The Michael Knowles Show - April 20, 2025


Why Does The Media Always Use Easter To Criticize Christianity？ ｜ Bishop Barron


Episode Stats

Length

21 minutes

Words per Minute

181.90114

Word Count

3,854

Sentence Count

264

Hate Speech Sentences

12


Summary

In this episode, Bishop Robert Barron joins me to talk about the challenges faced by Catholics as we approach Easter and the challenges that come up in the media and in the culture around that time of year. We talk about what we can do to combat these challenges, and how to deal with them.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This Men's Mental Health Month, CAMH is confronting a silent crisis.
00:00:04.380 Did you know men account for 75% of all suicide deaths in Canada?
00:00:07.960 Many struggle alone, held back by stigma.
00:00:10.540 But there is hope.
00:00:11.740 CAMH is on the front lines pioneering breakthroughs
00:00:14.100 and expanding access to compassionate support.
00:00:16.600 Your donation fuels this vital work
00:00:18.540 so no father, son, brother, or family is left behind.
00:00:21.480 To join us in building better mental health care for men across Canada,
00:00:24.760 visit camh.ca slash support men.
00:00:27.040 That's C-A-M-H dot C-A slash support men.
00:00:30.920 There was a stupid article in the New Yorker.
00:00:33.020 Scholars debate whether the gospel stories preserve ancient memories
00:00:36.200 or just Greek literature in disguise.
00:00:39.240 Around Christmas and Easter, there's going to be the mainstream media going after Christianity.
00:00:43.300 This seems to happen every year.
00:00:44.800 I am so pleased to welcome on the show,
00:00:48.360 His Excellency Bishop Robert Barron.
00:00:51.040 Bishop Barron, thank you for being here.
00:00:53.240 Michael, good to see you as always.
00:00:54.720 So, Your Excellency, there was a stupid article in the New Yorker.
00:01:00.220 Now, of course, I have to be a little bit more specific than that.
00:01:03.420 There was an article that came out March 24th.
00:01:06.340 We're still not done with Jesus.
00:01:08.440 That's good news.
00:01:10.020 However, the subtitle here is,
00:01:11.940 Scholars debate whether the gospel stories preserve ancient memories
00:01:15.040 or are just Greek literature in disguise.
00:01:19.040 But there's a reason they won't stay dead and buried.
00:01:21.080 This is reacting, I think, to news of a resurgence in Christianity.
00:01:23.940 There was a great story out of the UK some 500 years or so after Henry VIII.
00:01:28.740 Looks like we're finally getting back at the Anglicans.
00:01:30.840 The Catholics have overtaken the Anglicans, at least among young people.
00:01:34.180 So, things are looking strong.
00:01:37.000 And no sooner do we get that news than the New Yorker tries to debunk Christianity right before Easter.
00:01:44.260 This seems to happen every year.
00:01:45.400 Yeah, no, as I say, as the swallows come back to Capistrano,
00:01:49.540 you can predict that around Christmas and Easter,
00:01:51.840 there's going to be the mainstream media going after Christianity.
00:01:54.680 I remember picking up that article with hope.
00:01:57.260 Oh, there's an article about Jesus and, you know, we can't be done with him,
00:02:00.660 so it must be something kind of positive.
00:02:02.660 As I kept reading it, though, I thought, oh, it's a review of Elaine Pagels,
00:02:06.140 of course, who's been sort of a neo-Gnostic critic of Orthodox Christianity for decades.
00:02:10.880 We read her in the seminary, I mean, a long time ago.
00:02:13.880 And then, as I kept reading it, I realized, oh, and he's in favor of Elaine Pagels.
00:02:18.000 So, all the hope went out of the balloon.
00:02:20.220 And then, it was such a rehearsal of these old, tired arguments
00:02:24.720 that are presented as though there's some, you know, revelation.
00:02:29.780 These are as old as, you know, the 18th and 19th century that long ago were debunked.
00:02:34.520 The most recent scholarship stands very much athwart this position.
00:02:38.000 So, anyway, I just found it tiresome and annoying.
00:02:41.020 But then, of course, it dawned on me, yes, it's Easter time.
00:02:44.180 So, let's bring out the critiques of Christianity.
00:02:46.940 It always happens.
00:02:47.920 I mean, even just in the life of a layperson, one notices that during Lent,
