents:

"Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the 'male' and 'female' attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening."(1)

Tolkien's Ents and Huorns were inspired by the marching of Shakespeare's Birnam Wood in the MacBeth. Do you remember that part of the play?

In Scene 3, MacBeth tells that doctor that he is not afraid of an invasion because of the three witches' prediction that 1) No man born of woman can kill him and 2) the woods must march before he is defeated. Well, guess what? Both of these things happen.

The First Prophecy

On a side note, do you remember how Tolkien also also used the first of the witches' prophecies, that "no man born of woman can kill him"? Sound familiar? The elf Glorfindel prophesized about The Witch-King Angmar, "Do not pursue him! He will not return to these lands. Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall."(2). Eowyn--"I am no man!"--with the help of Merry eventually slays the Witch-King fulfilling the prophesy. 

For Shakespeare, this prophesy was likely inspired by the Protoevangelium (First Gospel) of Genesis 3:15:

"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel."

The "offspring" of woman, or the "seed" of woman as it is otherwise translated, can only refer to one man in all of human history. One man! Elsewhere in the Bible or other ancient documents you will only ever see the "seed of man," not woman. There is only one man in history who had no earthly father: the virgin birth, Jesus of Nazareth born of Mary and the Holy Spirit.

Isn't that amazing?? The whole Gospel was contained in one verse of Genesis. The whole of salvation history was outlined from the beginning. God wasn't making it up as He went. The most ancient prophesy of the Messiah is surprisingly clear: a virgin birth who will strike at the skull of the serpent. Where's was Christ crucified? Into what was the wood of Christ's cross thrust? What was the place's name? Golgotha, which means "place of the skull." Incredible!

The Second Prophecy

Back to MacBeth: In Scene 4, Malcolm instructs his army, "let every soldier hew him down a bough." The soldiers cover themselves in the branches of the Birnam Wood and advance upon Dunsinane Castle, fulfilling the prophesy:

“As I did stand my watch upon the hill,

I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,

The wood began to move.” (Messenger, Scene V)

But what was Shakespeare's inspiration??
The books of the Prophet Samuel detail, in part, the wars, rebellions, and conquests of King David. When Absalom rebels against his father David, David retreats to Ephraim Wood. Absalom pursues David into the wood, and his armies are completely routed. But David had some help:

"The battle spread out over that entire region, and the thickets consumed more combatants that day than did the sword." (2 Samuel 18:8)

Absalom, himself, was snatched from his mule by the branches of an oak tree and struggled there until Joab thrust three spears into him. Note, also, that three wounds marked the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Son of God, as he hung from the wood of the cross. Of course, Christ, unlike Absalom, was blameless.

I'm convinced that this description of the Battle of Ephraim Wood directly inspired Shakespeare's MacBeth, and in so doing inspired Tolkein. It's also entirely possible the Tolkien was directly inspired by Scripture, too.


Footnotes:
1. Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), Letter #163.
2. The Return of the King, Appendix A (I, iv)

The Theology of Avatar

Much has been written about James Cameron's new epic Avatar ... about it stunning 3D visual effects, big budget,  etc., but I haven't seen much written about the theology or mythology behind it. There seems to be a subtle, maybe even sophisticated, theology behind the story.

I noticed a few things, and I wanted to jot down a few ideas:

• How does Pandora represent an prelapsarian (before the Fall) world in which Nature and Grace have not yet been divorced from each other? How does the god Eywa represent the unbroken bond between Nature and Grace? (and the Holy Spirit?)
• Are the Two Sacred Trees, the Tree of Voices (or Souls) and the Hometree, an allusion to the two trees of the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life?
• Is Sigourney Weaver's character name, Dr. Grace Augustine, an allusion to Saint Augustine's Doctrine of Grace?
• What does the Second Birth of the Na'vi race say about Baptism?

The 7th day of Creation, the Sabbath, serves as a sign of the covenant--of the marriage--between nature and grace. In the beginning, God's creation was perfect: "God saw how good it was" (Gen 1:12). The Sabbath was a day to admire the goodness of creation; all our days were meant to be Sabbaths. Mankind, however, did not fulfill his covenant. Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the original grace of nature was marred by man's will.

