The New Yorker: “And the captain of the Titanic was blamed for sailing full steam, even in an area notorious for ice floes, in deference to the White Star Line’s determination to wrest the Blue Riband from Cunard.”
This is false. Titanic was built with gracious living in mind, not speed. Of course, this would falsify the thesis of the article so an urban legend becomes fact.
Sensible gentlemen have always known “fast” is not better in fine dining, ships, or women.
Joshua Claybourn’s Domain: Plato v Aristotle, part II: “I would note that Dr. Reynolds is only able to make the arguments he does by focusing on the first half of the Timaeus. They’re quite reasonable if one is willing to accept an argument based on half of one dialogue and minor bits and pieces (’clues’) taken out of context in a few others (out of 25 or so) as representative of Plato as a whole.
The biggest issue with his interpretation lies with his decision to equate Plato’s Form of the Good with the Christian God and the doctrine of Creation. Given that God created everything but himself and that God created of his own free will (i.e., he was free to create or not as he saw fit), there is no way that the Form of the Good could be equivalent to God because the Form of the Good has no freedom to be or do anything other that what it is or does. (not to mention that it’s a stretch to imply that the Form of the Good creates anything at all and isn’t just a template as such)
Other complications? It’s a stretch to assume that the Form of the Good could be provident. Plato’s concept of Being/Becoming with respect to the Forms would make most of the Old Testament impossible. Plato’s concept of evil makes it necessary (in a Christian interpretation) that God created evil.
My question: when Augustine, Boethius, etc were writing, it was necessary for them to use the ancient Greeks as ‘backup’ for their ideas in order to lend them strength and to help them convince people to convert from paganism (as well as philosophy itself!) to Christianity. Why should anyone today care rather or not Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, or anyone else is compatible with Christianity? The argument that they seem to have gotten so much right (with respect to Christian doctrine) seems to fail given how much they obviously got wrong. . .”
——————
End of Quote. . . I respond:
My arguments do not depend on reading only the first half of the “Timaeus,” but in reading both creation accounts and assuming they form a unified whole. There are three (in my opinion) major sections to Timaeus. There are two creation accounts. I believe they can be harmonized and that the best means to do so is to see the Craftsman of the first account as being the Form of the second account.
Of course, this is not the omnipotent god of the Old Testament, but can be made, and was made, compatible with Him by a development of some parts of Platonism and a rejection of other parts. This is not a view unique to me. I would love to be pointed to specific passages in Plato that falsify my view. (See Taylor’s Commentary for a more indepth discussion. . . I should note that Taylor thinks Timaeus a conflation of Empedoles and Pythagoras and that not all of it is Plato’s view. I don’t follow Taylor on this point, but that is another story.)
Plato is not Moses, and the Timaeus is not Genesis, however, Timaeus does contain useful ideas that may help a Christian make better sense of Moses and Genesis. Or not. Recall: the argument was that Christian Platonism is impossible from a Biblical point of view. I showed it was possible, but now the question seems to be: have I misread Plato. Assume I have misread Plato. We are not discussing Plato’s actual views, broadly, but views that can be derived from Plato and still be justifiably called Platonism. My views seem to fit that category on even a pessimistic reading. Platonism can be fruitful and be adopted by Christians.
As I pointed out, almost nothing in Plato scholarship is “for sure.” I think Timaeus is the most relevant dialogue on this topic, it is my own specialty, and so I focused on it. I could have looked at the arguments for a Creator in Laws, some of the earliest Intelligent Design arguments ever made, or from the myth of Er in Republic. Plato has several discussions of Creation, but he does not have an infinite number. I don’t see any reason that my interpretation cannot work with any of the accounts in the canonical dialogues. Much of recent scholarship (post 1920) in Plato is intent of getting rid of the “Christian” Plato. There is some good to that, if it causes us just to see his “soul” as the Jewish “soul” for example. However, some of it is motivated by a dislike of Christianity. Plato sounds Christian at times. . . so we must be sure no thinks that he is very much like Christians at all. I advocate a “middle way” that sees Plato as a person very much like Christian philosophers on important points, a sort of great pre-Christian, the way Dante saw Virgil.
