Category: Apologetics

While browsing in the religion sections of chain bookstores, I often find pop-spirituality books with titles like The Gospel According to Peanuts or The Gospel According to Harry Potter; even, I kid you not, The Gospel According to Oprah. I’ve never even scanned through these titles, so I can’t tell you much about them, but I assume they talk about the Christian values you can expect to find in these sources. The Amazon.com ad for the Oprah book says the author, for example, "praises Oprah for using her entertainment pulpit to promote such positive spiritual values as gratitude, empathy, forgiveness and self-examination."

Uh huh.

Well, anyway, in light of these contributions to "gospel values," it occurs to me that what the world now needs is a Gospel According to Su Doku.

Perhaps you are unaware of Su Doku?  Sometime last year, I started noticing books on the subject popping up in bookstores, but ignored them. Then at a Christmas party this past year, I was given a book of Su Doku puzzles and started learning. Basically, it’s a number-placement logic game popular in Japan that recently became fantastically popular in the West when the London Times began running puzzles alongside the crossword puzzles.

In Su Doku (Japanese, "single number"), there is a grid of nine blocks, with each block sectioned off into nine squares. The object is to place numbers from one to nine horizontally, vertically, and within each block without repeating a number. Never a numbers person, I didn’t think I’d like the game very much, but I was wrong. It’s a fascinating process and a lot of fun.

So, what’s my Gospel According to Su Doku? Well, it’s more an Apologetics Lessons Learned while playing Su Doku.

• Work in small sections, blocking off extraneous information until it is needed. But remember that there is a bigger picture. The information you insert into the puzzle in one block must agree with the rest of the puzzle. If you put the wrong number in even one square, you’ll ruin the whole puzzle. Sweat the small stuff.
• As you add more numbers to your puzzle, you will be able to solve other sections of the puzzle that you previously were unable to solve. Information in one area increases the information you have to be able to solve the rest of the puzzle.
• As the numbers increasingly fall into place, you eventually reach a "tipping point" and soon the whole puzzle falls into place. Where once you could spend ten minutes trying to find a single number to fit, now you are plugging in the numbers in seconds flat.

What does this have to do with apologetics?

• You should be wary of giving people more information than they request at any one time because they may not yet be ready to accept it. But keep in mind that there is a larger picture and that the information you give now is not a self-sustaining construct but a piece of a larger puzzle.
• As you receive answers to questions about the faith in one area, you soon find yourself able to resolve other apologetics difficulties either you or someone else may have. For example, an answer about the proper understanding of the Incarnation here may lead to a better understanding of Mary somewhere down the line.
• In the conversion process, there is eventually a "tipping point," after which you are no longer struggling to place the information you’ve received into its proper place but are merely "filling in the blanks."

Now, I just have to find time to puff these pearls of wisdom into a 80,000-word manuscript and I’ll have the next Gospel According To… book ready to market!

A reader writes:

One thing I come across in the blogosphere are occasionaly bloopers about the faith.  Ironically when discussing the current brouhaha about the Muhammed cartoons and jihad DJ Drummond of Polipundit makes the following staement (after stating he is a Protestant):

"Take the Reformation of Christianity. I’m not saying, at all, that Christianity is morally the same as Islam, yet I am all to well aware that the catholic Church in Europe was guilty of some very nasty excesses, what with prohibition against lay people reading the Bible on their own, and against personal ownership of Bibles. I recall reading of arrests and trials and tortures of innocent people, for the purpose of advancing the fortunes of favored individuals and punishing their enemies. I recall the histories of indulgences granted by the Church, manipulation of governments and heavy tax burdens levied on the people with no choice but to endure it. These injustices lasted for centuries with very few dissenters, and small wonder – the Church hired men to devise means of torture, to literally wrack confessions from malcontents and so suppress any thought of revolt. Few men indeed had the courage to speak up during those years."

I could probably debunk this but don’t have the time (I’m Mr. Mom this week as my wife is visiting her sister) or the writing skills that you have.  Could you craft a little rebuttal here?  Please!  For crying out loud, he is going after Islamist and he let his anti-Catholic skirts show.

There’s a lot in the quotation that you offer, and I’m afraid that I don’t have time to write a rebuttal at the moment.

BUT I have a lot of really smart readers, and I’m sure that they’re up to the task of addressing and correcting this.

Feel free to add your suggestions for how to respond in the combox or

GO OVER TO THE POST IN QUESTION AND ADD YOUR COMMENTS IN THE COMBOX THERE.

