Friday, August 20, 2004
(4:07 PM) | Adam R:
An Easy Matter, of No Great Significance
Fr. Kotsko's estimable post on hell, overfilled with vim and vigor, is dismissed.Scott, Richard's little brother, does readers of this Weblog no small favor by pointing out what "the bible clearly states" (sic). It's good to be familiar with the long, long history of Bible-thumping theology that the founder of this weblog seems to reject. It's good when Anthony clarifies the gyst of Christianity because it suggests that, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, he and Fr. Kotsko are the real Christians.
And I don't disagree. (That's why I write for the Weblog, because we're simpatico.) I mean, right-right, the nature of faith, let alone someone else's, is not mine to define--I'm just saying that the yolk they carry is one I'd like to share. I share Anthony's conviction that faith is a "fuck-load." Ahem. As that melancholy Dane put it, faith is "the greatest and most difficult of all things."
But anyway. Scott voices my parents' objection well. Recently my mother asked, "What is the greatest lie Americans are made to believe?" My father believes that the greatest lie is that there is no hell. That settles that.
I even like the way Richard's little brother states his case. Seriously. He says, "It is completrly true that hell is real" (sic). Neither he nor my father leave much room to disagree.
SHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT!!! That rhetoric is so frustrating. My mom is always telling me that she would be heartbroken if I don't meet her in heaven. She is, in fact, heart broken right now at the thought that I'm not living in such a way that will land me on the right side of the Pearly Gates. I love her, though, a lot, and would do anything to convince her that I feel very strongly that I'm doing the right thing.
And so I tell her that.
And she says, "I keep hearing that from you, Adam. You 'think'. You're a 'thinker', and you 'think' you're going to heaven." (I didn't say I thought I was going to heaven.) My mother wants me to have the sureness of faith, I guess, which is all laid out in the Bible. If only I read the Bible and "believed on its precepts," life would be so much easier for me.
And there's no way out of this conversation. As long as we disagree, I'll be "a good person," but not a believer.
And it's not just my Mom who hits me with this invincible logic. It's every character from my Church-going past. It's tough, you know?