Did Plato hold these views I atrribute to him? I don’t know. Could he have held them and maintained his essential doctrines? I think so. Put it this way: Plato believed in transmigration of souls, a doctrine I reject as a Christian. However, this doctrine does not seem to me to be necessary for larger doctrines he thought it aided (recollection, immortality of the soul). So I think it acceptable to modify Platonism in this direction, reject transmigration, and still call myself a Platonist.
The project was to see if some form of Platonism was compatible with Christianity. It was not to argue that Plato was a Christian or that his Form of the Good just is the Christian God. I think “Timaeus” can be understood in a way somewhat congenial to Christian theism.
The writer quoted complains that the Form of the Good has “has no freedom to be or do anything other than what it is or does.” I am not sure the writer meant the first part of the disjunct, perhaps I have misunderstood. Surely God along with every other being lacks the freedom to be anything other than what He is. What He is, is what He is.
The second part of the disjunct is more complicated. Does God have “freedom” in terms of what He does? Does He “choose?” If He is outside of time, then isn’t our human term choice just a metaphor? What does it mean for God to be free? Is it possible to imagine God willing something other than what He willed? If God created the cosmos, then it must have been best for God to create the cosmos. God always acts to do what is best. So how could God will not to create the cosmos? Does God have sequential wants that change? We know He has no needs. If God exists in some Eternal Now (Boethius), then He has but one will and one desire. He does not do things, but has done one Thing which we relate to in different manners.
Christian Platonists have argued that God is outside of time. He experiences the cosmos as a “now.” His creative act is a piece of His one great act. As a simple being, His will and action are one. His eternal disposition toward us is love. We may receive this love as wrath due to our sinfulness. Given papers to grade, I would just urge insertion of some Christian neo-Platonist here.
What does it mean for God to create? Can the Good be personal? I am not sure that anyone has anything “perfect” to say about the nature of God’s personality. As I pointed out, the problem for any Christian Platonism is understanding what it means for God to be a person. Since this would be a very long discussion, I would simply point out that Christian Platonists have tried to deal with this problem.
If Plato believes anything, it is that evil is the result of ignorance. I do not see how his God needs to create ignorance. Plato can (and does account) for ignorance on other grounds. For example, humans may be educated badly (by accident or design) and so become ignorant.
Two important notes:
1. Plato’s god is not omnipotent. He does the best he can with recalcitrant matter. This is not necessary (in my opinion) to Platonism as a movement, but seems to be Plato’s view.
2. Plato’s god is not triune. That matters too!
3. Plato may, may, also view evil as partly a result of willful/irrational (not evil in the Christian sense) matter.
Why care about this issue? For two reasons: First, I think Plato continues to give us fruitful ideas as we think about difficult questions. Assuming idealism cannot help is not justified without long reflection. I think some forms of Platonic idealism are helpful in dealing with some kinds of questions. (See Taylor.) Second, there is historic interest since many great Christian thinkers and possibly some Christian ideas have been influenced by Platonism. This influence for good or bad should be studied.
This is great fun. I am sorry for the brevity that blogging demands! Let’s argue about a specific text and my meta-reading, yes?
Antiochian Orthodox Church:”Please note: Articles expressing opinions of authors are accepted for publication as contributing to a process of discussion and are not necessarily the last, official word from the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.”
This seems to be a new disclaimer to the site. Why?
A disclaimer is a good idea, but how open should publication in official Orthodox magazines be?
I would argue that some things should not be open to discussion in some forums. The “Word” is a popular news and information magazine. It has the aura of an official publication. As a result, some discussions should not be had in it.
Suppose some Orthodox become entranced with the craze for Kabbalah. He decides to send an article to the “Word” hoping to start a discussion about it. He points out that some historic Orthodox, including the famed late Victorian psychic/spiritualist D.D. Hume were Orthodox. Would the “Word” print such an article?
