There is so much in Prague to shoot. I thoroughly enjoyed photographing the city, although the limitations of time (required classes) and mobility (no car) kept me from getting a few shots I had in mind. Many places I visited required me to purchase a license to take photos. While not thrilled about this extra fee, I was glad that there was some way to get photos of these places, rather than being forbidden entirely.

The shot I was most disappointed to miss was the inside of the fabulous Estates Theatre. I made several trips there and appealed to ascending levels of management for permission to photograph the inside of the theatre, but I was unsuccessful. They were afraid that I might publish or display the photos if I took them. I caused similar consternation by asking about photographing the inside of the clock mechanism in the Old Town Hall.

I’ll spare a long review of my equipment, but I will briefly say that image stabilization was the big hero of this trip. This was my first major outing with image stabilization and it allowed me to get pictures I could not have gotten otherwise. (Image stabilization allows you to handhold shots several stops slower than otherwise possible.) When tripods aren’t allowed or practical, image-stabilized lenses can be a lifesaver.

Hus was a preacher, philosopher, professor, and Dean and Rector of Charles University. Hus had been assigned to preach at Prague’s Bethlehem Chapel, an unusual church that was founded with the stipulation that the preaching be done in Czech, the native language of the people. This was a remarkable idea in an era when most services were conducted in Latin.

As a philosophy teacher, Hus was exposed to the writing of John Wycliffe, a philosopher and theologian at Oxford University. Hus enjoyed Wycliffe’s academic writing, so he decided to read his theology. As he absorbed Wycliffe’s ideas, Hus began to question Catholic teachings on subjects such as the nature of the church, purgatory, and transubstantiation. He preached in Bethlehem Chapel against the abuses of the clergy. These were radical ideas, and Hus might have been silenced sooner had he not been such a popular preacher.

In 1414 Hus was invited to the Council of Constance to defend his teaching. Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund promised Hus safe conduct, but the council arrested him when he arrived and tried him as a heretic. Hus was burned at the stake with Wycliffe’s writings used to start the fire. He died singing “Christ, Thou Son of the living God, have mercy on us; Christ, Thou son of the living God, have mercy on me.”

After his death Hus became a national hero, and his teaching spread throughout Bohemia and Moravia. Today, most Czechs seem to have forgotten Hus’ theological ideas, revering him for his contribution to Czech independence (in part because of the Hussite Wars). The monument in Old Town Square has great symbolic value to the Czech people, having been the backdrop for major protests, funeral processions, and celebrations. It’s said that when the Soviet tanks rolled into Old Town Square in 1968, someone blindfolded Hus so he wouldn’t have to bear the pain of another foreign invasion.

Protestants still remember Hus’ part in early stages of the reformation, particularly because of his relationship to Luther. Hus died almost exactly 100 years before Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door in Wittenberg. Luther was immediately accused of being a Hussite. Luther wrote:

“This which has been begun during my lifetime will be completed after my death. St. John Huss prophesied of me when he wrote from his prison in Bohemia, ‘They will roast a goose now (for ‘Huss’ means ‘a goose’), but after a hundred years they will hear a swan sing, and him they will have to endure.’ And that is the way it will be, if God wills.”

Luther’s family crest displayed a swan, and artists often portray him with a swan.

Two books chart and illustrate this trend well. (These are books I recommend often.) The first is Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. In terms of research, argumentation, and writing style it is among the best books I have read.

Amusing Ourselves to Death laments the death of the typographic age in favor of the visual age. In the typographic age, people were drawn to careful, well-reasoned argumentation. The typographic medium provided a model for public discourse. Think, for example, of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. People willingly sat and listened to two men speak for seven hours, even though neither candidate was running for presidential office at the time. People regarded these debates as part of their political education. Where could you find such an audience today?

Postman’s concern is that television’s influence is not contained to our entertainment choices. Rather, the way “television stages the world becomes a model for how the world is properly to be staged” (92). “[Television] has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience” (87). In a culture where imagery and sound bites rule our thinking and public discourse, it is no surprise that bad ideas abound.

Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson shows how nearsighted thinking leads to bad economic ideas. He argues that most economic fallacies are born of “the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that will be not only on that special group on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences” (16,17). He then proceeds to demonstrate how this happens with a collection of essays on topics such as rent control, tariffs, and minimum wage. Hazlitt is a good writer and the book is written for a popular audience, so it doesn’t feel anything like an economics text.

When I attend conferences like AIPES, I often think of Hazlitt and Postman. I often hear ideas from my peers that seem alarmingly shortsighted. When applied on a national level, this kind of thinking leads developing countries to construct defensive economic policies (for example limiting foreign trade), which actually hamper their growth. I know am also susceptible to promoting facile answers, particularly in areas like foreign policy.

Forgive me for presuming to recommend books, but if these ideas interest you, it might be worth picking up Hazlitt or Postman.

Throughout its history the university’s fortunes have been closely linked to the welfare of the Czech nation. In the twentieth century the school suffered under Nazi and communist occupation. Academic freedom vanished, and many Charles University students and faculty were imprisoned and executed. Students were involved in some of the most visible protests against the totalitarian regimes, including Jan Palach’s famous suicide by immolation in Wenceslas Square in 1969.

Charles IV issued the following proclamation upon founding the eponymous school:

We will take pride in inviting students from other lands to share with each other their own delightful opportunities. In order that a beginning so laudably conceived may conclude worthily, we have resolved after ripe recollection to create and establish a university . . . in our very pleasant capital city of Prague. –April 7, 1348

Today, some 650 years later, Charles University still hosts many international students. In a sense even I am a beneficiary of Charles IV’s vision for sharing his “very pleasant capital city” with foreign students.

Architecture classroom buildings near my dorm.

The Catholic Theological Faculty adjacent to my dorm.

Terezin (or Theresienstadt as it was called during the war) was a concentration camp, not an extermination camp. Although Jews were executed at Terezin, most were sent east to dedicated extermination camps like Auschwitz. The numbers are stunning. Of the 144,000 Jews interned at Terezin, some 88,000 were sent to extermination camps. Another 33,000 died at Terezin, mostly due to the overcrowding and poor health conditions. At the end of the war only 17,247 prisoners had survived Terezin. Only one in eight prisoners lived.

Because we arrived in Terezin late in the day our time was limited. We started at the Ghetto Museum. The first floor of the museum is full of artwork by children who were held in the camp. The artwork shows the children’s simple interpretations of the prison camp as well as their memories of happier times. Each picture was labeled with the artist’s name and whether or not the artist had survived. Many, of course, did not.

Terezin was one of the more humane concentration camps. Facing rising public concern over Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, the Nazis decided to invite the Red Cross to visit Terezin in 1944. Himmler and Eichmann ordered a massive beautification of the prison camp. The changes were nothing more than window dressing: 7,500 prisoners were shipped to Auschwitz to alleviate overcrowding, facades were built for faux shops, Nazi buildings were falsely labeled as schools, and communal bathing facilities were built but never connected to running water. Concerts and sporting events were staged, and only the healthiest prisoners were featured for the visit. (Many of the prisoners in the propaganda film produced on the occasion were executed in Berkenau shortly thereafter.)

The Nazis succeeded in fooling the observers and scored a public relations victory. The Red Cross report eased international concern about Nazi policies toward the Jews.

After watching a short film about the Red Cross visit to Terezin, we left the museum to see more of the town. We walked through the square and headed to the Small Fortress. Outside the fortress are thousands of tombstones of prisoners who died there. A Star of David and a cross rise above the cemetery. There are a surprising number tombstones dated after May 1945, when the camp was liberated. Many prisoners were in such bad health that they died shortly after gaining their freedom.

Inside the fortress there were no exhibits or signs cluttering the buildings. There were only a handful of people in the fortress. Gray skies and a light rain added to the somber mood. Far from being a tourist trap, it felt like the camp had hardly been touched since the days of the Third Reich. This feeling of authenticity made the history seem more painfully real. Of the eight or so of us in the fortress, two of the men were orthodox Jews.