Be sure to observe the to cardinal rules of combox apologetics, though:

1. Be polite. Be very polite. (Unfailingly, excruciatingly polite.)
2. Be brief. Be very brief. (Unfailingly, excruciatingly brief–which is part of being polite.)

A reader writes:

Here is a link to a news article that I recently came across. Is there such evidence that will unequivically prove this? (not that I’m doubting)

<extreme exertion of self-control>MUST . . . RESTRAIN . . . SELF . . . FROM . . . MAKING . . . FLIPPANT . . . COMMENT . . . ABOUT . . . ITALIAN . . . LEGAL . . . SYSTEM!</extreme exertion of self-control>

There is certainly evidence that would prove the existence of Jesus of Nazareth beyond reasonable doubt, which is the standard that (American) courts use in the toughest cases.

I don’t know what standard of proof the Italian court would expect, whether it is beyond reasonable doubt or something else. I suspect it might be something closer to the "preponderance of evidence"standard, which is much weaker than "beyond reasonable doubt."

However that may be, there’s evidence to prove it.

The question is whether one is willing to give proper weight to the evidence that exists.

For a start, the gospels themselves–and the other New Testament documents mentioning Christ–have a weight that cannot simply be written off just because they’re documents of faith as well as documents of history. You can’t write off the historical value of a document just because it was written by someone who is a believer.

I mean, I’m sure that Father Divine‘s immediate followers wrote about him (and if they didn’t, let’s suppose that they did). Just because they were believers in him doesn’t deprive their documents of all historical value. I mean, if I’m a detective trying to figure out if Father Divine existed and I’m looking at these documents, I’ll factor out the parts where they’re talking about Father Divine being God (something I don’t believe), but I’ll still give the documents weight when it comes to attesting to Father Divine’s historical existence.

Now some folks will concede that the New Testament documents would have similar weight if they were written by eye-witnesses or close associates of eye-witnesses, but they challenge the latter point.

Okay. We can fight that one out.

I think–and the VAST majority of Bible scholars (Christian AND non-Christian) agree with me–that the New Testament documents were (wholly or almost wholly) written in the first century. That means that they were written within seventy years of Jesus’ life, which was within the lifespans of many eye-witnesses and the associates of eye-witnesses.

Granting that, that means that they have historical weight that just can’t be written off. (Just as I couldn’t write off the weight of documents written by followers of Father Divine within seventy years of his life.)

I think that there is EXTREMELY good reason to date the books of Luke and Acts to c. A.D. 60, which is even closer (30 years) to Christ’s life, and if you buy the idea that Luke wrote based on Mark then that would put Mark even earlier.

But let’s suppose that you don’t buy these first century datings. Suppose that you think that the New Testament documents were written–say–in the second and third centuries.

Okay, even then the documents don’t seem to have all come out of one place. They seem to be responding to a widespread movement, and there’s significant evidence from secular sources that Christianity was a widespread movement in the second and third centuries.

For example, Pliny the Younger wrote a famous letter to the Emperor Trajan (reigned A.D. 98-117) about what he ought to do regarding the Christians in his provice of Bithynia. Commenting on the extent of Christianity in his province at this time, he writes that the emperor should pay attention to the Christian problem because:

[I]t appears to be a matter highly deserving your consideration, more especially as great numbers must be involved in the danger of these prosecutions, which have already extended, and are still likely to extend, to persons of all ranks and ages, and even of both sexes. In fact, this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spread its infection among the neighbouring villages and country. Nevertheless, it still seems possible to restrain its progress. The temples, at least, which were once almost deserted, begin now to be frequented; and the sacred rites, after a long intermission, are again revived; while there is a general demand for the victims, which till lately found very few purchasers [SOURCE].

Pliny also mentions that some of the persons he interrogated said that they had been Christians at one time, but that was more than twenty years ago.

I don’t have a specific dating of this letter, but even if we assume that it was in the last year of Trajan’s reign (it may be posible to date it earlier, but for the sake of argument let’s go with that), it seems that Christianity was significantly widespread in Bithynia in the first quarter of the second century that it was seriously impacting pagan worship.

And Pliny is just ONE datapoint.

So I don’t see how one can reasonably claim that Christianity wasn’t a widespread movement in the second century.

But movements take time to grow, especially before the age of the Internet, and ESPECIALLY when there are costs of joining the movement, like getting in trouble with the state. (Trajan wrote back and said people are to be punished if they are found to be Christians.)

So how long did Christianity have to grow?