I think not (thank God) on three grounds. First, Kabbalah seems incompatible with Orthodoxy. Almost anyone commenting on it has condemned it. The burden of proof on the writer seems insanely high, so high that it would have to start with a book just to open the discussion. Second, publishing such an article might cause scandal amongst the faithful. The “Word” is not an academic journal. It is full of news and popular level articles explaining the faith. Most of us are struggling to understand the concept of the Holy Trinity. We don’t have the time or training to delve into the arcane or improbable. Third, in an age awash in occult ideas such an article might lead to actual sin on the readers. The more nuanced the reasoning in the article, the more likely the spirit of our age is to push in bad ways. Satan is attacking the church in this area, so great care must be taken in seeming (even indirectly) to support this God-denying point of view.
Church leaders including our beloved Metropolitan are right to worry about censorship. It is a tool that can be abused and is in fact easy to abuse. Tools that can be abused can also be used constructively. Censorship is not always bad. Our society, the freest that has ever been, censors some materials it find too horrific to allow to be printed. Editors and magazines also “censor” by choosing to publish some things and not others. No magazine prints everything it receives as it receives it. Nations like Germany rightly censor Nazi materials. The fact that a tool can be abused does not mean it should not be used. In fact, one can be sure that the “Word” is censored. We are unlikely to see an article any time soon advocating gay marriage. If you doubt this, send the “Word” a well written article on this topic that advocates gay marriage and wait and see. We are, thank God, unlikely to ever see an article advocating monothelitism in the “Word.” Confusing freedom of speech in America with excercising over sight in a private publication is confused at best.
And of course, I don’t really expect to see an article advocating Kabbalah in the “Word.” This absurd example serves as a warning against the offical reasons for printing two articles hinting (and in one case adocating) women’s ordination. I believe the Metropolitan when he says it will never happen. He is a man of courage who leads with integrity and wisdom. However, printing the two articles about “women priests” seems odd. The Metropolitan should censor such things, for the same reasons he would not print articles on the Kabbalah. It could be that their printing is an anomoly and that the response is worded so as to not cause further scandal. In other words, without further evidence (another article) the reasonable conclusion is that someone dropped the ball, probably someone of good will, and allowed a bad article through. This bad article was coupled by the sensitive in our midst, who have been abused in situations where a church places the Spirit against the Word of God, to another less bad article. No one is going to rebuke folk out loud and that is appropriate.
My simple point is this: if the situation is at it is being portrayed (no chance of women priests), then there seems to me no good reason not censor articles on them in publications like the “Word.” This seems an essential role for a bishop to play.
ChristianExodus.org: “The success of ChristianExodus.org will lead to an independent Christian nation where people may once again worship God under the protection of a friendly government. “
These naive folk are planning on moving to a state, establishing a better government, and leaving the United States.
Someone should point out to these deluded souls that a small event called the Civil War might stand in the way of their getting their way.
We are after all still one nation under God, INDIVISIBLE, with liberty and justice for all.
In light of the War on Terror, a more useful quixotic task for these people would be a restoration of the Byzantine Empire.
Let’s have a contest! Winner call contact me for a free cd set of his or her choice! (The crowd is stirred to tears.) Let’s think of something less likely to happen and even more likely to lead to mass disaster for the participants. This is harder than you think. For example, raising the Titanic and sailing her to New York would be very, very hard. She is in two pieces and falling apart, but I suppose in theory it could be done by a nation-state on a mission. (Giant underwater domes?) It might even be harder than forming sovereign Alabama. However, it is hard to imagine in leading to Jonestown and purple beverages like these other plan.
Let the games begin. . .
the evangelical outpost:
First, let me say that Evangelical Outpost is a must read. Just the fact that this question is raised, dealt with responsibly, and in the context of a blog that deals with broad cultural issues should make all of us stand up and cheer. All this nice stuff, meant quite sincerely, should lead the writer to suspect that a “but” is coming. And so it is.
Plato is complicated and knowing exactly what he means is tricky. The sort of opinions expressed in this blog are respectable interpretations of Plato. In some cases, they are majority interpretations. However, the writer made a very strong claim. He argued that “Platonic Idealism” is incompatible with Biblical Christianity. There are many forms of Platonic Idealism. Of course, all of them lay claim to being based on the dialogues of the master. I believe that my own view (!) is that of Plato, but that is not important. My claim is that the form of Platonic Idealism I see in the text is:
a. a respectable reading of the text
b. is compatible with Biblical Christianity.