00:02:53.680 sometimes new challenges arise in a particular way.
00:02:57.760 And it, you know, one hopes binds you, you know,
00:03:00.420 in even some very minor way to the suffering of Christ.
00:03:02.940 But it does seem to come up every year.
00:03:04.440 And these arguments come up every year just in a couple of moments
00:03:09.660 because there are other things I want to get to talk to you about.
00:03:13.900 The top observations, the top criticisms from the non-Christians about Easter.
00:03:19.340 They say Easter is a pagan and it comes from Ishtar
00:03:23.800 and those Catholics are just paganizing the true faith or whatever.
00:03:28.400 Your response?
00:03:29.280 That's James Fraser, late 19th century, and his colleagues.
00:03:33.700 It was already debunked in the early 20th century.
00:03:36.160 One of the best one-liners is C.S. Lewis,
00:03:38.180 who was a great student of mythological literature.
00:03:40.920 And he said,
00:03:41.900 anyone that says Christianity is one more myth hasn't read many myths.
00:03:47.040 So, myths by their nature are generic.
00:03:49.320 They're talking about, you know, abstract archetypal truth regarding nature,
00:03:53.360 humanity, whatever.
00:03:54.160 Therefore, they're not set in a particular historical period.
00:03:58.500 On purpose, they're in illo tempore, as you'd say,
00:04:01.280 like in that time, once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away.
00:04:06.160 That's the way a myth begins.
00:04:08.460 It's very interesting, Michael, that every Sunday we Catholics will say
00:04:11.680 he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
00:04:14.980 It's a peculiar thing, but it's in the creed to hold off this kind of mythic misunderstanding.
00:04:20.340 We're not talking about a myth of a dying and rising God.
00:04:24.400 We're talking about this Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee,
00:04:29.400 who was put to death on a Roman cross under the authority of the Roman governor of Judea,
00:04:35.700 whose existence and reign can be independently verified.
00:04:39.100 His name was Pontius Pilatus.
00:04:41.240 That's how specific we get.
00:04:43.300 And we say that week after week after week.
00:04:45.880 It's saying, not a myth, not a myth, not a myth.
00:04:49.140 It looked like in the Gospel of Luke, he bothers to say at the nativity narrative,
00:04:53.960 when Quirinius was governor of Syria and when Caesar Augustus was emperor.
00:04:58.700 Time and again, the Gospel writers want to locate and specify this story.
00:05:05.380 Remember that wonderful account in the Acts of the Apostles when Peter says,
00:05:08.280 you know, remember what happened up in Galilee with the baptism that John preached
00:05:11.720 and all about Jesus from Nazareth, and then he was put to death.
00:05:16.040 Remember, he's saying this is a particular story about this guy that you remember
00:05:21.880 and that you saw.
00:05:23.120 Well, he rose from the dead and we ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
00:05:30.320 Well, look, no one ever asks, you know, who was the governor of Thrace when Hercules was
00:05:35.160 around?
00:05:35.420 Because it was not an historical story.
00:05:38.160 No one says, who was the pharaoh when Osiris?
00:05:41.880 No, no, it's not a historical reference.
00:05:44.220 But we do indeed say boldly, oh, yeah, Caesar Augustus, he was the emperor and Quirinius,
00:05:49.660 governor when he was born.
00:05:50.820 He was crucified under Pontius Pilatus in Jerusalem around the year 30.
00:05:55.960 The Gospels aren't myths, but it's a tired old argument that's revived regularly.
00:06:01.440 You know, there's a tradition that I heard of from a friend of mine that when Pontius
00:06:08.280 Pilate in the Gospels, when his wife comes up to him and says, hey, have nothing to do
00:06:12.260 with this man.
00:06:12.980 I am being troubled in my sleep because of this man.
00:06:16.080 Don't have nothing to do with this innocent man.
00:06:18.380 And there's this question that comes up, what's she dreaming about?
00:06:21.760 And a friend of mine pointed to a tradition, which is that the dream she's having is that
00:06:27.080 all over the world, for all the rest of history, she's hearing Pontius Pilate's name chanted,
00:06:33.720 sub poncio pilatu passus at sepulter's est, in the creed.