Here is where I think the New Testament (and other early Christian) documents can play a role, even from a skeptical perspective.

They are in agreement that the founder of their movement was Jesus of Nazareth, who was born no later than the last quarter of the first century B.C. (Really the last decade, but let’s leave that fuzzy.)

That’s important because if they had been able to plausibly claim that he had lived earlier then THEY WOULD HAVE DONE SO.

Antiquity counts in the religion business. People will take your religious movement a lot less seriously if it just started last week as opposed to being hundreds or thousands of years old. Youth puts religious movements at a tactical disadvantage, and so people want to claim as much antiquity for their movements as they can.

(Just look at the way some Baptists claim that their movement really went all the way to the first century instead of just to the 1600s.)

You can even see the early Christian apologists trying to do a variation of this by claiming that, even though–yes–Jesus HIMSELF was only born recently, Christianity is still really old because it’s the completion of Judaism and so it gets to claim Judaism’s antiquity for itself.

So even from a skeptical perspective we’re on pretty solid ground saying that the Christian movement did not exist–even in the person of its alleged founder–any earlier than the last quarter of the first century B.C.

So: Between the last quarter of the first century B.C. and the first quarter of the second century A.D. we have a movement that goes from NOTHING (no members) to being widespread enough to provoke serious imperial notice in different parts of the empire and, according to some accounts (Pliny’s), is big enough to make a sizable dent in pagan worship in some locations.

That’s not a lot of time.

Specifically: It’s not enough time for your movement to have retroactively created a mythical founder for itself and have belief in that founder spread throughout your movement.

That’s the kind of thing that can happen in hundreds of years, but not this kind of short timeframe.

Which is why the overwhelming majority of historians and biblical scholars–whatever their religious convictions–acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth at least existed.

There are a few people who don’t. In fact, I recently met a very nice fellow of the Jesus Seminar (I’m not kidding; he’s been REALLY nice to me personally) who isn’t sure whether Jesus of Nazareth existed–a position I find so hard to argue that I bought his book to see how he argues it.

But the bottom line, if I may put it this way, is that there is so much Christian "smoke" in the second and third centuries that I don’t see how it could be successfully argued that there was no first century "fire" in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, kicking off the movement.

Even if someone is not a Christian and doesn’t believe any of the Christian religious claims, I don’t see how that much can be reasonably denied.

So whether one uses "preponderance of evidence" or "beyond a reasonable doubt," I think the Italian priest should (if he does his homework) be on safe ground in provind the existence of Jesus for the court.

But then we’re talking about the Italian legal system, so who knows.

(Sorry. Momentary lapse of self-control.)

Msgr. Ronald Knox, one of the great British converts of the 20th century and perhaps a future patron saint of Anglican-convert priests, now has a society devoted to the promulgation of his life and work. It is titled The Ronald Knox Society of North America.

"The Ronald Knox Society of North America is a literary society dedicated to Msgr. Knox and his literary accomplishments. We are quite simply a group of assorted people who enjoy, and have benefited from, the writings of Msgr. Knox. Our goals are neither apologetic, nor scholastic. We count ourselves indebted to Msgr. Knox and therefore seek only to make others aware of a vast mine of spiritual and literary treasures available to them."

VISIT THE SITE.

How cool!

As an aside, if you’d like to read a sample of Msgr. Knox’s work, check out his satirical essay on false expressions of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, Reunion All Around, written while he was still an Anglican.

A reader writes:

I would like to know what the best way to become an expert on Catholic apologetics?  I want to someday organize and give lectures around the country on the subject and bring Catholics home.  I am awestruck when you answer the questions thrown at you.  Do I have to go to seminary to become an expert?  Thanks.

First, good for you! We need more workers in the field!

Second, you’re much too kind.

Third, you don’t have to go to seminary.

In fact, I’m unaware of any seminary or theology program in the country that gives people much background in the skills that are actually needed in day-to-day apologetics work. I’ve dealt with people who have masters degrees in famous Catholic theology programs which shall remain nameless and have found that they still had a dramatic learning curve when it came to doing apologetics in the field.

This is understandable since very few seminary and theology professors have much experience in helping people with apologetics in practical situations. You’ll get a much better sense of the kinds of things that one needs to study up on if you listen to the Q & A shows on Catholic Answers Live or read the Ask An Apologist forum at catholic.com.

HERE’S AN ARTICLE I WROTE ON HOW TO BECOME AN APOLOGIST.