Second, every person in the known universe should take this as a chance to read the most overlooked great Christian mind of the twentieth-century not named Johnson: A.E. Taylor. Taylor is just an incredible thinker, scholar, writer, and Christian. His masterful “Does God Exist” should be required reading in all Christian apologetics programs. His commentary on Plato’s “Timaeus” is the best ever written. It is fascinating and interesting reading. He presents a Christian Platonism that is well argued for and avoids the problems cited above.
Third, let me try out my own simple response. I have argued (”Plato’s Unified Psychology” UPA, 2004) that Plato is postulating a creation in time in Timaeus. There is a first moment of creation. I have also argued that Plato believes that the Form of the Good is God. There are two creation accounts in Timaeus (the relevant work here) and I think (along with clues in Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, especially book X, and Laws. . .especially Book X) that these two creation myths suggest a unity between God and the forms.
In short, God and the Form of the Good (which has only the property of Good) is actually the only form. This form manifests itself in matter in ways we call the Just, the True, and other standard names for “forms.” Of course, the obvious question is: Can a form be personal? This is akin (I think) to asking if a simple being can be personal. Divine simplicity is the idea (roughly) that God has only one property. For example, God’s justice is equal to his goodness. God has no parts. (This is a very Platonic notion.) Though once as widely believed as any other divine attribute, simplicity has fallen out of favor with Christian philosophers, but I think is defensible. (See relevant literature here.)
If divine simplicity is coherent and compatible with a personal God, and most Christians in most times have believed it was, then God need not be apart from the Forms, he is the Form.
Fourth, let me try a less simple response (pun intended). We could postulate that Forms are ideas in the Mind of God (not in Plato, but compatible with him). These ideas exist in God’s mind as ideas. The existence of these forms is necessary (since God has them), but they are necessary in the way God’s justice is necessary. Plato does NOT argue this, but it seems a reasonable extrapolation from his views.
Finally, some of the language of “over flow” used in the post on evangelical outposts blog is more neo-Platonic, than the language of Plato. The writer has conflated some neo-Platonic notions with those of Plato. I would urge a Platonist to jettison this form of neo-Platonism if he wished to be a Christian. Other forms of Platonism are available after all! (My fourth point is in fact itself neo-Platonic, but is noted as such and is an attempt to develop a form of Platonism that my friend could find acceptable.)
So I think there is a possible reading of Plato, adopted by many Christian thinkers, that dissolves the ontological problems with Platonism posed. I hope this hastily response is not too superficial.
the evangelical outpost: “The Evangelical reason: Because Platonic idealism cannot be reconciled with Biblical Christianity.”
I eagerly await this argument. This seems unlikely on its face. I suspect we are about to get a misunderstanding of Plato, but I hope not since I like these guys a great deal.
Look under articles for some reflections of spiritualism and intelligent design.
Some Calif. state senators protest pastor calling absent working moms ’sinful’: “Bowen and other lawmakers said they were furious to learn that the Rev. Ralph Drollinger, who leads a Bible study class for lawmakers, wrote in a Bible lesson that women lawmakers with young children at home are sinners. ‘It is one thing for a mother to work out of her home while her children are in school,’ wrote Drollinger. ‘It is quite another matter to have children in the home and live away in Sacramento for four days a week. Whereas the former could be in keeping with the spirit of Proverbs 31, the latter is sinful.’”
Sin is a strong word. How about wrong? Unwise? Selfish?
The Rev. Drollinger made the mistake of putting God’s Word and common sense before the career goals of the working mothers. Of course, the point could be made that Dad could be the full time care giver. That would work in some cases. Otherwise, what is wrong with saying that no one in todays civilization has to marry and have children? In normal situations, parents should do what is best for children. Having mother in Sacramento four days a week, if father also works, is not best for the children.