In the movie Avatar, however, a day on Pandora is no Sabbath. There's no time to admire the beauty of Pandora with all the massive, angry animals stalking around. Corporal Jake Sully takes a moment to admire the beautiful flora of Pandora, the collapsing "helicoradian," at the beginning of the movie, and ends up running for his life and jumping over the edge of a cliff to escape a "thanator."

But, the Na'vi people do live in a graced harmony with nature in two related ways:

• First, the Na'vi are capable of a neurological connection with animals through the "queue." The Na'vi can actually unite their wills with those of animals by physically connecting their neural networks (by mutual acceptance).
• Second, Dr. Grace Augustine discovers that the bio-botanical connection between all the living organisms of Pandora is far more extensive than anything known on Earth. The Tree of Voices eventually reveals the extent of this.

It's as though mankind has stumbled into a second Garden of Eden, only to fall all over again. Only, our sin isn't so "original" this time. The Corporation, which is mining Pandora's rich natural resources, serves as mankind's representative in the same way Adam did. The Corporation desires, above all things, the fruit of the Na'vi's sacred tree, the rich deposit of "unobtainium" beneath the Hometree, which also--it is said--happens to be the only thing which can keep Earth from dying.

Because of Original Sin, however, mankind cannot freely eat of Eden's Tree of Life. "Lest he put forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life," man is barred from the Garden (Gen 3:22). The way is shut and guarded. Because of our fallen wills and polluted motivations, there is no easy, painless way to bring forth life. We must suffer to bring forth life, as with childbirth or the paralyzed Jake Sully or the Suffering Servant, who dies on the cross.

A mineral such as can be found by plundering Pandora can only delay the inevitable. It is a temptation destroying the relationship between the humans and the Na'vi, who hold the truest hope for a post-Earth mankind. Did you notice the name of the trucks which harvest that rich mineral, "unobtainium"? Did you notice the name of the human colony on Pandora? Hell trucks. Hell's Gate. It begs the question: on which side of the gate does Hell really lie? Did you notice the name of the mineral, itself? "Un-obtain-ium"? And so it is. It's the illusion, the false pursuit, that will claim your life while improverishing you; it's the road to hell.

The Na'vi's union with nature proves that their natures are not fallen in the same way as mankind's. The story of Avatar is a story of the reunion of grace and nature. [THESIS]

The story presents this contrast between man and the Na'vi in three ways characters interact with the world around them:

1. Greatest Union of Grace and Nature: The Na'vi Communion, in which the Na'vi connect to nature and to souls directly through the "queue" (i.e. through a bio-botanical neural network);
2. Transitional Union: The Avatar, the greatest union that man can accomplish by his own power and strength, a union which only the Tree of Souls can complete;

3. Dis-Union, or Hollow Union: The AMP (Amplified Mobility Platform) suits of the army, which only mimic the union of animal and human found among the Na'vi.

Dr. Grace Augustine
So, what's in a name? There must be something going on with Dr. Grace Augustine's name. The pairing of the words "grace" and "Augustine" is an unlikely coincidence. With his Doctrine of Grace, Augustine, Doctor of the Church, has ensured that his name will always be associated with grace, the fall of man, and free will. 

But what does it mean for Sigourney Weaver's character to be called Grace Augustine? Dr. Grace is portrayed as a clearly brillant woman, with many natural gifts and talents (not unlike Weaver's character in Gorillas in the Mist, Dr. Dian Fossey). As a xenobiologist, one who studies alien life, she dominates her field. She has gone further into the Na'vi culture than any human being alive. But! She ultimately fails to be taken into the Tree of Souls, and dies before her soul can be incorporated into Eywa. It is the free gift of Eywa--it is grace--which allows for the incorporation (i.e. redemption) of a soul. It cannot be earned; it cannot be gained no matter how far we can reach.

The Second Birth & Baptism
Na'vi are initiated into society by being born again: their "Second Birth." This is the Christian Sacrament of Baptism. In Baptism, we are sanctified by the grace of the Holy Spirit; our fallen natures are again united perfectly with grace; we are born again. This is why Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life (CCC 1213).