The skill-building advice comes toward the end of the piece, but the rest is of use, too–particularly if you want to do apologetics full-time.

Hope it helps!

A reader writes"

I am a Catholic, faithful to Rome, who lives in the heart of anti-Catholic USA (thank you, Jimmy Swaggert).  I would like to become an apologetic, but I am having difficulty knowing where to start.  The nine book series by Fr. Frank Chacon and Jim Burnham looks good.  Do you have any recommendations for me?  Thank you for your assistance.

The Beginning Apologetics series by Chacon and Burnham is indeed a good place to start, and I’d recommend it.

It’s also recommend these things:

1. Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2. Read the Bible
3. Read Catholicism & Fundamentalism by Karl Keating
4. Read The Salvation Controversy by me
5. Listen to Catholic Answers Live (online or via radio)
6. Interact on the discussion forums at Catholic.com
7. And, of course, read my blog. 🙂

A reader writes:

I listened recently to Cardinal Dulles’ comments on the History of
Apologetics and was wondering if you could draw lessons from that history
and give the outlook for future apologetics efforts. 

Me personally? Well, I’m no Cardinal Dulles, but I’ll do what I can.

Christian apologetics always takes its cue from the envrionment that it is in. In the early days of the Church, it had to defend Christianity against challenges that are very different than those it faces today.

We have now entered the fourth age of human communications, which means that we are now in an unrestricted marketplace of ideas. It isn’t a question of Christianity vs. paganism or Catholicism vs. Protestantism, anymore. It’s Christianity (or, within Christianity, Catholicism) vs. Everybody. The challenges to the Christian faith are no longer confined to a single or a few ideological sources. The world is now so interconnected that the challenges come from every source there is.

This means that apologetics will have to be much more comprehensive in its scope and flexible in its approach. The demands placed upon it are now far, far greater than at any time in history.

Which leads to the next point . . .

In particular, I
was wondering if the predominantly lay involvement in current apologetics
will have an effect on the development of this work. 

Yes. It’s essential to the future of apologetics. Because of the fourth-age effect of connecting every viewpoint with every other viewpoint, there will now be a much greater demand for apologetics and thus a greater demand for apologists.

Think of it this way: How many apologists do you need when everyone in the village is Catholic and you have little contact with those outside the village? Now compare that to how many apologists you need when a minority of those in the village are Catholic and everyone in the village is talking to people all over the world on the Internet? The challenge to ideas is going to be far, far greater in the latter circumstance, meaning that there need to be more apologists out there. (Though they don’t necessarily need to live in the same village, since they can create online repositories the villagers can access via the Internet.)

Given the need for the number of apologists to grow, these will come overwhelmingly from the laity. The clergy is simply not prepared at the present moment to shoulder this task. Not only is there the broad-based vocations problem in the developed world, the seminary system has no present ability to teach apologetics to prospective clergymen, and in fact many currents of thought among the clergy are actively hostile to apologetics, wishing to see it go away in favor of ecumenism. Many churchmen today simply have no perception of the need for apologetics (Cardinal Dulles is one of the few who does), as most received their definitive intellectual stamp in an age when apologetics was at its nadir.

Thus apologetics is no exception to the trend of many tasks formerly reserved to the clergy (back in the age when everyone was a farmer) have now devolved to the laity under the pressures of the contemporary environment. For the first time in Christian history, the majority of major apologists are and will continue to be laymen.

Finally, given the
existence of some famously, unreliable "Catholic" apologists, do you
foresee some sort official certification process for public apologists?

Not any time soon. The Church is not at present set up to train or evaluate apologists. There are laws, both universal and particular, that could be brought to bear on particular apologists, but it simply is not practicable to try to certify everyone who wants to do an apologetics web page or write apologetic articles or books.

With the growth of human communications that occurred toward the end of the third age, it became impracticable to grant an imprimatur for every book of a religious nature that was published, and so the Church switched to a model whereby imprimaturs were needed only for certain books. The problematic ones that then got published were handled by another mechanism, with the bishops’ conferences and the CDF issuing warnings against the most egregious books–a process that has not been wholly effective, but which is unavoidable given the volume of publishing that takes place and that needs to take place if the Church is to maintain an active presence in the present media environment.

The same consideratins (among others) make it difficult to enact a broad-based mandatory certification program for apologists. Any attempt to institute one would cause far more harm than good. That’s not to say that it might not be tried in the future, but it would be ill-advised, as well as ineffective. The problematic apologists are the very ones who would ignore the requirements; all it would do is hamper the good ones by making them jump through more hoops, which would deter further good apologists from entering the field, knowing the hoops they’d have to jump through.

