adversus haeresis

The other day I sat with a friend debating the theology of Romans; basically it was regarding how God is conceptualized; here I was, banging my head on the table because this friend of mine I could read passage after passage to, and he just couldn't keep his logic straight, didn't really get the concept of context, the difference between audience vs. people who're just mentioned, and other such things.

It was humorous (somewhat), especially for me, because over the past months I've been learning how much I don't know, how difficult verbal communication can be; how much people hold to what they hold, and will try to reconcile it with Scripture before trying to subject it to Scripture (it's our nature...it's how we learn: we often need big JoLTz to zing us out of those comfort zones).

It's weird for me, over the past few months, because my favorite blog...an egal pseudo-liberal conservative translator; don't agree with all he says, but like him nonetheless; I like to haunt the blogs of the translators who have little interest in handling theology well (and to annoy them, just a little...not maliciously: the kind of "annoy" where twenty people are all agreeing and self back-patting, perhaps on translation issues, so you say "I disagree" in the middle of that comfortable agreement and all hell breaks lose: but this crowd actually appreciates that kind of thing...sort of).

We had a Bible & book study where (as one should guess) we men found the way men like to learn...is to challenge stuff, and compare it, etc.

The other day I was sitting with a "Catholic" friend of a friend, in front of the friend, discussing how the movie we just watched ("Remember the Titans", the friend's idea) portrays Christ/Christianity as the answer to worldlish problems/concerns (not spiritual), [he] brought-up that it said little to nothing of his cross (beyond a passing and insufficient reference), and always adds something like "if we just do our part" kind of thinking after saying something like "we serve a really big God, He can do what He wants, He wants to bless us" ("bless us" being in worldly terms, not Scriptural). I put "" around "Catholic" because, frankly, it was odd to hear a "Catholic" in agreement that it's Christ's work, not ours, that matters, that we can't "do penance" so to speak, though then again, he is neither American nor European; perhaps things are different there (sure is contrary to all the other Catholics I know!).

Anyway, it's been interesting the last few months! Thought this kind of material might interest you guys since I'm normally staunch when writing about this/that. : )