Friends, welcome to Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an

apostolate dedicated to the mission of evangelization using media both old and

new to share the faith on every continent and to facilitate an encounter with

Christ and His Church. The efforts of Word on Fire engage the culture and bring

the transformative power of God's Word where it is most needed. Today we invite

you to join Bishop Robert Barron as he preaches the gospel and shares the

warmth and light of Christ with each one of us. Please be with you. Friends about

a week ago I had the great privilege of meeting with Stephen Davis. Stephen is a

philosopher of religion at Claremont University out here in Southern

California. He's from the Protestant tradition and has written a very good

book on the philosophy religion which he autographed for me and I was very

pleased to read it and he's got a number of interesting chapters but one that

particularly grabbed my attention was on the contrast between two basic approaches

to religion around the world. The one is called a religion of karma. You can find

that much of the East and then the second one which can be found in the great

Abrahamic religions in the West is called the religion of grace. So religions of

karma and religions of grace. Now the first one has a lot to recommend it which

explains its endurance across the centuries. So you probably know a karma approach

says that by kind of cosmic spiritual law we are punished or rewarded according

to our moral activities. If we do bad things we'll suffer either in this life or

in a life to come. If we do good things we'll be rewarded. Again either here or in the

hereafter. Now karma might not be immediate as the law of gravity is. If I dry

...