I therefore suspect that the future when it comes to cerifying apologists will look more like the present model of imprimaturs on books: Except for very specific exceptions, it’s largely a message of "Go forth and do good, and we’ll warn people about the really major problems that show up"

A reader of my post The Purity Tests raises a good question:

"What you say about the ‘purity filters’ may be true, but how many people are at the stage where they can effectively sift the orthodox from the cleverly disguised heretical?"

This question actually raises another concern that has bothered me for some time now:

Many orthodox Catholics are afraid of error, to such an extent that the avoidance of error can seem to become the driving force in their spiritual lives.

Please understand me: This isn’t a bad impulse. Wanting to avoid error because one wishes to remain faithful to the Church’s magisterium is a good thing. When used in a prudent manner, such an impulse can be self-protection against false teaching. The problem arises when the person is so afraid of error that it prevents him from taking reasonable chances. The often-unspoken fear appears to be that the person is afraid that error is, in itself, sinful, and that a person who is in error in not just wrong on some point but heading toward hell.

Error is not a sin. The only time it can become a sinful situation to be in error is when one is so set in one’s erroneous opinions that the person is not open to correction from properly-constituted authority, such as the Church. For example, a person who innocently believes that Jesus did not found the Catholic Church does not sin by such a belief. Only if that person has reason to believe he should investigate the claims of the Catholic Church to be founded by Christ and refuses to do so does the possibility for culpability for error develop. If he does investigate the claims to the best of his ability, and cannot in good conscience understand those claims to be true, he does not sin even though he is objectively mistaken. But if he comes to the conclusion that the claims are true and refuses to act on those beliefs in the manner to which they should call him, then he may be culpable for his decision not to become Catholic.

You see, the problem is not innocent ignorance or even innocently accepting something as true that is objectively incorrect. The problem is refusing to act upon the knowledge that we have in a manner that is faithful to God. We are not judged on what we know, but on how well we have remained faithful to God through the knowledge we’ve been given. We should seek not to be know-it-alls, but faithful to what we know.

So, to answer the original question. In the words of Christ and the late John Paul II: Be not afraid! In your reading, you may come across ideas that are not entirely orthodox. Your "purity filter" may not catch everything that should be filtered out. You may, in the short term, not have an entirely correct understanding of a particular issue. And that’s okay! So long as you remain open to correction from those you know can provide you with Christian orthodoxy, you need not fear. God will not abandon you and he will bring forth good from the true knowledge that you have. What matters to God is not your expertise but your obedience.

To close, remember the Great Western Schism. There were saints on both sides of the divide who stumped for the various papal contenders. One famous example was St. Vincent Ferrer who supported one of the antipopes. Even when St. Vincent was in error over who was the true pope, he worked miracles and was not directly told by God the identity of the true pope. For many years, St. Vincent’s reputation was bound up with his support of an antipope. The heroic virtue of St. Vincent was that when he realized his error he immediately stopped his support for the antipope and pledged his allegiance to the true pope. He did not seek to justify his past support or rationalize away his knowledge of who the true pope was out of fear for his reputation. He sought only to be faithful. And God rewarded that faithfulness with sanctity even though St. Vincent was not a know-it-all.

St. Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

One of the most frustrating aspects of my work as an apologist is when I am asked to provide an inquirer with a resource on a particular subject that is "one hundred percent faithful to the magisterium of the Catholic Church" and by someone who is "absolutely orthodox." Oftentimes, I may know of a particular resource that would be helpful, but am reluctant to recommend it because it is not "pure" from an orthodox perspective or by someone who can be considered totally orthodox.

Take, for example, John Allen, who is a Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. He is a very good resource for reasonably fair information on current Vatican affairs. As far as I am concerned, his book All the Pope’s Men should be on the required reading list of all aspiring apologists, particularly those seeking to explain why the Vatican takes certain actions that do not seem logical to the ordinary American Catholic. But, because of his credentials and his somewhat center-left approach to Catholicism, I either cannot recommend him much of the time or must load any such recommendation full of caveats. This is not because of a particular flaw in Allen or his work, but to explain to an inquirer exactly what can and cannot be recommended about Allen and his work.

