The Coolest Reformed Guy I've Met...

There's a Reformed Chaplain here at Brock, Dr. Basson, he's a South African (now Canadian) Classicist who did his doctoral work on one of Augustine's disciple people, like Prosper of Aquitaine, but not Prosper of Aquitaine. Anyway, we had this awesome conversation about St. Augustine of Hippo because he found out I was Catholic and interested in patristics. He basically said whether we're Protestant or Catholic we have alot to learn from St. Augustine and that he was possibly the greatest theologian in Christian history. I then mentioned Calvin and he said he didn't really like Calvin because he was really ascetic. I had no idea what he meant by that, but I was just really glad he wasn't a big Calvin fan. I'm sure if anyone had an interesting defense of the Reformed tradition a patristics guy like that would. Anyway that's all beside the point I wanted to make.

I ended up having him as a substitute Latin prof today (he is teaching us all next semester) and he was AMAZING. With him teaching the language, I think I could master it in a year. He had such a love for Latin and a great deal of kindness it made me really appreciate it all the more. I think he is the coolest Reformed guy I've met in person...

It was also funny because we were lamenting Protestant (by this I really meant Anabaptist) ignorance of Church History and I forgot that the Catholic chaplaincy is right next door to the Reformed one and so a friend of Andre's jumped into the office and said "I HAD TO LEARN GREEK, HEBREW, and LATIN as well as all the history of the Church so don't be bashing Protestantism!" (he wasn't really angry, just more joking) and I hastily replied "sorry I know the Reformed are intelligent" but he cut me off telling me he wasn't Reformed hah. It was funny, and I wonder if he told Dr. Basson who showed up later about it. ... I don't think he did though because he was really nice to me in Latin.

I hope to be a prof like him some day. (He's right up there with the Catholic prof who taught me Aristotle, those two would probably have great conversations).

He (Basson) helps out with Ecumenical services like Ash Wednesday and just from the interactions I've seen with the Catholic chaplains, I'm quickly learning another way to do ecumenism. It's the knowledge that while we don't agree with each other, we can still support each other as Christians and try to advance ANY propogation of the faith rather than spending time attacking each other. In a godless university, the common enemies of Atheism and apathy are a good uniting force I guess as well...