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. Peace be with you. Friends, in the

17th and 18th centuries a series attempt was made to reduce Christianity to

something that the mind could fully grasp. That meant at one level a sort of

deism typical of a lot of our founding fathers. The view that God is a kind of a

distant first cause and not the vibrant active puzzling and surprising God of

the Bible. At the practical level it meant the transformation of Christianity

ultimately into a kind of moral system. Now for a good example of the former take

a look at John Locke's book The Reasonimleness of Christianity. It's a classic of

kind of a deist presentation of Christianity. For good examples of the latter

take a look at Immanuel Kant's religion within the limits of reason alone. In

that book Kant lays out the view that Christianity basically boils down to

ethical imperatives and recommendations. Finally religion is about being a good

person or look at Thomas Jefferson's edition of the New Testament. I think I'm

spoken before about that where Jefferson literally takes a scissors to all of

the supernatural elements in the gospel and presents Jesus as a compelling

ethical teacher. Well this tradition that dates back to the 17th

...