Today on Kresta - March 22, 2011

Talking about the "things that matter most" on March 22

4:00 – The Power of the Sacraments
In her own inspiring style, Sr. Briege McKenna explores the marvelous ways God acts through the sacraments, and explains how nothing can substitute for the grace of receiving the grace of the sacraments. The book is entitled The Power of the Sacraments and Sr. Breige is here to discuss it.

4:20 – Kresta Comments – The US House Hearings on Muslim Radicalization in America and Rep. Keith Ellison’s Disingenuous Testimony
Last week Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) testified at a hearing on Islamic radicalism by weeping his way through a speech about whata-buncha-nasty-bigots Americans are. He chose as his case in point Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a Pakistani-born Muslim American who rushed to lower Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, to assist in rescue efforts, and died in the collapse of the World Trade Center. Did his account check out with reality? We have the tape and the facts.

4:40 – Benedict’s Creative Minority
Sam Gregg

5:00 – Kresta Comments – The Prosperity Gospel

5:20 – The Kingdom and the Cross
We believe a lot of false narratives about the nature of God, things like "God helps those who help themselves"; "God blesses the righteous"; "God might not be out for your good, and you might be missing something." But James Bryan Smith points us to the truth of who God is, revealed by Jesus: A God who loves to help the helpless. A God who doesn't play favorites, whether righteous or unrighteous. A God who is, in his essence, self-sacrificing--even to death--to save a people he loves. We look at Christ's work on the cross and what it all means about who God is and how we're to live as his people.

5:40 – The Problem of Genesis
One of the most important principles of Catholic Biblical interpretation is that the reader of the Scriptural texts must be sensitive to the genre or literary type of the text with which he is dealing. Just as it would be counter-indicated to read Moby Dick as history or “The Waste Land” as social science, so it is silly to interpret, say, “The Song of Songs” as journalism or the Gospel of Matthew as a spy novel. By the same token, it is deeply problematic to read the opening chapters of Genesis as a scientific treatise. So why is it so common for people to struggle with the seemingly bad science that is on display in the opening chapters of the first book of the Bible? Fr. Robert Barron answers the question.