00:06:37.680 And it freaks her out so much, she says, hey, you do not want any part of this.
00:06:41.780 But all to your point, this is a real historical figure.
00:06:45.020 That reminds me, remember in Jesus Christ Superstar, then I heard thousands of millions
00:06:49.680 crying for this man.
00:06:50.960 And then I heard them mentioning my name and leaving me the blame.
00:06:54.540 It's a good line in that.
00:06:55.720 And right, that's Pilate.
00:06:57.700 And so again and again, but it grounds the story in historic reality, and it matters.
00:07:04.380 That things really happen is extremely important in a religion that calls itself good news.
00:07:11.740 You know, I've said this before many times, but when you read the Gospels,
00:07:14.880 it doesn't sound like someone musing in a detached way about transcendent spiritual truths.
00:07:22.740 It's someone that is grabbing you by the shoulders and telling you something happened,
00:07:28.300 and you need to know, have you heard?
00:07:30.020 Have you heard what happened?
00:07:31.840 That's the Gospels.
00:07:33.040 And it makes all the difference.
00:07:34.460 It sets them apart from all the other literature of the world, religiously speaking.
00:07:38.280 And I think we need to resist, and it is an old Gnostic trick.
00:07:43.260 It's from the 2nd century, it's from the 21st century.
00:07:46.340 An old Gnostic trick is to turn that into generic mythic talk, which renders it, by the way,
00:07:53.160 harmless.
00:07:53.720 And that's why, dare I say it, places like the New Yorker magazine and kind of Upper East Side
00:08:00.160 Intelligentsia love Gnostic readings of Christianity, because it renders the Gospel harmless.
00:08:06.660 But when you say, no, no, no, no, no, no, Jesus really rose from the dead.
00:08:12.480 You killed him, and God raised him.
00:08:15.260 That's a permanent revolution.
00:08:17.180 That's an earthquake.
00:08:18.380 That's what the world is still reeling from, that message.
00:08:22.680 But it's the mythologization of it that domesticates it.
00:08:28.000 But in the Anodyne general mythic reading, you have, one, this claim that the word Easter is just pagan.
00:08:36.000 And two, that the Easter bunny is more evidence that the celebration of Easter is really just a kind of pagan fertility cult
00:08:45.900 where we impose an historical man on it.
00:08:49.740 Yeah, and that's what they want to do all the time.
00:08:51.440 That's why, I mean, nothing against the Easter bunny is something the kids get a kick out of,
00:08:54.720 but I don't like the Easter bunnyization of Easter.
00:08:58.600 No, no, it's a revolution.
00:08:59.920 And I like someone like Tom Holland, the historian, that said that you can measure it now the way you measure like an earthquake,
00:09:08.980 the aftershocks and so on.
00:09:10.420 You can measure, because of what's happening now, something happened then.
00:09:14.880 Or like the Big Bang, we can measure things in the universe that indicate,
00:09:18.200 look, that's where it all came from.
00:09:20.620 The same is true of Christianity in all these manifestations, but they go back to this earthquake.
00:09:28.820 Jesus rose from the dead.
00:09:30.500 And I don't want Easter to turn into Easter bonnets and Easter bunnies and vague pagan myths and, you know, dying and rising gods.
00:09:39.580 That is the best way to emasculate it.
00:09:42.860 But that's what they want to do.
00:09:44.520 That's why the mainstream media always bring out these debunking moves.
00:09:47.840 Right now, download the Hallow app.
00:09:50.920 What this means is you can join Jeff Cavins and Jonathan Rumi on Hallow for a prayer experience unlike any other.
00:09:57.160 The Holy Week in the Holy Land is an immersive video prayer series where you will walk the sights of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection
00:10:03.040 alongside Bible scholar Jeff Cavins and Jonathan Rumi, who portrays Christ in The Chosen.
00:10:08.640 This project was especially meaningful as Jonathan experienced the Holy Land for the first time while preparing to film the crucifixion scenes.
00:10:14.480 You will have the opportunity to pilgrimage with Jonathan and Jeff, going deeper in meditation and prayer on the last days of our Lord's sojourn on earth before the resurrection.
