Angel craze leads to some confusions, experts caution

A Franciscan professor of angelology was once asked his personal beliefs about the celestial beings.

"If you asked me if I believe in angels, I would say yes," he told his class. "But if you asked me to define angels, I'd just smile."

Apparently, Americans today are trying to meet that professor's 20-year-old challenge: to define, classify and even get to know angels. From books and trinkets to internet sites, a tide of angel paraphernalia has filled stores across the country. Since Christianity, Judaism and Islam all share a belief in angels, it seems that everyone wants to learn more about these beings.

Crazy for angels

Experts point to several reasons for this angel craze: the search for meaning in an increasingly materialistic society, the feeling that there is a need for an intermediary between God and humans, and even dissatisfaction with organized religion.

"I don't know what started this present craze," stated Rev. Roger Karban, a Scripture scholar and columnist for The Evangelist. "I have a suspicion that it's an attempt to go beyond the natural. We have to go beyond appearances, and this is a manifestation of that."

He also speculated that people are drawn toward angels because "they're harmless! It doesn't cost much to admire [angels]."

No demands

Angels are usually portrayed in books and on television as gentle and compassionate beings, rarely seen as placing the demands for action and ministry on people that Christ or the Catholic Church do, explained Rev. James Wiseman, chair of the theology department at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. That may make angel-worship more tempting than following God.

"I wonder if the current interest in the angelic might be at the expense of Christianity -- people possibly disappointed with Christianity turning to something that's secondary in our tradition and bringing [that] to the forefront," Father Wiseman said.

Spiritual comeback

Rev. Thomas Thompson, director of the Marian Library at the University of Dayton in Ohio, called the angel craze a symptom of a larger trend: the "comeback of the spiritual."

Angels are not the only phenomenon that has become increasingly popular, Father Wiseman explained; claims of apparitions of the Blessed Mother lead many believers to make pilgrimages to sites all over the world.

"All the scientific advances in the world make us filled with greater wonder and greater curiosity," Father Thompson told The Evangelist. The advent of space travel in particular has led many to "ask the basic questions" of where we come from and whether God and angels exist. "It's wonderful to speculate on the unseen world," he said.

Cautions

However, the experts warned that angels should remain secondary to God and not become a replacement for God.

"Some people get bogged down [in angel interest] and don't go any further," said Father Karban. "I don't think anybody is going to be harmed by it, but I think it's a shallow way of expressing very deep experiences of God. I'd hope it would lead people to go deeper than the surface experiences imply."

Whether angel literature is harmful depends on the reader's understanding of God, said Father Wiseman, noting: "My mother has a great devotion to her guardian angel, but that doesn't begin to interfere with the centrality of Christ in her life!"

Simply put, angel interest is "entry-level spirituality," said Father Thompson. Although we have few clear-cut descriptions of angels, "we say we can picture angels, [and] it gives people more of a religious experience if they can picture something."

Check with Scripture

However, the experts agreed, popular literature often paints an inaccurate portrait of angels. Father Thompson advised that Catholics interested in learning more about angels consult Scripture to learn about angels' duties as worshippers of God and messengers.

Even in this, students of the angelic must be careful. According to Father Karban, many Scriptural accounts of angel appearances were not intended to be taken literally.

"Scripture isn't a catechism," he said. "There's a reason why catechisms were never accepted as divinely inspired. Scripture is a reflection of people's experiences. Very often, we have experiences we can't explain to anyone else, but we believe those experiences existed."

Often, Father Karban said, angels were inserted into Scripture as a literary device to explain the meaning of an event, such as the Annunciation, which would not have been understood until later.

Cherubs

In reading contemporary books about angels, Father Karban continued, Catholics may forget that the images of winged beings are very different from the simple Scriptural portraits of men in white robes.

"A cherub isn't this fat little-kid angel," he added. "A cherub is a mythological animal. It has the body of a bull, the wings of an eagle and the head of a man. That symbolizes total strength. It was conceived that when the gods came, they came on these mythological animals. And they were not angels. The cherubim symbolized the power of God."

It's important that those fascinated by images of cherubs don't confuse them with God, Father Karban said, adding: "A cherubim is like a vigil light. It isn't God; it just says that God is here." Another name for God?

Some scholars believe that angels are actually just another word for God. The name "Michael" means "who is like God," said Father Karban, and "many Scripture scholars say the phrase `angel of God' can be better understood as `angel-God.'"

An example can be seen in Genesis 22, when Abraham is asked to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. The "angel" who calls out to Abraham from heaven to stay the execution switches from speaking in the third person to the first, indicating that the angel is actually God.

Other Scriptural references demonstrate images we no longer hold of angels, said Father Karban. In 1 Corinthians 11, for example, women are advised to keep themselves veiled so their physical attributes don't distract the angels from hearing their prayers and carrying those intentions to God.

Accurate image

Above all, the scholars agreed, an accurate portrait of angels would not be that of loving beings who only seek to comfort us in times of trouble. Rather, they usually come to spur humans to action.

When angels appear to people in the Bible, Father Karban said, those who see them "are always given some job to do. It isn't like, `I just saw an angel; now I'm going to sit here in a rocking chair and think about it for a few days.'"

Father Thompson cited Jesus' reply to a query about which of a woman's seven previous husbands would be her spouse in heaven: "Jesus said, `In the final judgment, we will all be like the angels.'" While the Church teaches that human beings cannot become angels, "We all aspire to an angelic type of life -- praising God, doing God's will."

However puzzling the angel craze may be, the scholars agreed on one thing, put into words by Father Thompson: "I hope there are angels."

(08-14-97) [[In-content Ad]]