In Which Nick Reads Theology Badly

So I am reading Paul Tillich's A History of Christian Thought.  It's for my online seminary class -- I figure that now that Virginia's Constitutional ban on gay marriage has been found unconstitutional that, eventually, there will be a fortune to be made officiating marriages of all kinds once we start down the slippery slope towards man on pumpkin sex.  It's coming people.  May as well cash in.  Really, if Jimmy-Bob wants to marry Clarice the Pumpkin, well, who am I to stand in the way of that?  Especially if they are willing to pay a steep officiant's fee?

Sure sure, there are easier ordinations to obtain, but I've never been about doing things the easy way.  If I did, I would've driven up and down the Appalachian Mountain range instead of walking the whole damn way. Of course, Sammy-John Tibideau's Virtual School for Religious Studies isn't exactly Yale Divinity School, but it's hard enough.

So, where am I?  I've just started, basically, and the early Church theologians are wrestling deeply with the problem of Christ's divinity.  It seems, perhaps, trivial to us, persnickety, but early in the life of the Church it was very important to establish why Christ was so important, what made him different from other mystics or prophets.  If he can't be established as a divine figure, somehow fully God, than maybe Christianity becomes just another movement to spring out of the Hellenistic period of the Jewish religion.

I did read one thing that I found interesting.  It came out of the Apologetic movement, which was an early defense of Christianty against Roman intellectuals.  I may be misreading it or pulling it out of context, but it seems they said that Christianty represents the ultimate truth, and there is no truth that cannot be included in the Christian principle (which for him would be that Christ is the Logos and blah blah blah blah).  

Tillich said, basically, that what that means is that if there is an existential truth anywhere that cannot be enveloped by Christian thought than Jesus cannot be the Christ.  

I found that to be an interesting idea.  It implies an understanding of God that is big enough to allow for new experiences of our reality to be meshed with Christian thought, a faith supple enough to accommodate, for example, the Theory of Evolution or new understandings of human sexuality.  It may undermine the authority of the Scriptures, but then again if Jesus is truly Christ than God should not, perhaps, be bound by what is ultimately a divinely inspired but all to human document.  

Shhhh!  What's that?  I think it's the ground shaking under me.  Maybe I'm wrong and God has decided to silence the voice of a heretic....

Nope.  I'm just hungry.  Bit of cheese will take care of that.  

  

Matt Walsh? Who is He?

So today a friend of mine posted a link to "A Break-up Letter to Matt Walsh".

My immediate response was: who the fuck is Matt Walsh?

Well, a quick look on the Google told me pretty much what I need to know.  Matt Walsh is some guy who has a blog, a pretty successful blog, and he doesn't mind telling you about how awesome his blog is. My baptism into the Walsh blog was the statement:

In just a few days, this website will pass the 30 million view threshold.

And he proceeds, graciously, to share the two secrets to his success.

Well Matt, in maybe a month or two this blog will pass the 8,000 view threshold.  Allow me to share with you the two keys to my success.

1. Write pretty well, but don't really say anything.

Listen:  I think well of myself as a writer, I believe I can turn a phrase or two.  I think given the right opportunity I could probably make a couple bucks here and there writing erotic haiku or technical manuals on the proper lubrication of a series T-275 industrial fabrication machine.

But I find, sadly, increasingly, that I have very little to really say.  I don't have very strongly held beliefs, there are few things I am truly passionate about. If I am willing to beat to quarters to take a stand on a particular point of view, I am more likely to do a lot of navel gazing and examine the holes in my own argument rather than build a pointed, persuasive attack in support of my own view. By the time I work through an argument and shore everything up time has marched on and the moment for the conversation has passed.  My ethics are grey, my principles muddled.

What's worse is I'm fairly dispassionate to boot, and hyperbole is not my strong suit. I could never turn it up to 11 and summon the vitriol that Mr. Walsh pours on the most recent incarnation of Les Miserables (which I remember actually enjoying).  I mean...wow, Matt.  Chill out.  It was only a movie.  You didn't like it.  Okay.  I'm actually rather impressed that you could sustain your level of emotion long enough to write that post, especially as you saw the movie the night before.  

So I end up writing about things that people don't care about.  Abortion is a hot-topic.  Education is a hot-topic.  But for these things I wouldn't even know where to begin in untangling my own thoughts, let alone trying to persuade someone else to change their own point of view.  But a treatise on the Battle of Endor?  Cock and Ball Sweaters?  The gall filled breasts of Our Lady Hubris?  Those are the things I write about.  Unfortunately for me people care not a whit about such things.