00:10:23.100 Together, you will experience the Sea of Galilee, journey into Jerusalem, visit Caiaphas' house, walk the Via Dolorosa, stand at the foot of the cross at Calvary,
00:10:32.040 and visit the tomb, all while praying alongside Scripture in the actual sights where these events occurred.
00:10:37.300 This Holy Week, deepen your connection to Christ's passion as you journey with Him to the cross and resurrection.
00:10:41.980 There is more to look forward to. Stay tuned for exciting new Easter prayers, launching Easter Monday, to carry you into the joy of the resurrection.
00:10:49.100 Download Hallow Now and get three months for free.
00:10:52.040 What do you make from the other side of things?
00:10:54.140 Not from people who are totally faithless, but from people who maybe have a zealous, if misdirected faith.
00:11:02.420 I've heard people say that the celebration of Easter is pagan and we should get back to a more truly biblical understanding of the crucifixion and the resurrection because, well, here's just one example.
00:11:16.560 Our Lord is supposed to be dead for three days and three nights, but when you go from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, you don't get three days and three nights there.
00:11:24.780 So, it can't possibly be according to the calendar that we understand.
00:11:32.640 Well, no, it touches upon those three days is the only thing that means there.
00:11:37.040 But you can't get more biblical than the Easter faith.
00:11:41.560 That's where the entire Bible comes to as kind of climactic expression.
00:11:45.520 Now, I'm reading it as a Christian, obviously, but now we understand everything in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, everything in David, everything in the Psalms, everything in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and all the minor prophets.
00:12:00.800 Now we get it fully what all those things were pointing to.
00:12:06.400 This is the culmination of all the biblical revelation, is the resurrection.
00:12:10.540 It's the yes, Paul says, to all the promises made to Israel.
00:12:14.100 That's one of the great statements of Christian faith, I think, coming from this very devout Jew, Rabbi Sha'ul, who becomes the Apostle Paul, and says just that.
00:12:22.920 He knew all the promises made to Israel.
00:12:24.800 He knew everything in the Old Testament.
00:12:27.100 And now, in the resurrection, that's the yes.
00:12:30.840 That's the promised land.
00:12:32.160 That's the fulfillment of Torah.
00:12:33.560 That's the true temple.
00:12:35.220 That's the true prophecy.
00:12:38.520 So, no, you can't get more biblical than the resurrection.
00:12:41.360 It's what lights the Bible up and makes the whole thing intelligible.
00:12:45.740 Now, I don't know if you've noticed an increased interest in the Shroud of Turin, the purported burial cloth of Christ.
00:12:54.640 When I was a kid, I was told the Shroud of Turin is a medieval forgery and forget about it.
00:13:00.380 And then it appears in recent years that debunking was itself debunked.
00:13:04.640 And there are many people, even as a kid, I always thought it was just sort of a Catholic thing.
00:13:11.300 But I know many Protestants who are shroud-pilled, to use a modern phrase.
00:13:15.980 And so, what is your take on the significance of the Shroud or, alternately, the Sudarium of Oviedo, the purported headcloth of Christ?
00:13:27.480 Or other relics and artifacts in the resurgence of faith?
00:13:31.360 I've been studying the Shroud since I was a kid.
00:13:34.500 Because the first serious kind of work was published in the 1970s, the real scientific kind of work by NASA scientists and all that.
00:13:41.340 So, I read all those books when I was a teenager, and I got sort of fascinated by it.
00:13:45.120 I was, along with many others, chagrined with that, you know, carbon-14 test that said, oh, no, it was from the, you know, 12th century or something.
00:13:54.180 But then, as I continued following the literature and the studies, as you suggest correctly, I think that debunking has been debunked for all kinds of reasons.
00:14:02.420 We can't go into all the scientific detail.
00:14:04.860 But I think to claim that it's a medieval forgery, it's a greater leap of faith.
00:14:09.160 That's a greater leap of faith, knowing what we know about the Shroud, than saying it's the real barrel of Shroud of Jesus.