Christians, like the Na'vi and their "queue," also have a direct link to the life of this world: the Holy Spirit, "the Lord, the Giver of Life" (Dominum et vivificantem, from the Nicene Creed). Eywa represents the Holy Spirit, by whose power Jake Sully can fully transition into his avatar and Pandora's animal life is summoned against the forces of Colonel Quaritch.

Natural Miracles
For me, this biological representation of the Holy Spirit is the most powerful part of the Avatar story, and its greatest contribution to science fiction. This piece of the story, more than any other, sparks my imagination. I suppose I'm always looking for a biological basis for God's miracles. I don't intend to dismiss miracles by physical explanations; I hope to see the whole physical world as a miracle. As Einstein said,

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."

Biology and all of science is God's handiwork and His laws. In the case of miracles, God doesn't violate His own laws, his own essence; He demonstrates the full potential of His Creation. Isn't it fantastic that we can ask how?

Catholics and Idolatry

This post is in response to a question my aunt asked me. She asked, why is all the iconoclasty (or iconophilia) in Catholicism not considered idolatry?

Okay, first off. What's the commandment say? Exodus 20:2-6 from the NAB:

"I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers' wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments."

Different religions number their Commandments differently, which leads to a different placement of "You shall not make for yourself a grave image." Most people probably forget this, thinking the commandments are the commandments, but not every Decalogue is created equally.  

Check out the following table (which I hijacked from Wikipedia): 

If you notice, Catholics and Lutherans actually agree on something. They take their numbering of the commandments from Deuteronomy 5, as opposed to Exodus 20.

This numbering is important theologically. Protestants throw in a man's wife among his possessions for things that you should not covet ... I'm sure Henry VIII appreciated this. The Catholic/Lutheran numbering, on the other hand, regards the phrase "graven images" differently, throwing it in with #1, "You shall have no other gods before me."

Now, why is the veneration of images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the saints, either in two or three dimensions not idolatry?

Let me first say that if God did not intend for his loyal disciples to make statues and holy images, WHY did He command Moses to adorn the Ark of the Covenant (THE most holy relic of the Semitic people) with statues of cherubim??? Notice that God instructs Moses in the making of the Ark in almost the same breath as the Commandments. Clearly, God is not contradicting himself: there must be something wrong with our interpretation of what is a "graven image." Why is the Golden Calf different from the Golden Cherubim, or even the Bronze serpent that Moses raises in the desert? The answer is on some levels obvious, but let's get down to the etymology. 

There are two kinds of veneration: latreía and douleía. Veneration in the form of latreía, the veneration due to God alone [period] is doctrinally forbidden by the Catholic Church. The veneration of religious pictures or Icons in the form of douleía, however, is not only allowed but obligatory. The difference is subtle sometimes, and may be confusing to the casual observer. For instance, I've seen Protestant websites posting pictures of the pope kneeling before statues of the saints and calling him an idolator, but they don't notice that he kneels on a different knee before these statues and the Blessed Sacrament.  

Lastly, let's look at the writings of St. John of Damascus on this subject, because he was a great fighter of heresy in his time AND because he makes it so simple. In his work, "On the Divine Image," which was written in the 8th century in response to the Iconoclastic Controversy that would eventually lead to the Great Schism of 1054, St. John argues, while depicting the invisible God is indeed wrong, the Incarnation, in which "the Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14), indicates that the invisible God became visible. Consequently, it is permissible to depict Jesus Christ. St. John writes, "When He who is bodiless and without form... existing in the form of God, empties Himself and takes the form of a servant in substance and in stature and is found in a body of flesh, then you draw His image."

Ultimately, I believe, attacking the Catholic Church by calling them idolators is an attack on the Eucharist--the flesh of Christ, Himself--and the doctrine of the Incarnation. Because the Eucharist stands as the "source and summit" of the Church, it is no wonder that it, too, should be attacked.

I hope this answers the question that was posed to me. I welcome discussion on this post.

Merry Christmas! O Come Let Us Adore Him!