Monday, September 8, 2008

Why No One Reads My Blog & An Apology

I've realized that although I never had a big readership, now no one reads my blog. In typical preaching style I'll outline 3 main points why no one likes reading my blog:

1. Polemical and Repetitive:
Today Michael described my blog as being jerky Catholic or something to that effect. It is true that my brief stint in Anglicanism was the only religion I ever had that wasn't constantly attacking something. My Baptist upbringing was based in attacking Catholicism and Evolution, my Catholicism was based in attacking Scripture Alone and Faith Alone.

No one wants to hear a 20 something simply rehash the same 500 year old arguments for or against a certain theology, if you've heard it once you've heard it a thousand times. Everything gets turned into a 'schismatic' or 'romish' category, there is no in between, no middle ground, it's always all or nothing.

It's also hard for readers to constantly guess which side of the Tiber I'm standing on that particular day, sometimes it switches half-way through a post. There is no ground to stand on. Scripture has been undermined by ecclesiology and ecclesiology built on the Scripture it just undermined.

2. Unoriginal:
I don't have any new theological ideas to bring to the table, I'll read others and then stand on their shoulders expounding on how "I've come to study" this or that, when really I've just read something else and put it in my own words and pretending that it means I am a theologian. This reminds me of the line from Team America: World Police when a Hollywood actor says: "I think we should read newspapers and then tell people what the newspapers said but claim the ideas are our own!". In the academic world this is known as plagiarism

3. Self Depricating and Awkwardly Personal:
Many times my objection to something will be emotionalism or sentimental reasons, many times I base my theology on personal experience (geez only Methodism does that! crazy Wesleyan Quadrilateral)

4. Uses Big Words like Quadrilateral
Most times in Theology - much like any other "ology" there are ridiculously huge words used for simple concepts like "Infralapsarianism" which I believe has something to do with Calvin telling God to ordain a fall.

5. Continually Changing my mind about John Calvin
See I just made fun of John Calvin, but now you might be thinking: "hey didn't he say he was a 5 point Calvinist just yesterday? why is he insulting the man?". That is a good question. I think I consistently insult John Calvin because it is easy to invent mean polemics against him in the spirit of the #1 reason no one is reading my blog, and most people dislike him already, so I can make myself look smarter than him by insulting him.

6. Lying
I claimed at the beginning of the blog that I would only have 3 reasons, but lo and behold, I actually have 6. As Revelation 21:8 reminds us of course in the great evangelical anthem I learned at bible school: "liars go to Hell, liars go to Hell, burn, burn, burn"

Apology:
This is an open apology to anyone who has wasted precious moments of their life trying to advance my knowledge of God, I am desperately sorry for all of the innumerable ways I have probably offended or annoyed you. Rest assured that you will probably not see me in Heaven. I also apologize for the previous sentence which was a classic example of #3 Self Deprecation.

Well I think I'm going to go read my Bible without the official magesterium of the Catholic Church or the Canons of Dordt, only the illumination of the Holy Spirit... look out Quakers, here I come!!!

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