00:14:15.260 I had the privilege of seeing it.
00:14:16.760 In 2010, I was in Rome, and it was displayed for that year, or part of that year, up in Turin.
00:14:23.580 And a group of us flew up from Rome and just spent a few hours in Turin.
00:14:28.800 And it was extraordinary.
00:14:29.720 I got within about 10 feet of it.
00:14:31.560 They allowed you in a little kind of area in front of it for maybe five minutes, and then you got to move on.
00:14:36.380 But I got up close to it, and see, it speaks to what we've been talking about.
00:14:41.200 The Shroud, which is clearly from the Middle East and clearly from that time, and has all the marks of someone who'd been crucified by the Romans and all of that.
00:14:51.020 It grounds the crucifixion.
00:14:52.980 It specifies it in a time and place.
00:14:55.820 And you see this figure, and it makes Jesus very real, very concrete, and not an abstraction.
00:15:03.240 I'm against abstracting Christianity.
00:15:05.540 That's an old academic move, and it's a Gnostic move, indeed.
00:15:09.340 St. Irenaeus fought these people in the 2nd century, and we're fighting them now on the page of The New Yorker magazine.
00:15:15.100 But it's the same thing.
00:15:16.620 And the Gnostics back then wanted the same move, to render, abstract these claims.
00:15:21.980 The Shroud is a way of saying,
00:15:23.640 No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:15:24.660 Look, he was in this burial cloth.
00:15:29.680 And, you know, I would say it speaks to the fact that he rose from the dead, because it's very hard to explain what we have on the Shroud.
00:15:38.960 It's very hard to explain that photographic negative image, which is stunningly accurate in detail and so on.
00:15:45.780 So I think it speaks to both the death and the resurrection of the Lord.
00:15:49.620 I was once speaking with a group of Christians and non-Christians, and they were saying, including even a Catholic, was saying, you know, that representations of Christ as being of all different races or all different appearances, that that's actually fine, you know?
00:16:04.820 And I sort of understood the universal point that he was trying to make.
00:16:10.720 But I thought, no, I don't think that Christ looks like everything and everyone, because he's a real person.
00:16:19.380 And so I think he has real distinct features.
00:16:21.640 And inasmuch as the features look like one thing, they don't look like another thing.
00:16:25.840 And someone asked me, I said, well, what do you think he looked like?
00:16:28.060 Because we were also talking about how every five years or so, it seems like the liberal media go out and they say, we've reconstructed what Christ really looked like.
00:16:36.840 And they put up some picture of a baboon or something based on absolutely nothing.
00:16:41.140 And that's the usual move.
00:16:42.520 It happens at Easter time, typically.
00:16:43.960 Right.
00:16:44.340 Yeah, exactly.
00:16:44.700 And it just drives me crazy.
00:16:46.040 And they said, what do you think he looked like?
00:16:47.740 And I say, I think he looks like the guy on the Shroud of Turin.
00:16:50.360 You know, I actually think we have a picture of him, like a photographic negative on a shroud.
00:16:55.120 But in any case, these guys, the New Yorker types, who just seem so desperate, especially when faith is resurging, say, oh, they put on a straight face.
00:17:07.700 They say, well, how interesting that faith is resurging.
00:17:10.080 Well, I mean, you know, we don't really take it seriously.
00:17:11.980 But, you know, what does it mean?
00:17:13.580 What does the movement itself even kind of mean?
00:17:15.700 And they do whatever they can to abstract it.
00:17:18.040 I want to just get, before we go, to one really concrete point.
00:17:21.200 Catholics are about to fast, at least tomorrow, maybe Holy Saturday if they're hardcore, and then they'll have a feast on Sunday.
00:17:31.540 But this is the end of Lent when people undertake voluntary penances, and they abstain from meat on Fridays, and they do all of these things.
00:17:40.000 Why?
00:17:40.460 Why does that matter?
00:17:41.860 There are some people, even Christians, who say, you don't need to put yourself through that.
00:17:44.820 You know, Christ died on the cross for us.