MSNBC - ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ wins top honor at Cannes: “While “Fahrenheit 9/11″ was well-received by Cannes audiences, many critics felt it was inferior to Moore’s Academy Award-winning documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” which earned him a special prize at Cannes in 2002.
Some critics speculated that if “Fahrenheit 9/11″ won the top prize, it would be more for the film’s politics than its cinematic value.”
Michael Moore proves that the right politics can get a prize if you are a decent film maker. Moore knows his craft, but he lies, knows he lies, and gets away with it. Moore is akin to “creationist” Dr. Hovind. Hovind has a mail order degree and simply makes up most of his presentations. He gets away with it, because he tells audiences what they want to hear: even a simpleton knows evolution is false. Moore tells his audiences what they want to hear, so the fact that facts are disappearing from his films at an alarming rate disturbs no one.
He is what disturbes me. Two works of fiction The Da Vinci Code and Fahrenheit 9/11 are taken as gospel by the chattering classes who run the nation. Both make traditional Christians look worse than the people we fight. Moore has more rage for Bush than Bin Laden. When will persecution come from this group? Ask students at California public colleges. It already happens there in the humanities. Expect it to spread, unless traditional Christians get some spine, make their own (better) films, and fight back in the culture. We don’t need apologetics as usual we need to fund gifted writers and story tellers to get into the multiplex now.
[Teen abortion] Advocate travels to raise her voice about her beliefs: “‘Kids need to be concerned about more than themselves,’ she said. ‘They have valid viewpoints, and they need help from adults to implement their passions and concerns.’ “
Here is a thought:
Kids do need to be concerned about more than themselves. Unlike Miss Abortion 2004, this altruism does not consist of making everyone else share your puerile concerns, but getting new ones. This remarkable process is called “growing up.” Given their age, the young usually have foolish viewpoints. They need help from adults in gaining proper perspective, passions, and concerns.
The Cult of Youth marches on in our culture. We worship the mostly facile opinions of the ill prepared. I would say that almost everything I thought before I was twenty-two was not worth hearing. I needed to sit in tutorials and do hard work, not have people take me seriously. Of course, critics think this still true, but they can trust me that I was even worse as a young man than I am now.
There is a reason minors are not allowed to do many, many things. The reason: they cannot make informed decisions. Period. By the way, this applies equally to conservative groups who parade teens out mouthing conservative opinions they have hardly digested. Liberals since the sixties have been the worst at this. Even an aging hippie wants to be young, because they fantasize that there is some great purity and wisdom in the young. Well, no. Youth are to be protected and educated, not put in positions of power.
The Official Web Site of Bestselling Author Dan Brown
My favorite silly argument contained in this book (the worst book I have ever read):
1. Christians hated women and sexuality, so they suppressed important aspects of goddess worship that had been present in the early Christian faith.
2. We know this from the gnostic gospels, which Christians also hid.
Leaving aside every other error implicit in these statements is the remarkable fact that the Gnostic heretics hated matter, not just the body, and despised sexuality. As neo-Platonist a married Jesus would have not been acceptable to them. So thesis one and thesis two contradict at a very basic level.
Another softball for Brown: if we hated sexuality and women- why didn’t we suppress the Song of Solomon?
Yahoo! News - ‘Da Vinci Code’ Author Left Out Material: “Many critics have taken issue with Brown’s claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child who was whisked away to France after Jesus’ crucifixion. But Brown, who was raised Christian, said that theory does not detract from Christianity’s message. ‘In my mind, the possibility that Jesus might have married Mary Magdalene in no way undermines the beauty of Christ’s message,’ he said. “
This is typical leftist pap. There is no evidence for his position, but Brown then argues that the possibility of his position does not undermine Jesus’ “message.” What message? The message found in gnostic gospels, known to be written after the Gospels? The message that people involved in bizarre conspiracy invented for him? Dreams of middle-aged Victorian men wearing aprons in elaborate rituals pretending to be important? In fact, Brown is saying that if he is right, then the Christ he has invented would not be harmed by Brown’s position.
