(10:18 PM) | Adam Kotsko:

The Uses and Abuses of Heresy for Everyday Life

This article on Harry Potter and Left Behind, which I got from Slacktivist, seems decent enough -- but why is every battle between good and evil an example of "Manichean dualism"? Is this an image with a lot of power in American society? Did the public schools in states other than Michigan spend a lot of time on Augustine? Seriously.

Some suggestions for other heresy-based memes:

1. "Conservatives have an almost Pelagian belief that anyone, with sufficient hard work, can achieve prosperity."
   
2. "The Donatists who believe that Bush is not a legimitate president due to the irregularities in Florida should be suppressed by the secular powers."
   
3. "I grow weary of those who hold the monothelite view that George W. Bush has only a divine will and no human will."
   
4. "If I may risk the analogy, many Republicans seem to hold the Jansenist view that those who defended our freedoms actually only died for supporters of the president."
   
5. "Computer nerds often have a Gnostic disregard for the flesh, directing all their energies toward obtaining esoteric knowledge of coding."

For more information, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition (5 vols.).

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