Let me say that I think Patrol is an interesting site full of well written articles. I don’t ever want to dismiss people’s experiences or ideas because of their (relatively) young age just as I despise people who think they can explain me, because I am over forty.
I also agree with Matt Anderson that just because a complaint is old does not mean it is old to the person making it. If you have endure someone who thinks God is a Republican, saying it may matter. I just wish we could all be historically grounded enough to know our worries are not new. As I pointed out, if I were in a relationship with someone having the “same old” problems, I would have a moral obligation to hear them in a new way, but for the rest of humanity time is limited and so I try to search for new takes, new criticisms, and bold prophetic writing.
Where do I suspect I agree with the Patrol folk?
First, many of their criticisms seem sound.
Second, we should follow arguments where they lead . . . wherever that might be.
Third, we should learn from a source, if we can, before condemning it.
Fourth, there is great value and good to some of the best of popular culture.
Fifth, we should be able to have good friends who don’t share our views.
Sixth, we should not put our trust in princes on either the right or the left.
Seventh, we should beware easy answers especially our own.
However, it does worry me when Christendom is dismissed as having no answers. I have spent twenty-five years trying to understand Republic. I cannot imagine someone looking at all of Greek culture (to pick one influence on the West) and saying with confidence that there “are no answers there.” To pick three main streams of Christendom, I find John Chrysostom, Aquinas, and Calvin rich and difficult enough that I hardly dare say I know anything about them let alone dismiss their complex answers.
The thought of these times being weird to the point of allowing me to dismiss even a Nietzsche (dated as he often seems to me) as having nothing to teach me seems as improbable as if it were announced that suddenly love was no longer possible between men and women, because of some new idea published on the Internet.
In short, I want to dialogue with anybody and everybody. I know I can learn from the folks at Patrol, but I doubt . . . perhaps I am wrong . . . that we have exhausted Saint Gregory or Saint Augustine yet. We will leave Saint Paul out of it for the moment!
I would love to learn more . . . but the best way to do that seems to be wrestling with ideas, but I don’t see a well informed dismissal of those ideas most often discussed. In short, it would be like saying modern Catholicism has “no answers” while not having read any Ratzinger or having read only one book by him.
That seems (to be an Ent) hasty. Perhaps, I have missed some depth . . . blogs (and I include my own) are not really set up for depth.
So I share many of the concerns, if not the solutions. I want to learn, but I am dubious we have exhausted the treasury of wisdom just in my (blessedly cheap!) collection of Church Fathers from CBD! (Blessings on them for selling me such wisdom at such prices!)
Finally, on the wholly different issue of the internet monk. I know monks, truthfully some of my best friends are monks, and he carries on his monkish role well. I appreciate (though often do not agree) with his ministry. Having been one of those people, I know the “internetmonk” ministers to real people. I appreciate anyone who can help anybody to think well or in a new way and it seems to me he does.
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