Let’s call this the Brown move: invent a hopelessly foolish position. Provide no evidence for it. Put it in a fiction book so you don’t have to defend any of it. Then point out that you were “raised a Christian.” Of course, Quisling was raised a Norwegian, but go on point out that once you were a Christian. Then make the staggering claim that your bizarre view does not undermine the beauty of Christ’s message as your bizarre view redefines it!
Let’s try the Brown move on Brown. Let me state in a book “The Society of Saint Lucy,” with no evidence what so ever, that Brown is part of a neo-pagan plot to undermine Christianity. He secretly meets with spiritualist types in clandestine meetings over all the world. His book is part of the age old battle of the pagans to undermine liberty in individuals with sexual promiscuity and a nanny state. This group of pagans hi-jacked the high paganism of Plato, which would have led to Christianity, and turned the Master’s philosophy into a life repressing culture of death and libertine behavior. This movement is behind the persecution of Christians at the hand of pagans from ancient Rome to pagan Nazi Germany. The Masons and other groups are in it. The pagans also hate Jews, who long before Christianity refused to worship state pagan gods. We can know this theory is true by careful study of Plato’s Republic, which contains a cryptic assault on the religion of Delphi that Brown promotes. The real pagans are Christians, because history leads them in that direction.
Now when Brown and the new pagans get angry, I can spin madly so that someone will write:
“Many critics have taken issue with Reynolds’ claims that pagans are engaged in a long war against God that ends in the death of Christians from Rome to the Sudan and that “low pagans” hijacked the message of Plato and the other philosophers. But Reynolds, who once was attracted to paganism in graduate school said that his theory does not detract from paganism’s message, “In my mind, the possibility that Jesus Christ is final goal of true paganism in no way undermines the beauty of the pagan worldview,” he said.”
MSNBC - Can Star Wars: Episode III be saved?
The answer is “no.” The problem with Star Wars is that it was never very good to begin with. The acting was marginal, the plot stolen, and the back story absurd. Oddly, I say this as a fan. The films had three huge things going for them. First, they came out at the end of the seventies. Young people should sit back and listen to Uncle John when he says that the seventies were movie hell for those of us who like escapist film. Either we were talked down to by films like “Willie Wonka” or we had to endure serious films about prostitutes or Jane Fonda or once both. Any decade in which Jane Fonda made a movie was not a good decade.
When I went to see Star Wars it was a vision of what movies could be. It took fans fairly seriously. It really was a mediocre movie, but it was the Only Mediocre Movie of Its Kind. And that made us love it. That was the first huge thing. It was the biggest, but it is now long gone. We are coming to the end of the Golden Age of escapist movies. We have had the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We have seen Troy fall and Gladiators die. For heavens sake, fanboys got a Spiderman movie. We don’t need mediocre any more. The Indiana Jones films perfected the summer action movie.
Which brings us to the second thing the first films had: Harrison Ford. Ford when he was young and worked at his roles. Ford when he did not try to seduce Anne Heche on an island. Ford before he suffered from Serious Person Syndrome and went to Washington and made a Democrat of himself. Ford was cool, a straight man’s Johnny Depp. Ford was a good reason to watch the films by himself. He could drain all the irritation out of the Ewoks. Ford alone could have save Jar Jar, but Ford alas has gone. Gone to bad romantic comedies and sixties politics in his sixties.
The third thing the first films had were awe inspiring special effects. Nothing has made me grip the theater seat arms like the first film. Blowing up the Death Star. Fight scenes in space. All old hat now, but then they were just fantastic. Models before CG burned us out on flash. Now even horrific films like Matrix III have tons of eye candy. We are burned out.
The final problem Lucas can never defeat is that Star Wars became a “book” fan culture in the twenty odd years between the films. The books were often clever and redeemed the hopeless films. The franchise outgrew the movies and the fan boys are always going to be disappointed. The genre grew up, but Lucas did not. He regressed and lost the few good attributes he had as a film maker.
MSNBC - 48 House Catholics send warning to Bishops: “
The letters signers, all Democrats, include at least three House members with strong antiabortion voting records.