Like other concentration camps, a great deal has been written about Terezin by historians, survivors, and family members of victims. My mom borrowed several children’s books about Terezin for me to read. The only one I’ve read so far is Hana’s Suitcase, a touching account of a brother and sister who were separated from their parents and sent to Terezin. They were transferred to different camps and George did not learn his sister’s fate until a chance meeting with one of their friends from Terezin on the streets of Prague after the war had ended. I highly recommend the book. Another well known book, which has also been adapted into a play, is I Never Saw Another Butterfly. The last book I have on Terezin is Fireflies in the Dark.

The cemetery outside the Small Fortress.

Entrance to the Small Fortress.

Inside the Small Fortress. The sign mockingly reads Arbeit Macht Frei, “work brings freedom.”

A group cell in the First Courtyard. Gavrilo Princip, the Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo (setting off WWI), was imprisoned in one of the cells in this block.

Solitary confinement in the First Courtyard.

Inside an abandoned passageway through the fortifications.

While in Prague I decided to focus my listening on Jan Hus and the Reformation. I listened to Reformation presentations by Dr. Panosian and Tom Browning, a pastor in Arlington, Texas. I also benefited from Dr. Minnick’s preaching on treasuring the Word of God. If I had been gone longer, I would have kept up with the preaching at my church via Sermonaudio.

Today it is so easy to access solid biblical resources, that we can easily take them for granted. Take a moment to think about all the tools the modern church has at its disposal for knowing God better: thousands of sermons available online, websites like Monergism and DesiringGod that make immensely valuable theological libraries available for free, commentaries & study Bibles, Bible software, language tools, Christian books, Christian music, and accurate and understandable translations of the Bible. We have tools that past generations of Christians could hardly have dreamed of.

As I look at history, I just can’t get over this. Not only do I have my own Bible I can study, but the efforts of great theologians have been preserved and published so that even a layman like me can benefit from them. Likewise, the best preachers of today are readily accessible. I can have their sermons waiting on my hard drive days after they are preached.

What tremendous resources. The church is rich.

*** I realize that many who read my blog are not Christians and may not even know much about Christianity. Here is a website that will explain some of the basic ideas of the Christian faith. If you’re looking for something more thorough, C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is a great introductory work. These are truths that have wonderfully transformed my life.

Temperatures in the 90s wouldn’t be too different from Greenville except that there is virtually no air conditioning in Prague. Classrooms, dorm rooms, museums–even McDonald’s–are unairconditioned. At first it was hard to sit through lectures, but after a while I adjusted to the heat and it wasn’t too unbearable. Early on I invested in a small fan that made studying and sleeping in my room much more comfortable.

A mist truck cooling off people in Old Town Square

Graduation last Friday was held in the Great Hall of the Charles University Carolinum, which according to Encyclopedia Britannica is one of the oldest existing university buildings in the world. The graduation program began with an anthem played on a baroque organ while the Prime Minister of Croatia, Dr. Ivo Sanader, and the other speakers filed out and took their places on stage. Speeches were made by TFAS leadership, two students, the vice rector of Charles University, and the Prime Minister. Roger Ream, the president of TFAS, presented Prime Minister Sanader with the 2006 Vašek and Anna Maria Polák Award for his promotion of democracy and free markets.

In his address Prime Minister Sanader spoke optimistically of Croatia eventually joining the European Union. His comments indicated that he understands the E.U.’s weaknesses and the political obstacles his country will face as it seeks entrance. Yet, he argued that nothing is accomplished by pessimists. Croatia’s economy already meets the monetary requirements for entry to the E.U.

Sanader also spoke in favor of continued U.S. involvement in Europe, although it has become politically unpopular. He used the case of Slobodan Milošević to demonstrate that U.S. and international involvement several years earlier could have saved thousands of lives.

During the question and answer time a student asked about the Iraq war. Sanader paused, took a deep breath, and warned that his opinion would be unpopular with many of the people in the room, then said that he thinks that at the time the U.S.’s involvement in Iraq was just. Again, the case of Milošević seemed to figure largely in Sanader’s thinking.

The Great Hall of the Carolinum

Academic vestments in the cloakroom

The reception after graduation

Prime Minister Sanader

Croatian students with their prime minister