2.  Do absolutely nothing to get the word out or otherwise make money off of it.

Don't put up ads, don't comment on other people's blogs, don't announce it on a radio show.  It helps too if you don't have a radio show in the first place by which you can reach even a modest number of people. Believe that you are going to fail, and that it was probably a good thing after all that you didn't change your major to English in your senior year.  Play it safe.

Well, all I can do is with Mr. Walsh the best of luck in the future as he continues doing what he does.  What he does agitates me (I don't know why....as the break up letter I linked to above notes, something about his posts makes me angry, gets the dander up, etc. etc.), but I have to admit he does it well.

Look, if I sound bitter, it's only because I think I could do the same.  There is a missing ingredient, maybe it's a lack of strong points of view, or a lack of bellicosity, a lack of innate intelligence, I don't know....But I honestly think I could write as well as this guy.  I don't know, but I think I could.  I think it's in there. Probably not as persuasively, but I think still yet: as well, maybe even better.  And if he could do it, why not me?

Vy you?  Vy anybody?

Maybe it's time to believe in myself, if nothing else.

Unfortunately for you, dear readers (all 11 of you), that means it's probably also time to put ads up on the blog.  Based on the sometimes risque subject matter of this blog, I wonder what kind of products might be advertised?

Not sure, but don't be surprised if in a few weeks you'll be able to buy an official set of Wassoblog Mardi Gras Beads.  Guaranteed to be more fun than the Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows Fat Tuesday Pancake Dinner or your money back.

Yes, and My Dog Feels that Tottenham Hotspur Lack Creativity in the Final Third

So the today we were driving around, doing errands, and I saw this magnet stuck to the back end of the car in front of me:

and I had to fight the temptation to leap out of may car, knock on the driver's side window, and ask "Excuse me, but how do you know that your dog likes the Redskins? Did he tell you?"

As an aside, I remain quite perplexed at the amount of personal data people choose to affix to the back end of their cars.  It is not unusual for me, just by glancing at a rear window, to ascertain the size of a family, the hobbies of the children, occasionally the names of the children, number of cats, branch of military service, political party affiliation, zombie hunter status, alma mater, and on a rare occasion favorite French Impressionist painter.  Looking at the back of my car you could figure that I have at least one child at St. Mark Lutheran Preschool.  Our need for self-expression clearly has no bounds.

But back to the dog and his supposed fandom.  I would offer to the owner of the dog that one should really give the dog the opportunity to choose a team for himself.  Array the logos of all 32 teams around your furry friend (car magnets will work, as that seems to be your preferred medium by which to make a statement, and I'd recommend you smear them with bacon grease just to make sure he doesn't trot away in search of squirrels...you got to hold his interest), and turn him loose.  The first one he picks up with his nasty pointy teeth is the winner.

But be careful!  When we let dogs have a choice the results can be devastating.  My father once told me about how he would took his late and much beloved black labrador, Sammy, to work with him on the weekends.  While dad did his work, Sammy would do his (his job included lying in the sun, pricking up his ears at divers sounds, and greeting other people who might happen to be coming into work on a Sunday).

One day a new hire, a fairly attractive and brilliant woman recently out of college, walked in to catch up on some work,  and after greeting her in the hall Sammy watched as she walked towards her cubicle.  He then turned and stared through the doorway my dad's office, looked into my father's eyes.  He then looked towards where the woman had gone, and again once more back at my dad.  Sammy was just a dog, and he only had a few gears in his little brain, but to my dad it was obvious that they were spinning wildly while he balanced the equations concerning to whom he would rather offer up his canine talents.  At last the choice was made.  Sammy snorted with derision, and he pranced down the hall towards the young woman.

And he never came back.

Bollocks! Of course he came back.  Sammy was a good dog, a loyal dog.  But it was clear that for a moment his loyalty wavered and it cut my old man to the quick, allbeit for just a brief moment.

So, Mr. Redskins dog owner, don't get all upset when your dog shows his true colors and makes it known that he is a fan of the Cowboys or the Packers or the Steelers....and with Dan Snyder at the helm I really couldn't blame him.  I'd just as soon chew on a pair of old shoes than be a Redskins fan, and I'll bet your dog feels the same way.