‘For many years Catholics were denied public office by voters who feared that they would take direction from the Pope,’ they wrote. ‘. . . While that type of paranoid anti-Catholicism seems to be a thing of the past, attempts by Church leaders today to influence votes by the threat of withholding a sacrament will revive latent anti-Catholic prejudice, which so many of us have worked so hard to overcome.’ “
It appears that Democrats think the best way for the Bishops to avoid anti-Catholic bigotry is to avoid being, well, Catholics. If Catholics, listen to the Pope on moral things, the next thing you know the Vatican will be phoning in secret Jesuit thinking on beef subsidies and the Department of Agriculture. But the good news is that the Libertine wing of the Democrat party will spare the Roman Church this danger by ignoring the Vatican on everything! No one can dislike Pelosi for being Catholic if she just isn’t. The new party slogan: The only good Catholic is a bad Catholic!
The most encouraging aspect of all of this is that the Libertine Party now is going to give religious advice to Rome. Given the high regard most of us have for the subtle intellects found in Congress, this is encouraging. Following a long study of the issue, the Libertines have apparently discovered that Americans might fear people who believe what they say. Now this honesty would surely be shocking in the Democrat Party to their voters, but I think most of the folks might find it refreshing. Lo and behold, one could find Catholics who follow Catholic moral teaching. When we vote for them, we would know what we were getting. We would not be getting poll driven pols who sell their faith out for votes in Pelosi’s San Francisco.
The good news is that Rome has survived Nero, Attila, Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin. Despite the fact that the present group of American Bishops still seem more likely to call a good corporate attorney than the Holy Spirit in a fix, there is still the Suffering Knight of Christendom, Pope John Paul II, giving them courage. So the Church is likely to endure the theological dictates of Nancy Pelosi, the pit poodle of the Libertine Catholics. She will growl ever so fiercely, but since arguing moral philosophy with the Pope would require knowing very big and difficult words, like philosophy, her effectiveness will be limited. Too frequent use of the word “moral” would offend her district so she is inhibited from the start. With luck such clueless Catholics will redeem the spineless Bishops by forcing them to act at last.
Kerry has excommunicated himself by his actions. Now the Back Bay brahmin, who believes only in his own ability to define truth at any given moment, will find himself facing an institution led by a man not prey to his wife’s money. Good luck. The last socialists to oppose the Pope were the Russians in Poland.
Defending the Caveman: Tour Dates with Chris Sullivan
This brilliant show restores my faith in La Mirada theater. Annie, their last, was a dreary paint by numbers show with no energy and overly precious children. By contrast, Defending the Caveman fills the stage and the auditorium. . . and it has one person in it.
Chris Sullivan is witty, knows the secret of working a difficult La Mirada audience, and is working with great material. La Mirada is a great theater town, but like many communities can tend to like “standards.” This show is not part of the musical theater canon. It also refreshingly is geared to married people in their thirties and forties.
As to the show, it actually has something important to say. Pop culture allows television to mock men with impunity. Fathers are portrayed as uniformly stupid and stereotypically masculine behavior is ridiculed. Women’s ways are exalted by much of society while men’s foibles make them barbarians in the household. This point has been made before, but never by a manic man surrounded by underwear.
The play asks men and women to enter into each other world and accept the differences. That sounds sappy and like a p.c. greeting card, but is actually making a point subversive to the leftist culture. Conservatives are happy to accept difference. It is one fringe feminist group that decided that men and women were interchangeable.
To give one example that has already entered the family lexicon: Sullivan pictures women as “information gatherers.” They meet and pass information back and forth. “Hello, honey. You look great. Did you hear that A is getting an operation Monday?”
“You look great too. I can’t believe that A is in such a bad way. It reminds me of B. Did you know she is sick, but is still getting a new house?”
Women bond by sharing information. Start watching and you will see it is true. Men are “hunters” who tend to talk about a common task. They don’t gather information and don’t enjoy distributing it. This can make for conversational hell.
This is not Dante and it is not new, but is done in a witty way.
The show is best for married couples. It has some naughty language, but led to a great deal of good talk in our family.