What I have found is that many of the orthodox Catholic inquirers I deal with are very cautious about whom they will listen to or read. A particular author or speaker must offer a book or tape that is either one-hundred-percent orthodox — according, mind you, to this particular person’s perception of orthodoxy — or the resource is anathema. This is an understandable and even noble impulse because the Catholic in question is doing his best to avoid falling into error about the faith. Nevertheless, it is misguided. Let me explain why:

If one limits his exposure to the faith only to those individuals who one is certain largely conform to one’s own understanding of the faith, it is unlikely that such a person will ever grow beyond his own understanding of the faith. Applying "purity tests" to any and all resources that one will consider and automatically rejecting any that fail the exam means that one cannot benefit from the legitimate insights others may offer.

Rather than "purity tests," what orthodox Catholics should consider developing are "purity filters." Learn the faith well enough from orthodox sources to filter out the impurities while still accepting and benefiting from the good stuff an otherwise problematic resource can offer. If there is a question about whether a particular idea or claim is valid or should be trapped by the filter, then call on orthodox resources — such as Catholic Answers — to help figure out what the Church teaches or requires on the subject. A particular resource may end up entirely worthless and be thrown out. Some stuff, though, may be problematic but still useful.

For example, as a Catholic woman who hopes one day to marry and raise a family, I do a lot of personal reading on marriage and parenting. Believe it or not, one of my favorite parenting books is Becoming A Jewish Parent by Daniel Gordis, a Conservative Jewish rabbi. There is, naturally, some information that is either not helpful to me as a potential Catholic parent or follows a more liberal religious approach with which I do not agree. But, as one example of something helpful to Catholic parents in the book, Rabbi Gordis’s approach for teaching parents how to raise their children to marry Jews and raise Jewish families could very easily be adapted by Catholics seeking to raise children who will marry other Catholics and raise Catholic families. A Catholic using a "purity filter" can sort out what is unnecessary for Catholic parenting and take away Rabbi Gordis’s insights that are helpful to any religiously-committed parent.

“Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything; hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:19-23).

In my ever-increasing search for interesting things to blog about, I’ve decided to occasionally discuss how to use the web in your search for answers to apologetics questions.  This particular post will deal with search engines.

Many times people will call the office saying "Where do I find information on [insert obscure subject of your choice]?"  Usually, within five minutes, I have found something online that I can send them.  The trick to doing so is to know how to use search engines effectively.

Most search engines require that you enter key words for it to use in the search.  The more specific the key words, the better.  For example, if the inquirer says "Sister Joan Chittister is speaking at my parish this Sunday.  Do you have any information on whether she is orthodox?" I can go to a search engine, type in "Joan Chittister dissent" and pull up articles that will tell me whether or not the sister in question is orthodox.  (Of course, in this particular case, I already know the answer.  My purpose in running a search in this case would be for links I could send the inquirer documenting Sr. Chittister’s positions on various issues.)

Remember, specific key words are critical.  If you want to information about the Polish Christmas tradition of oplatek and you type "Christmas" into the search engine, you’re going to have to search through a lot of pages to find a recipe for oplatek.  A more fruitful search would use the key words "oplatek recipes."

Where do you find search engines?  The most helpful I’ve found is Google, which has in fact become nearly synonymous with web searching.  Indeed, some unhelpful people will simply tell a novice Internet surfer looking for an obscure bit of trivia to "google it," without explaining what is meant by the term.  If I want to search through a particular site and that site’s own search engine is poor, I use the Google Advanced Search. 

Google will suffice ninety- to ninety-five percent of the time.  For those looking for alternatives, a couple of old reliables are Ask Jeeves and Yahoo! An interesting development in search engines are those that search multiple search engines simultaneously.  A few of them are YaGoohoo!gle (a meld of Yahoo! and Google, natch), DonkeyDo.com, and Dogpile.  (I’m guessing those last two titles might be an intriguing commentary on what must be expected to be found alongside the gems during random Internet searches.)

Once a search engine has spit out a list of results, then one must pan the gold from the silt.  I do this primarily by looking for web URLs with which I am already familiar and know to be from web sites that are orthodox.  Failing that, I must then scan through a prospective article looking for biases and agendas.  Does the writer clearly state only what the Church teaches and use supporting documentation to allow the Church to speak for itself?  Or is the writer stumping for a cause and conscripting the Church’s documents to serve that agenda?

If a new site proves to be especially helpful in providing reasoned, meticulous explanations of the Church’s teachings, I then bookmark it for future reference and send the link off to my inquirer.  If the site has one helpful article but nothing else to recommend it, I may include a caution to the inquirer that the article is helpful but the host site is problematic.

Happy hunting!