A reader writes:

First off, just want to say that I really enjoy your blog and various articles on IC and anywhere else they turn up. And though I have not yet read your new “Mary, Mother of the Son” trilogy, I definitely intend to and also plan on giving my mom a gift of them as well. I promise I will buy 2 sets instead of giving her my used copies once I’m done!!

You know, this is the sort of thing authors love to hear. I mean, doesn’t *everybody* need to get at least two copies of my books? Of course they do. One for home and one for work. Suppose you find yourself walking down the street to get lunch in the middle of a busy day and somebody stops you on the street to say, “Hey! What are the sources of Catholic Marian belief? How do I reconcile Catholic Marian dogma with my traditional Evangelical understanding of Scripture? What’s the story with Catholic Marian devotion and all that stuff about apparitions?” You’re gonna feel pretty darn silly mumbling, “Well, I have this ground-breaking book that answers all those questions in an accessible and easy to understand way but it’s sitting on my nightstand at home.” The eager light of expectant hope will fade from the eyes of your newfound acquaintance and he will go away to a life of hedonism as a rock guitarist for some sleazy casino instead of pursuing his first love as a Mariologist, his hope dashed for the last time.

And it will be All Your Fault. Best to just keep a spare copy of Mary, Mother of the Son with you at all times, just in case.

My reader continues:

Just came across this article on the Politics Daily blog and instantly thought of you. Would love to get your wry, insightful take on this. I especially love the section that states “As recently as 2006, according to a Pew Research poll,
79 percent of Christians said they believed in the Second Coming, and
20 percent of them said it would occur in their lifetime.” ?So I guess the other 21 percent of Christians are Christians because they just think Jesus was a really cool guy.

Actually, since so many American automatically assume the latter doctrine (which is purely a concoction of 19th and 20th century pop Protestantism is just as much dogma as “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead” it’s not too surprising that Protestants who find “Left Behind” scenarios absurd and incredible throw the baby out with the bath and reject the idea of the Second Coming altogether.

When I became a believer, the group of people I happened to fall in with were among a small minority of Christians who rejected the idea of the Second Coming altogether. I did not know enough about the Christian tradition to know we were a small minority, so I just took it for granted that the notion of the Second Coming, like the notion of the Real Presence or Marian devotion or similar things were “Christian science fiction” (as I was taught) and that modern up to date Christians did not buy such stuff.

You might assume it was a modernist church that rejected things like miracles, the Resurrection, etc. You’d be wrong. We took the Resurrection quite seriously, and we accepted (and experienced) phenomena like miraculous healings, charisms, and so forth. The problem was not that we rejected the supernatural. The problem was that we were (like millions of Evangelicals) very uncomfortable with the idea of encountering the Incarnation today. So we tended to spiritualize everything. In short, we were gnostics but didn’t know it.

What the Second Coming insists on is that Jesus retains his humanity even in heaven and does not dissolve back into pure spirituality at the Ascension. Many Christians have difficulty with this. I was taught that the “true Second Coming” was Pentecost and that this was the only way in which the Lord would ever return. That’s why it always cracks me up when Catholics fearful of us Protestant converts sullying the purity of the Church inform me that my simplistic Fundamentalist soul believes in flat-footed notions of the Rapture and so forth. Quite the contrary, it was only in becoming Catholic that I was forced to acknowledge for the first time the fact that the Church really does teach the Second Coming of Christ. It is still, aesthetically, one of hardest teachings the Church offers. I accept it because the Church says its so. But I have very little grasp of what it means and absolutely no sympathy with ridiculous “Left Behind” scenarios. I am now old enough where I can believe that history is heading toward a climax and that the Church’s warning of anti-christ and secular messianism are confirmed on a daily basis just by watching the news. But what Christ’s return in glory will actually look like in the concrete world of time, space, matter and energy? I have no idea and no interest in guessing. I have a congenital allergy both to date setting and to the hobby (shared by both Catholic and Protestant minorities of enthusiasts) for mapping out future histories. I profess that he will indeed come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. Beyond that, it’s “details to follow.”