00:17:46.600 We don't need to do anything.
00:17:47.720 We don't earn our salvation through any works of our own.
00:17:49.920 And so why do it?
00:17:51.620 You know, that kind of distinction, as a Catholic better formed than I once said, that in Catholicism you have first the fast and then the feast, and in other religions you have first the feast and then the hangover.
00:18:04.620 Why does it matter that we fast and abstain and have penances?
00:18:09.060 Because our desires for food and drink and pleasure and sex are good, but they're a bit like children, that they want what they want when they want it.
00:18:17.520 They're unruly and undisciplined.
00:18:20.240 And if we allow them to dominate our lives, they will indeed take over the house.
00:18:24.680 They're a bit like kids.
00:18:26.560 Kids are great, but a parent knows.
00:18:28.340 If you let a little toddler just dictate terms that he wants what he wants when he wants it, he'll be running your life and the whole house.
00:18:35.500 You have to discipline the kids so as to allow greater goods to emerge.
00:18:40.420 That's a way to think about it, is these desires of ours, they're good.
00:18:44.020 We're not Manichees.
00:18:45.600 We're not Puritans or Duelists.
00:18:48.140 These are good things.
00:18:49.260 But they can come to dominate in such a way that the deeper desires, the higher desires for the true, the good, the beautiful, for God himself, aren't awakened.
00:19:00.160 And so we fast so as to allow the deeper hungers to emerge.
00:19:05.220 And that's a classic practice.
00:19:07.180 It's not like uniquely Catholic by any means.
00:19:08.940 You find it all over the world in religious traditions.
00:19:12.580 And, you know, we're such a self-indulgent society.
00:19:15.300 I think we should do more of it.
00:19:17.520 Something I did this Lent, by the way, and I stuck with it, is one day a week I just put my phone away completely.
00:19:23.420 I just put it in a drawer.
00:19:24.220 Because I thought, like so many others, I got too addicted to this stupid phone.
00:19:28.200 And I was, you know, scrolling through it and looking at, you know, nonsense on Facebook or something.
00:19:32.860 So one day a week I'll just put it in a drawer, put it away.
00:19:36.880 And it was good.
00:19:38.040 It was really good.
00:19:38.880 It did indeed allow deeper and higher interest to emerge in my life, you know.
00:19:45.400 So no, I think fasting is a great thing.
00:19:47.880 Right.
00:19:48.100 It's a wonderful way to think about it.
00:19:49.900 It's not that you're denying your desires.
00:19:52.920 It's that you are disciplining your desire and will so that deeper desires can emerge.
00:19:59.540 What a beautiful way to put it.
00:20:00.660 Yeah.
00:20:01.380 So, you know, in heaven or like prior to the fall, all this would be properly ordered.
00:20:06.000 So all our desires would be ordered by reason.
00:20:07.960 But because of the fall, we're all off kilter.
00:20:10.420 And our reason doesn't have control over the passions.
00:20:13.020 I mean, Plato knew this.
00:20:14.480 Look at, you know, the image of the reason trying to drive the chariot and the horses are kind of unruly.
00:20:19.040 As long as reason is driving the horses, then the chariot goes forward.
00:20:23.480 What happens is reason gets kicked out and then the horses go crazy.
00:20:27.500 Well, that's Plato knew it.
00:20:28.940 And that's a basic psychological truth.
00:20:31.460 So the church wants us to discipline these emotions and desires so they give energy to the soul, but under the right direction.
00:20:39.340 And so that you have a better feast on Easter Sunday and you don't end up with a hangover.
00:20:43.840 Your Excellency, thank you so much for being here.
00:20:45.780 Of course, everyone should follow Word on Fire and all of Bishop Barron's wonderful work and writing and debunking of the nonsense that constantly approaches itself.
00:20:56.460 And maybe, who knows, maybe you'll be able to see him on Easter Sunday or next time you're in Winona, Rochester.
00:21:01.980 Your Excellency, thank you for coming on the show.
00:21:04.160 God bless you, Michael. Thanks.
00:21:05.180 And thank you to all of you.
00:21:06.980 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:21:08.000 This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:21:09.520 See you all tomorrow.